Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 388: The Big Beautiful Leap Forward (w/ special guest Alexandra Scaggs)

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

This week we're joined by FT Alphaville writer Alexandra Scaggs (@alexandrascaggs) to discuss all the latest market news from this week: tariffs, reversing the tariffs, reversing the tariff reversals, bond vigilantes, and of course the Art of the Deal Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

I Check my bank account real quick All right, yo, yo have enough money in there to pay my taxes. That's good. Okay, welcome, Trollbilly listeners, for your episode for the week of April the 10th. We're joined by Alexandra Skaggs, who is a writer with Financial Times Alphaville. An alpha. We've got an alpha with us, I guess. with Financial Times Alphaville.

An alpha. We got an alpha with us, I guess. It could be the what's it called? The that old movie. Now I'm blanking on the director, the old French movie about how like a computer took over the whole world's called Alphaville. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Somebody who is very culturally aware

came up with this name in like 2005. And we have been dining out on it ever since. Is it, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Alphaville also the name of a one hit wonder synth pop band, perhaps most famous for forever young? Exactly. Okay, so. It's a good one. They're perhaps most famous for forever young Exactly Okay, so it's a good one many applications. We are we are all forever young here after this

Truly tumultuous and interesting week in American history and global financial history as well Also, I don't want to bury the lead but Alexandra Alexandra, you're also about to start your own Substack newsletter, correct? Yes, yes. I picked the best week possible, I think, to go off staff somewhere. I'm starting a newsletter called The Hedge, which is the cheesiest name I could come up that people can hopefully remember. No, it's good.

Yeah, partly because I just wanted to write about egg prices. Yeah. And it turns out that the global financial market trader audience does not care that much about egg prices Trump had a quote the other day where he was like egg. That's a beautiful word Do you see that? It keeps harping on groceries groceries. It's an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term You said that about eggs, too Yeah, it was about same tirade or not tirade, but you know

I mean, i'm really glad that I was able to like, you know, get the, get on the cutting edge of the news cycle here with groceries. Yeah. We're going to be the internet's top grocery prices newsletter. Also utility bills, which I won't bore you with, but they're actually super interesting. Interesting. which I won't bore you with, but they're actually super interesting. And if you go on Nextdoor, which I just got an account, and 50% of the posts are people who are like,

let's sign a petition to bring our energy bills down. And I'm like, guys, I'm really sorry, that's not how it works. The company went to the government and said, can you give us more money? And the government was like, sure. And so that's kind of. I love how it happens in Kentucky

where they all announce a huge rate increase, the PSC, the Public Service Commission, knowing that really what they want is like an 8% increase, but they say like, we want 36%. And then want is like an 8% increase, but they say like we want 36%, and then when they get their 8% increase, they look reasonable by comparison, you know? That's one of the things, it's like they can just dictate it, and like we can protest all we want,

but there's nothing we can do ultimately about it. Yeah. It's kinda maddening. I like the art of the deal, the art of the deal involved in the rate negotiations. We're seeing so much of that this week. Speaking of utilities, actually, we'll get to the main thing I wanted to talk about here in a second. Speaking of utilities, did you guys

see that the White House is saying we're going to have coal-powered AI? We're going to bring back coal through defense spending and it's going to be for AI. Oh my god. Well that's marrying the sacred and the profane, you know what I mean? It's the old world and the new world is colliding. That's when you get some interesting stuff happening. That's true. It's the old world the idea that will be the

first streamer to die black lung well apparently we're yearning for the mines I saw that quote he was like they just want to mine coal they just want to go underground Give them a Department and Park Avenue and a new job and they still would just want to mind that call And that's that's all the look on the guy's face Yeah Very interesting moves for sure. Yeah. But, uh, well, so yeah, so like we're gonna, we're gonna get coal-powered AI. We're, we're, we're marrying the sacred with the profane. This week has been a true alliance of the sacred and the profane. I mean, when you've got like economists and right-wingers sounding downright Buddhist,

that's kind of an interesting development. But I guess, okay, Alexander, we wanted to have you on the show to talk about what the fuck is going on because there are at least? In my opinion there's at least three or four narratives or three or four ways to understand What's currently happening, and I tried I sat down this morning, and I tried to like Basically like divvy it all up try to like understand like what people are saying what like We talked a little bit about it on our patreon episode on Monday

But like if I could just like go over real quick just do a brief recap of the last week, okay? And I both of you feel free to interject here with anything I may miss Last was it Wednesday? I don't even remember what day Liberation Day was. What day was Liberation Day? It was Wednesday evening, I think. Yeah. Okay. We got 12 hours of Liberation Day celebrations. Trump declared a national economic emergency.

I assume that the reason they declared an emergency was because they needed to bypass Congress Because the executive branch doesn't actually have the power to even do tariffs like that No one Congress has the power of the purse. They're the ones that Issue taxes tariffs these kinds of things And so but they declared a national emergency, which they says gives them to the ability to Pass a tariff this kind of gets into some of the weird already We're getting into a weird theme that would come up over the next week, which is the sheer unpredictability of everything

It's just like are these tariffs even gonna hold like they're not constitutional. So like, can you even plan around them? Well, nobody wants to actually remove this ability anymore. Like wasn't I remember seeing during the week, there was somebody posting about like, oh, there are this many Republicans on board to pass a law to like close this whatever loophole is there to let him impose tariffs. But it was like maybe like a quarter of the total lawmakers that you would need. And they're like they've like got the big, you know, the big scoreboard up there. But like it's there was there's like no interest as far as I can tell. And I mean, it really is insane, right?

