Republicans should be seriously embarrassed by Trump.
Trump on Walmart
“Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year,” he wrote in a post Saturday on Truth Social. “Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, ‘EAT THE TARIFFS,’ and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”
Lat year, in a letter to Kroger, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey accused large grocery chains like Kroger and Walmart of being poised “to squeeze consumers to increase profits.”
Now Trump says Walmart should “EAT THE TARIFFS”
This does not imply Harris would be a better president. But it does prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump is clueless about markets.
On April 11, 2025, I noted Tariff-Related Auto Price Increases Have Arrived, Will Get Much Worse
New Car Prices Are Ticking Up. Sales “Hangover” is Likely as Trade Wars Heat Up.
On May 15, I noted Walmart CFO Warns Price Hikes Are Coming, Blames Tariffs
Walmart says it will pass on some tariff price hikes.
And now it has.
Birkin handbag maker Hermès said its prices in the U.S. would rise.
Trump’s Claims
Please recall that Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said tariffs do not cause price hikes. Now they have.
So Trump commands the automakers and Walmart to not raise prices. And he says ” I’ll be watching” .
Well la de da. So what?
Trump Tells Auto CEOs No Price Hikes, Did Comrade Kamala Win?
On March 30, I asked Trump Tells Auto CEOs No Price Hikes, Did Comrade Kamala Win?
It’s price controls by mandate. Dust off those WIN buttons.
New Economic Theory
Also consider New Economic Theory “Tariffs Are a Tax Cut for the American People”
It is now proven that Trump is not only economically illiterate. It is also proven he cannot control his own emotions.
Question of the Day
Q: Is Trump as economically illiterate as he sounds?
A: Unfortunately, dear Republicans, you can no longer deny the obvious truth.
And he even sounds like Elizabeth Warren!
Republicans should not only be embarrassed by this, they should be outright disturbed by it.
Nonetheless, expect silence from the cult.
I worked for a guy like trump. By the time people realize trump lied to them about tariffs they will be caught up in the next big drama he creates to take your mind off the previous.
Everyone, even the CULTISTS (Red) and the Blues all want lower prices. The problems lie in that the REDS AND BLUES have Congress People who are either silent and beaten down by the Leadership OR they are making money from the Regime (Lobbyists, MIC, Graft, Green Lying, cheating and Stealing).
There is no righting this huge corrupt ship. I never expected them to do so. IT IS TOO LUCRATIVE.
I just wanna live in a reasonable world. AIN’T gonna happen, right Mish?
Yes but Wolf Street insisted companies were making big big big margins and would absorb the tariffs resulting in no inflation.
And anyone who dared to push back on that was called a retard by Wolf.
Wolf is a government chill, how does he work for nothing?? He is obviously on the take cuz donations wont pay. If you post anything contrary to his propaganda he will not allow the comment on his site or delete it. He is incapable of any open debate. Everything he says is BS, he turned his own theories to the opposite some time in 2020, if you read his BS it’s obvious he’s a gov chill
I stopped visiting his site completely when he bcame a shill for EV’s, claiming ridiculous advantages for EV’s over conventional gas-powered cars. It got so bad he locked some of hist EV posts so that no one could comment at all.
Wolf is the ultimate idiot… the worst kind of idiot… when someone demonstrates he is wrong … he does NOT do what an intelligent person would do – change his mind.
Instead he calls them an asshole.. or he deletes their comment.
It must be tough being the wife of someone like that
Elizabeth Warren, but without the inclination to follow court orders. Sounds worse to me.
zion don the schizo cult leader will change his mind hundreds of times before his term ends. he rules like chairman mao zedong. mao had a teenage cult called the red terror that got started in may 1966.
What a show!
Price increases are coming because of Trump’s tariffs, so he will deflect the blame to someone else.
Good thing he dropped the China tariffs to 30% from 145% or it could have been far worse (empty shelves AND high prices). I was hoping he would keep the 145% on much longer so we could see the results but he chickened out again.
I am waiting to see what his “new and improved” tariffs will be on 150 countries.
So much for his 90 day pause and 200 deals coming any day now.
What I find interesting is how quickly his cult followers here forget the never-ending lies that come out of his mouth as he moves on to the next lie and they defend it like they defended every other lie that came before it.
But the best part is that we can still take advantage of all the lies and the market volatility that comes with them. Looking forward to another week of volatility.
