Looking Backwards
LB #1
We start by looking at the China trade situation with it being the largest elephant in the room and the prognosis isn’t good. You shut up, no you shut up! Am I going to have to separate you two? Ahh- that’s where we are.
This from Josh Xiao at Bloomberg, “China accused the US of violating their recent trade deal and vowed to take measures to defend its interests, dimming the prospect of an immediate leadership call that Donald Trump wants to have to further bilateral talks.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a statement on Monday rebuking the US president’s claim that Beijing breached the consensus reached in Geneva last month. The dust-up threatened to upend trade relations even as Trump expressed hope Friday he will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett expecting a call to take place this week.
Beijing accused the US of unilaterally introducing new discriminatory restrictions, including new guidelines on AI chip export controls, curbs on chip design software sales to China and the revocation of Chinese student visas.”
We aren’t seeing any deals yet, and we probably won’t. Everyone knows that the US situation is a divided house, and Trump is playing red light green light with everybody and everything. I think China is just mirroring him. It seems that Trump says he wants to meet and then he just rips them with actions. The curbs on chips is an especially hot topic because Nvidia just had to take a multibillion write down because they developed a lesser chip that was going to be able to be sold to the Chinese and then the Americans decided to not allow it. Meanwhile, the craziest thing is happening behind the scenes. Huawei, the advanced cell phone maker, has chips that are getting incredibly close to Nvidia’s. If American technology has any edge in chip technology, I think it will be gone in less than 5 years. Look at Deep Seek, better and cheaper. That is what they do. That’s why they manufacture everything, and we don’t. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
LB #2
China’s mirroring policy is also getting a new nickname. With Trump you just stand up to him and go eye to eye with him and then he will back down because all bullies back down when confronted. This new Art of the Deal policy has a new nickname, Taco. Trump Always Chickens Out. This from Mediaite’s David Gilmour,” Wall Street traders have developed a biting new acronym for a strategy that’s become surprisingly lucrative for President Donald Trump’s whiplash-inducing trade policy: TACO – “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
Reportedly first coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, the term has quickly gained traction among investors who are profiting from what they say is a predictable pattern: Trump threatens steep tariffs, the markets plunge, and days later he backs off in a way that prompts a rebound.
The latest example came over the weekend. On Friday, Trump sent markets reeling by announcing sweeping 50% tariffs on European imports. But by Sunday, the White House abruptly paused the move, citing a fresh round of trade talks. When the markets reopened on Tuesday, stocks surged. The TACO trade strategy is reportedly being openly embraced by some investors, according to the New York Post.
“Once he delivers bad news, investors are buying those stocks when they are beaten down waiting for him to chicken out and watching those stocks rebound in value,” said Ted Jenkin, president of Exit Stage Left Advisors, in an interview with the outlet.
Economists say this type of market behavior, explicitly betting against a sitting president’s follow-through, is unprecedented.”
Well, we have never had a president this poorly versed in economics before either. He thinks foreign countries are going to pay the tariffs he puts on and then tells Wal-Mart not to raise prices. He is trying so bless his heart, but the results are the same as the first time. Exploding spending and broken promises. This is 100% consistent with his history so color me bashful that I am not surprised. I can read and do so. His history is and always has been out there. But you do have to read it. You can’t watch his scripted TV show to learn about the man. But America probably does.
LB #3
We go from one broken boast to another. Trump said he could end the war in Ukraine in one day, and that was false as well. He has now threatened Putin, called him crazy, and yet Putin just mirrors him and ignores Trump. He knows exactly what he is and how to deal with him. This from ZeroHedge,” European leaders have been alarmed in the wake of their May 19 conference phone call with President Trump, as they believe he’s prepared to given Putin a free hand in Ukraine, and is unwilling to impose more sanctions or further confront Moscow in a muscular way. He has also reportedly conveyed that the war is not my problem and that Russia and Ukraine will have to settle it on their own.
He reportedly informed European leaders, which had included French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – that Putin is not ready for peace in Ukraine because he believes he is winning the war.
“On a call Monday, President Trump told European leaders that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t ready to end the Ukraine war because he thinks he is winning, according to senior European officials familiar with the conversation,” The Wall Street Journal, which is the first to reveal the statements, writes.
“European leaders had long believed this—but it was the first time they were hearing it from Trump, these officials said. It also ran counter to what Trump has often said publicly, that he believes Putin genuinely wants peace,” the report continues. They hope with this admission that Trump will escalate in support of Ukraine, but he has remained resistant to this pressure.”
As I said months ago, Putin has troops on the ground, he has dead bodies, he has an economy that is dealing with the stresses of war, and he is doing this against NATO which has provoked him for 25 years. Trump holds no cards here, Zelensky holds no cards here and NATO holds no cards here. Putin holds all the cards unless you want to come and stop him. He warned NATO for years to stop their eastern expansion and then they wanted to plant nuclear weapons on his border. Not the right country to attack Europe. Trump decides to checkmate Putin by getting a critical minerals deal signed with Ukraine and the Trump zealots yelled checkmate thinking he had outfoxed Putin. Putin merely smirked and said come and get them. The response is tons of drones, and it will be interesting to watch how this war changes and if Russia can adapt to these drone attacks. The rumor was that Putin himself almost got caught in one of them. I think drones are changing warfare like the airplane did in World War II.
