Why Is Everyone Suddenly Agreeing We Should Tackle Unfair Trade Practices?
Shared from The Pomp Letter
Hi friends,
Anthony Pompliano writes mostly about crypto. This article covers a broader area, aspects we are all interested in.
I’ve included some excerpts, and his full Substack article is here.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on a heater this weekend. First, he called out the media for their lopsided coverage of recent volatility in financial markets. Bessent said in an interview with ABC:
"There was a story ten days ago that said this is the worst April for the stock market since the Great Depression. Ten days later, the Nasdaq is now up on the month of April, and I haven't seen a story that says 'stock market has biggest bounce back ever.'"
Regardless of whether you like the current administration or not, you have to acknowledge the coverage has been biased to say the least. Most investors are not looking to inject their politics into their portfolio. They want to understand the facts of the current situation, combined with the probability of what is going to happen in the future, so they can correctly position themselves to profit.
Bessent wasn’t done there though.
He went on to explain the barbell economy that makes of up the United States of America:
“The U.S. has a barbell economy. We have a financial system and tech sector that's the envy of the world. On the other side, we're a natural resource economy led by energy. In between is where working class Americans have lost out — and we want to fix that.”
By reiterating his commitment to the working class, Bessent is clearly articulating exactly what the goal of this administration’s economic policies are. Frankly, the people who are critiquing the policies tend to agree on the admirable goal, yet they disagree on the path to achieve these goals.
Take Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC and NY Times — he was on the All-In podcast recently and most people were surprised to hear Sorkin and David Sacks agree on the high-level strategic goals.
…
So what exactly is the goal? Well, we got more clarity on that this weekend — President Trump said multiple times he wants to cut taxes for a large portion of American citizens. He started the weekend by posting it on Truth Social:
Then he followed that up with an interview yesterday where he said “We're gonna cut taxes for the people of this country. It'll take a little while... it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut. I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.”
As expected, the supporters of the administration think massive tax cuts are right around the corner. The critics believe Trump is blowing smoke and won’t be able to cut taxes at all. The truth is somewhere in-between in my opinion. Tax cuts will probably happen, but they will take longer than expected and they won’t be complete elimination of federal income tax.
It won’t matter though — millions of Americans who make $200,000 or less would welcome a lower tax rate. I don’t blame them. And lower taxes means more money in people’s pocket, which leads to more consumption and economic growth. Again, there is plenty of disagreement on the tactical decisions, but almost every person I know thinks it would be powerful to cut taxes for majority of Americans without losing government revenue.
If you remember, the state of Mississippi announced back in March they would be eliminating the state income tax. That is just one example in recent history. The Governor said at the time “our people should be awarded for hard work, not punished.”
You are not going to find many people who disagree with that sentiment.
So this brings me to the market reaction from the administration’s economic policies — everyone thinks financial assets have been suffering, but the exact opposite is true. Since the close of the stock market on Liberation Day, the S&P 500 is up. Gold is up. Bitcoin is up. Inflation is down. And job creation is up.
Now we are only talking about a little more than three weeks, so no one should be taking victory laps just yet, but these positive results highlight how the market is seeing the current state of economic policy. Add in one or two interest rate cuts by the summer, combined with a few announcements of trade deals with foreign countries, and I anticipate we will see asset prices right back to all-time high levels.
Lets see what happens. Hope you all have a great start to your week. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.
- Anthony Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
As always, do your own research; make up your own mind.
References to other sources do not necessarily reflect my opinions, and I make no claim to their veracity or completeness. I provide them for your consideration.
(AI may have been used in this article.)
God bless you, God bless President Trump and team, and God bless America!
Stay calm - President Trump is a businessman who operates strategically, and not everything will make sense at first. His plan to shrink government and Make America Great Again is a process, not an overnight fix. Trust the long game, not just the headlines.
This message reflects my personal perspective on current events. While I strive for accuracy, please verify details through official sources linked above. If sharing, I encourage readers to include this disclaimer to ensure clarity.
United we stand. Divided we fall. We must not let America fall.
VoteTexas.gov, https://www.votetexas.gov/get-involved/index.html
Until next time…
Please share your thoughts in the comments. Or email me, and let’s have a problem-solving conversation. I hope we can create a caucus with positive, back-to-the-founders’-dream-for-America results. Have a topic you want to know more about?
Some housekeeping…
Going forward, you may need to check your spam folder. And please mark this address as ‘not spam.’ If the newsletter isn’t in your spam folder either, you should look in the Promotions tab.
You can always see everything on the website, RationalAmerican.org.
Thanks again for reading! I’m glad you’re here!