29 minutes ago, Liam S said:

Profit is profit. It’s not costs. If you’re making 180 billion profit you don’t need to increase costs or reduce staff. You just make less profit.

😶😶 You cannot be serious. Do you know how capitalism works? The economic system, particularly in the USA, revolves around building short term shareholder wealth and prioritises that above literally anything and everything else including the long term financial stability of the business in question. You don’t make less profit, not f***in voluntarily anyway. If Tarifs come in, they get passed on, why? Because most businesses are margin based and focus on maintaining or improving that margin. Tarifs push the input costs up, and as a consequence prices rise in order to maintain the margin so they can pay dividends to shareholders (the majority of whom are institutional investors of which a substantial portion is private pension funds).

Seriously tho, like how old are you? What do you do/study? Coz you seem to be living in a bubble that is detached from reality

41 minutes ago, Liam S said:

Amazon became so big they had cities and countries begging them to locate there while paying next to no tax due to the jobs they bring. That’s an insane situation. They should be paying hundreds of millions probably billions in tax. How you get companies like this to act right is by essentially threatening them through tariffs that it will be worse not to be paying these things.

Amazon doesn’t pay a fair rate of corporation tax for a number of reasons (a misconception is that Amazon pay no tax, they pay billions in wage taxes and consumption taxes like VAT) chief among which is because they can afford to pay people to find the loopholes in tax law, so you wanna tax Amazon, start closing the long standing loopholes.

You fix corporate tax evasion by two primary routes. Legislation and cooperation. Legislation to close loopholes and tighten up accounting regulations and what you can legally deduct from your income by way of tax relief and incentives. Personally as a chartered accountant I would be inclined to calculate a lower rate of corporation tax but from higher up the P&L so there’s less chance for accountants to f*** with it. Cooperation is done through things like the OECD to set global minimum tax rates and enforce requirements such as CBCR and work together to stop corporations offshoring revenue in low tax jurisdictions

Tariffs ain’t got jack shit with corporate tax avoidance and certainly won’t stop it

41 minutes ago, Liam S said:

Profit is profit. It’s not costs. If you’re making 180 billion profit you don’t need to increase costs or reduce staff. You just make less profit. Amazon became so big they had cities and countries begging them to locate there while paying next to no tax due to the jobs they bring. That’s an insane situation. They should be paying hundreds of millions probably billions in tax. How you get companies like this to act right is by essentially threatening them through tariffs that it will be worse not to be paying these things.

With regards to Nike. Look at the competition available. Do you really believe Nike can make everything 15% higher and not lose the business the 15% will bring in? They have it so good right now that they’re giving NBA players nobody knows signature shoes and 100 million contracts. They have so much money they don’t know what to do with it.

The state pension is at risk because the country producers next to nothing anymore. People are living longer. That’s why they keep making the age higher. You cannot sustain a large pension society without a workforce which will dwindle if you become a country of consumers. What happens when the UK debt is 5 trillion and you have to sustain an ever cost increasing NHS with everybody with money deciding the country is a disaster and moving somewhere else? That’s the future unless people change course. The UK just keeps sticking to the idea cheap immigration is the answer. So they’ll need new homes and decide British construction workers cost too much so they’ll think importing cheap immigration saves costs but they have no idea what they’re doing and realise it ends up costing more in the end as the British construction workers end up going on the welfare bill or clogging up the NHS.

Today the US markets closed barely down even up in one case.

Trump was voted in to change the system and that’s what he is doing. I’ve seen Crypto go from $17k to $3k to $65k to $14k to $102k markets go up and they go down the idea it’s all bliss when they go up or all doom when they go down is for reactionaries. Long term a country is more secure with a thriving middle class and if you eliminate that you just get people stealing everything everywhere and drug ridden streets

Chicken and egg scenario as the Labour government you don't like so much though. If you increase tax on companies they move to places where someone is likely to undercut. I agree Amazon should pay more tax btw, but it's a naive way of looking at the situation. We don't live in a communist or socialist society. People shop about for the best deals, businessess are the same. If you get used to making a lot of money, then you want to keep making money. All that profit then means those who invest get to profit as so the workers through corporate bonus schemes. The idea that any shareholders or a company is suddenly going to swallow an icnrease of 15% costs is bonkers.