US long yields rising, Asia markets tanking.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/19/asia-pacific-markets-live-rba-china-housing-sales-china-industrial.html
Got SPY PUTS?
Lots of possibilities.
One of the companies in my basket, Strathcona Resources, has put in a hostile bid for another in my basket, Meg Energy. They already bought 9.5% of Meg on the open market and are only offering a premium of 9.3% to the pre-offer share price.
If Meg accepts the bid (unlikely) then Strathcona picks up a bargain. If other companies jump in and submit bids (likely), then Strathcona can sell their stake for a quick profit.
After the news hit Thursday night, Meg opened Friday up 34%. Then settled up 19% on the day.
I bought more of both on Friday as I expect much larger bids eventually and both stocks to be winners here.
Of course, the future is always uncertain. Not a recommendation. But I like it.
Sounds like the good old days with T. Boone.
No, the Asian markets aren’t tanking. Hang Seng down .33%. Other Asian markets not down that much.
I love the smell of panic in the morning.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/19/chinas-april-retail-sales-growth-misses-expectations-as-consumption-remains-a-worry.html
Apologies for repeating myself.
The inflation during the stimmy times was corporate greed.
I’m a capitalist through and through so consider this.
“IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE”
Yes, of course I’d have behaved the same as the corporations did.
I eagerly awaited the first earnings season after the transitory inflation began.
Most of them were reporting record profits, remember?
How, if they had to pay so much more for their raw materials?
Rhetorical question.
Price fixing by government, bad.
Price fixing by private industry, good.
The $trillions emitted in early 2020 were to (once again) rescue the TBTF financial institutions, which were failing in the REPO market late 2019. The lockdowns were to mitigate the velocity of the money to / from the peons. That part didn’t work anywhere near the plan, especially blowing another residential real estate bubble. Covid Theater was Hitchcock’s McGuffin, or Rahm’s Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste, as too much mischief to mention sprung from there.
1880’s: arguably the most productive decade of US history, then McKinley tariffs 1890 preceded deep multi-year Depression, starting 1893. J.P. Morgan and a consortium of foreign bankers ended up having to bail out the US Treasury. Smoot Hawley tariffs preceded world financial collapse and Great Depression of 1930’s. Third time is the charm?
Good points, but that was then, this is now. National security trumps economic concerns. If America went to war with China over Taiwan we’d have to buy the bullets from Beijing. Great Britain imported cheap food until 1940, when UBoats sent it all to the bottom of the ocean. Had Hitler played his cards better the entire island would have more or less starved and surrendered.
If Trump owned Walmart, he would increase Walmart store prices by the exact amount of the tariff rates, and pocket the excess profit. Since he doesn’t own Walmart, he doesn’t mind introducing price controls a la Nixon.
i always chuckle remembering cheney and rummy ran the price control board in the 70s. chairman mao ze trump central plan for our economy and prices is perfect.
OT
Mish’s Garden Part One
This is our front garden. I designed the landscaping. Five images.
https://mishmoments.com/2025/05/18/mishs-garden-part-one/
Beautiful setting and landscaping. I drove through St. George and it is a beautiful location. Hopefully I will return soon as long as the National Parks remain open.
That might be the only eastern redbud in Utah. They were a common sight in the spring when I lived in the midwest, but to my surprise they’re rare in New England where I live now.
gorgeous. nice job. i looked at your photo link. i miss living out in southwest and norcal. glad i spent 20 years there.
My wife and I bought a Prevost Bus, 45 footer, about 15 years ago and set out. We stopped to meet friends in Phoenix and they drove us South to Rocky Point. The entire Trip had a road lined with wild flowers. It blew our minds. Beauty!
He is not as dumb as he sounds – He knows the tariffs will increase prices, to some degree, at least for a short duration. Trump is attempting to recast the blame of the tariff effects through his PR marketing bully shtick.
IMO not illiterate, just has had previous successes with the big lie.
Maybe there is some high-level policy chess game to accomplish. But alongside that, for the foreseeable future, this is (and should decently be openly admitted to be) a regressive tax hike on the American people, especially the lower-income ones. In tandem with that, the “tax reform” bill with its dodgy accounting and deficit strains makes for very weird optics, IMO. The few bones tossed to workers expire, while the top brackets get their cut in perpetuity, and the public fisc continues to decay, unfixed. (That said, the tax bill seems to pencil out near-term to benefit me. But I would give that up for some good sense.)
