Free Republic

Yes, I agree. In the long run, President Trump wants a reasonably peaceful regime change in Iran, because that’s the only way to get rid of the Iranian nuclear weapons program forever, and have long-term peace and stability in our world.

This recent statement that he “doesn’t want regime change in Iran” just means that it’s not the right time now for a reasonably peaceful regime change without a civil war in Iran. This will all take some time...but 1 or 2 years is a short time in world history.

Well I think if supplied with enough bombs & missiles, the Israeli Air Force could devastate central Teheran and eliminate most of the top leaders in the Iranian regime, without using nuclear weapons. Whether that would cause a regime change is highly uncertain. That would depend greatly on whether the regular Iranian Army decided to back a regime change, and to what extent the IRGC really wants to fight Israel (and maybe the Iranian Army) to preserve their regime. Those are apparently big unknowns.

I’m sure the Mossad knows much more about this than anyone in the news media, but they’re not talking about it (as always).

I think IDF intelligence knows that the Iranian missiles lack the accuracy to have a high probability of hitting specific buildings housing aircraft in Israeli air bases. It would just be a lucky shot for the Iranians to hit a building and destroy a couple of aircraft. So they probably just let the air force personnel move into hardened underground bunkers and then don’t worry about the missiles hitting their aircraft.

Tel Aviv is another story, of course, and the IDF would make their big cities the highest priority for air defenses. Very likely, they save the Iron Dome interceptors for defense of Tel Aviv and other big cities.

“For the umpteenth time, what are you going to believe, the spin or your lying eyes? If Iran can score 33 hits on Nevatim air base, they inflict horrific damage on Tel Aviv with the same capability.”

No necessarily true. It looks like you’re making an implicit assumption that the IDF placed this air base at the same high priority for air defenses that the IDF gave to Tel Aviv. That may not be true. Very likely, defense of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (and other larger cities) was given the highest priority for missile interceptions by the Iron Dome and the US THAAD system. That air base most likely would have been on a lower priority for air defenses, with aircraft spread out in numerous hardened buildings around the base. That may explain why the air base was hit by numerous missiles, but Tel Aviv was only hit by a few missiles.

As I recall too, in that attack the Iranian missiles didn’t do much damage to the air base. They just made some craters in the runways that looked about 30’ in diameter and can be repaired in a few months.

He’s not exactly a sweet innocent foreign student dedicated to blending harmoniously into American society. Here’s an example of his behavior—I think we can call this antisemitic activism:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIU2sHWSGU6/

Recent statements from China about trade with the US are just a bunch of communist jibberish that make no sense whatsoever—one false statement after another. Here’s one example:

“I don’t think what the U.S. has done reflects a willingness for sincere dialogue. If the U.S. really wants to engage in dialogue, it should adopt an attitude of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit,” Lin said.

To CCP officials, “equality, mutual respect, and mutual benefit” means they get to run a massive trade deficit with the US, EU, and the rest of the world, while they attack other countries by dumping huge amounts of manufactured products. That’s “mutual benefit” to the corrupt criminals who run the CCP. Then they use the huge profits from their state-owned companies to fund a massive military build-up, which they can’t afford. They don’t have a large enough domestic economy to pay for their huge military build-up.

They need to start showing mutual respect for their own people by paying them much more, slowing down this military build-up that they can’t afford, and boosting domestic demand in their own country. Then they need to cut trade barriers they’ve built up in their economic attack on the rest of the world.

We don’t need to trade with China. We and our allies can produce everything they produce in China. If they continue their economic assault on the world, then the world can just shut down trade with China completely.