All the current strategy is doing is excelerating companies plans to move towards API workstreams, automation & AI to reduce costs, sell off low growth categories/arms of the business. You can quite me as much rubbish from Twitter or wherever else as you like but as someone who works in the industry I know exactly what's happening.

I just don't know why you're bringing the state pension in to the equation at all, it's completely irrelevant. How you can concieve the stock market collapsing is good for the middle class is bonkers. Do you know what's gonna happen next? As soon as indexs rise, there will be a sell off again from people trying to recoup losses. That's exactly how I would trade and how traders will be working too trying to call the best time to execute that strategy. In the meantime while all this economic crumble is happening, investment is stifling and we're on the way to a recession.

17 hours ago, Rooney said:

Chicken and egg scenario as the Labour government you don't like so much though. If you increase tax on companies they move to places where someone is likely to undercut. I agree Amazon should pay more tax btw, but it's a naive way of looking at the situation. We don't live in a communist or socialist society. People shop about for the best deals, businessess are the same. If you get used to making a lot of money, then you want to keep making money. All that profit then means those who invest get to profit as so the workers through corporate bonus schemes. The idea that any shareholders or a company is suddenly going to swallow an icnrease of 15% costs is bonkers.

All the current strategy is doing is excelerating companies plans to move towards API workstreams, automation & AI to reduce costs, sell off low growth categories/arms of the business. You can quite me as much rubbish from Twitter or wherever else as you like but as someone who works in the industry I know exactly what's happening.

I just don't know why you're bringing the state pension in to the equation at all, it's completely irrelevant. How you can concieve the stock market collapsing is good for the middle class is bonkers. Do you know what's gonna happen next? As soon as indexs rise, there will be a sell off again from people trying to recoup losses. That's exactly how I would trade and how traders will be working too trying to call the best time to execute that strategy. In the meantime while all this economic crumble is happening, investment is stifling and we're on the way to a recession.

Hold on, your first point is the whole reason for tariffs.

I’m not advocating huge tax increases im advocating relocating business to the UK and US via tariffs.

How is it irrelevant? The state pension has to be paid for. This is the future without radical moves now. Yeah you understand the system you’re operating in but do you understand it doesn’t have to operate like that?

They have no option but to swallow the 15% that’s the whole genius of it. America has a lot more power than others due to the consumerism nature so they definitely have no choice.

I said yesterday it’s 90% I actually looked it up it’s 93%

That’s an astonishing thing. Yet society is supposed to worship the stock market? Why is that? Because small participants think they’re playing along too? People are navigating a system to get what a few extra holidays? A mortgage? The bare minimum has become the maximum.

Break down the markets year by year from

You notice the huge growth has all been in the last 40 years?

In that same time period US and UK debt has gone up 600%

Do you think that’s a coincidence?

Look at this there is the odd blip but in general it’s just constant rising. This is guaranteed long term gains

When did this really start?

You see this? Just constant rises that created a new system where a small amount of people got ultra rich then manipulated the system to where they’d just get richer and at the exact same time UK and US debt spiralled out of control. This has been a complete transfer of wealth that is gradually wiping out the middle class.

This idea that a 20% blip would have been a catastrophe is so removed from reality the catastrophe already exists. A guy worth 20 billion in 1995 should be worth 60 billion today meanwhile hardly anyone can afford a home now meanwhile the gap between rich and poor has never been wider. How is that a system working or one you defend?

So we’ll use Nike or Apple as examples. You have two choices. You pay tariffs you have uncertainty if new tariffs might come and you might have to pay a lot more OR you relocate to evade tariffs and you make less profit but the alternative is you’re still making much more profit than if you were paying tariffs. The stock market should not matter and the economy is going adapt and adjust.

The only problem is people are so rigidly stuck in the system as it is. They think the economy is doing well. They think making 70k a year is some sort of outrageous achievement. People have accepted mediocrity. UK wages are a complete sham. Meanwhile that guy worth 7 billion 12 years ago has near 30 billion now. This is a system you guys defend?

Maybe this seems incomprensible to people but to me it’s just a misunderstanding on who has leverage. Consumers are the leverage but the people with wealth in the stock market have created this illusion that the stock market is the leverage and we’ve seen the results of that. It’s a road to oblivion

We're not defending the system. That sucks and is a sham, most of us here have been consistent on the need to reduce inequality within our system and have been pretty damn radical compared to most online discussion boards.