Like he just took, he like took a piece of paper and it was like, prices are gonna go up. Like it's like the price go up paper and he signed it. And he was like, have fun. And I was like, what the? Oh my God. And so like, sorry, it's been a week. I'm like, I haven't slept enough. We got

these like not anywhere near. We like got these numbers on Wednesday and nobody could figure out where they came from. And I'm like, you know, scrolling around like, okay, like, this is really weird. Why do they have like a 50% tariff on Vietnam? We're like Big trading partners with Vietnam. They're like, you know, the US is like guy in the region, right? Like they've been actually trying to build that relationship. So that's really weird and it turns out that they just took the They took the trade deficit and they're like, okay, let's just divide the trade deficit by the amount of stuff that they send us. So like our imports from that country, they're like, okay, so, but like it did, it just made

no sense, right? Basically, it was based on the idea that we should not have trade deficits with anyone and that any trade deficit is the result of some kind of cheating. And they kept saying that. They were like, it's cheating. And I'm like, but is it cheating to be able to grow vanilla beans? 70% of our imports of vanilla beans come from Madagascar because they can grow them right in their climate and like we can't like there's just no place in

America to grow vanilla beans we could have coal powered vanilla bean Factory we've got the best people working on that the best people working on that crime. I mean I saw Trump as late as literally yesterday saying we can't or not yesterday today's Thursday Tuesday saying we actually can build iPhones in the United States. It's like well yeah for sure but like and then I saw them

saying and I'm getting ahead of myself then I saw like I think Howard Lecknick said that like the people laid off from the Doge cuts will be able to work in the factories. It's like, all right, a 62 year old guy living in the greater Buffalo area, just three years away from retirement

is definitely gonna be working in the canning factory, yeah. That was the treasury secretary That was the guy who everyone was like, oh, thank god. He's there. He's the same one besant He's the one that's sitting there. Right? Yeah, like letnik like first of all, yeah, letnik is insane Just I mean, I want to talk about letnik in a second. I have an article from The wall street journal about howard letnik. I'm sure you may have seen it, Alex, but I wanna talk about him in a second. So we have Liberation Day. We've got the tariffs.

Trump rolled out the big page. And immediately the equities markets begin to crash Thursday and Friday, right? Of course, over the course of the weekend, you had them digging in on their position. And interesting that you saw a whole slew of really contradictory messages. For example, Trump said,

we won't be negotiating with anybody. But then they said that they might be negotiating with people. He said, we gotta take the medicine, you gotta take the medicine. That he wasn't watching the stock market. He said, I don't mind going through it because there will be a beautiful picture at the end.

You've also got, of course, over the course of the weekend is also when the right-wing grifters started to come out saying like oh wealth isn't that important there are more important things in life than wealth and money Yeah, all the people bracing us for like, you know financial cataclysm and having to like churn our own butter and everything or just now that it's kind of like Stabilized for the moment and even like pop back up, it's like now it was the greatest deal in the history of the world while they were all bracing us for impact. Yeah. That's, you know, just gold posts moving constantly.

Yeah, they were like ready. But the funny thing is, so like, I don't know if you guys saw Monday a headline ran somehow mysteriously That that said that they were doing a pause. Yeah, Walter Bloomberg Walter blue. Well, the funny thing is now that I'm like, is he innocent? Because I've actually heard that like the bank trading desks have burst and then that's where he got it and then Anyway, that's like, you know, I can't say he's innocent. I think I think innocent and vindicated

Invented because he saved the economy What's the lore on Walter Bloomberg he seems kind of like this is a deep cut but everybody remembers a you know, obviously a guy named Johnny Kilroy, who is rumored to be Michael Jordan in a Groucho Marx mustache that came back to the league. Because nobody had ever heard of this guy, but for some reason he had like his own basketball card and all that stuff. So they said that Michael Jordan was like operating, playing for the Bulls under disguise,

you know It's or it's like he became sort of this apocryphal thing is Walter Bloomberg sort of the finance equivalent of that Like what's his store Ron Mexico? Remember Ron? Walter Walter Oh Walter He's just I guess I guess he's a guy. I don't, he's maybe many guys that just copies and pastes headlines from Bloomberg. Uh-huh. He's, no, actually he's, he's the owner of Bloomberg now. He's not really happy. Former mayor of New York. No, he just, usually just copies and pastes headlines from Bloomberg and the news wires and then posts them out online.

But he was like the first one to post it where people could see, I guess, if you weren't like on Wall Street and like, you know, trading the tape all day, like a lot of these, a lot of these guys. And so that came out. And then of course, the market went completely insane, up like 6% in a day. Then they were like, oh, no, that's not. That's totally fake news because nobody had said it.

It didn't make any sense. But there is a case that one of the theories that has no backing in, I don't have any information about whether this is true or not, but it would be very funny if someone from the White House was like let's just like spread the rumor so the president can see what would happen. I thought the same thing. I literally thought the same thing. I was like, did JD Vance like leak this or something? It was also the same day I saw JD Vant like uh That Usha Vant had like given an interview saying that JD is very lonely I was like it almost makes me wonder if someone leaked that in this in you know Because you're right like stocks went back up and they were like see president like this is good You don't want it you do the 90 day pause Let's not have a depression. Let's go with a normal recession.

Yeah, so that happened Monday. Everything was insane. And then after the tariffs went into place, after three hours, or I don't know, it was like 1 PM yesterday, they're like, oh, yeah, never mind. Just 10% tariffs on everybody, 125% on China, which is basically just like,

we're not gonna trade with China. Which of course, like, how do you just cut that off? Like, that's why, so the market's down again today because just saying like, we're just not gonna trade with China anymore is also bad Not good. Yeah For like the economy, you know it and all are my like mic cover that I just bought right Yeah, just like

Go ahead. Go ahead No, I was just gonna say I see all the guys that play rich guys on tv like Kevin O'Leary and all these guys are like making the rounds saying like, you know what we need to do is put a 300% tariff on G and get him on a plane to DC tomorrow to make a deal. It's like I don't think you guys understand. For all the wealth you've acquired, you really don't have a bargaining chip here, you know, and who am I with a, you know, a piddling 401k over here, you know? Like. The funny thing is it's like what, like, do you want to send government employees to the

factories? Right. I'm like, is this like the big beautiful leap forward? You're like, let's send everybody to the country. Get you onto a farm. Well, the weird part for me, I think, is like, you got Lutnik and I know Terrence wants to talk about this, I don't want to go too far on this, but he's like, oh, well, all the factories, we're going to bring manufacturing home, but it's going to be completely automated. So you'll have like the robots making the chips for the iPhone and stuff.

