The Art of Confusion/'Daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car'/'Kerfuffle'/Fastenal raising prices

With too many cooks in this negotiating kitchen, the Art of the Deal is becoming the Art of Confusion. While Commerce Secretary Lutnick yesterday on a morning talk show retracted some of the retract of some of the tariffs on China, those being tech related as we know, this is where tariffs really go bad as it becomes a jockey for special favors and lobbyists and the small business has no pull and gets no relief.

The US dollar index is today trading at 3 yr low by the way.

With the market rebound last week on the reciprocity backtrack which was done because of the previous market selloff, Holman Jenkins said it well in the WSJ over the weekend, "The founders never anticipated today's instantly responsive trillion-dollar financial markets. And yet these markets neatly adumbrate the founders' scheme of checks and balances, also known as feedback. Mr. Trump, still sane enough to appreciate what's good for Mr. Trump, listened this week to their feedback. May he continue to do so." https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-wants-to-be-impeached-again-6f4ea931

If you, like me, never heard of the word 'adumbrate', according to Merriam-Webster it means, "to foreshadow vaguely" or "to suggest, disclose, our outline partially."

I forgot to mention this late last week and h/t WF for pointing this out to me, as while Boston Fed president Susan Collins said Friday that they have tools to deal with any financial plumbing issues, the Bank of England on Thursday that they were temporarily stopping the sale of longer term gilts via its QT program in order to calm the bond market. They will sell shorter term paper instead that they still have. A BoE spokesperson said this was a "precautionary" step.

I heard Saturday on Sirius the U2 song "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car" and couldn't help but think of the BoE move and what Collins said with of course them playing the role of Daddy. "Daddy won't let you weep, daddy won't let you ache. Daddy gives you as much as you can take...Daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car." That said, this time around I don't think Daddy has the tools and/or leeway to pay for any notable rise in crashed cars. See below for Jamie Dimon's 'kerfuffle' comment referencing the US Treasury market.