I really think in a severe crisis caused by China refusing to sell key products to us that we, the EU, and Japan could start manufacturing all of those products within a few months. Brilliant people in our government labs can just reverse engineer those industrial products and figure out how they were manufactured. The EU has a lot of top drug companies that can produce all those drugs within a few months. There’s great industrial capabilities in the US, EU, and Japan, but those capabilities just haven’t been used enough lately because China produces a lot of products at much lower costs. But in a crisis, the West and Japan can make all the stuff exported to us by China.

yeah, that’s true to some extent. WalMart’s gross profit margin in around 22.3%, which means the cost of goods sold is around 77.7% of their total operating costs. Their operating margin is about 5%, which means total overhead is around 19%. So if they absorb 69.5% of a 10% tariff on goods with a 22.3% gross margin, then their operating profit margin on the tariffed good only, drops by 0.777 X 6.95 = 5.4%. So they’d be taking a slight operating loss on only the tariffed goods.

My point is simply that retailing is not a high profit-margin business, like software, and retailers generally can’t afford to absorb 69.5% of a tariff. That means something is way off in that AEI paper—either the elasticity of import prices or the elasticity of retail prices. I’d bet on the White House being correct here.

That is correct. The Fed caused the economic crash by letting the stock market crash and then letting the banking system collapse in many regions of the US. Then they allowed the money supply to contract by some huge amount, roughly 40% IIRC. After the economy crashed, then the economic collapse turned into the Great Depression. Smoot-Hawley was probably neutral for the US, because we weren’t a huge exporter or importer back then and we could produce everything we needed here in America.

What the Fed should have done back in 1930 was just print money and give it to the people so they could spend it, just to stop the contraction of the money supply. Have the Fed just buy government bonds and monetize the debt to pay for it. That’s what our government did in 2020 with those stimulus checks during the Covid pandemic. The stimulus checks were insurance to stop the Covid recession from turning into a depression. Not a bad idea, considering the economic situation back then.

Let me correct that statement. Wal-Mart would be running a significant net loss in total on items that were hit with just a 10% tariff, if they absorbed 69.5% of that tariff.

Let me give you an example. In 2024, Walmart’s operating profit margin was approximately 4.7%. Operating profit is calculated after all overhead expenses have been subtracted out. So Walmart can’t afford to absorb even a 6.95% tariff. If they did that would wipe out all their net income and they’d be running a significant net loss.

The numbers in this AEI paper don’t make any sense to me. If the import price moves up by 94.5% of the tariff amount, while the retail price only moves up by 25% of the tariff, that implies that retailers absorb 69.5% of the tariff out of their gross profit. That’s just not reasonable, because retailing in the US is generally an industry with low profit margins, that can’t afford to absorb even 69.5% of a 10% tariff—that would mean losing 6.95 percentage points off their gross margin, and much more on higher tariffs. Retailers can’t afford to eat the tariffs to that extent. So something doesn’t add up here—either AEI’s numbers are off on elasticity of import prices or the White House is off on the elasticity of retail prices.

I’d bet on the White House being correct here. 25% sounds about right for the retail price impact. The rest of the tariff gets absorbed by the manufacturer and by depreciation of the exporting country’s currency (which lowers their production costs in US dollars) caused by slowing of their export economy as tariffs shift production into the US. Then exporting manufacturers can pay a big chunk of the tariff from their lower production costs in US dollars.

I think a lot of what’s happening tonight is hedge fund managers getting very nervous and belatedly hedging their long stock positions with short positions in S&P 500 futures. The markets should settle down greatly by Tuesday afternoon.

I wouldn’t get too concerned about an actual market crash, like 1929. Our economy is actually doing well right now, and we had a strong jobs report just last Friday. What’s happening right now is what I call a “momentum freeze”, which occurs when there’s so much momentum either up or down that a lot of people just get frozen on the other side of the market, and they almost completely stop buying or selling. In this case, a lot of people have stopped buying all at the same time, and they’re watching to see what happens next with trade deals and in the markets.

But we won’t have a 1929 type of crash. From previous observations, my conclusion is that the Treasury Dept. has a monster computer system, probably backed by a unlimited credit line at the Fed, that can absorb all selling and drive the market steadily upward through any amount of selling. I’ve seen it happen several times. Hank Paulson unleased this monster a few times in 2008 and the S&P 500 index went steadily upwards for 3 hours and gained about 5% by the end of the trading day. It was a message to the short sellers that short selling is now a risky activity, so don’t get too aggressive with short selling. Secretary Bessent can unleash that system at any time to drive the stock market back up whenever he or Trump decide to do that.