It's like, so what's the value proposition for like the American worker here then? Like just proud of it's made in the USA who fucking cares I Think that they're gonna move the email jobs to the factory. Oh So the the men who are like who are like maintaining the machines can be equally angry at the women who do HR Email jobs at the women who do HR email jobs at the factories. That's right. They're gonna do like opposite Cambodia. They're gonna like try to clear out the cities and force everyone into the countryside.

Yeah. And yeah, but you'll have to keep your glasses instead of, you know, getting rid of them like they did in the killing fields, you'll have to keep them and then that's how you work in the email factory essentially. Right. Right. It's how you prompt the AI is to talk to the robots to make them make the machine. Yeah.

So that they can mine coal. The AI robots will be mining their coals so they can power themselves. Oh my god. Because we're reshoring mining. It's gonna be fun to see robots eating, you know, Vienna sausages and little David cakes out of a lunch pail. Smoking cigs. The funniest thing about the coal stuff is like, years ago, I was like, well, this is

interesting. Like, let me look because, you know, you can like get interested in a, you know, commodity or whatever. And I was like, well, why is it so expensive? Because like the the sort of story is like, oh, well, American workers are just expensive, blah, blah, blah. But it's not really that it's that they've mined so much already that the coal that's left is like really far away and really hard to get. So it's not even like, oh, American workers are just spoiled. It's just that like, there's not that, I'm sure you guys have talked about this, but like there's just not that much there anymore. And that's what is shocking. That's why I'm like, what do you guys think you're going

to accomplish with the coal thing? It almost mirrors how the government subsidizes farming and the auto industry in a way. I know during Trump won, we were running coal at a loss just for some, I don't know, point of pride thing. And then they scaled back every regulation so they can get to those harder to reach SEMA coals Like I saw yesterday that Trump rolled back the silica rule. Yeah. So like the big thing with like black lung disease and and now with the silica with strip mining you just have you know your standard silicosis that coal miners are getting. And it's like the one thing that's imperiling these people's health is like this like the the silica rules already weak as is

But to just go ahead and be like whoop Yeah, you know is Is insane. I mean you're seeing people in their 30s getting lung transplants because of this, you know what I mean? It's like they fed a bunch of cultural signifiers into an ai and it's just spitting out a bunch of contradictory stuff like we're going to bring back coal but you can't because the most easy to reach seams have been mined out but it's going to empower the AI who are actually going to work in the factories which we're bringing back through tariffs but we're not doing the tariffs

but maybe we are on some countries. Like it is so contradictory, it makes you feel completely insane. It's like, I've said this before, we're living in Trump's dream, and that means we are all going insane too, because there's no real method to the madness here. There's been a many, in my opinion, there's been many attempts to try to divine a method

to the madness here. Like, you know, even going so far as to say yesterday, like, this whole thing was just a scheme cooked up to pump and dump. And it's like, okay, yes, it did benefit a few people, but I don't think it was like... I think you're giving him too much credit. Like, their whipsawing back and forth has completely... Just... To me, it kind of gives away the fact that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. On Monday they were saying Wall Street has to come down for main street, you know what I mean?

We have to keep Wall Street in check for main street workers. But then the markets bounced back on Monday and they started to crash again on Tuesday. It's just so bizarre. Yeah. And they also, like he said, it's so funny because like Bascent and maybe Letnik, but definitely Bascent comes out yesterday and is like, this was always the plan. This is not because markets were freaking out.

And then they asked Trump and he is like, listen, the markets got freaked out. Yeah, I watched the bond markets last night. People were getting yippy. We chill it out a little bit. So I'm like, oh, so you just said like, oh yeah, the bond market scared, scared me. Like, no, he said, um, you're exactly right, Alex. What he said was I'm trying to find the quote here Essentially what he said was none of you clearly watched the art of the deal

None of you clearly read the art of the deal like this was this was his plan the entire time and then his press Secretary also said that and then he himself came out just like an hour later It was like no I just did this because the bond markets were crazy It was so insane I'm still I'm still like Like the entire like financial press corps is just like staring at a wall for like six hours this weekend like shaking like I staring at a wall for like six hours this weekend, like shaking, like what the fuck? Like... I saw something yesterday where it was like Jamie Dimon called him personally. I saw that too.

Is there any truth to that? I didn't know if that was like... Yeah, I saw it reported. I didn't actually, I haven't gotten to that story yet because I was like, oh, I haven't like hung out with my children in like three days. So I need to hang out with them. I saw on Tuesday, the treasury secretary said they were considering export capital controls. Like it's, I mean, that was, um, genuinely like, okay, so here's the thing here, all right?

You don't go out there and start saying stuff like we're considering export capital controls. If your whole thing is just like, we're gonna reverse course in 24 hours so we can stabilize things. If you tell people you're doing capital controls, it's like the market has to respond to that. But every time they send a signal,

it's immediately contradicted by the following thing that they do. So I can't, this gets into the narratives of these things, right? Whereas the White House's narrative is that this was Trump's plan all along. He backed China into a corner. He's the art of the deal.

