Trumpenomics

[Doctor Phibes]

OMG HE STOPPED FENTANYL!

HE WON THE WAR ON DRUGS.

[jon-nyc]

This jives with what I gleaned from a call with the CIO of Merrill about a week ago. They have access to all the BofA retail info which touches about a quarter of all consumers.

They said that the top 10% of earners’ spending is up 7% yoy while the bottom 90% have been retrenching.

[Horace]

[jon-nyc]

I’ll admit to being a little surprised. It’s not obvious why they should have been retrenching in Q1. The fear of tariff-related inflation and job losses is more of a future concern. You’d also expect higher income people to be more clued in on the risks than the common man.

[Axtremus]

It's unprecedented! It's historical!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/14/trump-tariffs-china-trade/

Since the inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump administration officials have announced new or revised tariff policies more than 50 times, according to a tally by The Washington Post. (A separate tally by Reed Smith, a law firm, has found about 55 such actions.) Trump has issued more than a dozen tariff-related executive orders, or about one per week ..:

[Axtremus]

@jon-nyc said in Trumpenomics:

I’ll admit to being a little surprised. It’s not obvious why they should have been retrenching in Q1. The fear of tariff-related inflation and job losses is more of a future concern. You’d also expect higher income people to be more clued in on the risks than the common man.

Common men fear for the future and tighten belts right away; higher income people say let's buy more and stock up before tariffs get real?

[jon-nyc]

Sure, but that assumes the common man and the higher income folks both have similar intuitions that tariffs are going to harm them economically in the immediate future.

[89th]

Link to video

[jon-nyc]

That’s a lot of emergencies.

[89th]