STONKS And Buffaloes 🦬

We're in a protracted standoff right now over who Trump will pick for treasury secretary. I think it sounds boring to a lot of people but it's an absolutely crucial moment

1) From all my reporting, my sense is that Trump is dead serious about enormous tariff hikes to rebalance…

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) November 16, 2024

Remember when I wondered about Trump’s Treasury Secretary, and what it meant that no candidate had been announced?

We're in a protracted standoff right now over who Trump will pick for treasury secretary. I think it sounds boring to a lot of people but it's an absolutely crucial moment 

1) From all my reporting, my sense is that Trump is dead serious about enormous tariff hikes to rebalance global trade. So he wants someone who will actually implement those tariffs. 

2) But all the evidence also suggests he really wants the support of Wall Street and STONKS to go up. So he wants someone the markets will respect 

But it's really hard to see how he gets BOTH of those, which I think is part of why picking the treasury secretary is proving so hard

If you think the Senate will block at least one nominee and then lay down in the rest of them, maybe this is where the fight should be.

This helps explain why Scott Bessent, the Treasury contender who got characterized - maybe somewhat unfairly? - as door #2, has been jumping up and down the last week & insisting that he's really actually super serious about doing tariffs in a big wayhttps://t.co/GPm2sdJdHA

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) November 16, 2024 

Even Gaetz can’t really get his hands around the throat of DOJ (anymore than RFK Jr can change the law of the land at HHS). But a Treasury Secretary backing Trump’s insane tariff plans could plunge the world economy into a tailspin.

(And yes, he meant “STONKS.” 

Stonk, a deliberate misspelling of stock (meaning “a share of the value of a company which can be bought, sold, or traded as an investment”), was coined in a 2017 meme. The word is often used humorously on the internet to imply a vague understanding of financial transactions or poor financial decisions.

Definitely the shoe that fits. If Trump buffaloes the Senate (or Congress) on tariffs, then there won’t be a safe haven in the world to flee to.)

The irony of tariffs is that they tend to cost Americans access to markets (this ain’t 1946. The industrialized world outside the U.S. isn’t in shambles, leaving us in a position of unmatched dominance). Retaliation opens markets to competitors, who keep their share when tariffs finally come down.

Download this report before Trump's agriculture secretary makes it disappear. https://t.co/J6aTGce52C pic.twitter.com/GvBkBkIRdY

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) November 16, 2024