Cost-Benefit Analysis: Trump Enriches Billionaires, Bleeds Consumers Amid Tariff Reversal
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What recent economic changes are affecting consumers?
Well, it's been a hell of a ride for the U.S. economy over the last few weeks. I mean, this past week began with the stock market continuing its nosedive because of Donald Trump's kind of weird obsession with putting in place tariffs based on a completely made-up formula. Then on Wednesday, he abruptly pulled back on the most egregiously high tariffs on most countries for 90 days, but left a 10 percent tariff across the board on all of them. Then he jacked up tariffs on China to 145 percent before announcing an exemption for smartphones, flat screen TVs and semiconductors late Friday night. And then it continued to get more confusing because just this morning, his commerce secretary said this quote is not like a permanent sort of exemption, whatever that means. So there's a little bit of a pattern here. He's going too far and then he's caving and it's all a little uncertain and murky.
But it's important to remember that even with all these walkbacks, prices on everything from clothes to toys to appliances are still going to be much higher for everyone. And in less than 90 days, Trump could have a brand-new chart with a brand-new fake equation, and we could be right back at square one. The point being that, unfortunately, we are not quite out of the woods yet with all the tariffs. One of the things that really stuck out to me this week was how Trump announced his reversal on tariffs, or his semi-reversal, I should say. It all began Wednesday morning, when he issued something of a stock tip from the White House. In all caps, he said, quote, this is a great time to buy, signing with his initials DJT. You can see it on the screen right there. He posted that at 9.37 in the morning, just right after the market opened. Of course, not everyone has a pile of cash sitting around. Most people don't. But for those who did, we now know that, yeah, that was an awfully good time to put money in the market.
Because less than four hours after that post, Trump backpedaled on many of the tariffs, causing the market to surge as he knew it would. So anyone who took Trump's advice that morning that he posted on Truth Social could have made a whole lot of money. I mean, it was a pretty timely heads-up. And it also produced some very interesting television later that afternoon.
Earlier this morning, before the pause, he put out a message saying it's a great time to buy, and here we are. Here we are, much higher.
How did Trump's tariff decisions impact the stock market?
I'd always bet on Donald Trump. Every time I'd always bet on Donald Trump. He also wrote DJT, which is a ticker for his media company. No, no, no. Every text he does. Every text he sends to me, that's his name. But that was a great time to buy the market, right? I mean, uncanny.
CNBC's Melissa Lee, who you just saw there doing that interview, was kind of all of us on Wednesday. I mean, as it turns out, there were people who did make a ton of money on Wednesday. Well, certain people, at least, to be clear. Bloomberg actually crunched the numbers and found that the world's wealthiest people added $304 billion to their combined net worth on Wednesday. $304 billion. They said it was the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. And look, there are a lot of questions about the timeline of these announcements and lawmakers are rightfully curious about who knew what and when and what they did with that information. A number of them have called for an investigation into possible insider trading to look into exactly that.
How will Medicaid cuts affect Kentucky residents?
But one thing we do know is that it was a good day for billionaires, a very good day. And I kid you not, you can't make it up sometimes, because two of those billionaires just happened to be with Trump in the Oval Office on that very same day. And as you can see for yourself, Trump was downright giddy is the only way to describe it, about just how much money they made, all thanks to him.
This is Charles Schwab. It's not just a company, it's actually an individual. He made $2.5 billion today and he made $900 million.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What recent economic changes are affecting consumers?
0:08–2:32
2
How did Trump's tariff decisions impact the stock market?
2:32–3:31
3
What are the implications of Trump's tariffs on American families?
3:31
4
How will Medicaid cuts affect Kentucky residents?
3:31–14:32
5
What concerns are being raised about the Republican budget proposal?
14:32
6
How are billionaires benefiting from current policies?
5:27–7:45
7
What does the future hold for tariffs and consumer prices?
7:45–10:50
8
Why are protests against economic policies increasing?
10:50–41:11
Speakers
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