Trump’s sudden 90-day tariff pause sent markets soaring, and raised big questions about insider trading. Did someone get a heads-up? JVL and Sam Stein break down the chaos, corruption, and long-term risks.
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Trump is immune from prosecution. He can pardon anyone who commits a federal crime. Those who profit owe Trump. He can then either prosecute them with Kash Patel or he can pardon them, if they pay him.
It is easy money and America becomes lawless so why invest in America where your money is not safe?
Bonds will slide because their money is not safe here because the market relies on the rules being enforced. No rules, no market.
Great chat, guys. Loved the bond primer. Easier than trying to follow Paul Krugman.
Do we need a ticket for the rocket sled to Hell, or are we just automatically passengers?
Trump is such a stupid loser.
Not to be a complete curmudgeon... but am i the only subscriber who keeps asking myself, "why i am listening to such a giddy and casually unserious commentary from these podcasts when ever Sam is a cohost?" The giggling and unfunny repartee quite often just sounds terribly out of place.
I find these podcasts to be pretty informative.
And, look, what Trump and his corrupt pals are doing is so stupid, so blatantly criminal, while they 100% believe in their mission that's actually ruining that you can't help but laugh.
That laughter is aimed squarely at Trump and his cohort.
After all, that's what one does in the presence of clowns, and, by golly, our gov't has 'em by the hundreds...
I do think Sam brings a lot to The Bulwark, and while I do not understand how he maintains his even keel while everything is on fire, I do appreciate it.
But he IS like 8% annoying tech bro. It really comes out when they get together, just the boys, no Sarah or Mona or AB (*sniff*). There's a weird sensitivity/obliviousness thing that is common to so many men who are good and decent, but also grew up as white men and all that entails.
Shana, as an almost 70 year-old white man, I couldn't agree more! Unfortunately, we are now living in a reactionary moment of an extreme and especially amoral -- immoral -- variety when expressions of empathy and compassion are shamed and often replaced by arrogance and an essentially violent chauvinism and outright misogyny that seem to be without any boundaries, thanks to Nihilist MAGA tropes and social media (owned by the tech bros themselves). And I think Sam might be more of the 28% mix tech bro ilk when it is just the boys. You're right about missing Sarah, et al., from the their podcasts -- perhaps Sam should only be paired with one of the women on the Bulwark, woke or not to say so. Or bring in Charlie Sykes or Michael Steele and their brand of wisdom and maturity achieved perhaps by having lived a few decades longer.
These are serious times and demand serious conversation.
Last year when it was obvious that trump was going to be the republican candidate, I mentioned that I was concerned about the dollar no longer being the global currency. People laughed at me. Of course when I also mentioned I was concerned about the state of our foreign policy if he became president they laughed at that too. C'est La Vie.
The Don must like the number 90... 45*2=90= president 45 twice. simple math. "it's a big, strong number" because he made it up.
Best line ever: “rocket sled to hell together!” Good to know I won’t be alone when we finally arrive at the destination.
This is why deficit spending was sustainable -- because we weren't just another country on the UN roll, we were economically indespensible. Was the flip side of the coin to military hegemony. Now Trump's gone and thrown it all away, and for what? 😑
Trump did it to prove to the world that he's a Super Genius when, in fact, he's Wile E. Coyote.
US: It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia, everywhere you go……( in trump world).
Russia: it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go….(thanks to trump)!
Who is going to tell Trump ? No one -
Koch Industries sued The Don over tariffs....
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/04/05/trumps-tariff-blitz-faces-strong-legal-challenges
The Koch network has been actively opposing Trump's protectionism since early in his first term. Interestingly, Leonard Leo is also a supporter of the group that initiated this lawsuit, the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
Thx for the Leo information, Bruce.
You know what would be great? If a collective actually took advantage and demonstrated we know what the hell's going on when Liberation Day 2 approaches. A large, syncopated (very large, very syncopated) trade. Heavy enough volume that couldn't be ignored.
I wonder how much money the jared-saudi hedge fund lost this past week.
I actually wonder how much they made lol. I don't think they lost a cent.
"We're taking pensions away because the market does it better, just invest it'll be fine"
They ate the meal, now they want to lick the plate. But hey instead of retirement you can just "put little screws into iphones"
Rocketsled to Hell…
Quite the apt metaphor.
Everything's been short term for corporations for decades.
