← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey guys, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. I wanted to look at a couple of different analysts assessment of what is happening with the economy. Well, I guess one analyst and one investor actually, because I think it paints a picture that is pretty telling and pretty damning for Trump. The first was a story from the Telegraph. It says this 94 year old stock market legend saw the Trump slump coming. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is well positioned to withstand the downturn. Warren Buffett, that may be a little overstated there because I don't know that this was all related to Trump. If you look at Buffett's moves in the market, he's kind of been predicting a cooldown for a little while now as he's increased his cash reserves. But it is pretty telling that you got somebody like Warren Buffett that is out there essentially signaling rather through his investing. Because these aren't through comments that it's time to take some cash out of these markets. As the Telegraph reports, his cash power has soared to about a third of his entire portfolio. His cash holdings surpassed the value of all the businesses listed on the FDSE 100. Crazy. And so, you know, part of this was Trump. Part of this I think is competition from China. And what we've seen from Deep Seek, maybe an idea that some of the stocks a little over inflated with AI. But it's pretty noteworthy that in his kind of classic contrarian fashion, Buffett had been positioning his portfolio for this Trump slump at a moment when a lot of these other big finance guys thought that they were going to cash in on it. And so the sober, conservative, cautious wisdom of Warren Buffett worth taking into account as always. Here's the opposite of sober. Jim Cramer over on cnbc. And I know Jim Cramer is easy to laugh at. People roll their eyes and they mock him because he's been known to get some stuff wrong with predictions. But here's the thing about Kramer, right? You can be a little bit of a dick and you can get some predictions wrong with stocks. Of course this is not strategic advice. But here's something that he's good at, just real talk, just not bullshitting about what he sees as what is happening. And I want to play you this clip of Jim Cramer talking about just how absurd the current economic situation is.
- [02:33]
Jim Cramer
You mentioned the banks. Now 10% below the 50 day. That is an unusual number.
- [02:39]
Warren Buffett
It's time for them to make a. I think a lot of them have come down too much. But, but if we have a recession, banks are the Worst stocks. I don't think we'll have a recession. Like I said, it's manufactured. It's a manufacturer.
- [02:52]
Jim Cramer
Well, that doesn't mean there won't be. I'm not sure I understand.
- [02:55]
Warren Buffett
No, manufactured easily cause recession. Absolutely. I don't. You know, I'm not. I'm not saying that manufacturing means not going to happen. Right. I'm saying manufactured is that you can make it happen. And when you get angry and when you. You kind of lose your temper and you get mad instead of like the way shine bombs handle it in Mexico, it gets people nervous and upset. They want the president to be a little happier. There's nothing wrong with being happy. You can be tough as nails and be happy, but right now it just feels like, oh, we're going to just screw every. People have been screwing us for years and we're going to fight back. Which is true. It's absolutely true. But you got to explain it very calmly and empirically, how we're being hurt by. In Italy, being hurt by German. And this is going to stop and we're going to make it stop. And then don't scream at those countries. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work because they know that they can stand their ground. You tell them, look, I am going to scream at you, help us. Help us and we'll help you.
- [03:57]
Jim Cramer
Still, the process of retaliation is starting to come into full effect. We heard the comments yesterday from Canada about electricity taxes and Doug Ford. I'll gladly shut it off completely if.
- [04:09]
Warren Buffett
I have to smooth Hawley. 60% increase in tariffs. There isn't anyone in any history book, and I know the president reads history. There isn't anyone in any history book that doesn't say that was a considered. That was a considered reason why we had the Great Depression. There is an assault.
- [04:25]
Tim Miller
Who.
- [04:26]
Warren Buffett
Who's ever said that? Look, go read Galbraith's book. It's really quick. It was a direct cause of the Depression, not the recession.
- [04:33]
Jim Cramer
So it is playing with fire, you think?
- [04:36]
Warren Buffett
Absolutely.
- [04:37]
Jim Cramer
But is it arson, meaning you can contain the blaze? Is that what you.
- [04:42]
Warren Buffett
Yeah. Meaning that you're doing it. Maybe it's deliberate. Right. And it doesn't make any sense. You don't want people to be laid off because of what you say. People are scared. You don't scare people. You don't scare. It's a wrong call. It's all message. People are scared. Come at it with a little bit of humor. Come at it and say, listen, I'm going Over to Germany. You know, it's going to be different for the Germans going forward. Not like, you know, I hate Germany. I mean, come on, they're our allies. Now you're getting to the other thing.
- [05:12]
Jim Cramer
Now, the fundstrat raised this question yesterday. Do you think the President is willing to watch the German and Chinese stock markets go to the moon while ours craters?
- [05:23]
Warren Buffett
On this weekend I did a piece and I said, everyone keeps thinking about the Dow. I think that the President is competitive versus other countries. And he could very quickly say, look, you know, he's distinguished himself as not caring about the stock market. Well, how about their stock markets? They're crushing us. Are we really going to let the Italian stock market beat us? Is Spain, Spain, Spain? I mean, are you kidding me?
- [05:47]
Tim Miller
And he's just exasperated. He's just exasperated. And he's right. He's like, what is happening? Trump is manufacturing a recession. He's crushing us. As Jim Cramer points out, this is all on Trump. Maybe Buffett is right and the market was going to correct eventually anyway. But this, the speed with which it's happened is all just because of the erratic and insane choices of Trump. Kramer's out there, he's like, why are you attacking Germany? Like, what are you doing? Why are you attacking Canada? You know, he's speculating. It's almost as if Trump wants the market to crash. I love this. At the end, we're gonna let Spain beat us. Spain. This is winning, maga. This is winning. You're just getting mocked on CNBC for the fact that Trump is single handedly, potentially spiraling us into a recession just because he likes the word tariff. The whole, the whole situation that we're in is preposterous. It's predictable, but it is utterly preposterous. And I think the third data point here comes from the Morning Shots newsletter that Andrew Egger and Bill Kristol wrote this morning. And they highlight the job losses at the shoe company Puma. Now, Puma, yesterday we acquired some documents that showed that the company's rationalization that they put forth to the market and to their employees about why their numbers were falling said this, said the company's sales had stumbled due to both trade disputes and immigration fears. And they pointed directly to the policies and the rhetoric of Trump as hurting the bottom line of Puma. So like, we're seeing this in the real world now in the private sector with job losses because of Trump's behavior. We're obviously, we've been covering this wall to wall. We've been seeing this in the public sector, the job losses because of Doge, we're seeing the stock market crash, all because of Trump, as Jim Cramer points out. And we're seeing the old wise hand, Warren Buffett, you know, basically saying, I'm going to hoard some cash right now, like all evidence points to arrow go down. I mean, this is just a disastrous across the board economic performance for Trump. And if they don't change course, it's going to get very rocky ahead for the country economically, but also for Trump's political fortunes. So, subscribe to the feed. We'll keep you posted as we see interesting analysis and reporting like this, and bring any reporting of our own. And we'll be back here soon. See you then. Peace.