Trump’s Economy Is A Total Failure
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Okay, we’ve got a whole lot of economic numbers this morning. Let’s start out with the big kahuna. Let’s start out with GDP. We got ourselves a contraction, folks. Yeah, the economy contracted first three months of 2025. Inflation adjusted 0.3 % to the downside. They were expecting a 0.3 % to the upside. Now, I’m going to give you the truth.
when it comes to this. Again, if you try to follow economic numbers on ex social media pundits out there, they’re gonna give it to you based upon whatever side they’re supposed to take or their political affiliation more often than not. We give you the truth. oftentimes, oftentimes like Colonel Jessup said in A Few Good Men, you can’t handle the truth. But the truth is,
The numbers are, even though it’s a contraction, it’s not as bad. It’s not as bad as many are making it out to be as far as growth is concerned. The reason why we had such a dip had to do with something which is called net exports. And that’s the difference between imports and exports. That was a large drag on growth. Now,
actually stripped 4.83 percentage points from headline GDP. Imports, imports first quarter increased at a 41.3%. Why? Tariffs. Again, this is, this is before Liberation Day, folks. So it was before Liberation Day, companies knew that tariffs were coming and they were preparing and they were buying up stuff.
They were shipping stuff over here. I’m curious to see what the numbers were. Again, difficult. was a bit of a lag, but I think we’ll probably see more of this in some cases. we shall see moving forward. But again, negative economic growth. Companies are trying to front run tariffs. Want to remind everybody the technical.
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definition of a recession is two quarters in a row of negative economic growth. Meaning, meaning what? We’re, where are we right now? We’re second quarter, folks, right? Second quarter, April, May, June. And if we see negative economic growth in the second quarter, technically we would be in a recession. And quite frankly, that’s our base case.
right now. I do believe and we’ve been talking about it some time that we think that this is the direction we were heading in. Now, granted, some of the fall off in GDP growth actually had to do with reduced government expenditures. Have no problem with that. We needed to see that happen. But again, overall, when you basically are compiling all of the
numbers, whether it be consumer confidence, whether it be what businesses are planning on doing and spending a myriad of different things, I would continue to see weakness moving forward. And again, that showed up where? In the jobs numbers. The ADP report shows that employers are really slowing down when it comes to hiring. 62,000 jobs were created.
down from 147,000 in March.
I get it.
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I get it. I talked about this. I talked about the stop. I talked about businesses being somewhat paralyzed by the current conditions. Again, I’m not gonna do it. You do it. I’m scared to do it. I don’t know what to do. I’m not gonna hire. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next. And there’s a lot of that at this point in time. So are we gonna have to have one of those situations where, you know, Donald Trump makes like Princess Leia in Star Wars and goes,
Help me Jerome Powell, you’re my only hope. Help me Jerome Powell, you’re my only hope!
They’re pricing in now for one quarter basis point reductions over the course of the year. Probably gonna happen. Probably gonna happen. But again, inflation wasn’t exactly tame. Neither. So again, it’s a bit of a pickle type of a situation when it comes to the overall economy, what the Fed is going to do. But you know,
The tariffs, they’re throwing everything into, and we’ve discussed this at length, I’m not gonna go over it again. But again, continue, we will continue to see this type of unease moving forward, unless of course, we get pullback. And again, that’s what kind of everyone’s been hoping for, and what everyone’s been thinking over the past few days, slowly but surely walking back.
some of the things that were said, try to get some semblance of order for crying out loud. Navarro was on CNBC today and I held my breath. I was like, my God, what is this guy going to say? And he was somewhat tempered, somewhat tempered. I got him that he didn’t, you know, get completely nuts. Lutnik yesterday on CNBC talked about various different
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tax deals that again, the market liked. Again, some of his statements were just completely far out, but that’s, know, let Nick again, until we get, again, some sort of clarity moving forward, I would continue to expect quite a bit of volatility, not when it just comes to the markets. But also with the economy, I a bit of a slowdown and it could get much, much deeper, quite frankly.
When people start holding their powder dry, they start holding their powder dry, say, listen, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Already, we’re in buyback time right now where companies have authorized buybacks of their stock and there maybe might be holding off in doing that because again, they don’t know what’s going to happen moving forward. Again, that’s the problem. You’ve got the two camps out there.
Now you know where I come down on this, but you have true believers. You have true believers that for whatever reason it may be, they think that this is all of a sudden gonna fundamentally change the global trading system and manufacturing is gonna come roaring back here to the United States. Okay. Okay, we’ll see how that works out. Watch talk on wallstreet.com.
