What recession??

I don't see no stinkin' recession!

Yesterday’s post re the coming recession inspired several readers to vehemently disagree with my view that a recession is coming.

ooooookay…

Let’s start with trade.

The number of shipping containers landing in the Port of Los Angeles is cratering. The biggest single shipper is China…because the price of most stuff from China just went up 1 1/2 times due to Trump’s Tariffs…

Buyers large and small including;

• Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Amazon,

• Tractor Supply,

• your local toy store,

• the cell phone store,

• clothing and shoe stores [China supplies 37% of all U.S. apparel imports and approximately 58% of all U.S. footwear imports],

• baby stores,

• auto parts and tire shops,

• hardware stores and pretty much every other retail seller
  

  have ALL drastically cut back their orders.

Want some data?

Here’s what’s happening at our largest port:

And…in what’s really scary, there are LOTs of scheduled sailings that have been cancelled. The industry calls these “blank sailings.”

But “Trump’s doing deals!” you say…

uh, not according to Trump’s own Treasury Secretary. and…not with the Chinese.

And if you think Xi - China’s Communist Party Leader - is going to cave, you better bone up on your Chinese history and government. Xi isn’t worried about public opinion, or an election, or…anything. China’s the country that starved/killed more than a million of its people during the Cultural Revolution back when Mao Tse Tung was the Party Leader.

Here’s what consumers are thinking:

Here’s what Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg said.

Lastly, farming is in deep…fertilizer.

What does this mean for you?

HL Mencken: You get the government you deserve, and you deserve to get it good and hard.

That “good and hard” part is coming fast.