Tariffs Catch-All

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Market futures turning slightly positive at the moment. 🤷‍♀️
 
nycfan said:
My grandpa fought in WWII and sitting on his knee I learned otherwise about harakiri. Not saying he was right (he actually was a tank commander in the European theater), but I require convincing about what was honorable in that case. A bias if you will.
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It was part of bushido, the samurai code of honor. In WWII, bushido was appropriated to terrible and dishonorable ends, but the code had existed for hundreds of years before that (it was actually outlawed for a while).

Generally speaking, bushido is often compared to chivalry. Seppuku (the more accurate name, from what I understand) was a part of it. The feudal lord could order seppuku, but often it was a way for a wrong doer to regain honor. Or for a disgraced warrior to regain a legacy.

For instance: seppuku would always require a second, the guy with a katana who slices off the head of the disemboweled person. That was for a failed seppuku, or to end the misery. But the second was expected to slice the head clean off, and if he failed on the first time, it was greatly dishonorable and the second was often expected to seppuku himself.

Here's the wikipedia entry for a prominent Japanese nationalist who did seppuku in 1970. Note that his "kaishakunin" -- i.e. the second referred to above -- failed in the slice and then did it himself (failing again, so the guy who had to step in the first time had to off his head as well).

en.wikipedia.org

Yukio Mishima - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

There's a brilliant anti-Samurai film from the 60s called Harikiri. It's a remarkable film. Absolutely worth watching a couple of times.
 
Also:

en.wikipedia.org

Seppuku - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

"It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour, but was also practised by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (particularly officers near the end of World War II) to restore honour for themselves or for their families
 
nycfan said:
Welp.



Glad I traded my car on Friday. 🤷‍♀️ downsized with improved tech and no car payment now thanks to expected spike in used car prices.
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Why trade? You could have sold your old car next week at a higher markup.
 
Calheel said:
Why trade? You could have sold your old car next week at a higher markup.
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Had a purchase offer and a specific vehicle I wanted and opportunity to walk away owning outright without much effort. The time it would take me to sell it had time-value, too. But understand and debated your argument.
 
nycfan said:
Had a purchase offer and a specific vehicle I wanted and opportunity to walk away owning outright without much effort. The time it would take me to sell it had time-value, too. But understand and debated your argument.
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Makes sense, especially if you were getting a good deal on the new one.
 
nycfan said:
Market futures turning slightly positive at the moment. 🤷‍♀️
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The so called market "experts" still are not buying ANY of this tariff talk and threats. The market "thinks" Trump is just forcing everyone to come to the table and capitulate to Trump's wishes.

Many are saying all these tariffs will be gone by mid year, just a few months away. They haven't even started yet.

I've worked in this area for decades. I've seen markets spooked down 15% or more over NOTHING. Yet, all this craziness, and the market is barely sneezing.
 
Kraftyheel89 said:
The so called market "experts" still are not buying ANY of this tariff talk and threats. The market "thinks" Trump is just forcing everyone to come to the table and capitulate to Trump's wishes.

Many are saying all these tariffs will be gone by mid year, just a few months away. They haven't even started yet.

I've worked in this area for decades. I've seen markets spooked down 15% or more over NOTHING. Yet, all this craziness, and the market is barely sneezing.
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I've always thought the after-hours futures markets in the US are not good at price discovery. The first sign will be the Asian markets, I think. But hold on one minute. I'm going to post something else.
 
So we've read about internal fighting between Lutnick and Bessent. Lutnick was about reciprocal tariffs; Bessent wants a universal tariff. So we got both.

BUT the universal tariff might not be so bad. Because it's universal, its primary effect could be to just raise the value of the dollar without affecting trade flows. Basically, there will be a 10% tax on everything, but the imports will be 10% less expensive because of the currency movements, and everything is a wash.

Unless there is retaliation. But anyway, the universal tariff was what Bessent was writing about last year. I don't remember how he handled retaliation. He's directionally correct, though I would not expect the dollar appreciation to fully adjust dollar for dollar.

The reciprocal tariffs, by contrast, are absolute lunacy and the currencies will not be able to adjust. I'd have to check my math, but I think it's impossible for a matrix of bilateral currency rates to arrive at a set of stable equilibria if those other currencies can be traded (as of course they are) and if there are different rates for each country. In that case, we'd end up with a dollar that kinda sorta adjusts to averages, but it would be an absolute mess.
 
nycfan said:
Had a purchase offer and a specific vehicle I wanted and opportunity to walk away owning outright without much effort. The time it would take me to sell it had time-value, too. But understand and debated your argument.
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In fairness to you, I can see how you're strapped for cash since apparently subscribe to every media outlet, blog and substack forum known to humankind. And share them all with us, generously, of course.
 
Super,
You are correct, you can not read anything into after hours trading. I'm not saying stocks won't have a bad day tomorrow, in fact I think they will.

But after hours trading is just a tiny fraction of trading. There will be more orders waiting to execute at market open, than are traded in all of after hours trading. It is probably 10X the amount in a normal day.

So the market will open and trade based on market orders filled at open. After hours doesn't mean shit.
 
Kraftyheel89 said:
The so called market "experts" still are not buying ANY of this tariff talk and threats. The market "thinks" Trump is just forcing everyone to come to the table and capitulate to Trump's wishes.

Many are saying all these tariffs will be gone by mid year, just a few months away. They haven't even started yet.

I've worked in this area for decades. I've seen markets spooked down 15% or more over NOTHING. Yet, all this craziness, and the market is barely sneezing.
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I'm seeing some futures/after-hours trading down. But I agree, Trump has a Houdini-like ability to avoid tanking markets despite his best efforts.
 
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