We're questioning the wisdom, or lack thereof, of burning it all down and giving the opportunity to profit to an in-clique of charlatans who've got into public service for the personal power it brings them, using vague platitudes about how their methods will totally bring prosperity at some unannounced future date (and indeed that it is the only method, 'only <insert strongman> can save <insert country>'). It is not the only method, what you need is a large movement led by figures who are consistent on ensuring that businesses and the rich pay their fair share to society. Not a movement that could be mistaken for monarchy and a mad king, which is something I'd never thought I'd say about an American administration but am saying now.

Trump tariffs are disguised huge tax rises purposefully meant to crash the economy with no long-term future.

Anyway with stocks rebounding, this may go out of date in the next 48 hours but my instinct is that negotiations are reached with some countries, and the stock market climbs back to something a bit steadier, though still notably lower than the highs the Biden administration went out with.

Then is where American consumers really start to feel the pinch, as higher prices set in that they can't ignore. From there, who knows.

2 hours ago, Iz 🌟 said:

Anyway with stocks rebounding, this may go out of date in the next 48 hours but my instinct is that negotiations are reached with some countries, and the stock market climbs back to something a bit steadier, though still notably lower than the highs the Biden administration went out with.

Then is where American consumers really start to feel the pinch, as higher prices set in that they can't ignore. From there, who knows.

Well that didn't last. 104% tariffs on some Chinese goods from tonight with market going lower. Certainly will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

@Liam S all of us in this thread can see there are lots of negatives to the current system and how it works. But radicalism is not the answer - with what you're suggesting, everyone loses except the 1% and there's no gurantee the system you re-build is actually better than the one you tore down.

Let's take the tariffs too, the 15% extra Nike will pay when they import any products. At this point they will pass it on to the American people. There is no way a company absorbs 15% cost. Of course in an ideal world it would be great if companies reduced their profit margins, but that's not going to happen. An investor will simply withdraw money and find something which pays bigger yields. The consumer ends up losing as they pay more.

You touch on a lot of points, government debt is huge and household debt is huge. Now the housing market since the crash is slightly better regulated by the Banks, but all over look at consumerism. People regularly live beyond their means and have their sofa, phone, car, holidays etc. all on credit. You're right in that it creates a bubble and false economy of consumer spending. But try telling people they now have to have a 2015 Fiesta instead of a 25 plate Tiguan on PCP.

You also make an assumption there will be a state pension eventually. One good thing the Tories did do is make it mandatory for people to be forced to pay in the Pensions. I'm suspecting at some point the Government will float the idea that it is mandatory Pension contributions must be 10% instead of 8% in DC schemes. You're state pension age is currently 68, I suspect the time most of us retire in this thread it will be 75 or it will be re-formed entirely.

44 minutes ago, Envoirment said:

Well that didn't last. 104% tariffs on some Chinese goods from tonight with market going lower. Certainly will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

China needs to try 'infinity plus one tariffs', that'll sort 'im.

This is all just to attack China!

This idea he’d be pushed into scaling back doesn’t seem so. This is a guy who has came close to death, been shot at and is of a certain age. He has no reason not to carry out what he’s wanted to do for 40+ years, it’s a philosophy that of course is high risk but high risk high reward and that’s what is most interesting as we can see this play out. This could be one for the history books I happen to think it’ll go down as a fearless chess move that reshaped the global economic order back into America’s favour as China threatened to rule the world. Anyone see what China has done in Africa? It’s not good at all. It’s economic occupation in my opinion.

If he'd only come a little closer to death it would be a better world

ignoring the incongruity of wanting the global economic order to collapse in one post and cheering on the supposed restoration of American hegemony in another...

Arguably, the large trade deficit America had was the very reason for its long-term dominance at the top of the global order, by making USD the default currency for trading and encouraging global capital to invest in the US, which tended to then have a multiplicative effect. Isolationism and being a world-leading economic power don't go well together, for what I hope are blindingly obvious reasons.

This route will give the Chinese the opportunity to invest in more than just Africa, I hear talks between the EU and China are progressing.... and oh look, China have indeed just slapped the US with another retaliatory tariff.

