Link to archived tweet
Okay, here’s my conspiracy theory…
Now let’s say you’re Trump and the supreme Court has said it’s just about impossible to convict somebody of corruption in the US. You see that you’re going to be elected president and your goal is to figure out how to make a crap ton of money off being present. Now you can do the boring old s make dignitaries stay at your hotel thing or have foreign governments. Give Jared kushner a bunch of money… But that’s all pocket change. If you’re president, you can crash the economy. If you know a bunch of Rich Russian oligarchs who can short the market and you can tell them exactly when the market will crash then they can make billions… And you can get your cut too.
This is why Trump doesn’t really give a shit why the tariffs are in place. That’s why he makes up bullshit answers when asked why the tariffs are implemented. He doesn’t care. … But he really really really wants to yank the market around. First he says tariffs happening, then he says they’re not, then they’re happening again. Every time the market goes up and down he can make a shit ton of money if he can accurately predict when it goes up or down.
I can’t get this idea out of my head. It makes more sense than anything else I can come up with. There’s so much money to be made if you have the power to yank around the u.s. economy and enough narcissism to not give a shit about the people hurt in the process.
What I’m wondering when reading such theories is: does money matter all that much to these people? Like when you’re 80+ years old and a billionaire I don’t see what the end game there is, unless it’s just an uncle Scrooge attitude but I still find it a bit hard to believe. I think that in order to become a billionaire you need to be seriously driven by something more than 0s - maybe power, influence or attention.
I like the little hopeful bump before the inauguration.
That’s not a bump. It’s in line with the rest of the world.
Yes, a bump in the world markets. On US news. A trend I hope we see less of in the future.
On US news.
What news in particular? Remember, People knew for months that Trump was going to be inaugurated.
Still no idea why it happened, but it was a nice little bonus when I sold off all my positions before he came to power.
Smart. It was the the hope of a business man coming in and doing things good for the market (not for people mind you, wall st is not that out of touch)
This is going to be a hard one to explain to the MAGA fans
What isn’t hard to explain to that lead poisoned cult of cunts.
It’s ukraine’s fault. Should’ve thanked harder
why would Joe Biden do this
The stock market was bloated
Actual trump regime statements
Despite all the myths Democrats are better for the economy. They always produce better numbers.
rich ppl yacht money “economy”, sure
Uh no? Compare employment numbers from whichever source you prefer. Democratic presidents have lower unemployment.
That’s not true. They definitely should do way more to help the working class but the numbers show that the economy in general is better under them.
Damnit, I came here to blame Joe Biden, but it seems like everyone else beat me to it. Oh well, time to go tariff some more countries and then act shocked by the results…
How dare Biden tank the economy while trump is president just to make him look bad! Any day now, all these incomprehensible tariff ramblings, threats, and further ostracization of our allies are going to make America so great! /s
Maybe Trump just didn’t know how to spell and he just meant “Make America grate again” because it certainly does something like that to most people’s nerves at the moment.
How did Justin Trudeau manage this? I thought he was too busy making potholes?
slams fist on desk
Biden!
As the fellon in the White House said - „it’s just a small group, boycotting, attacking …“ well I don’t think so „Mr. president“
more like lol street amirite
Tbh Wall Street can fuckin off. They helped create this mess. If this ship is going down, let’s make sure none of the assholes find a seat on a life boat.
You think they aren’t already profiting off of the downturn?
half of them voted for this guy, so yeah I’m wondering whether they actually saw it coming or not
They’ll buy everything that collapses up at a great discount
yeah but will it actually rise again
All of everyone’s retirement accounts are invested in the market. So it’s not just those assholes who get fucked by this.
Maybe it will force Americans to do something against that? If no one has any retirement, there’s bound to be a lot of public outcry. There’s nothing to lose if you have nothing.
In fact, those assholes will be fine. WE won’t.
Lucky me, I don’t have any retirement investments!
How much of retirement accounts represent in % for the overall stock market?
Assuming that all of the equities held by the bottom 99% are invested in retirement accounts, it would be 50.1% of the market. [https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:140;series:Corporate equities and mutual fund shares;demographic:networth;population:all;units:shares]
Not much, but the peecent of people who have their money in stocks for retirement is high.
All of everyone’s retirement accounts are invested in the market.
Americans not willing to recognize that Social Security exists is such a fucking capitalist vibe
Social security is not enough to live off of. Is projected to be unobtainable for future generations who are paying into it, and is currently on the chopping block
If the billionaires actually paid their share into it, it would be fine…
Yes.
Social security is not enough to live off of.
