No Stupid Questions

I'm not surprised why big companies no matter what morals they claim(ed) to follow still do business like nothing happened. As long as they can strive for profits and shareholder value they will. Big business is the last place one should look for any sort of backbone.

I'm also surprised why there hasn't been more of an impact on the stock market. I wouldn't have expected an immediate drop of 50% or some catastrophic decrease like that. That's because a lot of the incredibly smart economic policies from stable genius will take time to cut into bottom lines. First prices continue to go up for US consumers, spending will go down, unemployment numbers will go up, and then possibly a recession. Which he will blame on Greenland, I suppose.

Stock markets are legal gambling. As long as the gamblers still have hope they will play. Most will play without hope as well. And Trump 45 was good for them so hope is still very much alive.

At the same time, chainsaw wielding deregulation will help businesses in the US. It may not be great for consumers or the environment but tax breaks are great if you can get them. Melon Usk is not bulldozing any sort of oversight for his business interests or the IRS for no reason.

As for uprooting security alliances I think we will see a move away from US manufactured defense goods pretty soon, maybe starting next year. Europe will concentrate on its own industry more than ever. Even if they don't find a common position to take in regards to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they will all look to increase spending locally rather than transatlantically, having hopefully learned that reliance on Washington is futile.

Defense contacts are harder to get rid of than a Tesla though, these things take even longer to show up on Wall Street. I mention Tesla though because numbers came out recently in France and Germany that showed a dramatic drop in new car registrations. I think this development on the micro level will eventually reach macro proportions as well. I am personally waiting for pitchforks being sharpened in Usk's boardrooms because his doge antics and political statements cut into their bonuses.

The tariffs will trigger a recession for sure. I think the markets are waiting to see what happens with those. A new war in Europe could trigger one as well, but we'd have to see it first. The rest of the things you listed have nothing to do with the stock market.

Because the stock market is pure fantasy that doesn't have anything to do with the economy?

Because the stock market isn't a measure of how well a country is operating. On the contrary, deregulation allows companies to boost profit via harmful means. Rich people got it good under Trump/Republicans and therefore the stock market thrives until disaster strikes and it all comes crashing down.

The stock market is a speculative vehicle whereby predominantly rich people get richer. Generally pointing at everything should indicate a lot of rich people getting richer, so what’s the issue? It’s only if you take the valuation of the stock market as some kind of core health measurement of the economy that it stops making sense. Because it’s not that.

They have most of the wealth. They don't need the working class. Just jeep purchasing beach others netbooks and number goes up. Realized it wasn't tied to reality during covid.

Trump: "I'll run the USA like a company!"

How business people run companies: Fire all the competent people and replace with cheaper new hires. Report huge short term profits due to reduced payroll. Stock goes up. CEO ditches company and sells off stock before all the new hires completely wreak the company and tank the stock price.

Why wouldn't the stock market be up at this point?

Stock market is basically meme gambling these days no different from crypto. Its not a reliable indicator of anything.

I think economy, in the sense of money as a concept, is an illusion. We all just agree that money is worth something. When our belief in the American Dollar fails, so would follow any stocks tied up in businesses that rely upon it. Those trillions and tax cuts that Musk has? Worthless.

shrug

That is my hypothesis, anyways. My guess is that we are into a Weimer Germany sort of scenario. I have been converting my money into Euros, with the assumption that America as we knew it is going to die horribly within years. Hopefully, my efforts are pragmatic, not paranoid. 😕

The stock market is delaminated from the real market, and has been for a while.

How this has happened is not simple but a short version is that as the stock market has evolved it became a key place to put assets with a level of growth expectation. As time goes on the demand for a place for investment without effort (starting your own business vs investing in a businesses stock) keeps getting larger and the alternatives keep getting less desirable (bonds, GICs, etc.) causing a sort of investment feedback loop. There is X amount of money that needs to be invested each year lets say, and if every thing is crashing (waves at the general state of things) it means nothing is since pensions, people and firms still need to have that investment somewhere.

As long as there is still some expectation of return and faith in the current stock market you will have investment and as stocks (and therefor the market) are measured by the demand (the buy vs the sell) we have the current situation. If you want to see what happens when a stock market looses people's faith and therefor investment look at China's stock market crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_Chinese_stock_market_turbulence

That depression that's coming is only for the working class. The rich will keep making money using us indentured workers as slaves to make more money.

Because the stock market doesn't reflect real life

Maybe we should abolish stock markets.

Investors understand that he's going to do everything he can to transfer wealth to the top. That makes it safe to invest more because more will be coming in. That's my casual guestimate.

The stock market will always be up and going up if people keep putting more money in it.

Stocks represent all assets that can be sold and traded publicly. Although US infrastructure is crumbling, all the shit is still there.

Times are hard but we still have obscene material wealth (for now, here is hoping climate change doesn’t reduce that too much). Ironically, stocks should have gone down in the pandemic cause of the productive capacity dropping but it didn’t cause a lot of cash was printed.

For stock prices to tumble down and crash, people need to take their money out of it. That’s only going to happen if there is another economy that people prefer to put their money in (like China).

So what is more likely to happen is we keep having stock prices go higher and higher, cause more and more money would be in circulation (so inflation). But our productive capacity could drop. So we could become much more poor, have little wealth all around, and go to the baker to buy 1 loaf of bread with $1000 price tag.

TLDR: when your economy represents basically “everything”, it won’t crash unless human civilization crashes.

As others have said, the stock market has little to do with reality. It's focused on money and business reports. As long as companies are showing profits, the stock market literally doesn't care.

Something only hits it when businesses hit it. Look at today's market. Walmart posted bad futures and the whole market recoiled (only a bit but still).

There's also just the denial phase. Lots of people, at lots of levels, are dependent on the stock market for their own finances. Literally everyone with a 401k has an interest in the market doing well. Saying "welp, we're fucked" is just not something that anyone wants to put towards wall street. It's why we have market "crashes", because people hold out until the water covers the bow of the sinking shop then they freak out and bail out at the last second.

The stock market is speculative and is not a reflection of reality nor is it a good measure of the health of an economy.