Markets work by manipulation. Every IBM compatible PC comes with Windows, automatically. Google Android runs all the non iPhones. Walmart is the biggest retailer. I’ve read Walmart squeezes every dime they can out of their suppliers profit, in order to supply “always the low price” to their customers. Economy of scale.Government regulations protect large companies from competition, as it raises the bar to entry, due to compliance costs. K Street is filled with corporate lobbyists in Washington, from what i hear. Government is the biggest manipulator of markets, as they can make or break them. Big subsidies to corporate farms or buyers of EV’s. The story of how Trump gained ownership of Maralago was an interesting lesson in how markets work.
Translation: some people have manipulated markets historically, so we should be absolutely fine and uncritical with this manipulation. There have been bad actions before, so we should accept bad actions now? How could that ethos work? Markets work by people being productive for what they get paid. Check out Adam Smith some time.
I wonder if Trump admin will try to pull a China and just stop government reporting on statistics that make Trump policies look bad?
How would that make any difference? Trump supposedly won the election despite positive economic data because everyone was supposedly feeling the pain.
Well the pain is now going to get much worse with Trump’s tariffs. He’s obviously scared if he’s lashing out at Walmart.
Trump is like a 5 year old playing hiding seek who covers his eyes so he can’t see anything and then believes that no one can see him.
Dollar General $1 became $2 a while ago, after DG stock prices gap lower twice, well before tariffs. The cost of pickup trucks were up to finance EV R&D. Ford and GM didn’t care bc buyers ate higher prices without resisting them. Their strike came after tariffs. Trump shook them. Most people bought cheaper used cars. They might become inelastic. If demand for 2024/2025 models will slump dealers incentives will rise.
Between shoplifting, locked up products to prevent shoplifting, wage increaes, and tariffs Walmart has and will continue to increase prices. Well maybe not eggs.
I’m thinking Trump will be blamed for the shoplifting?
Sure, why not.
When oil hits $50 a barrel, will that decrease Walmart prices and negate the tarrif effects?
Sure, why not.
In WMT I buy fresh produce, basmati rice, buckwheat, mackerels, Moroccan and C8 oil… WMT beats most supermarkets in variety and price. I don’t care about shirts and electronics. Fewer customers are buying them: once per Qt or per year. WMT can absorb higher tariffs bc the cost of trucking and transportation deflated.
Maybe Trump should set a trend and offer commensurate discounts at Trump resorts and golf clubs encouraging other businesses to do the same by example, not by dictate. I’m not holding my breath. Trump has done some good, particularly at border and wrt law enforcement, but his government micromanaging the economy is undoing all the good in my opinion.
Trump’s macro econ cause volatility. Every year SPX hi/lo range between 1,000 and 1,500 points. This year, in two months, between mid Feb and Apr 7, SPX plunged 1,300 points and made a rd trip to the top in mid May. We don’t understand Trump. He is an enigma. When volatility will flip to tranquility we might understand him better. if SPX 3M June close above 5,500 ==> SPX 3M (!!!) will end the first #9 muli years uptrend in decades. After a #9 volatility usually rise….
Not sure about enigma, more like enema imho.
It is idiotic to try and defend obvious idiocy.
Welcome to the cult.
The cult: Trump is a jackass, a moron, a spineless idiot blowing in the wind. Trump still wants Iran to dismantle her centrifuges and get rid of her enriched U. That’s why I commented about coal mines and greenhouse gases. He still has tariffs on Mexico and Canada. He got $10T investments within a 100 days. Tomorrow he will call Putin. Perhaps he can make a deal with him. Decap Erdogan. Only on your blog I mentioned: SPX, QQQ and the Dow 3M will celebrate a #9 in June !
i doubt 99% of those commitments for investments will pan out. more like us treasury will bail out farmers and others………
Thanks for insulting me.
Good. I hope this leads to a re-evaluation of the whole corporate tax issue.
Used to be a time when people would pay $2 in taxes for every $1 that corporations would pay.
Now it is people paying $7 in taxes for every $1 that corporations pay.
Qatar’s Gift to Trump Is Unsold Plane It’s Been Trying to Dump for Years
https://www.newsweek.com/qatar-gift-trump-unsold-plane-2072564
A former CEO of Walmart just said the company could eat the price rises for quite some time without any real harm and that managemenet should drop the hysteria. Not Elizabeth Warren. And Nixon was a Republican no? Remember Nixon?
