The tariffs are coming into effect and Americans are likely to see some serious inflation and large price increases. $10,000 more for a new vehicle? How will this all shake out? 

 

People are falsely claiming that due to the stock market being strong, the economy is strong. This is beyond false. It would appear the rich are driving the economy now. 75% of Americans are too afraid to buy anything but essentials. Trump policies have scared off the consumer. 

 

“We are setting ourselves up to be a highly uncompetitive country,” he said, “while alienating our allies and pissing off the biggest markets.”

 

There’s one person who can afford to be cavalier about the uncertainty that he’s creating, and that’s Donald Trump,” said Rachel West, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who worked in the Biden White House on labor policy. “The rest of Americans are already paying the price for that uncertainty.”

 

The economy is increasingly dependent on a small sliver of superstar companies and wealthy consumers to stay afloat because these are the only firms and families able to withstand the tariff onslaught. A highly concentrated economy increases the risk of a downturn — and will leave many middle-class Americans frustrated and strained.

 

But the shift exposed on Friday is that a growing number of industries have transitioned from weak hiring to layoffs. In the past three months, manufacturing, professional and business services, mining, residential construction, warehouses, K-12 education, the federal government, and even retailers have been cutting jobs. The labor market is going from frozen to cracking.

 

Even more alarming is how reliant the economy has become on spending binges by the richest Americans.
The top 10 percent of earners now drive about half of spending, according to Moody’s, up from 36 percent three decades ago. These people will determine if the U.S. economy avoids a recession. These are households earning $250,000 or more, and they are largely doing just fine, buoyed by strong stock-market gains, mansions and rental properties that have shot up in value in recent years, and a rebound in business dealmaking. The wealthy continue to spend on lavish vacations, parties and events, and that masks the strain that many middle-class and moderate-income families are experiencing.

 

Already, many workers have seen their hours reduced and fewer opportunities for overtime and bonuses. Credit card and auto loan delinquencies are above pre-pandemic levels, Federal Reserve and Fitch Ratings data show. And millions of Americans have missed student loan repayments, triggering credit score drops. The middle class is basically tapped out financially. Any further rise in costs from tariffs or decline in income from job losses would be tough to absorb, especially as government aid programs decline. 

 

Some excerpts were taken from this article. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/06/economy-jobs-middle-class-recession-tariffs/

 

 

5 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

 

Nice that you have posted a photo of your idol.

 

4 minutes ago, novacova said:

Nice that you have posted a photo of your idol.

 

Shouldn't that be "my" and not "your".........

1 minute ago, transam said:

Shouldn't that be "my" and not "your".........

Your obsession, not mine.

oh no. more doom and gloom.

 

4 minutes ago, novacova said:

Your obsession, not mine.

Oh no, it's your mistake......😋

Rahm Emanuel says Dem struggles not a 'marketing problem,' tells party to fix young men’s economic problems

https://www.foxnews.com/media/rahm-emanuel-dem-struggles-not-marketing-problem-tells-party-fix-young-mens-economic-problems

 

Young Democratic men are spending too much time on Tic Toc and not working while the Republicans are changing America for the better. 

No one seems to have an opinion on the actual topic. Never mind.

Stocks and bonds are behaving like the US economy is recession-proof

https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-us-economy-outlook-stock-market-valuations-bond-yields-2025-7

 

More proof that the U.S. economy is booming and there is no chance of a recession. Read the article for statistics. 

Trump has a new sharpy, showing new "secret" numbers on how good things are. Jus seen a clip on ABC news. Hilarious.

51 minutes ago, Keep Right said:

Stocks and bonds are behaving like the US economy is recession-proof

https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-us-economy-outlook-stock-market-valuations-bond-yields-2025-7

 

More proof that the U.S. economy is booming and there is no chance of a recession. Read the article for statistics. 

Would those be Trump's "statistics" (Cue the famous Mark Twin quote).

 

Inflation, by the number used by the Federal Reserve to measure the rate (Personal Expenditures Consumption Price Index) came in at 2.6% last month, well above the Fed inflation target rate of 2%.

 

Long term UE (more than 27 weeks unemployed) has grown by 300,000 since March.

 

The jobs numbers....well, that's now an old story of a petulant child shooting the messenger.

 

Manufacturing jobs have fallen every month since May, and construction jobs are flat.

 

Core GDP---a complex calculation that accounts for inventory differences, seasonal factors, etc.---was down in Q2, despite the headline number recovering from the -.5% of Trump's 1st Quarter.

 

Many companies, during their earnings conference calls, have said they will be forced to raise prices due to the tariffs, so the real effect of the highest tariffs since the Great Depression and Smoot-Hawley have yet to fully kick in.

 

Whistle past the graveyard if it makes you feel good, but reality bites hard when it closes its jaws on those who project Biden's booming economy into an endless future. That +2.8% 4th Q 2024 GDP gain is fading into the background of tariffs and mismanagement.