Looking Forwards…
LF#1
The next three articles are very representative of what Americans have to look forward to. It is less than rosy. Let’s take a little peak in some housing data, from ZeroHedge, “US existing home sales dropped 0.5% MoM in April (considerably worse than the +2.0% MoM rise expected), dropping to just 4.00MM sales SAAR, with sales down 3.1% from a year earlier on an unadjusted basis
This is the weakest April sales pace since April 2009… Sales declined in the West and Northeast, were unchanged in the South and improved in the Midwest.
High-end homes dominated the market’s gains…”
What happened in 2009, wasn’t there a housing crisis or something that almost brought down the financial system? Why are the stats starting to point to that time period? I thought all was well. The housing market is tipping over, and interest rates are not coming down. Very few people can buy a house, more and more people are having to move and get a much higher interest rate and finally sellers are running out of time to refinance their Airbnb, their second home taxes are taking a toll, and the rental incomes are dropping like a stone. Welcome to the housing avalanche. Housing is where most middle and lower class have their wealth. Now watch the equity come flowing out of their houses. That means no new home equity loans, no new spending money, no more cash out re fis.
LF#2
The middle class is about to get pinched but guess who isn’t, the wealthy. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia is planning to sell up to $800 million in stock. Now he followed Trump around the Middle East like a lap dog telling everyone that would listen that he would sell them more chips, and they could build great big things. Trump announced trillions of dollars of future business deals. So why would he sell his stock now instead of waiting for when those trillions come rolling in? Has the stock already priced the trillions of dollars in and he wants to sell at the local top of the market? Or and this isn’t just a thing that propels a canoe forward, maybe just maybe, he is selling because he is thinking, “ can you believe they are doing this?” They are buying all this artificial stuff. What a great idea. China has the same chips now and they can do what I do for less energy and yet they are still buying from me. I better monetize this before I can’t get a home equity loan too.
Their lives are just different. If they build it, you will come Americans. Hook, line, and sinker.
LF#3
While Americans are wracking up debt like a college freshman with a newly unsigned credit card, the rest of the world is slowing realizing that they have to pay their bills. What do I mean by that? Unlike Elon, Don, and Jensen, promises don’t cut the mustard in the real world. Denmark is having to raise its retirement age. This from the Lauri Gozzi at the BBC, “Denmark is set to have the highest retirement age in Europe after its parliament adopted a law raising it to 70 by 2040.
Since 2006, Denmark has tied the official retirement age to life expectancy and has revised it every five years. It is currently 67 but will rise to 68 in 2030 and to 69 in 2035.
The retirement age at 70 will apply to all people born after 31 December 1970….However, last year Social Democrat Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the sliding scale principle would eventually be renegotiated.
“We no longer believe that the retirement age should be increased automatically,” she said, adding that in her party’s eyes “you can’t just keep saying that people have to work a year longer”.
Tommas Jensen, a 47-year-old roofer, told Danish media that the change was “unreasonable”.
“We’re working and working and working, but we can’t keep going,” he said.
He added that the situation may be different for those with desk jobs but that blue-collar workers with physically demanding professions would find the changes difficult.
“I’ve paid my taxes all my life. There should also be time to be with children and grandchildren,” Mr Jensen told outlet DK…Protests backed by trade unions against the retirement age increase took place in Copenhagen over the last few weeks.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Jesper Ettrup Rasmussen, the chairman of a Danish trade union confederation, said the proposal to increase the retirement age was “completely unfair”.
“Denmark has a healthy economy and yet the EU’s highest retirement age,” he said.
“A higher retirement age means that [people will] lose the right to a dignified senior life.”
Well, Jesper, let me fill you in a bit about dignified senior life. You should earn it. If you have paid it, and you haven’t earned it then you need to examine your government’s plan. Perhaps you should be more like Jensen Huang and just sell sell sell and you can be more dignified, but slurping milk out of the socialist saucer ? There is nothing dignified about that at any age. Americans, this is social security. They don’t have the huevos rancheros to touch your beloved social security but they have already spent all the other money so the age limits are going to have to rise, the benefits are going to have to be cut, and you won’t get to live the dignified life of a Danish senior or a breast signing life like Jensen Huang and where is that fun in that life?
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
The Dow Jones finished trading …at 42,270.
The 10-year Treasury bond is at …4.43%
The price of Brent Crude is … at $63.9 per barrel .
The price of gold is … at $3,309/oz.
The price of silver is … at $33.24/oz.
I leave you with this from the information superhighway, Why did the woman go on the date with the mushroom? Because he was a fun-ghi.
Thank you for listening today and you can find all of our articles and more on our website cthomasprinter.com.