Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Making America Mediocre Again?

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I wrote this article for the Opening Notes segment of this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole. At the end of the post is a really interesting interview with Peter Atwater sent to me by pal and subscriber Michael Pollaro that you should do yourself the favor of listening to. It’s pretty far reaching, but I think Michael sent it to me because it eloquently expands on the subjects (Trade War & the Fed) introduced below and a lot more. The stuff about Nationalism and the stock market’s vulnerabilities are must listen.

There is nothing new under the sun. As Donald Trump goes about the 1970s playbook (on steroids) the economic world is shifting in ways that will be impossible to quantify ahead of time.

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Trade Update (by Binkius Hippo)

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The amazing thing is that neither Trump nor the American people know what they want from the trade war. China knows exactly what it wants and needs.

Trump seems to want “even” trade with China. Both countries export/import the exact same amount from each other.

The American people want jobs. Trump’s “even” trade goal won’t help that. Reduction in Chinese imports will be filled completely by new trade with: Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand. It will all be more expensive to the American consumer than trade with China because Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand are all more expensive than China (but vastly and by American standards, incomprehensibly cheaper than any American manufacturing).

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Ship Sliding Away

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Well, we’ve gone from the ridiculous to the sublime. At the midst of the China/US negotiation insanity, the latest gambit by the U.S. is to increase tariffs (literally hours away at this point) but NOT on goods already in transit. Evidently, this gives them a few more weeks of breathing room as the cargo vessels groan their way over the Pacific.

I daresay the next ploy will be to demand the ships cut their speed to 5 knots so that even more time is allowed. It’s all become a comic farce at this point. We’ve only had three days of trading so far this week, but it feels like a month or two.

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