Which is not even Trump's narrative. Trump's narrative is just like, I watched the bond markets and they were going crazy. Which is kind of like in line with what you had written on Alphaville just yesterday, Alex, which is like, this was kind of a revolt of the bond holders, right? Like, and maybe with the assistance of Jamie Dimon,

maybe the two groups were working hand in hand. Teamed up. I think the resist libs have kind of run with this narrative that this was all, it's similar to Besson's narrative, which is that this was all some grand scheme to like pump and dump the economy for the enrichment of a few billionaires. It did have that effect, like I said, for some,

but I don't think that this was in Any way planned from beginning to end like this is what we're gonna do like see it through the weekend like you know We're nefarious like I don't really see that I think you could make a case that there is market manipulation here because yeah like Trump yesterday morning was like Be cool today's a good time to buy. And then like literally within like a minute, you started to see a bunch of calls, I don't know, it's several different narratives here. Well like also, as they're dismantling

the entire administrative state, like financial crime is just not prosecuted now. So it's kind of a free for all for everybody. And yeah, I don't know. So like there is something to that. But like, I don't think they were engineering it just so they could like buy at the lows because also the stock market's back down today. The amount of credibility you burn by just being like oh yeah we're just gonna do yeah 50% tariffs on Vietnam why not it's a high number but it's it's a beautiful number you know. But like the funny thing about the bond market is that like, for for so long, it's been used as like the cudgel against like anybody who's like, Oh, well, if a Democrat gets into office, then like the bond market's going to come after you if, I don't know, like expand social services a little, you know?

Right. Could you explain for our listeners why that's the case? Like what is it about this specific metric and financial instrument that has that meaning to it? I love, okay, this is exciting because, so basically it's, and actually we could even talk a little bit about like the sort of basics of how global trade works, because that kind of plays into this too, right? So like, I mean, obviously like we buy a lot of stuff, right?

Like here in America, we buy stuff, like that's kind of been our entire thing since like, I don't know, the eighties and Other people make stuff and global trade is denominated in dollars. Right? So like if you're selling to Americans, you get a lot of dollars. And then like, what do you do with those dollars? You don't just like, you know, hang on to them or like put you on a you want to put them in treasuries so you can earn like some yields. Right. So you can like, OK, I can just have dollars in treasuries and earn more dollars with it. Awesome. But they seem to be like they like the White House seems to see that as like, oh, we're doing you a favor by letting you get, by letting you like earn more dollars with your dollars,

which like, I mean, I guess on one hand that's true, but on the other, if you're like, well, we don't want trade deficits at all. And also fuck you, you don't get our bonds. Like the whole reason that they have the dollars is because they're selling stuff to us That's like the whole reason so like if they're like we don't want anybody to have an imbalance Where like they're gonna need to have all these dollars on hand or they're gonna be bringing in dollars by selling to Americans or they're going to be bringing in dollars by selling to Americans, then you kind of get rid of the reason for them to hold treasuries.

So you're like, where do you think this is going? Because they're like, okay, no more trade deficits. Also, we're going to force everybody to hold 100-year US dollar bonds. But they're two contradictory goals. And so when the bond market started to freak out on Tuesday night, what did that tell Trump and everybody else? What were they defining from that?

so like well the funny thing is like the bond market is So annoying like I've covered it for so long and I'm like I hate you guys But I love but you know, it's just it's so it's annoying because it's like really abstract There are people it's like guys in Japan trading overnight can move the market. It's people love to have conspiracy theories about nefarious foreign governments selling. But like, and it is so abstract and global,

but it also affects the interest rates that we pay on basically everything. So it's like, okay, you want a mortgage? Like mortgage rates are not down, even though the stock market is down and economic growth is gonna be down because bond yields have gone up. And they're like the benchmark for everything basically.

And so people don't like paying high mortgage rates. People don't like paying high interest rates on anything. So like, there is like a very concrete, like everyday effect that this has on people. And it also is a way for like, I don't know, global capital, whatever you call it, to sort of, um, and like it does trade because like inflation, oh, okay, so I'll, I'll go back now into like the bond vigilantes and why they, if they exist, um, why they trade the way they do. The bad boys of the bond market. Like this did used to drive me crazy, right?

Because the, and it's still, I mean, it still kind of does because the general idea is like, okay, anything you do that could raise inflation in dollars means that like, okay, say you own like a 30 year bond, when you get your principal back, you know, that's worth less, it like sort of undercuts the the value of your principal. Right. And so, but like, of course, anything the government wants to do, you can just say like, Oh, well, that's going to cause inflation. So you definitely shouldn't do it. Like, that's why Clinton, at the very beginning of his term, I guess, people were talking to him a ton about like, Oh, the bond vigilantes will come after you if you do like this program or that program. And so he blanked and he like didn't do any of it. And that's where the James Carville quote comes from.

So he was like, when I die, I wanna come back as the bond market because you can scare anybody. And I'm like, okay, that's, it's so Carville. I'm like, it's annoying now because I hear, I've heard it so much, but that's just cause I was covering the bond market. I thought the James Carville quote you're going for

is there's too many opinionated, mouthy females in the Democratic party. I thought, I thought that, yeah, I thought they had raised the bond market people and maybe that's what Jenner went about. Yeah, they got the, the old ball and chain back at home is making me sell off the Vigilante is very woke Took out the pronouns from the bond market you see

That's why that's vigilante's vigilante's is gender-neutral it's true see what it's doing. That's why it's vigilantes. Vigilantes is gender neutral. That's true. That is true. That is very true. Yeah. So basically this sort of joke about, and I was joking around because again, a decade of like post-financial crisis malaise, like no investment after like 2008-09, saying like, oh, that would be inflationary and we can't let inflation happen because then the bond market will revolt. And then, so I was like, God, like just fucking stop it with these bond vigilantes. So like in like 15, 16, that, 16, that annoyed me a ton. And it turns out that they exist.

Apparently. They erode to the rescue of one of the dumbest policy decisions in recent memory, or maybe ever. So, my bad, guys. My bad, we are bad. We, sorry for underestimating you. Yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't know that Bond Vigilantes was like an archetype in trading.

You know, I don't, how would you rank like, the most annoying archetypes in trading, you know what I'm saying? That's a great, it's a great point. For me, I think Paramount on that list is the guy that has like a Robinhood account that he thinks he's gonna parlay into being like a successful day trader with, you know what I mean?

