And so...the "recession" begins

Here I am at post #676 with absolutely no change our lives [ wife & me] relative to the announcement made in the Ops. post # 1. Our lifestyle hasn't changed but our combined portfolios have improved a little over 80k since Jan. 1 2025 . Fortunate that monthly more is going in than coming out.
 

Let's bear in mind that this thread was started one day after the sky-high tariffs were announced, and six days before the market's displeasure caused most to be rolled back to a blanket 10%, with additional amounts paused for 90 days.

If the tariffs with China aren't soon brought back down from their stratospheric 145%, Christmas shoppers will be facing higher prices and emptier shelves this autumn.

April's tariffs haven't percolated through to retail prices yet, but they're coming.
 
I think we will have to revisit this in a year. The indicators are mostly “look back”. Companies reporting earnings are based upon past performance. Unemployment and job growth figures are based upon past. And then there is the truth that what happened this morning might not be true this afternoon. So I will wait. But the trucks traveling on the interstate 10 are already decreased…and the port statistics easily found and read online do not bode well at least in the near future. That horse has not quit bucking.
 

Muskrat said:
I think we will have to revisit this in a year. The indicators are mostly “look back”. Companies reporting earnings are based upon past performance. Unemployment and job growth figures are based upon past. And then there is the truth that what happened this morning might not be true this afternoon. So I will wait. But the trucks traveling on the interstate 10 are already decreased…and the port statistics easily found and read online do not bode well at least in the near future. That horse has not quit bucking.
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earning expectations are looking forward not backward, and they are all being reduced
 
mathjak107 said:
earning expectations are looking forward not backward, and they are all being reduced
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Some time ago we chatted about First Edition by you and mentioned that made a friend here who cooked there while going to St. Johns pharmacy school going back decades he cooked there at night / weekends ,

Either way he recently bought a food truck as he loves to cook , permits cleared and we set sail May , 8 .

He is cooking First Edition style foods . I an another friend are labor / employees but should be interesting .
 
NotCompSavvy said:
Some time ago we chatted about First Edition by you and mentioned that made a friend here who cooked there while going to St. Johns pharmacy school going back decades he cooked there at night / weekends ,

Either way he recently bought a food truck as he loves to cook , permits cleared and we set sail May , 8 .

He is cooking First Edition style foods . I an another friend are labor / employees but should be interesting .
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best of luck to him
 
I would have thought everyone knew tariffs don’t cost the countries against whom they are enforced. They only make it harder for those foreign producers to sell their products here. The only one directly affected by them are the consumers who need the products bad enough to pay the added costs. Foreign producers will still profit but those here who wish to import their goods will pay more and pass it onto consumers. But I’m no Econ major, am I missing something?
 
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MarkD said:
I would have thought everyone knew tariffs don’t cost the countries against whom they are enforced. They only make it harder for those foreign producers to sell their products here. The only one directly affected by them are the consumers who need the products bad enough to pay the added costs. Foreign producers will still profit but those here who wish to import their goods will pay more and pass it onto consumers. But I’m no Econ major, aminissing something?
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Some of the tariffs simply do not make any sense like tariffs on Colombia / Brazil for coffee yet we do not export coffee so now coffee prices up .
 
What you are missing is that domestic goods can be cost-competitive thus increasing their choice and thus supporting domestic labor. It keeps more money within the country, including the tax base. It makes the country more self-sufficient as a result.

It can also inhibit excessive consumption, a well known bane of the western world. This tends to decrease the gaps between haves and have nots.

And of course as already recognized through existing legislation, tariffs can be used as a tool of foreign policy.
 
No one can say for sure that we are heading towards a recession. In mid 2022, we had two quarters of negative GDP and there were more than a few claiming recession. Nearly 3 years later, you can only find 1 quarter negative, after revisions. The Atlanta FED jumped the shark in late February with a big negative number, while acknowledging it was due to massive front loading of imports... which continued through the February report and the March report is due tomorrow, May 9th.

