If you understand the potential profit... you'll understand why the markets spiked this morning after FAKE NEWS

At approximately 945am a fake post online announced Trump would be backing off on tariffs for 90 days..

It spread like wildfire and the market shot upward... violently.

The SP500 ETF called SPY went from 481 to 523 per share in 30 minutes.

the $40 per share jump is enough to be a nice profit for someone swinging 1000 or 10,000 shares.

But that's not how it's played.

If one purchased a SPY PUT option, expiring today with a strike value of 490

If they purchased at 945AM that contract was $47 each... By 1020 that contract was worth $3410

So a thousand contract position worth 47,000 turns into $3.4M

Of course it's absurdly illegal in the USA to post news to affect the markets... especially FAKE.

But it's done all the time from China, Russia, N Korea and all over Central Europe...

Obviously in collaboration with "legit" traders here in the USA.

This shows the time of the fake announcement.

Beware of rising prices that are actually PRICE GOUGING.

Here's an example...

At Lowes, a Kobalt screwdriver. Made in China

It's currently 8.98 in-store.





someone is going to think wow 54% tariff, now $14 right?

ummm. No.

As someone who has BOTH imported things into the US from China AND mfg'd items here and SOLD to China...

I'll explain.

Tariffs are calculated on "item Cost"

The item cost for that screwdriver is probably... around $1.00

Then Lowes adds approx 100 other items to the cost of that screwdriver to determine the price in-store.

The 2024 tariff was 20% and now it's 54%

So the "item cost" has gone from $1.20 to $1.54

An increase of 34 cents.

So... the price of that screwdriver SHOULD go to around $9.49

Just a thought exercise... How many here are for increased Corporate Taxation?

I think some might know why I'm asking... lol

The GOP is about to have a "Trump's not on the ballot" problem.

Remember 2023, 2024... all those BIG off year special election victories?

Suozzi winning the big race, a harbinger of things to come for November 2024??

Turns out the Special Election victories in 2023-2024 really didn't mean anything as Trump swept into the White House in November.

Bottom line... the GOP in 2024... 2025.. hell, back to 2016 is mostly a Donald Trump Adoration Society...

As per the historical trend, DEMS should grab seats in 2026 taking the House but probably not the Senate.

But in 2028... will the General Election look like an off year Special Election?

Will it look like 2008 or 2012 where cardboard cutout candidates like McCain and Romney got spanked?

Trump changed the GOP electorate BUT will a big chunk of them EVER vote GOP again?

I don't think Vance can garner that kind of support. Don Jr. might want to run... but he's pathetic.

There really "isn't" another Trump waiting in the wings.

Bloody Monday incoming...

US markets trading down in pre-market trading... international markets getting pounded.

Nikkei down 4%!!!!

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/31/asia-markets-live-asia-markets-set-to-fall.html

I want to talk about the psychology of Elon Musk and why he's doing what he does.

It's been said that the genetic urges for human males are f*cking and fighting.

The first urge is pretty much unchanged but the second has adapted as man began to live in communities and developed culture.

What's it like being Elon Musk?

Start with the wealth. Off the chart wealth.

To him... money has become meaningless.

Unlike Bezos and Zuck, he has no yacht and no mega mansion. He sleeps on the floor of the Tesla factory and in a manufactured home on the property of SpaceX in Texas.

He famously works 100 hours a week although I suspect much of that time is playing video games or screwing around on Twitter.

I'm not going to get into his mental health but he seems to be a bit of a man child.

When Musk wakes up in the morning, he looks for something to do. He no longer needs to hunt... for women or possessions.

So what does he do?

He finds things that a) annoy him or b) excite him and he takes action with or against them.

Musk has taken a cultural, societal and political stand because it's the most difficult quest of his life.

And that's POWER. The same urge to build up your player in a video game with new suits and power and abilities.

Musk wants to change the world and put humanity on Mars.

Because he believes ONLY HE can do it.

He's not looking to be the most powerful guy in the room... the company, the town or the State...