Coventry (which is where I live) has been named as the UK city that is likely to be hit the hardest by Trump’s tariffs.

f*** my drag, right? 🫠

Tell me this. These people blabber non stop about living wage and minimum wage. Remember Bernie and his $20 minimum wage yet companies and small businesses too are complaining they can’t survive without cheap slave labor. Maybe you shouldn’t survive? If a company can only exist through such labour then it shouldn’t exist. Same people advocating contradictory policies and messages. Think about what China did with Covid too. They knew full well they had a deadly virus on their hands and we know this because they blocked all travel to certain cities and had lockdowns yet they let tons of Chinese people fly back to Europe. Undoubtably they knew it’d hurt their economy too much if it was just restricted to China. It led to millions of deaths and nobody has ever really done anything about it. When it comes to ethics they have very little. You cannot allow China to dictate world policy.

This idea everyone is going to team up with China, why? They don’t work like that. China don’t consume from the world in that way. They use Chinese stuff, Chinese social media, Chinese rip offs of brands, Chinese products. You cannot replace America with China. Does not work. The other way already exists. Trump, Shein etc you can’t add more. If anything big tariffs between China and the US allow the UK and EU to under cut China and export to the US. The relationship between China and Africa is not a good one. It’s just Chinese buying up and owning everything then exploiting the continent.

You got to remember tariffs are a means to an end so they’re not permanent. You get companies and manufacturing back then you can be a lot more liberal with tariffs. The UK has to start seriously consider tariffs. You can’t have China flooding the UK market now they’re blocked from the US and destroying UK businesses. This is inevitably the next step and the EU too though maybe they already have some. Oil is the cheapest it’s been since 2020 reducing costs for everybody too.

Everyone claiming the US benefitted more and their economy was doing great keep forgetting they’re 36 trillion in debt that’s not doing great. Most of that debt is owed to China. To lose jobs, wages, companies to China then pay them for the luxury yeah that’s not doing great whatever some silly economist says

30 minutes ago, Liam S said:

Tell me this. These people blabber non stop about living wage and minimum wage. Remember Bernie and his $20 minimum wage yet companies and small businesses too are complaining they can’t survive without cheap slave labor. Maybe you shouldn’t survive? If a company can only exist through such labour then it shouldn’t exist. Same people advocating contradictory policies and messages. Think about what China did with Covid too. They knew full well they had a deadly virus on their hands and we know this because they blocked all travel to certain cities and had lockdowns yet they let tons of Chinese people fly back to Europe. Undoubtably they knew it’d hurt their economy too much if it was just restricted to China. It led to millions of deaths and nobody has ever really done anything about it. When it comes to ethics they have very little. You cannot allow China to dictate world policy.

This idea everyone is going to team up with China, why? They don’t work like that. China don’t consume from the world in that way. They use Chinese stuff, Chinese social media, Chinese rip offs of brands, Chinese products. You cannot replace America with China. Does not work. The other way already exists. Trump, Shein etc you can’t add more. If anything big tariffs between China and the US allow the UK and EU to under cut China and export to the US. The relationship between China and Africa is not a good one. It’s just Chinese buying up and owning everything then exploiting the continent.

You got to remember tariffs are a means to an end so they’re not permanent. You get companies and manufacturing back then you can be a lot more liberal with tariffs. The UK has to start seriously consider tariffs. You can’t have China flooding the UK market now they’re blocked from the US and destroying UK businesses. This is inevitably the next step and the EU too though maybe they already have some. Oil is the cheapest it’s been since 2020 reducing costs for everybody too.

Everyone claiming the US benefitted more and their economy was doing great keep forgetting they’re 36 trillion in debt that’s not doing great. Most of that debt is owed to China. To lose jobs, wages, companies to China then pay them for the luxury yeah that’s not doing great whatever some silly economist says

All of this only holds up if you assume the Trump administration is being honest, and not saying one thing while doing another, as they did the last time they were in power and as Musk and Trump have both done their whole adult lives.