And just kind of considers himself like, yeah, it's only a matter of time before I'm rubbing elbows with the big dogs, you know? They always trade options too. It's definitely the, cause like. They always trade options too. It's definitely the, cause like that feels new to me too. Though I think that archetype is like a classic cause it's like.com bubble archetype.

Yeah. They're definitely more annoying cause I know they exist also. Like I've never met a bot in vigilante. Apparently you don't want to. No, no, I would be scared I think. In a back alley. That's like, I don't know.

Paul Singer, the hedge fund manager who seized Argentina's ships. Maybe he counts. I think Scary scary dudes. Why is the market crashing today? We're recording this on April 10th. Why is it? What's not crashing? but why is it like declining today is it futures like I Think it's crashing

The screen is like oh, there it goes again. Fuck. I think, I mean, basically saying that like 10% universal tariffs are like not super high, especially since they've given everyone this sort of grounding 20% that they started with. But 125% tariffs on China, which is our third biggest trading partner. After Canada and Mexico, who both have 25% tariffs on a lot of their stuff.

Right, right, right? Right, right. That's good stuff. I The the personnel here is really in Incredible we've talked about best in a lot Another person we've not talked about a lot though is Peter Navarro who it came out this week has been apparently citing Himself under a pseudonym in his book called Ron Vara He wrote a book incited this economist named Ron Vara for years and people like who the fuck is Ron Vara and it's just him Alter ego is alter ego Ron Mexico

Ron Mexico and Michael Kilroy in Ron Vara those Jane's addiction, you know Showfees not really paying off like this there. I Guess not Ron Vara Ron Vara. It's um He's like Trump's trade advisor. I can't I think I remember He's like at a he has like a phd from harvard, which is really terrifying That's I feel like how you know like who the real like ideological sickos are Because they're like the most educated and in the trump administration that just means that that they've completely curdled and become insane. I don't know. Yale, Harvard, it's just a bad sign.

I liked the quote from the White House yesterday. What was it? Do not retaliate and you will be rewarded. What was that? What was that in response to that was the trade the trade stuff because they were like oh China retaliated against us and so that's why we're putting a hundred and twenty five percent tariffs on them except Europe also retaliated yeah it's, they seem to not understand that no other country in the world really wants to die. They like, it's like, I just, for some reason,

all week I've just been thinking of that scene in David Cronenberg's The Fly, where Jeff Goldblum takes Gina Rollins, I can't remember, Davis Davis or whatever actress that is, takes her shotgun and puts it to his head. Gina Davis. Please, please kill me. It's like that is America.

Like we are motivated by this insane death drive that I don't think that like, I don't think even Trump knows why he's doing this. I like just because I just, you know, reading between the lines of the things he said, it's like I don't think any of them know why they're doing this. Like they just have a strong psycho, social,

sexual drive to, because that's kind of what undergirds this whole remanufacturing thing. They've been talking about it all week, about how like it's gonna make men great again, restore the crisis of masculinity. It's like, dude, we crave death. I can't, truly that has to be the only explanation, I guess. Yeah, I mean, this is as close as you get

to self-immolation, I think. But not in a good way. And we want to keep being shitty and morally indefensible and also set ourselves on fire to be able to do it. Howard Ludnick literally admitted it today or yesterday. He said, the golden age is coming. We are committed to protecting our interests, engaging in global negotiations negotiations and exploding our economy

Freudian slip Exploding the economy maybe he's hedging you know maybe he's hedging maybe he's like well what I meant if it turns out good He said I meant blowing it up like everybody's stocks are blowing up, doing well. But if it goes bad, he'd say, well, I did tell you in fairness that we're gonna blow the market up. We gotta take the medicine. Yeah.

I mean, seeing the stages of grief from like Bill Ackman and like the other hedge fund managers who were really Trumpy. Just incredible. At first he was like, he was like, oh, this is a brilliant negotiating tactic. Yes. And then by the end he was like doing the Grimes reply

to Elon thing. Like, I know this isn't in your heart. Please call me I've tried every other way to get in touch this I hate to do this you on but It's all I've got left God I know this isn't in your heart I know this isn't in your heart Was let Nick the guy didn't he say that like his mother-in-law's on social security and if her check was late that she wasn't bad and I had a Yes, oh my god. I shouldn't

He said he said he's a controversial figure even on Wall Street What's this? What's this story? Well, okay. I had an article here right like this is from the Wall Street Journal Letnik strategy flummox his business leaders and White House aides the just to kind of skip ahead here a little bit like Trump has asked why letnik is at the White House so often and he has grown frustrated with his Commerce Secretary at times, advisors said, particularly when Lutnick grows emotional in White House meetings. White House officials said he is at the White House more than any other cabinet secretary. So he's been he's been the one that's out there sort of like

brow-beating American executives to accept the tariffs and he'll like do these in this article gets into it And he'll like do these, and this article gets into it, but he'll like do these really contradictory things where he'll be like, well, we're not gonna do the tariffs, but if we do, you can apply for a specific exception or waiver, but we're not gonna do them. But so that gets into the, like we were talking about on the Patreon episode on Monday though,

it's like, if you're a capitalist, you have to to plan you can't just set up shop and like start producing Widgets within a week like you have to acquire the land you have to build out the facility You have to hire the workforce that takes like two to three to five years sometimes sometimes ten years It's like that. That's something you have to be able to plan around these things. So that's why it's self-immolation. It's like, this doesn't make any sense. You're tanking the stock market for no good reason. And like these are contracts, right? Like you have suppliers,

you have like a five-year contract with your supplier, you know, in Vietnam, Indonesia, like wherever, or in China. And now you're like, oh, well, I guess we have to throw that out the window and replan and then you're like, you know, you don't even like, how do you sign a five year contract with the supplier right now? Yeah. Like maybe we'll still exist as a country in five years, I hope. I don't know. At this rate, it is increasingly uncertain.

