Price rises

‘The S&P 500 fell 155 points today. The amount of value destroyed on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ today is equivalent to ten times what we’ve given Ukraine. Today. Yes, you read that right. One day. That’s not paper money. That’s real money.’

If Russia was writing a playbook to destroy the West, this would be it.

What’s causing these huge losses??

1. Uncertainty The markets hate uncertainty and Trump spells CHAOS. Foreign investors pull their money and put it where there will be greater stability.
2. Putin and Russia. Sucking up to the enemies of the USA is causing bewilderment. For decades Russia has been the major enemy; the country it looked as if we were vying with; the country who we were likely to have a war with (a massive nuclear conflagration). For decades they were, along with China, the commie threat. There were wars in Vietnam, Korea and Cambodia to stem their influence. Now, suddenly, in an act of Orwellian double-think, they are allies. Trump is voting with them in the UN against Western allies. Trump is supporting the invasion of Ukraine. Trump is siding against Ukraine and Western allies. There is even talk (stemming from three different sources) of Trump being a Russian agent called Krasnov. It spooks the markets.
3. Betrayal of friends and allies. Using a stream of outright lies Trump is threatening NATO, the UN and lambasting Europe. He has overturned hundreds of years of diplomacy and alliances. This is a new world order and nobody knows who to trust.
4. Tariffs on friends and neighbours. Ridiculous talk of making Canada an American state and piling tariffs on Mexico and Canada has seriously enraged Canadians and Mexicans and greatly affected trade. A trade war affects world markets. A trade war spooks markets. In the aftermath of tit for tat reprisals and uncertainty, soaring prices, boycotts and fury, businesses look for alternatives and shoppers shun American goods. The results are long-lasting.
5. Threats. Threats to invade Greenland could create a war with NATO allies. The UK and Europe could actually find itself at war with the USA. Unbelieveable. Then we have the Panama canal. That could also escalate into a war.
6. Gaza. True to his tendency to side with totalitarian, extreme right-wing dictators (Putin, Jung Un, Oban, Bolsonaro etc) Trump has unconditionally thrown his support behind Netanyahu and his genocide of the Palestinian people. Without any understanding of the delicate, fragile state of affairs in the Middle East, with all its religious and political machinations, Trump has given carte blanche to Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing maniacs to completely flatten Gaza and starve all the millions of Palestinian survivors to submission. He has absurdly threatened to drive them all out of their homeland and take it over to create a Riviera tourist resort for the wealthy. Not a thought has gone into the effects of this gung-ho moneymaking scheme. Not a thought of the effects on other Arab countries or Iran. It’s a powder keg and Trump’s lit a fuse.
7. Cheap Labour. The indiscriminate war or immigrants, with mass expulsions, will have an immense impact on the economy. Migrant workers provide cheap labour for field work, factories and all manner of industries. The intent is to cut welfare and drive Americans into working for peanuts. The reality is that Americans are highly resistant to take up these low-paid jobs. Either wages have to rise or crops rot. Either way prices go up. Markets don’t like inflation.
8. DOGE – it always seems a good idea to cut the waste from government spending, trim all the departments. The reality is different. When you take a chainsaw to the departments you suddenly discover that many of them are actually doing essential jobs – like traffic control, monitoring nuclear plants and keeping people safe. Remove the safety checks and people die, planes crash, we get mass pollution and peoples’ health suffers. Putting an unelected megalomaniac billionaire in charge doesn’t look like a good idea. The markets take a dim view.
9. Miscellaneous acts of vandalism. Taking all the funding away from science, stopping all monitoring of the environment or pollutants, funding oil, dispensing with renewables. Sounds on the surface as if he is taking all the brakes off. Industries can now drill in national parks, create waste and pollute to their hearts’ content. That’ll make money and provide jobs in the short-term. But, in the future it will catch up with them. A few environmental disasters, a slew of litigation for health and deaths and people will start demanding health and safety and accountability. Not only that but the future is in the new technologies, not the old polluting, outdated technologies. By opting out the USA is giving the future to China who is throwing everything at it. The USA will sink like a stone.

If Trump really is a Russian Agent then Job Done. He has successfully thrown the whole West into a panic, upturned markets and alliances and created disharmony. Russia and Xi must be laughing their heads off.