“A former CEO of Walmart just said”
It’s probably why he is a former CEO, he’s an idiot. Walmart’s problem really isn’t the tariffs, it is not knowing what Trump clown will do tomorrow. Will he have a temper tantrum and raise tariffs on China to 145% again or some other idiotic number?
There still is no deal with any country on earth just “machinations” toward a deal. Walmart needs to squeeze as much profit as it can today because it doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring. Making any assumptions now given Trump’s record is idiotic.
Well, regarding idiots, it certainly takes one to know one.
Don’t disparage yourself Patrick, just keep learning and you’ll eventually grow out of it (hopefully). Learning is half the battle!
If you were tradable, it would be long puts.
Walmart needs to open more stores in St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
That seems undistinguishable from Trump’s anti-markets rhetoric, to my ears.
That reminds me of Community Reinvestment Act backers (bipartisan) in the 2000’s saying banks “needed” to make more home mortgages in those places. We all know how that played out, for the fortunes of the USA and the world.
David Bowie did in Young Americans. “…the bills you had to pay…”
Are you trying to defend economic idiocy?
No, I was replying to an idiotic comment. A lot of the thread remains a mix between ad hominem, which is fine if used sparingly, and confused opinions. The problem with ad hominem is that it can limit actual discussion or critique, but its difficult to discuss or critique that which is emotionally driven. One form of confusion is to present a universal category and apply it to every particular, when the particular does not really fit the category. Economic idiocy? Economics is not an island unto itself. Comments on tariffs and tariffs themselves from the Admin have been fairly hyperbolic. I try and follow what Bessent says and match it to comments from Trump. Probably the most important point would be that tariffs are stick and carrot to try and open up Chinese markets to the US. I’m skeptical of success there, given history. But let’s see. Corporate profit margins are nice of stocks, not always the best for a long term run of the economy itself. Bubble boom and bust.
King Chaos neglected to proclaim the royal fuck you in proper terms:
“Let them eat tariffs”.
Demanding we eat is less formal, and quite frankly, rude.
Well they were eating the pets and now they’re eating the tariffs. Oh my!
100% true but that doesn’t mean we can’t profit from his idiocy.
The obvious thing to do here for profits is to options trade WMT straddles 90 to 120 days out. The Sept 2025 $90 strikes seem to have a lot of interest.
When Trump barks at a company, easy profits usually follow with the volatility.
Trump says a lot of stupid shit. If he can get people to blame Walmart for higher prices, Walmart might have to cut their margins to maintain traffic. I only go there once or twice a year. I bought a watch there for $11. If it went up to $15, who cares?
Trump deflects responsibility for his actions by blaming others for the result of his actions. Trump never admits a mistake.
Someone should ask the Donald if he has kept the same pricing for membership or golfing fees at his owned country clubs in keeping with his rants on others price gouging, or if he is charging the Secret Service the same in 2020 for guarding him in 2025 when they stay and dine at Mar-a-Lago?
Golfing is for old boomers.
If one company is the poster child for offshoring, it would be Walmart. The founder of Walmart secretly traveled to China to set up their manufacturing operations and buy their cheap garbage, which was sold in Walmart stores throughout America. No one has done more to reduce American manufacturing. Albeit American manufacturing needed to shake up, it was far too complacent and haughty, especially the labor unions.
It’s a straightforward argument that Walmart created the Chinese manufacturing industry, and the CCP greed took over from that point to steal everything they could get their hands on in the US industries. Add in American cheapness, and we have what we have today.
Poor Walmart shareholders. I have not one year to shed.
Blaming the unions for US manufacturing complacency and haughtiness is akin to blaming Boeing workers for the quality problems in Seattle and South Carolina where the latter location in non union.
The lack of quality at US manufacturing facilities in the 70s, 80s, etc., is directly attributable to management. They purchased inferior components, they set the quality standards, they set the line time on assembly lines, they trained the personnel, they set the culture, negotiated the union contracts, etc.
There is truth to this statement. But don’t completely absolve American union workers. They have some responsibility in the quality of work they do as many do sloppy work and have a holier-than-thou attitude.
the customers cut their own necks. i always avoided walmart. never spent a dime there. i’m old fashioned. i shop local owned retail and farmers……..the blame is in the mirror of all customers of walmart. i don’t care about china one way or the other. good for them getting hundreds of millions of humans out of penury past 30 years.
Trump got too far, too fast with tariffs. Closing the duty-free loophole for importing packages with less than $800 declared was a good idea.