Nevertheless, it is 40% of retirement income. And none of it comes from the stock market.
projected to be unobtainable for future generations
Projected by advocacy groups trying to abolish social security.
You are being untruthful and dismissive: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/tr/2024/tr2024.pdf Page 9 is the jist.
They are going to have to change something either raise the retirement age or lower the payments both which make it more unobtainable then it already is. And that 40% is based what people make… in a time of rising inflation and stagnant wages…
The fact that social security is not tied to the market is super irrelevant, when the argument was that the 401k is in danger, when social security already is not enough to live on. so it’s important that people have a successful 401k to supplement it.
The real solution is making the average wage go up. Significantly. Which puts more money into the program overall.
With so much money having been shifted away from the average worker and Into the pockets of people who hit the FICA cap in their first paycheck of the year, over the last few decades, it was bound to have issues.
I agree with that, or a ubi, or taxing the rich. All that jazz
They are going to have to change something either raise the retirement age or lower the payments
Or just pay directly out of the general fund, which they can do with a simple vote in Congress and which they already do for Medicare/caid.
The fact that social security is not tied to the market is super irrelevant
It is the primary argument both for and against the program. Investors kick and scream about the benefits of compound interest, right up until a big market nosedive and bankruptcy spree. Meanwhile, it’s the benchmark for guaranteed basic income that progressives love to reference.
Decoupling income from economic growth isn’t irrelevant. It’s the program’s entire raison d’etre.
You would have the tax payers pay even more of the burden now, with out the benefit of even having it contribute to their social security… to pay the gap in social security, damning the tax payers twice. That’s not a permanent solution on top of that! I’m not saying social security should be attached to the market. I mean we are talking about the market fall after all! I am saying that being flippant that everyone Just needs to remember they have social security is dismissive and not relevant.
I switched to cash last week.
Oh you can be sure Congress will be working overtime to pass a bill with relief to those big businesses that cannot fail.
Maybe they should try more tariffs. More tariffs will fix it definitely.
We just need to hawk more $100k Teslas from the White House. …what a fucking embarrassment.
Yo dawg, I heard you like tarrifs…
Too much trade between the states. We need to rip up the Interstate Commerce Clause
Side note, why do people seem to struggle so much with the spelling of the word “tariff”? We’ve seen it so many times yet so many people get it wrong.
Not really a side note, this is just the tip of the “American stupidity and overconfidence that got us here” iceberg.
Here in the US, I transfered most of my 403(b) investments into European, Asian, and “emerging market” funds, so I’m happy to be doing my part.
Same, babe. Sold all my iShares and Vanguard ETFs and moved into BMO emerging markets, Euro, and Canadian funds.
I still need to look into my employer group pension account. I don’t know how much control I actually have over that.
I did the same with my IRA. I was in VOO but moved to VGK and some short term bonds. So far I’ve saved myself a good amount of money.
Fuck, that’s a good idea.
Thank you.
any guidance or resources for an idiot who would like to explore that?
If you have a 401(k) or 403(b) through your employer, your employer should be partnered with an investment firm to manage it (e.g. T Rowe Price, Prudential, or Transamerica). You need to figure out which company you’ve got and log in to your account. Ask your HR dept if you can’t figure it out.
That firm will automatically choose where to invest your money unless you log in to your account on their website and tell them where you want it invested.
Most investment firms will offer a limited selection of mutual funds with a variety of objectives. They usually link to each prospectus right there on the site, and the prospectus often has a pie chart telling you where a fund’s investments are located (US, Europe, Asia, etc). It will also list their performance over time, expense ratios, and other useful info, like whether they invest in large vs small cap businesses and their largest individual holdings.
You want to change both where your current investments are allocated and where your future contributions will be allocated.
You also want to try to find funds with low expense ratios (I try to stay below 0.10% unless it’s a fund I really like and am willing to make an exception for). Anything titled “index fund” is likely to be low. Your money is almost guaranteed to be automatically invested in funds with high expense ratios, cutting into your long-term growth, because the investment firm makes big bucks giving your money to people who aren’t wise with it.
If you want to get serious, you can even set up a personal choice account where you can totally independently decide where to invest your money, even in individual stocks. This comes with significant risk and is not a great idea for laypeople like you or I.
What’s interesting to me is that the “shape” of the line still matches the global line pretty well so there are some “fundamental” aspects that still affect markets, but overall we’re in a nosedive for “some reason.”
Any Americans tired of winning yet?
I am so tired of winning, I’d love alternatives.
Denmark, if you’re listening… I have an idea.
I can’t handle being any greater.
So very much
