re: Trade wars ARE easy to win; Jobless claims at 50 year low

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When you say this, do you mean that the US economy will be in a more favourable position than it would have been without the tariffs?

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I'm saying the markets are telling us the threat of and/or maybe the imposing of the tariffs for a short time will leave the U.S. economy in better shape than if Trump had just accepted the status quo regarding trade with China.

And conversely the markets are telling us the threat/imposition of the tariffs will have a negative effect on the Chinese economy.

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Why weren't they confident at the outset?

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Too many piles of dead bodies?

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There was a lot of uncertainty, IMO, about the effects of the actual imposition of the tariffs. It's taken a while for individual companies and investors to discern how the tariff situation is going to shakeout.

After all, there were numerous proposed tariffs some of which got changed eventually, some dropped completely and some just recently implemented.

Now it is becoming clearer to investors that the U.S. economy will emerge better from the dispute and the Chinese economy will emerge worse off than if the status quo had continued.

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The S&P was sitting at ~2870 at the end of January. Now we're at ~2930. That's a 2% increase. You only have to go back a month to see us back at 2870.

I don't see how you can look at a chart of the S&P and conclude with any reasonable certainty that the tariffs are having a positive effect on the economic outlook and market.

You people are delusional.

The largest list of tariffed products were just implemented Monday. These new ones hit 4 times as many products as all the previous ones combined.

Steel prices are at all time highs now because of tariffs and the good news for Wall Street is most steel users have been able to raise consumer prices including car makers.

The impact on employment thus far has been minimal (if jobless claims are so low how is imports have hurt us???)

The stock market is up this week partly because Trump caved somewhat and imposed tariffs 60% lower than he threatened and many are starting to believe this trade war will not be as intense as trump lead people to believe.

(Was not directed at cahoots)
The Chinese refused the invitation to talk after trump imposed this weeks tariffs so there is some belief threats of tariffs are hurting trade talks instead of helping.

As I said a month ago neither side can take the domestic pressure they are receiving and the Chinese will offer something on IP and Trump will declare victory and the tariffs will disappear.