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In this episode of “The TMI Show,” hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan tackle the escalating unrest in global securities markets following President Trump’s tariffs, announced last week on “Liberation Day,” April 1. The discussion centers on the dramatic overseas market reactions and the futures markets’ ominous signals. On Monday morning, Asian markets led the plunge: Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 nosedived 7.8%, its steepest drop in a decade, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng cratered 13.2%, the worst since the 1997 financial crisis. Shanghai’s Composite fell 7.3%, and Taiwan’s Taiex shed 9.7%, a record single-day loss. In Europe, the pain spread as Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 each tumbled 5.8%, and Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 4.9%, reflecting widespread fears of a trade war spiral.
Futures markets amplified the dread: U.S. Dow futures dropped 1,246 points by early Monday, signaling more turbulence ahead. With financial expert Aquilles Larrea, Ted and Manila explore the global anxiety—overseas traders are bracing for retaliatory tariffs, supply chain chaos, and a potential recession. With markets reeling and uncertainty looming over the week, the hosts debate whether this is a temporary shock or the start of a deeper crisis.
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Isn’t this all Kabuki theater? The market “corrects.” If it were crypto, it’d be called a rug pull — i.e., a calculated method of extracting wealth at the expense of the less-connected investors. In six months, it’ll be right back where it was. This has happened a million times. Go through your old copies of the business sections of the various publications. “Dow plunges 200 points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (200 points being about 1% of the then-current Dow figure). The next morning, it goes back up 200 points within three hours. One more time: the DJIA is an artificially constructed number designed to go up over time.
Meanwhile, all the pointed heads talk it up to the end of the earth. “Oh, it means this. No, it means that. Well, it possibly means this other thing entirely.”
Eventually, one of these cycles, the whole thing WILL come apart, just like a paper clip you bend too vigorously. All the minor investors will be wiped out. (The big investors will then buy it all up, making a literal and figurative killing.) That means any of you still fortunate enough to have a 401(k) will first see its value take a big hit, then watch as everyone panic sells and your nest egg shrinks: ostrich to emu to flamingo to goose to chicken to quail to hummingbird.
The rest of us, who never had enough extra to invest in a 401(k) or who had to tap it to survive the 2008 crash and/or the 2020 crash, are standing on the deck of the Titanic as we see your lifeboat spring a leak. We’re the ones with the dead eyes, hoisting our drinks at you as the ship’s hull groans under the strain and nears the breaking point.