Departure From Controlled Flight

So, the stock market pretty much shit the bed yesterday. Global markets are doing likewise, because investors love them some trade war rumors.

Well, it's not like this part was unforeseen. Protectionism was baked into the core of the Trump platform, inasmuch as you can call an inchoate middle finger a "platform". We're gonna bring back all them jobs and you'll be able to buy $49 cell phones, $19 blue jeans, and 99 cent shower shoes made with good American union labor craftsmanship like your grandparents did. You can pay for them in the soybeans you can't sell in China anymore.

Yeah, this is hyperbole and everything's probably going to be fine. It just gets me nervous when people start yanking levers and spinning dials on machines as complicated as the global economy, because nobody's entirely sure how it all works (although plenty of folks think they are.)

Well, at least along with the protectionism comes isolationism, and frankly that was the most attractive part of the whole Trump movement. We've had enough foreign adventures in the last seventeen years. We need to take a less hawkish, less meddlesome foreign policy stance and...

I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2018

Fantastic. That's exactly the kind of guy we need giving POTUS national security advice. Wonderful.