Momentum freezes like this typically only last a week or so, but this would be a good time to announce a trade deal with a significant country, and a good time to make sure the S&P 500 index stays about 5000.

Well the coup in 1953 was really part of our Cold War strategy to limit the expansion of the Soviet block. The Soviet Union was a hostile, aggressive nation back in the 50s. They were stubbornly continuing to occupy Eastern Europe, and trying to install communist governments to be their allies all around the world.

We may have had solid information that the Soviets were active in Iran and trying to turn Iran into a socialist ally of the Soviet Union. After all the sacrifice of WW II, we were trying to contain the expansion and influence of these group dictatorships like the Soviet Union, before one of their allies started a real shooting war with us. One thing for sure...it’s very positive that Gorbachev rose to power and ended the Cold War.

The coup in Iran worked out well for us until 1979. I don’t know to what extent cheap oil was a factor in that coup. We had a lot of our own cheap oil back in the 50s. But the Iranian revolution in 1979 looks like another blunder by a wishful-thinking democrat President, and possibly the the intelligence community again. President Carter made a huge blunder when he didn’t ask the Iranian military to stop the revolution and install a true democracy in Iran. Carter was a strange man in some ways and had this consistent dislike for actually using military force. Statements that he made about the Iranian revolution indicate that he had an overoptimistic view about what kind of leader Ayatollah Khomeni would be after the revolution. Maybe he got another bad intelligence analysis from our intelligence community. But he was way off about Khomeni and the mullahs, who turned into a ruthless group dictatorship shortly after the revolution.

But we’ve made a lot of good foreign policy decisions, like the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and providing strong support for the NATO alliance. The US did very well at foreign policy and national security policy in the 20th century, until Eisenhower left office. FDR and Truman had absolutely unshakeable strength during World War II. We’ve had inconsistent success since Eisenhower left office. Kennedy was a disaster at national security policy. Carter was inept and allowed the Iranian revolution to happen. Reagan was outstanding, while Clinton and the Bushes were somewhere in the middle, and results of Trump’s policies are still in the future.

We haven’t bombed any country ever so that defense contractors could make more money. That’s a complete myth invented mostly by left-wing people.

We have gotten ourselves into unnecessary wars because of blunders by US Presidents and bad mistakes by our intelligence community. Kennedy’s massive blunders in Cuba, including a unimaginable decision to let our own invasion fail and including the almost catastrophic Cuban Missile Crisis, lead directly to the disastrous Vietnam War. The US looked so inept, weak, and feckless after Kennedy’s blunders in Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis, that we were having a tough time getting any countries to believe us when we offered to help them keep the Soviets out of their country. That’s a big reason why we went into Vietnam—to demonstrate that we still were a strong country willing to back up our words with military force. Unfortunately for us, the Vietnamese communists didn’t fight wars like Japan or North Korea and they were much tougher than we expected, so we couldn’t crush their army even in five years of heavy fighting.

The second Iraq war was a blunder caused by big mistakes in our intelligence community, which mistakenly concluded that Iraq had a active full-scale nuclear weapons program (which they did not have). But none of these mistaken wars had anything to do with enriching defense contractors. Defense contractors are in the business for the long haul and really aren’t concerned about gaining some business from any specific conflict in the world. I worked for a defense contractor for a few years, and it’s a low profit margin business that’s all about maintaining business with the US government for decades into the future.

One more thing that I strongly recommend is for the Treasury Dept. and SEC to take a look at who was doing all the stock selling last Thursday and Friday (yesterday). That was an awful lot of selling considering that everybody knew well in advance that these tariffs were going to happen. It was clear to the markets that Trump was not going to call off the tariffs at the last minute. The SEC should specifically look for government-funded traders in foreign countries that are affected by the new US tariffs, and look at whether these traders were dumping and short-selling large amounts of stock last week. Certain foreign governments may now be attacking our financial markets in an attempt to pressure President Trump to drop or substantially cut the new tariffs.