Why?
Congratulations America.
You traded one senile president for another.
Biden truly was senile. Trump is just stupid.
I am not for higher prices but let’s hope that companies, such as WMT and others, ignore king trump’s threats. He will likely capitulate on this issue as he has on all others. His bark is much worse than his bite though he is highly obxious.
A video conversation with a manager who spent years in China when the offshoring started, where it lead, and the prospects of tariffs. Pretty much all you need to know. An hour well spent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ngccqS9ydA
I voted for Trump and haven’t ever been silent. This whole tariff shtick will blow up in everyone’s face. Good intention which will take a generation or more to fruition. Raise prices, stoke the ire of the “Little People.” Keep prices steady, watch earnings and the stock market tank , to the chagrin of the Big People (and everyone, really as layoffs soar and pensions suffer). Trump made a living investing OPM, and his companies went bankrupt multiple times. Looks like his script will play out with the Nation, although the debt can might be kicked one more time. How sad is it he was the lesser evil running for President. Hard to keep that in perspective sometimes.
The stock market should never go down. QED.
He sounds like a schoolmarm, not a President.
What a terrible thing to say about somebody!
“I’ll be watching”, or, “it’d be a shame if something bad happened to your stores”, once said a Don Corleone wanna be.
Sonny Corleone, not Vito,
Vito had a brain. Sonny was all emotions.
I remember a world that worked just fine without Walmart.
Yep…..we had K-mart and Zayres.
Oh, I get it now; you mean The Big Boxes. You really went there? Way cool!
Anti trust actions should have been taken against Walmart years ago…they have gotten too big
Yes. And not just Wal-Mart. The entire economy, from retail to insurance, from consumer products to pharmaceuticals, from banks to communications, is dominated by monopolies and oligopolies.
Ref: Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power Hardcover – by David Dayen.
never spent a dime in a walmart. i do like spending money on locally owned establishments as much as i can for the past 40 years.
It’s inevitable that a national chain like Walmart was going to put small retail stores out of business. Same has happened with just about every type of retail or service in America – now controlled by large chains.
At this point in time, Wal-mart is the only corporation large enough to try to compete with Amazon and let’s hope it succeeds because Amazon could wind up being the only retail outlet in America and then it becomes something far worse than Wal-mart ever was.
Yep. Amazon is so horrible that it makes Wal Mart look good.
Explain your reasoning.
It was not inevitable that Walmart would become one of the largest retailers by market cap in the world and put smaller stores out of business. Walmart received protection from predatory pricing that small retail and small business couldn’t get. Prior to the protectionism that Walmart received and was provided by Congress, the Robinson – Patman Act afforded a level playing field.
The Miller – Tydings Act similarly permitted states to regulate fair trade which expand the number of mom and pops starting in the 30s through the 60s so that they could compete with the bigger chains.
FTC blocked takeover of Albertsons by Kroger (not a fan). Never had a word to say about Walmart.
The horse was already out of the barn. Congress had already gutted mom and pop retail.
good point. i try avoid amazon too.
Republicans should not only be embarrassed by this, they should be outright disturbed by it.
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well, one point i disagree /w mish!
repubs are same bunch of mor11ons. they are NOT some kind of guardians of anything good in USA! not anymore. never been
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THEY VOTED EACH TIME FOR EACH BUDGET AND DEBT HIKE!!
outside some lone voices!
alx
ps
it is big club and YOU AIN’T IN IT! (C) George Carlin!
See trump is a moron
Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State in Trump’s first term said the same thing before leaving unceremoniously.
jesus!
=1 first of all. POINT OF BUSINESS IS MAKING MONEY!!
it is not USSR!
=2 SECOND. how COULD trump know that if pretty much all of his businesses ended up in bankruptcy!
he is just insane. HE thinks he is Jesus Christ OF 21th CENTURY!
Whew! anyone this side of the imbecile Biden is… now proven that Trump is not only economically illiterate. It is also proven he cannot control his own emotions.
chairman mao tse trump cultural revolution and great leap forward. his cult are like the teenagers in red square in 1966, red terror. what could go wrong ?
And the sheep begin to stir from their slumber to find out that they are the ones paying for this these taxes.
they aren’t sheep. that’s too kind. more like baby seals begging to be clubbed. the lumpenproles in amerika love being abused and lied to. it’s a long tradition. they never revolt. way too weak in mind and body.