Right? Not betting big on that. But the Letnik thing is funny because I saw a bunch of stories about how Gary Cohn used to be there a lot. I feel like Letnik is trying to be Gary Cohn, but like isn't Gary Cohn. But like Gary Cohn used to just like grab papers off of his desk and just like take them and storm out

and be like, no, you're not doing this. Up on Trump's desk. What's that? Basically off of Trump's desk, like he was checking Trump. He used to just like grab Basically off of Trump's desk. Like he was checking Trump. Oh yeah, yeah. He used to just like grab papers off of Trump's desk and like, and this is Trump one, and just be like, no, and just like storm out. But now like the cult of personality is so strong that, you know, I also wonder, I have to read this because I feel like Besant, the Treasury Secretary, his face has been out there so much with all of this. Finding, and again, I don't know any of these people

and I'm not important enough to talk to anybody who knows anything, but as an outsider speculating, if I were him, I'd be looking for somebody else to be like no actually this was his fault Yeah, well let me just like let me just kind of like at the end of his career right like he worked for Candor Fitzgerald he's like made his millions He's whereas best since younger. He's a younger guy right or maybe not like by a lot But it seems like he's kind of still in the scrum a little bit Yeah, and I do I mean again like

Letnik is a controversial figure on Wall Street Where they put up with a lot of shit? Which is saying so like and this this is all public right but like after so And this is all public, right? But after, so, Canter Fitzgerald had, I think, two floors on the World Trade Center during 9-11, which was a horrible tragedy. But they got a settlement from American Airlines for it,

for the business interruption. And rather than giving that money to say the families of the employees who perished on 9-11, it went to the shareholders of Canter Fitzgerald, which was Howie Lutnick. I think Howard Lutnick's own brother died in 9-11, right? Yeah. And that itself, like, I just remember hearing about that

and I was like, real, like, him? That's- Okay, you know? And the thing is, like, this is all public. Like, people at the time were really mad about it. And granted, you know, it's what, more than 20 years ago now, but like Not again controversial figure on Wall Street, which is itself full of controversial figures

Yeah Like this is from the article business executives have left their interactions with letnik wondering whether he adequately understand Trump's thinking thinking okay I don't think anybody adequately understands Trump's thinking Last month let Nick met with oil execs who were concerned about how the tariffs might be designed and wanted exemptions But let Nick said he didn't want industry specific exemptions people at the meeting said It would be like picking one lily from a field of lilies in the same meeting He said there would be some exemptions on imports of products like mangoes that couldn't be domestically produced When Trump rolled out the tariff on on Wednesday

There were no exemptions for mangoes and Trump did give an exemption to the oil industry After delaying a meeting with top automaker CEOs earlier this year Letnik asked him to get on a video call so he could show them He was traveling with Trump on Air Force one people briefed on the call said she's like I'm friends with this guy look This is also from this article White House staffers were also stunned when let Nick went on Fox News in February and said the Administration wanted to abolish the IRS Several Trump aides said let Nick hadn't seemed to think through how the public might interpret the Commerce Secretary Calling for the closing of the IRS in the middle of tax season. I mean

Man these guys I'm telling you just across the board is the death drive like well some of them are just having fun like let Nick He's just he's loving it. You know he like, he gets to hang out with his buddy. His buddy happens to be an criminally insane person. The Joker. Syphilitic king. Syphilitic mad king, yeah. Well, we got the bond market though, so. We still have the bond market.

Noted, noted woke ally. The bond market. Right. Noted woke ally the bond market right Well, you know I like I guess like what what is there to say really about like where are we at today? Okay, so like yesterday they again Wednesday April 9th yesterday was the day that they announced The they were going to roll back for 90 days, vindicating Walter Bloomberg that they were going to roll back for 90 days all the tariffs except they're going to keep in place a universal 10% tariff on every country.

Is that correct? So what are we looking at here, Alex? How is this going to affect our day-to-day... Let's get back to egg prices. Let's get back to everyday goods. Like how is this going to affect our everyday stuff? So that's a good question. It's funny because you ask like where are we now

and as far as I know, because I haven't checked the news in the past 45 minutes, which again, who knows. Anything could have changed in the last 45 minutes. Number of things could have. Oh, I literally went for a hike yesterday. I climbed up a mountain because I was like, I'm so fucking tired of sitting in front of my screen. I am going hiking and then I was driving home after and I got a message that was like oh it's another fake headline but

it was a real headline it's like it's over it's like what it to get it gets at the strange like schizophrenic nature of the moment we're in where it's like nothing is the same from one minute to the next yeah Yeah. And like I said, like I've said before, my stance on this administration is everybody's working at cross purposes. The only uniting factor is like you must please the mad syphilitic king. Like that's the only real common thread. So like anyways, yeah. So yeah, so assuming, assuming nothing's changed, which who knows?

It seems like cheap electronics, more expensive, almost certainly, at least for a while, just because the major things that we import from China are, again, a lot of electronics. Oh, also the de minimis exemption. I think they closed it again. So like that sounds really, really complicated, but it's just the reason people can get stuff from Timu or Temu or however you pronounce it. You can get it shipped and not have to pay tariffs. You do have to pay tariffs now. So I guess you're paying double on Shane or Shane

or again, however you pronounce that. So clearly I'm a big fan. Not so fast anymore. Right. Are tariffs on assassins gonna go up? Like the guy that shot at Trump was probably gotten off of Temoo that was the joke so that'll probably raise as well yeah yeah yeah I mean I bought I bought because I'm going I'm going freelance so I like had to buy

a new laptop so I was like oh shit I have to buy my new laptop now because I do I think electronics are gonna I do, I think electronics are gonna get more expensive. I think like little things that like, we used to take for granted. You know, like little things that you would, I guess, buy and would be shipped from overseas, like through Amazon or whatever.