If Treasury and the SEC find evidence of heavy short-selling by foreign traders, then they could do something like limit the short positions held by people who are not US citizens. Maybe limit their short positions to only 5% of total equity in their brokerage account. For example, if they have $3 million of cash in their account (not counting cash received from short sales), then their total short positions would be limited to only $150,000. This kind of restriction on short selling could force a lot of buy-ins by foreign short sellers who are attacking our markets to pressure us into dropping tariffs. We could give them until market close on Friday to buy in their short positions.

If I ran the Treasury Department, I’d be taking a long, hard look at this over the weekend. Then possibly announce restrictions on short selling by foreign accounts early next week. A forced buy-in could be a big help in avoiding an official bear market in the S&P 500 index.

In conclusion, Go Trump, MAGA!

I would bet that Trump already made numerous trade deals, with agreement in the major principles and terms, in the weeks leading up to the tariff announcement last week. They’re now working on the finer details of these agreements. It would be too risky politically to initiate all these tariffs on the same day without numerous deals already in hand. That would be too much of a political gamble even for a risk-taker like Trump.

President Trump needs to announce one of these deals with a major country on Monday morning before the stock market opens, including relocation of manufacturing facilities to the USA, and big cuts in tariffs by both nations. If the stock market continues falling, there’s a definite risk of a negative wealth effect resulting in a substantial drop in retail sales, especially sales of new cars and trucks. That could cause a recession this year. So now is the time to take action to stabilize the financial markets, and defend the 5000 level on the S&P 500 index. An official bear market in the S&P 500 starts around 4900, so if I were Trump I’d make sure the S&P index stays above 5000. This selloff has been unusually fast and stunning to investors, so now is the time to stabilize the stock market and prevent a recession.

Then we need the Fed to start cutting interest rates again to bring back the home building and automotive industries, increase the supply of homes, and cut the inflation rate of houses and rents. Lower inflation then leads to a positive circle of more interest rate cuts, less interest expense on national debt, lower budget deficits, and stronger real economic growth and employment. Go Trump...MAGA!

That’s correct, because American pension funds are heavily invested in the US stock market. Also, retail sales are heavily concentrated in high-income people in America, and high-income people own most of the stock that’s not owned by pension funds. So if the stock market continues to fall, we’re likely to see a substantial drop in retail sales, which could cause a recession. High income people buy expensive new SUVs and trucks, while lower middle class people have to buy used cars today.

We’re in a “detox” phase now, marking the end of the phony debt-fueled Biden economy. As a nation, we can’t continue borrowing huge amounts of money from all over the world to fund wildly excessive federal spending on useless bureaucracies and worthless federal projects. Our credit line is maxed out now and we have to cut federal spending and deficits. When we end the constant unnecessary fiscal stimulus that we had under Biden, then the economy will slow down and inflation will drop, allowing the Fed to cut interest rates and help the home-building industry expand. We need more housing in America, and lower interest rates are the path to more home building. Increased supply of housing then cuts the recent high inflation rate of home prices and rents.

So the Trump Team is on the right path here. This video is not entirely accurate, though, because the Trump Team is really just allowing the stock market to correct as a normal result of cutting wildly excessive federal spending and constant unnecessary heavy fiscal stimulus. They’re not really trying to “crash” the market to move capital into treasury bonds. They’re just fixing the huge economic imbalances that grew massively during the Biden administration. The natural result of that is bringing down overheated stock valuations. I’m looking for a major bond market rally later this year as the Fed starts to cut interest rates again. The tariff war is more of a negotiating tactic to get us a lot of great trade deals for the USA in the next few months. We’ll start to see major cuts in the recently announced tariffs within a few weeks, as new trade deals are announced that greatly benefit the USA. I think we’ll avoid a recession this year, just barely, but we’ll avoid it as manufacturing activity grows in the USA.