1 hour ago, Liam S said:

Tell me this. These people blabber non stop about living wage and minimum wage. Remember Bernie and his $20 minimum wage yet companies and small businesses too are complaining they can’t survive without cheap slave labor. Maybe you shouldn’t survive? If a company can only exist through such labour then it shouldn’t exist. Same people advocating contradictory policies and messages. Think about what China did with Covid too. They knew full well they had a deadly virus on their hands and we know this because they blocked all travel to certain cities and had lockdowns yet they let tons of Chinese people fly back to Europe. Undoubtably they knew it’d hurt their economy too much if it was just restricted to China. It led to millions of deaths and nobody has ever really done anything about it. When it comes to ethics they have very little. You cannot allow China to dictate world policy.

This idea everyone is going to team up with China, why? They don’t work like that. China don’t consume from the world in that way. They use Chinese stuff, Chinese social media, Chinese rip offs of brands, Chinese products. You cannot replace America with China. Does not work. The other way already exists. Trump, Shein etc you can’t add more. If anything big tariffs between China and the US allow the UK and EU to under cut China and export to the US. The relationship between China and Africa is not a good one. It’s just Chinese buying up and owning everything then exploiting the continent.

You got to remember tariffs are a means to an end so they’re not permanent. You get companies and manufacturing back then you can be a lot more liberal with tariffs. The UK has to start seriously consider tariffs. You can’t have China flooding the UK market now they’re blocked from the US and destroying UK businesses. This is inevitably the next step and the EU too though maybe they already have some. Oil is the cheapest it’s been since 2020 reducing costs for everybody too.

Everyone claiming the US benefitted more and their economy was doing great keep forgetting they’re 36 trillion in debt that’s not doing great. Most of that debt is owed to China. To lose jobs, wages, companies to China then pay them for the luxury yeah that’s not doing great whatever some silly economist says

Do you know how hard it is to bring manufacturing back? You’re talking 3-5 years to get manufacturing operations up and running from scratch. That’s without even thinking of where you get the raw materials from.

And your whole argument presented just means China fast track their way to becoming the global dominant economic powerhouse. Businesses invest in China and get cheaper products. For all of the dodgy ness surrounding China, they are at stable trade partner. If you can buy raw materials for $100 from the USA or China for $50, not difficult to think what choice a customer would make. The same way if your iPhone costs £800 from Currys or £950 from Amazon.

50 minutes ago, Rooney said:

Do you know how hard it is to bring manufacturing back? You’re talking 3-5 years to get manufacturing operations up and running from scratch. That’s without even thinking of where you get the raw materials from.

And your whole argument presented just means China fast track their way to becoming the global dominant economic powerhouse. Businesses invest in China and get cheaper products. For all of the dodgy ness surrounding China, they are at stable trade partner. If you can buy raw materials for $100 from the USA or China for $50, not difficult to think what choice a customer would make. The same way if your iPhone costs £800 from Currys or £950 from Amazon.

They’re really not. China do not respect intellectual property. They have so many rip off of brands and ultimately they undercut and eliminate European markets since we have unions.

That’s why the tariffs are so high and so constant to speed up that 3-5 year process to months. It’s in effect easier, quicker and cheaper to move manufacturing to the US than gradually change, eat tariffs or get caught up in whatever craziness comes next. That’s the whole gamble Trump is making and I guess we will see if it works

33 minutes ago, Liam S said:

They’re really not. China do not respect intellectual property. They have so many rip off of brands and ultimately they undercut and eliminate European markets since we have unions.

That’s why the tariffs are so high and so constant to speed up that 3-5 year process to months. It’s in effect easier, quicker and cheaper to move manufacturing to the US than gradually change, eat tariffs or get caught up in whatever craziness comes next. That’s the whole gamble Trump is making and I guess we will see if it works

What China is doing is nothing new. Brands rip off IP all the time, including Western ones. Ever shopped in Aldi? Every single one of their major own label products is a rip off of IP.

Yes China can undercut European counterparts and there is a place for tariffs to not flood the market with exceptionally cheap products, but some of these products are actually quite good and innovative? Ultimately as consumers having a choice breeds competition in theory. I am just not sure you understand the complexities of manufacturing.

The US and U.K. got rich by off shoring manufacturing. Bringing manufacturing wholesale back is not going to create jobs en mass as technology and automation can run full plants and warehouses these days . And even the jobs it does create, there’s currently not enough people to build the infrastructure or gather the raw materials.

But as Paffendorf said... Everybody BE COOL!

You, BE COOL!

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/09/trump-cool-bond-markets-00280856

Edited April 9Apr 9 by TheSnake