Handcuffed perpetual optimism The Trump tariff "step-downs" may have taken the edge off of the worst-case trade war scenarios. Between the Treasury Bessent floating interventionist tools (including the "not-so-subtle nod to buybacks) and Waller softening up the Federal Reserve tone, there's a clear effort to engineer a sentiment
Fed unwilling to mop up the consequences of Trump tariffs Fed Chair Powell is playing the adult and reminding the public that tariffs aren't just headlines. Powell is flagging the obvious, yet overlooked by many. Tariffs are inflationary. They act like a tax on imports, driving up prices for consumers, which feeds into the CPI. At the same
Exceptional No More: The U.S. Lost Its Halo For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, the United States has enjoyed a unique position of financial dominance over the rest of the world. This is what's called "U.S. exceptionalism," implied by the phrase itself, but not only superior economic performance, but also structural