Trump Tariffs Gone Wild

Posted on March 28, 2025 by MN Gordon

The U.S. stock market’s recent zigs and zags have triggered considerable excitement. Wall Street pros, private money managers, and Millennial index fund enthusiasts have all been whipsawed by the market’s swift up and down movements. No one can seem to stay ahead of President Trump’s ‘make it up as you go’ tariff games.

Trump clarified the rules of the game to reporters in the Oval Office on March 21. Specifically, he intends to be flexible on tariffs when it is to the advantage of American companies. Trump stated:

“I gave the American car companies a break, because it would have been unfair if I didn’t, and everybody said, ‘Oh, he changed his mind on tariffs.’ I didn’t change my mind. I helped our sort of Big Three, Big Four [automakers].”

“Instead of taking it properly, they said, ‘Oh, he changed.’ I don’t change. But the word flexibility is an important word. Sometimes it’s flexibility, so there’ll be flexibility, but basically it’s reciprocal.”

What does this mean? Continue reading →

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Trump’s MAGA Policies of Wealth Destruction

Posted on March 21, 2025 by MN Gordon

“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

– John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

Practical Objectives

Is President Donald J. Trump a practical man? Is he a madman?

Does he hear voices in the air?

We’ll leave the answers to these questions to you. Certainly, Trump’s the slave of destructive decisions from the past. Many of these decisions were guided by dead economists.

For example, decisions made a century ago, such as the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and FDR’s seizure of the private gold holdings of American citizens in 1933, are forcing Trump’s plans. Today, for fun and for free, we seek to better understand the great calamity he’s dealing with.

To begin, Trump’s tariff policies are intended to reroute the origins of production and the flows of global trade. Specifically, he wants to relocate the production of imported goods from foreign factories to domestic factories. The purpose is to revitalize American manufacturing and create new blue-collar jobs. Continue reading →

Posted in MN Gordon, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Truth Shall Prevail

Posted on March 14, 2025 by MN Gordon

Economic Prism Articles | Insights on Gold, Stocks, Inflation & FOMCYear-to-date the S&P 500 is down 5.9 percent. Over this same time, the NASDAQ is down over 10 percent.

Should you buy the dip? Should you sell the bounce?

The answers to these questions are dependent on whether you trust the stock market’s technical indicators or its fundamentals. Regardless, panic and uncertainty are spreading across America.

There’s the recognition that economic growth is retreating, consumer prices are rising, and jobs are disappearing. There’s also the observation that President Trump’s policies are making things worse.

Most people agree that the federal government is too big and too controlling. They are well aware that there’s rampant fraud and waste. They understand that $2 trillion annual deficits are not sustainable. And that the runaway growth of government debt is a complete disaster.

They also want these failings corrected without any trouble. On the day Trump took office, there was an unwarranted belief that he could magically clean up all the waste, reduce the size of government, and balance the budget without painful consequences. That perception is being shattered. Continue reading →

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Social Insecurity and the Fate of All Ponzi Schemes

Posted on March 7, 2025 by MN Gordon

Elon Musk – the richest man in the world – is doing a fine job shaking up Washington’s political establishment. He recently took to the Joe Rogan podcast where he said, “Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

This small dose of reality was enough to elicit excitement from big government statists. Rex Huppke, in an opinion piece in USA Today, provided the following counterpoint:

“Social Security is one of the country’s most popular and successful federal programs, and its pay-as-you-go arrangement is not a deceptive scam – it’s how the system was built to work.”

Without question Social Security is a popular program. Who doesn’t relish the prospect of getting something for nothing? But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a Ponzi scheme.

Charles Ponzi, if you didn’t know, gained notoriety in 1920 offering a tempting investment ploy. He promised a 50 percent return on investment in 45 days and a 100 percent return in 90 days. Trusting investors, dizzy with visions of easy riches, painfully discovered the returns were paid by the money of subsequent investors. Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments