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Yesterday, the White House rolled out the biggest tariffs in a century, sending markets into their worst decline since the pandemic. While headlines focus on supply chains and inflation, there are important economic stories you\u2019re not hearing about.<\/p>\n
During the first half of this month\u2019s First Friday episode, we dig into what nobody\u2019s talking about. And in the second half, we grapple with the headlines.<\/p>\n
Student loan rules just changed again. The government added new limits to Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Right now, 9.2 million people \u2014 one in five borrowers \u2014 can\u2019t keep up with payments. Many folks don\u2019t even know payments started again after that four-and-a-half-year break.<\/p>\n
S&P just dropped a new report that backs what smart money already knows: index funds crush actively managed funds 90 percent of the time. Even with all those tech stocks dominating the market, you still come out ahead with simple indexing.<\/p>\n
You know who\u2019s gobbling up the mortgage market? Rocket Companies. They just bought both Redfin and Mr. Cooper. They\u2019ll handle one of every six mortgages in America. They\u2019ve positioned themselves at every step of the homebuying journey \u2014 from when you search for homes on Redfin to financing and monthly payments for the next 30 years.<\/p>\n
The White House just made a surprising move with Bitcoin. They\u2019re setting up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to hold coins long-term. They\u2019re also creating a separate stockpile for crypto they seize in legal cases. Pretty clear signal that Bitcoin stands apart from other cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n
In the second half, we dive into those significant new tariffs making headlines.<\/p>\n
The S&P 500 dropped 4.8 percent on Thursday \u2014 we haven\u2019t seen a drop like that since the pandemic. The new rules put at least a 10 percent tariff on everything coming into the country. Then come the \u201creciprocal\u201d rates: 20 percent for European goods, 27 percent for items from India, and a combined 65 percent for Chinese imports.<\/p>\n
We bring in Bob Elliott to make sense of this situation. His credentials are impressive \u2014 he spent 13 years at Bridgewater Associates (the world\u2019s largest hedge fund), served as head of Ray Dalio\u2019s investment team, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.<\/p>\n
During the 2008 crisis, he directly advised the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and White House.<\/p>\n
Bob offers a reality check about bringing back manufacturing jobs: you can\u2019t build factories overnight. These investments take years, and companies hesitate to make 30-year commitments when policies change every few months.<\/p>\n
Bob breaks down four economic forces all hitting at once: tariffs jacking up prices, government cutting spending, tax policies on hold, and the Fed moving like molasses. Put them together? Yikes. He doesn\u2019t sugarcoat it \u2014 the short-term outlook looks \u201cpretty negative.\u201d<\/p>\n
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