Copy of AFF Sentinel V22 #24-First Quarter Ends, Second Begins

Perspectives, Patience, Consumer Sentiment

Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel

Colorado Springs, CO

Originally sent to subscribers 04/01/25

Edi. Note: While most of the news regarding progress on key issues has been positive, the House threw a shoe Tuesday over nothing that should have been controversial and recessed for the rest of the week.

The last few days have slowed the frenetic pace of Trump’s first moves. Now, two months in, some analysis and observations are in order. However, it behooves us once again to remind folks that we didn’t get into our current situation overnight and we won’t get out of it overnight.

The uncertainty about tariffs is everywhere in the news, affecting the stock markets, worrying some businesses and fueling anti-Trump diatribes as the latest cause du’jour, something to bolster horror at the Signal screw-up.

While the tariffs only affect 14 percent of the GDP, there are certain sectors that they might affect more than others. We can’t accurately estimate any affect until we know the rules for sure. As beef exports, especially variety meats, are more important than they used to be, it behooves monitoring. We do not know if there will be any retaliatory tariffs.

It was a given by now that everyone on the right’s relief could slacken some and the opposition’s fury would only burn hotter. As we’ve said before, the sequence here is unfortunate. It would have been better for the tax cut bill to have passed Congress, the effects of deregulation begun to sink in, some new flows of oil and gas to begin and people to begin seeing job and wage growth and economic pickup before instituting new tariffs.

A large banner “Burn a Tesla, Save Democracy” from the weekend news at a “rally” neatly summarizes the far left’s mental state right now. Rallying to support terrorists, burn the cars of -- often -- other Democrats and enticing district court judges who have no jurisdiction beyond their district to issue national restraining orders and injunctions are their principal tactics right now.

Incidentally, we’ve remarked before that it is unfortunate that fighting the federal government’s overreaching actions usually has to go first to the D.C. Court, in one of the nation’s most liberal-leaning environments. President Obama made the court’s bench bigger, packing the court with more liberal judges than ever before to make sure the federal government had lots of sympathetic ears.

But, it goes farther than that. A study of the makeup of the court by The Federalist uncovered the fact that one-third of the 15 judges on one of the highest and most frequented courts in the land is made up of judges that weren’t even born in America, some without any legal experience before being elevated to the court.

Technology these days is something to behold. Computer systems that can’t run a gas pump sometimes can do marvelous things. It’s the old, “Technology is grand when it works.” Take Elon Musk’s team investigating the workings of the federal government. To these guys, digging into that plumbing must be like crawling through the catacombs under a Roman city. Paradoxically, there must be some fabulously talented geniuses that have made the government processes work with 1970s and 1980s technology.

But while we’ve heard about digital whiz kids probing the government’s innards, Bret Baier’s (Fox News) interview with Elon Musk and some of his DOGE council was astonishing. These guys were middle-aged and older CEOs of companies, tech titans of digital corporations, people who were taking time from important companies to help Elon root out waste, abuse and corruption. We are not the only ones who care about the country and want to see it succeed. There may be whiz kids somewhere but they must be behind the scenes plumbing the depths of archaic government systems.

As for the psychology in the U.S. right now, political leanings are shaping voter attitudes, if one examines the data. More than one analyst has noted that while consumer sentiment measures indicate people think the economic world is in terrible shape, the data on things like industrial production, housing starts, business investment, etc. has definitely picked up. Consumers, especially if they vote Democrat, are discouraged right now. Even the prices of eggs going down can’t get them out of the dumps.

But boxed beef prices briefly topped $340 last week and live cattle prices have been over $200 for some days. People are buying beef steadily and we haven’t even gotten into grilling season in much of the country.

Paradoxically, the cost of everything -- including foodstuffs, labor, rent -- and narrow or negative margins have hit several restaurant chains, forcing them to close some locations or worse.

The rapid pace of change the first couple of months of the Trump Administration perhaps conditioned people to think their problems would be solved quickly. But it’s going to take some time and patience is not something our modern culture is good at.

But in the grand scheme of the plan Trump and the Republicans are working on, tariffs will be much less important than major tax cuts, deregulation, relaxing of energy restrictions, real border security and reduced crime. In fact, Steve Moore found in speaking with a group of small and medium sized company CEOs, that they considered that deregulation would be more important them than even the tax cuts.

There is another angle to deregulation that many of us hadn’t thought about. But myriad banking regulations and restrictions have crept into the system in recent years. DEI even told banks not to lend to fossil fuel companies. Banks are just as powerless before banking regulators as packers are before USDA inspectors.

And as is the case with other government regulation, the big banks aren’t as concerned about restrictions and regulations because they have a whole department devoted to compliance and they can afford it. Small banks do not have the personnel or the margins to handle that kind of burden.

So businesses are looking forward to banks that are going to be allowed to (gasp) loan money and make (dirty word) profits.

Next time: More on deregulation, response to “Liberation Day” and technology advances in protests.

Our address: Agribusiness Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 88179, Colorado Springs, CO. 80908.

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