US stocks were sharply lower Friday as investors digested souring consumer sentiment and inflation data that showed an uptick in one of the Federal Reserve’s key gauges, underscoring the delicate state of the economy as businesses brace for President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The Dow tumbled 750 points, or 1.77%, on Friday. The broader S&P 500 fell 2.1% and the Nasdaq Composite slid 2.8%.
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Wall Street was also grappling with Trump’s announcement on Wednesday of 25% tariffs on all cars shipped into the US, set to go into effect April 3. Trump also announced tariffs on car parts like engines and transmissions, set to take effect “no later than May 3,” according to the proclamation he signed.
That money doesn’t come out of nowhere; the stock market isn’t a magical wealth machine. It works by incentivizing unsustainable private growth at public expense. It’s a grand experiment to see who gets left holding the bag when you line shareholders’ pockets for decades.
The results are in: after a century of trying, it’s not profitable to feed people who can’t pay or provide affordable healthcare or keep our shared commons livable. Public benefit is antithetical to shareholder interests.
We’ve cut the corners as far as they can go; dismantled every regulation; manufactured every last drop of demand. The only growth remaining is mining public user data and selling it to the highest bidder. If you exclude technology companies, the market has already been contracting for at least a decade.
You criticize older generations for expecting the line to keep going up forever and encourage everyone to do the same thing in the same breath.
You’re only making money by fucking someone else today or yourself tomorrow. If you want to own it, that’s fine. But don’t act like you’re Robin Hood for encouraging people to buy in to a broken system.
TL;DR - Make money or don’t. I don’t care.