That stuff is gonna get more expensive. Groceries are an interesting question. I mean, eggs are still insane. And I mean, they're not, they actually, they went down, but they're still like pretty expensive. There's a 50 cent per egg surcharge at a Waffle House right now, if anybody's curious. Is it still on? Still on.

I wrote about that. It was the like, you know how they close down the Waffle Houses for weather and that's when you know it's really bad? It's like now they've interesting because like, again, like coffee beans are already really expensive, they're going to get more expensive. The stuff that we're importing from Mexico and Canada, which is where we get most of our groceries, I think it depends on whether they're, they're considered to be like fitting with the current trade agreements. So I think like auto parts and stuff. Oh yeah, also cars are like, yeah, and car parts, all that kind of stuff is going to

be a whole mess. Also I think they're going to put a tariff on pharmaceuticals. Um, so I mean, short term, like prices are going up, businesses are going to. Invest less, I think, you know, in their global supply chains at the very least. Um, things were already looking a little wobbly, like economically before all this started, Oh, they're also doing lumber. So it's like mortgage rates aren't going down, lumber prices are going up. Home construction costs are gonna go up.

Like it's, for a while there, I was kind of wondering, like, are they trying to cause a recession so interest rates come down? But now it's like, oh, maybe they'll cause it recession and interest rates won't come down. I've been saying that too this whole time. It's like they signaled like they were perhaps willing Open to the idea of a recession because they wanted interest rates to come down But now it looks like they're gonna get the recession and interest rates are not gonna come down.

Like we are threading so many needles that like, I don't know man, it's like a level of stagflation that's like, you're too far unseen I guess. But on top of autarky, they're trying to do stagflation with autarky. I just can't like, it's... Autarky is notoriously stagflation with autarky. I just can't like it's autarky is notoriously stagflationary. All of those words are so insane. The funny thing is that like for stagflation it's like stagnant economic growth. Like we might be in the real cool zone of Recession inflation Where the economy is shrinking and you've got inflation at the same time

That's me and Tom okay, like maybe this is coloring my view of everything But we went and saw children of men last night at the the Kentucky theater I am not a great movie to watch if you're in the throes of you know Yeah, that's just uncertainty like that's the only like I look at recession inflation High unemployment high inflation interest rates aren't coming down We're exploding the economy, folks. But then, on top of that, it's like, okay, well then how does this work? How do they actually make this work without getting pitchforked? And I guess it works by, I saw this yesterday, ICE director envisions Amazon-like mass deportation

system, prime, but with human human beings which is basically like slavery Basically, they're just outlining like a new global slave trafficking slave trading system Is that Tom Homan said that yeah? Yeah One of the most I mean Be bad enough if you had Tom Cruise saying that but you got a guy that looks like a thumb like a boiled fucking peanut saying that, you know what I mean? The most evil shit you could imagine. Uh huh. And then them talking about like, I mean, the Supreme Court this week basically, I think it was Sotomayor's dissent I saw said that basically they had opened up the legal space for them to just start deporting

American citizens in Tom's I think Tom mentioned this recently, but like I think this is this is their new carceral Paradigm it's like we can't afford quote-unquote mass incarceration anymore Because it's too politically costly it's too administratively costly, we can't get anybody who wants to work in prisons, like nobody wants to be a prison guard, so we're just going to start deporting everybody. I mean, if you're an American citizen or not, that's how you thread the needle of recession, inflation, no lowered interest rates, high unemployment. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how else.

I can't, that must be the, I think that those policies all align with each other in a way that, like, I don't think that they're intentionally, like, that smart, you know? We gotta bring back the killing fields. But like, I think that that's kind of where they're heading with all this, in a way. Yeah. I mean, it's super, super yeah it's super grim also like when you think about like it's funny

because the market stuff was almost like a fun diversion from the like just absolutely next level like crazy shit that that's going on you know with like mass incarcerations and disappearing people and all of that insane and just evil shit. So like, it's really, it's grim to think about like, you know, how do you make that work socially? I mean, people are going to be mad, right? Like, and the thing is, like, my guess is that they want to do it right away, so it gets blamed on Biden. That was sort of my theory, because they can see that it's coming, and they don't want it to happen at the end of the term.

Right. But I also am like, you guys really do just want people to like grow more vegetables And like learn to repair electric cars, which you can't really repair yourself. Like it doesn't It seems like they're like, oh, there's some like, you know, even optimistically they're like Oh, there's just like a well of resilience in America To hardship that we are going to impose on them. Right. You know, like it's like, yeah, we can remember how to how to sew. Like some editor was like, learn how to sew.

God damn it. I don't know. So it's it's this whole sort of like self-sufficiency thing that. Yeah, that's just not gonna fly I mean I just don't see it like working in America like we just don't we're a consumer nation We're the consumer nation like I remember people trying to make bread and garden during the pandemic and it was cute But you can't do that on a mass scale. We're not Cuba this will not fuck it that won't work. It's um I Don't know what that means. I don't know like what kind of grotesque politics you get emerging from the other side, but like Also, though like I think what's interesting is like you said Alex like I thought the same thing like obviously they want to if they do Want a recession they want it sooner rather than later

They want to if they do want a recession they want it sooner rather than later But like the way they're doing it It's like they it's like when you know you're getting sick and you can feel a fever coming on But you're like no, I just gotta get through this week. It's allergies. It's out. Yeah. Yeah, I'll get sick next week It's like they're kind of like keep trying to put it off like but it's like they're inducing it themselves You know what I'm saying? Like I'm gonna make myself sick, but I'm gonna put off the fever and infection for later It's really weird and it is like I Don't know Well, that's how finance works though. You know what I mean?

It's like, you know, they're trying to apply the rules of fine next to like the immutable laws of nature, you know They're trying to apply the rules of fine next to like the immutable laws of nature, you know Man, and it's it's like a square peg round hole conundrum. Yeah, they call it Amend and pretend or extend and pretend in the Years like don't collect you're like you you got this Let's change the terms except like people don't get that but like companies get that and like developers get that, which is probably also informative.

