As someone who has been through actual market crashes before (1998, 2000, what happened after September 11, 2001, and 2008), this self-inflicted market takedown (via these tariffs) is only the beginning of what will be a multi-year protracted slide. The past two days of red, is nothing. My main brokerage retirement account is down over 10% in these past two days. And I know it will go down even further.
This chart is ONLY getting close to the market indices being 10% down. Try another 10-20% down and now we are talking about the sort of palpable fear that you need with the market sentiment to get that washout for an actual bottom to start forming. This never takes place “overnight” or in a short time period. More so when all of this is being massively self-inflicted by incompetent Kremlin assets.
Myself, I am also in the same boat as the ones who are at least financially independent and in my case, have high 4-digit percentage gains from over 2+ decades of long term investing to serve as a cushion. The market would need to give up all of its gains from the mid-2000’s in order for my portfolios to go underwater. I did take a small amount of profit back in February just to have additional cash on hand. I also have “stink” buy bids in place for stocks that I want to eventually accumulate more of. These bids are for the trading algorithms to see (and I am just placing them intentionally low for the time being).
But I also know most aren’t in this financial position and will be hurt massively by this idiocy being perpetrated by the Kremlin assets that are in the process of dismantling the U.S. government. I am also cognizant that the buying power of the U.S. dollar will be eroded where I would need to liquidate far more holdings to cover the costs of everything (and that any cash on hand, will be decimated by inflation). There is no way to spin any of this positively. This is oligarchy in action; for the people who actually voted for this (by voting for the convicted felon), we knew this would happen (“I told you so” is so anti-climatic at this point versus wanting these particular folks to feel the brunt of the pain – this says a lot because I’m normally extremely empathetic for those who aren’t complete idiotic morons).
This time around, the damage is going to be even more severe because America and American brands/companies will have this damaged reputation as a result of this regimes “I don’t give a fuck” attitude regarding other countries except its new association with the other global pariahs (like North Korea and Russia). The global economy will also take a hit (we are far more connected now compared to past market slides) BUT will recover once other countries simply move away from having this fascist version of America, no longer a global trading partner. Boycotting American companies and their products needs to be a thing with little exceptions except for the necessities.
A functional Congress would deal with this. The problem is that the U.S. is no longer a functional Democracy given the level of capture by the Kremlin. To those who haven’t been paying attention OR those already in the MAGA cult who just chalk all of this denialism up as crazy conspiracy theories or “derangement syndrome”, the proof will bear itself out by the actual actions of this regime (which for those who aren’t brainwashed in the U.S. and globally, will end up being witness to the effects of those actions). We’ve got a ways to go before the bottom actually falls out so buckle up for the wild ride of volatility that will be taking place (and don’t be the fool that tries to catch the falling knife while this is going on).