Now we have people screaming about shipping has really slowed and below year ago levels. After nearly 3 months of shipping riding about 30% above previous months, it might be time to slow that shipping down... especially with storage near ports running very hefty inventories.

Ultimately, the consumer will make the decision whether there is to be a recession. Outside of some social media sites, the majority of Americans aren't paying attention.
 
dilettante said:
What you are missing is that domestic goods can be cost-competitive thus increasing their choice and thus supporting domestic labor. It keeps more money within the country, including the tax base. It makes the country more self-sufficient as a result.

It can also inhibit excessive consumption, a well known bane of the western world. This tends to decrease the gaps between haves and have nots.

And of course as already recognized through existing legislation, tariffs can be used as a tool of foreign policy.
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not here . we are not cost competitive in america .

between labor costs , not enough factories and the epa we would be lowering our standard of living here and paying more to do the process

the idea of a global market place is except for high security items no country needs to be self sufficiant nor can they be.

every country excels at doing something better and cheaper then the rest and we all benefit
 
NotCompSavvy said:
Some of the tariffs simply do not make any sense like tariffs on Colombia / Brazil for coffee yet we do not export coffee so now coffee prices up .
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Now there are talks about authorising the US Department of Commerce and Trade Representative to start the process to impose a levy on movies, because America's movie industry was dying "a very fast death".

That is, the US putting 100% tariffs on movies made in foreign countries -- on all movies going into the US that are produced in foreign lands. Would this also include US made movies that are filmed and produced in foreign countries?
 
Magna-Carta said:
Now there are talks about authorising the US Department of Commerce and Trade Representative to start the process to impose a levy on movies, because America's movie industry was dying "a very fast death".

That is, the US putting 100% tariffs on movies made in foreign countries -- on all movies going into the US that are produced in foreign lands. Would this also include US made movies that are filmed and produced in foreign countries?
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I’m not as concerned about the movies as I am about opening the door to place tariffs on intellectual property.

Even if manufacturing shifts to the United States the patents, designs, formulas, etc… may still be subject to tariffs.

I’m not sure how a fair value would be determined for something like the patent on a new drug or design for a new high tech item.

Hopefully this won’t get much traction.
 
intellectual property will always be stolen and has nothing to do with tariffs or not.

the same factory that manufacturees our commercial and industrial water pumps in china sells our pump design themselves as a finished product in other countries.

meh , so what , if does not hurt our sales in the least here ,

but you know what hurts , the tariffs . so much so they may force the company to close as we wont win a bid anymore and these process cannot be done competitively here
 
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mathjak107 said:
intellectual property will always be stolen and has nothing to do with tariffs or not
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All property is subject to theft but I’m not aware of previous attempts to collect tariffs when legally recognized ideas and intellectual property are imported from other countries.

Copyrights of books, scripts and movies have value and are forms of intellectual property just like the formula for drugs.
 
Per Yahoo Finance and Investopedia:

"The typical U.S. manufacturing worker earns just over $70,000 a year, while their counterpart in China makes just over $13,000, and an Indian manufacturing worker only makes around $2,300, according to an analysis by Apollo.

That means that for many products, it could still be cheaper to make them overseas and pay a tariff than to relocate a factory to the U.S. and pay higher wages.

If some businesses decide to build factories in the U.S., they will likely be highly automated, leading to few jobs being created."

[I found the last paragraph to be of particular interest.]
 
Honda has already announced they will be moving all Civic production for the North American market from Japan to the US, to join the production already here. I believe they also said their Ontario production will be shut down and moved to the US.

They had plans to build another plant in Mexico for a few other vehicles, but now they will build it in Indiana.

Not to mention the parts supply chain they use, more of which is moving to the US than was already here.

Spin all you want, but the existing factories are already highly automated.
 
"existing factories are already highly automated"
Then the net result is that inflationary tariffs will fail to achieve the "supposed" desired result.

As of April 15th:
Honda said it has no plans to move car production from Canada and Mexico to the U.S., responding to a report that it might move operations in an effort to avoid potentially devastating tariffs.
SOURCE

If anyone has something more current, please provide your source; I'd like to read it.
 

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