But yeah, it's the extend and pretend thing. But yeah, we'll have to see. I mean, you know, mortgage rates coming down would be great, right? But that's not happening. And just none of the benefits of, and the thing is like, there are like an actual recession, like there are no benefits.

I mean, you guys are great financial crisis era, right? Like somebody asked me the other day, like about 2008, and they were like, were there fewer fake jobs then? And I was like, there were no jobs. Yeah. Youth unemployment was 20%. I graduated a month before youth unemployment reached 20%. Like there were no jobs.

No. It sucked. It sucks, it's not fun. And like- How'd you get a job as a janitor? Yeah, I know. I worked in a water plant. I was a water plant operator.

That was my first job out of college, making $8 an hour. See, you guys are gonna thrive under our new factory-based, you-based physical work. I just like, I got beat out. I had to intern because I got beat out for a job doing headline writing for an algorithm by a Harvard Business School graduate. So he beat me for the job writing the headlines

So I'm fucked was it Ron Vara do you get beat by Ron Vara? Well, you got you got beat by the best though at least so that's true Well, this is say that this is a good that's actually a good way to pivot and we can end here in a second But like I see a lot of people on Twitter being like oh my old heads is this different from 2008 and if so why? Can you can you talk about like what is the difference between this in? 2008 like what what are the crisis points now as opposed to do that 2008 as we know it was the subprime lending It was more good bad mortgages basically the housing market like what is the crisis point right now I mean

The crisis point is like in a guy's head Like that's what's so fucking crazy about this. It's like the president of the United States It's the crisis is like emanating from His decision like weating from his decision. Like we live in his dream. Like the dreamer dreams. Then he lives inside the tree. We live inside a dream.

You heard it here fights. It's confirmation of everything Terrence has been saying really. That's what is like in a way like leading up to it, like everyone within like finance and business, they were like a little uncomfortable about like, oh, like this is unsustainable. Sure. But like, let's just keep having fun until things, until the wheels fall off, you know, um, but this it's like, you know, things were slowing down. Like it wasn't like, oh, there's a

huge, you know, point of tons of, you know, unsustainable leverage. Or if, I mean, there's a lot of leverage in the corporate sector, like businesses borrow a lot, because they've been able to. And so it will be interesting to see like is they have to spend so much on their supply chains. And is the big tech companies get their lunch eaten on AI? Yeah. What would Trump say just a few days ago about supply chains? Wasn't he just like, we don't need supply chains? He said something like that. I mean, I have some bad, there's an entire securities market

for supply chain finance. You can sell that to an investor. I mean, not like you or me, but a pension fund. But luckily that kind of got blown out during COVID stuff. So that's not hyper-leveraged, I don't think. But yeah, no, what's so weird about this is that like, again, the crisis is just that like a guy

who's incredibly powerful woke up one day and was like, this is what I'm gonna do. And now we're exploding the economy. It's very exciting. Incredibly powerful woke up one day and was like this is what I'm gonna do And now we're exploding the economy, it's very exciting. I love love it love to explode the economy Well, I think that's a good place to end on I just got an Apple News alert on my iPhone what to know about Trump's terrorists It's just really funny to see the sort of vulgar explanations of all this. It's uh Because it's like trying to like triangulate the position between what the White House says like what the the Where are the Democrats during all this by the way has anybody heard from the?

It's like insane. I have heard literally nothing from the murder's row of opposition party figures. They must be heeding James Carvel's admonition to do a strategic retreat. And then once they've, you know, give them enough rope to hang themselves, and once they do then we can spring back here, you know. We've talked a lot about this could be the end of neoliberalism or whatever but in another way it could be the golden revival of neoliberalism because can you imagine what kind of terrible candidate they're gonna run after Trump fucks this

all up they're running they're running Rahm Emanuel or I think they'll really I literally think they'll run Rahm Emanuel probably Jesus so we'll have like total zero tariffs equal numbers of deportations Alex our buddy Alex Avenia calls them children of men Democrats and it's like after watching the movie last night I remember the last time I watched it was at the beginning of 2020 when the pandemic started and I guess it's fitting that now I'm watching it again in 2025, but um, I mean that is the goal It's just like put people in cages and just send them away. It's just like that's it's a liquid dish in its policy So you're right like the Democrats it'll be yeah We'll do no tariffs, but we're gonna have to deport more people

No way around it. Yes Amazing Well Alexandra skaggs, thank you so much for being on the show If people want to find your writing and they want to find how to reach you, where would they go? So Twitter is a good place. I'm gonna be posting about the new sub stack Which is gonna be maybe a little more than like grocery prices and utility bills, but you know How to garden?

Remember I have no practical skills. This is going to be amazing. Like imagine if Bridget Jones was like serious and then tried to do normal things and was just like, just embarrassed herself in public that way. I'm really excited. And, and yeah, and so I'm going to have a lot of that stuff on Twitter. Um, I'm still writing for FT Alphaville. Um, they're great. They were actually, you know, plug for FT Alphaville.

They were the guys who did the wire card investigation. I don't know if you saw the Netflix documentary, but they're, they're really fun, so I'm still going to be writing for them. Um, and yeah, that's, that's where I'll be in. And sadly, I'm still on Twitter, or X, the bullying app. Me too. Same here, along with Walter Bloomberg. Yeah, yeah.

I'll be tweeting about Walter Bloomberg. Yeah. Well, go check out Alexandra's work. You can find that on Twitter. I'll put the link in the show notes. And please go support us on Patreon. Five dollars a month, we'll get you an episode every Monday.

That link is also in the show notes. So yeah, thanks for listening this week everybody. Be well, don't panic. Don't be a panicking as Trump said. Be cool, be cool. Be cool! And until next time, we will see you later. Bye bye. So So So Thanks for watching!