The Evelyn Waugh novel is 'Scoop' -- and thanks for giving it a shout out JVL! Waugh is always hilarious and his work is especially timely now that satirical fiction is our reality.
The worst part is the prospect of Japan letting loose its bond holdings - and they are seriously engaged on that idea.
Corruption is fully out in the open, now.
Come on guys call the fuckery what it is Trump fuckery
Besides I think there were 2 bond auctions this week
Maybe Trump doesn’t understand the bond market but his man Lutnick should coming from Cantor Fitzgerald
Lutnick is too chicken to share his knowledge with Trump, although Trump would ignore it anyway if Lutnick chose to share it.
Rocketship to hell, indeed.
Glad you talked about this. In the before times, we could also investigate who close their "short sells" before 47 made his reversal. The more I think about the tarrifs, the more it just seems like frauding the market for some insiders..
We have an unhinged corrupted easily manipulated moron who openly breaks the law.
Who just happens to be exempt from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, courtesy of our very own Supreme Court.
Not completely exempt.
I have to wonder how much the idea that trust won't come back is over sold.
I remember hearing lots of talk from various experts saying that nobody will trust the institutions involved in the fraud with the subprime mortgage crisis. Yet here we are with a lot of these institutions still in place. I just don't trust that financial institutions really think as long terms as we'd like to think they do.
Trust in financial institutions like banks etc, is in a different league to trust between countries concerning cross border investment & trade. Besides, many of the companies involved in the financial crisis were bailed out by your government, which took away fears of collapse.
Unstable goverments where the rule of law has been tossed aside are not stable places to invest in or do business. The rules are unknown & can change with the whims of Dear Leader. America is such a place now. That is the reason why autocratic countries like North Korea, Hungary, Russia & some African & South American countries have basket case economies.
China is an exception purely because the Chinese Communist Party recognised the greed of capitalism, & made the smart move to encourage manufacturing to move there & pay slave wages. The cheap labour was like pollen to bees for big corporations. Their huge compliant population made it possible & the huge profits companies like Panasonic & Coca Cola made ensured more businesses would make the move.
Those are all fair points. At the same time I can't help but note things like the rules in China being someone in flux. Not just the IP theft, but also every once and a while some executive gets made an example of while the government is all "I'm shocked, shocked to find corruption in here."
I'm not in a "JVL's wrong, that's not gonna happen" mood on this. I just can't help but have some doubts and I'm curious to see how it plays out.
You're not wrong. My point with China is they were leagues smarter than other authoritarian regimes. Whilst they decried the corruption of democracy they were happy to take the money from democracies. And don't get me wrong, the CCP is as corrupt as anything lol. The leaders in the CCP are a lot better fed, dressed and watered than their billion and a half constituents. China is a very old country though and is quite practised in playing the long game, and they played the western world like muppets.
It's the only country Putin is truly scared of (he laughs at Trump), and he wishes he could have an economy like China. The other authoritarians can't even dream of it as their countries aren't big enough lol.
If I was an American investor or citizen though, my immediate worry would be Trump playing chicken with Xie. Trump is a clown when it comes to real finance, he's a fake TV businessman with the incredibly impressive feat of bankrupting casinos. Xie is the real deal though and has already levied tariffs back in a relatively restrained way. But if Trump keeps pushing and blustering, Xie has the magic weapon to do real damage to the US economy - the $760 billion in USA government bonds China holds. That scenario is something no-one in the western world wants, no-one sane anyway.
“The rocket sled to hell” I want a T shirt!
Driving the chaos is part of the plan behind Trump's egotism which is destroying the form of government we have taken for granted.
There is NO thinking at all. It’s all reactionary.
This is a pump-and-dump scheme. The billionaires have increased their wealth enormously from this. So has MTG. America has been sold to a private equity firm, it is now being stripped for parts, before liquidation.
Socialists like Bernie and AOC want to put the American people before billionaires and multinational corporations. We want to eat the rich so we can feed and house the poor and most vulnerable members of society. We are a threat to capital not to democracy.
Robert Rubin had to break the news to Clinton that he had to do things to make the bond market happy, not his voters necessarily.
At least Clinton, unlike Trump, understood how to deal with reality, whether he liked it or not.
love the discussion. I'm so oversaturated with the bullshit, I'm focusing on tiny, irrelevant details (tho' they're a bit blurry on the rocket sled to hell). So, Sam: could you please tell me more about the painting on your back wall? It feels very joyful.