He wants to do things that NO ONE in the world can do.

Politics is now his latest "start-up", his latest reason for waking every morning.

It's his new adopted life.

I'm not a Psychiatrist... and didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn last night...

But Musk seems like a poster child "narcissistic megalomaniac".

He's dangerous because he doesn't care about money or people in general. It's all a game.

To add: net worth is nothing more than a totem for Elon Musk... a monument to how much of a "man" he is... he actually spends very little money. He spends less per year than the average NFL franchise owner or MLB all star pitcher...

The story of Raybestos... and why the UAW supports tariffs.

In 1919...

1919, Raymark Industries in Stratford CT was manufacturing automotive BRAKE PADS right here in the USA.

They cut the hardened steel, they fired the pad material including asbestos...

They put brakes in early cars... then clutch plates... they supplied parts for WW2 planes and tanks, trucks, AV, etc...

They put parts in space and the men on the moon had Raybestos in their boots.

All made in the USA...

Then by the 90's... they were switching over to Chinese mfg... because of regulatory and labor and cost pressure.

Here's a set of brake pads online... for $9.73... made in China.

They can't be made in the USA for $10.

https://prnt.sc/IdMqrYAmH6pM

There's No Such Thing as a Right Not to Be Called a Nazi... ACLU

Elon making threats... even though Nazi and Fascist may be the most overused words of the last decade... and an indication of nothing better to say... he's probably got nuthin'


https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/theres-no-such-thing-right-not-be-called-nazi

Courts around the country have held that individuals cannot be sued for calling out the views of others as racist, fascist, homophobic, radical, or sexist. As we and the Center for Constitutional Rights explained in a friend-of-the-court brief we submitted last week in support of SPLC, such statements of opinion criticizing hateful or bigoted views lie at the core of First Amendment protection. They enable us to express ourselves (including our disgust), they animate our political discussion, and they offer us a tool to persuade others. For debate on political issues to flourish, we must be able to express our views about the prejudices of others without fearing that a defamation lawsuit could arise from our words.

The Supreme Court emphasized the danger that defamation suits can pose to First Amendment freedomsin New York Times v. Sullivan— a defamation lawsuit brought by a police commissioner in Montgomery, Alabama against four Black clergy members and the New York Times. The commissioner sued over a full-page advertisement in the Times describing an “unprecedented wave of terror” unleashed to quash widespread, peaceful protests by thousands of Black students as part of the Civil Rights Movement. Although the ad included some factual inaccuracies, the Supreme Court held that the public official had failed to establish a case because he had not shown that the Black clergy members and the Times spoke with “actual malice”— that is, that they made the false statements knowing that they were false, or even with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not.

In reaching its conclusion, the Supreme Court emphasized our “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” This commitment, embodied in the First Amendment, enables us to vigorously debate ideas and push for political and social change — both by vocally embracing the ideas with which we agree, and by lambasting those we wish were no longer accepted by others in society.

We'll miss globalism when it's gone... a decent read from Vox

No hyperbolic clickbait or juvenile commentary or delusional invective... just sound analysis.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/404830/usaid-trade-immigration-consensus

The saddest case, though, is foreign aid. Why did this tiny portion of the federal budget come in for such a beating this year?

I don’t really have deep structural answers. Foreign aid has never been very popular, and voters routinely overestimate how much the US spends on it. It has always survived on elite, not popular, support, and was in a vulnerable position should someone like Elon Musk go after it. The declining religiosity of American conservatism also weakened the evangelical forces who so strongly supported PEPFAR under Bush.

As for why Musk had such a vendetta against foreign aid, the best explanation is that he fell under the influence of rabidly anti-USAID conspiracy theorist Mike Benz. He wouldn’t be the first dubious source who Musk decided against all reason to trust absolutely.

Imagine going to a Comedy Club where YOU are the target of all the jokes...

And you quietly sit and take it.

After Green, I hoped that 200 more would do the same, one at a time... to shut down the whole thing.