7 hours ago, novacova said:

Nice that you have posted a photo of your idol.

 

Trump offers the OP a reason to live.

7 hours ago, save the frogs said:

oh no. more doom and gloom.

 

We are so doomed. 

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

It is truly beyond simplistic to attribute, or to even make a correlation between the Dow, a thousand points off its peak, and a healthy US economy. There are 50 other factors that have to be weighed before one can make such a conclusion. 

 

If we're going to have a discussion about this, please at least make an attempt not to dumb it down into jingoism. 

There is one that holds true in the markets.   Markets go up, and markets go down. 

11 hours ago, TedG said:

We are so doomed. 

speak for yourself.

maybe YOU are in living in dark times.

but I just lost 6 kg in the past 2 months.

my BMI is on the up and up, baby. 

 

7 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Some excerpts were taken from this article. 

No one ever taught you how to use quotes huh.

5 hours ago, Wingate said:

The jobs numbers....well, that's now an old story of a petulant child shooting the messenger.

 

Are you contending that the person in charge of the numbers was doing a good job and providing accurate information?

8 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

People are falsely claiming that due to the stock market being strong, the economy is strong. This is beyond false. It would appear the rich are driving the economy now. 75% of Americans are too afraid to buy anything but essentials.

75% ... BS

 

According to these numbers, 20% are in the $25k-$50k brackets.  Only 28% considered low income.

 

40% in $100+K income brackets.   If $100k coming into the household, nobody is struggling.

 

19% have no worries at all.  So who are you 75% ????

 

By these numbers, without the 28%, 72% are doing OK, and 59% are doing damn good.

 

Ms Google tells a different story, if asking ... "percentage of us citizens living in what income brackets"

 

4 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

75% ... BS

 

According to these numbers, 20% are in the $25k-$50k brackets.  Only 28% considered low income.

 

40% in $100+K income brackets.   If $100k coming into the household, nobody is struggling.

 

19% have no worries at all.  So who are you 75% ????

 

By these numbers, without the 28%, 72% are doing OK, and 59% are doing damn good.

 

Sounds like you are either quite wealthy or you haven't been in the US for a very long time. Either way you're reading too many statistics and you're completely out of touch. 

8 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Sounds like you are either quite wealthy or you haven't been in the US for a very long time. Either way you're reading too many statistics and you're completely out of touch. 

50% having incomes $100+k, so if struggling, you're an idiot.

 

Kind of shoots your 75% down real hard.  Only 28% in the <$50k bracket.  Yea, raising a family on that would be a challenge.

A post with a link to a Questionable Source and the replies have been removed. 

China has done a major pivot and their economy does not seem to be suffering from the Trump tariffs very much at all. Canada has likewise been very clever, they have done a major pivot and their very smart leader has found alternative buyers for their gas, oil, their super high quality lumber, and rare earth materials without the US, who has been left by the side of the road and will eventually come begging for those materials. 

 

In China exports climbed 7.2% in July in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, exceeding Reuters-polled economists’ estimates of a 5.4% rise.

 

Trade chaos is forcing America’s allies closer together, and further from the United States. And as that happens, the European Union is trying to position itself at the center of a new global trade map.

 

Just as President Trump has put hefty tariffs on many countries, including Indonesia, the European Union is working to relax trade barriers and deepen economic relations with other nations. 

 

“In hard times, some turn inward, toward isolation and fragmentation,” Ms. von der Leyen said. Then, in a message implicitly extended to world leaders who have been jolted by Mr. Trump’s tariffs, she added, “You are always welcome here, and you can count on Europe.”

 

It is a split screen that is becoming typical. On one side, the United States sows uncertainty as it blows up weeks of painstaking negotiations and escalates tariff threats. On the other, the 27-nation European Union and other American trading partners are forging closer ties, laying the groundwork for a global trading system that revolves less and less around an increasingly fickle United States.

 

“We in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, we really consider Europe to be very, very important in providing global stability,” Mr. Prabowo said on Sunday.

 

The White House officially notified E.U. officials that their carefully drawn plans had blown up. The public learned from Mr. Trump’s social media account that the bloc would be subject to a 30 percent rate.

Mr. Trump simultaneously announced that he would place a similar tariff on goods from Mexico. Canada’s rate is slightly higher, at 35 percent. The likes of Thailand (35 percent), Bangladesh (35 percent) and Brazil (50 percent), along with dozens of other U.S. trading partners, appear to be headed for a similar fate.

 

Nor is the European Union the only global power adopting such a strategy. Canada is also drawing closer to Southeast Asia, while Brazil and Mexico are working to deepen their ties.

 

Shunning the US in every way imaginable is going to be the only option left for many nations. Who's going to be the loser in that scenario? 

 

 

 

 

Leftists put the word out that Trump’s tariffs and the rest of his policies would tank the stock markets and put us into a depression, recession, 401k and IRA’s losing value and all the other fear mongering concerns.

 

Appears they can’t predict Jack Shi-.

 

Today.  All time high.