Japan dumped bonds Tuesday night in a big way. Unusual Whales and Coffeezilla covered calls and orders placed the hour before. Coffeezilla thinks Trump will negotiate, off the cuff, and make leaders buy his meme coin. And Trump disbanded the fbi crypto enforcement team. Great coverages, gentlemen, thanks.
JVL, don't worry about the dollar.
It's not like Trump has a fixation to lower interest rates and he won't do anything if the Fed refuses to do so.
Tariffs are dumb and ending the independence of the Fed would be even dumber. So it won't happen.
And it’s all securities fraud, but trading on inside information — even if it is transmitted publicly betw billionaires in dog whistles — is insider trading. Comey jailed Martha Stewart for less than that. And you can’t negotiate trust: That’s why the bond market isn’t back.
JVL - I didn’t find it boring at all, and actually found it all quite fascinating. The super power of the US is its financial markets, and that gives us a very important tangential super power - sanctions. If countries no longer do business with the US and divest from US currency, then so too does our soft power and special abilities we derive from it to influence global behaviors.
Sadly for your country, the majority of your population doesn't think about too much stuff that happens beyond your borders. It's why the soft power targets like USAID were so easy to attack first. Too many of your fellow citizens have no understanding of how their living standards will drop under the current America Alone administration - at least not until long lasting damage is already done.
Can someone tell me exactly how to play this? Buy a put on QQQ when expecting tech to go back down?
How are bond markets going to handle the $4 trillion hole in the debt from the One Big, Beautiful Bill?
It's gonna cost America a hell of a lot more money, via interest payment, to finance that debt.
Donnie did that.
Good: "Good luck, America."
Better: "Be here with us in The Bulwark as we rocket sled to hell together."
I want it on a Tshirt.
Just saying SOL for insider trading is six years. I hope President AOC pushes AG George Conway to punish perpetrators.
Parasites in nature don’t tend to kill their host from my understanding, as it is not good to kill your gravy train.
These creeps being human, and therefore an aberration, and outside of nature, have no instinct to preserve the creature (us) they feed off of. They are destroying us, so they can rule the wasteland. WTF is wrong with them?
In the long term, biological parasites coevolve with their hosts to minimize danger to the host. But with the speed of human cultural change in today's world, evolution can't keep up with the innovations.
New technologies are kinda like a jar full of marbles. Blue (lots of them in the jar) are positive without major negative impacts. We’ve pulled a lot of those out in 10,000 years. Grey are positive, but with severe negative impacts possible. Splitting the atom say. And then there are the 2, or 3 red marbles. Those are straight up extinction level bad.
Not sure this is accurate? Heart worms are the easy counter example.
I think it is true that parasites in nature tend to have shorter lives than what they are parasitic to?
Edit: Probably some meta commentary here about how long it has been since many humans have had parasites?
You've got RFK in charge of your country's health policies now. Your question regarding many humans having parasites might have an answer close to home in the next few years.
Yeah, that is what I meant about the metal commentary. Frightening.
Depends if you kill your host
That is the question, though? I think it is fairly common for parasites to kill their host.
Granted, I think I'm probably taking a slow death as still a kill. Such that I'm probably slightly off on definitions, here?
All ya gotta do is live long enough to pass on your genes. After that, the host can drop dead,or linger on. Doesn’t really matter.
You’re correct, look at humans. We are the most deadly creatures to ever walk the planet. We are ruthless predators with the power of gods, and we are deadly parasites. We are destroying our host environment rather effectively. With our yummy nuclear weapons, we could wipe the Northern Hemisphere clean. With the exception of some hardy cannibals/scavengers.
It’s a cruel world baby! So, so very cruel, when you see it for what it is.
It was clearly a pump and dump and there will be A LOT of those for the next 90 days before the tariffs come back and then they rug pull anyone who bought into any hope in it.
1. Let those around you know you're gonna do a 90 day pause and do the stock sales.
2. Post on truth social where you know only the most avid followers go to to give them the heads up.
3. Begin the pump, convincing his people to hop on with the folks insider trading, before announcing publicly.
4. Sell everything and do again.
Expected, or corrupt, or both! PRECISELY. 💪🏼💥 LOVE you guys. 🥰
Insider trading or just another day in Trump’s America - what’s the difference? Same people; same corruption.
Def insider trading & def just another day for the Trump administration