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On Tuesday, I underwent a partial knee replacement on my right knee. It was a necessary step after more than a year—perhaps longer—of persistent pain that disrupted my sleep and made daily walks nearly impossible.
But here’s the twist: while the surgery was meant to relieve my suffering, the post-operative pain is even more intense. Even with strong medication, it’s a new level of discomfort. And physical therapy? That promises its own form of agony for the next three months. After that, I’ll go through it all again with my left knee.
So, in essence, I traded a long-term, chronic pain for a sharper, more intense—but temporary—one. A lifetime of suffering exchanged for a concentrated period of hardship with the promise of relief.
What kind of loss is this? How do we define it?
And more importantly—doesn’t this feel familiar?
Markets experience pain too. Long-term economic drags, unsustainable trends, and financial misalignments eventually reach a breaking point. Sometimes, the market chooses to rip the Band-Aid off—an intense, painful correction in exchange for future stability.
Is that what’s happening now? Are we enduring a necessary, short-term pain that ultimately leads to a stronger foundation?
I certainly hope so. Because in both surgery and investing, the goal isn’t just to avoid pain—it’s to ensure a healthier future.
WDH
No. Trump’s nonsensical tariffs are a self inflicted wound of epic proportions. Even the formula they used for the tariffs were ridiculous. If continued they will do long term damage to our country, as will the indiscriminate DOGE cuts.
I totally agree. Trump’s end game vision for tariffs is not realistic nor achievable. The stock market has no confidence in his ability to make this work.
What Trump’s doing, is a lot like tearing off a Band-Aid, one with a legacy in the Cold War, post WW2 reconstruction. The state of world trade was bad in that the US was bearing ridiculous costs in terms of tariffs and market hurdles that post NAFTA, post globalism, just meant hardship for the bottom 1/3, 1/2 of American families. It wasn’t a path that could be walked forever.
I don’t see this as a completely Trump thing. Post WW2 the prosperous nations bought into the Intl Maritime Order, replaced war and destruction as a path to acquire riches (which didn’t work very well) with eliminating empire and embracing trade (which has worked brilliantly).
So at some point globalism had to break the taxes on America that were needed to rebuild after WW2. We have to see the rest of the prosperous world take their places as part of establishing and maintaining the global order. It will be good for everyone. (could be the thing that unlocks Intl growth levels).
I have no idea how this will turn out. There are a lot of moving parts. Intl agreements rarely move forward in a straight line.
Those calculations Trump showed had nothing to do with tariffs imposed on the US by those regions/countries. That rate was calculated by categorizing our trade deficit with those places as a “tariff” on the US, and then imposing actual real tariffs on their imports to the US. He’s calling them reciprocal in a very pathetic attempt to make these tariffs not look like a declaration of trade war. It’s pure marketing, and pure garbage. Don’t believe him. No country on the planet has benefitted more from the expansion of global trade than the US. We’ve been the top dog for well over 100 years now.
What hardship for the bottom 1/2-1/3 of Americans do you refer to? Seems to me those are the folks who carry the burden of tariffs more than anyone else.
I was speaking of what’s happened, not what’s about to happen.
Embracing globalism was presumed to spur on reducing tariffs internationally. That opening American markets would spur other places to open their markets. Hasn’t happened and as the world economy has become more balanced (which is a good thing on whole) the US working class has been shouldering more of the burden. (I don’t think cheap t-shirts were a good trade for those jobs)
I have no idea what’s going to happen with these tariffs. They’re reciprocal, not protective. It’s entirely possible that we could see a stream of nations deciding they’d prefer to be in a zero tariff state with the US.
But I can’t predict how nation’s perceive their self interest. For example, Russia seems to have a desire for territorial expansion even though it’s likely the opposite of their economic self interest. Makes no sense to me.
“What Trump’s doing, is a lot like tearing off a Band-Aid.”
Try it’s more like amputating a limb.
I was using the OPs language
Personally I’m in wait and see mode. Most of the tariff talk just sounds like doom and gloom. As if we’re entering a 10 year period of global protectionism. Very little said about how these tariffs are reciprocal (meaning they incentivize a zero/low tariff state).
I don’t know how different countries will respond. I don’t know how Trump will respond. Pivots can be slow or fast. What concerns me is that Trump’s policies are contradictory:
You can’t think you’ll use tariffs to incentivize rebuilding American manufacturing AND use reciprocal tariffs that point towards a zero tariff goal. At some point that has to be resolved, those goals can’t coexist long term.
You are conflating trade deficits with tariffs, as Trump is purposely doing. These tariffs are in no way “reciprocal “. Tell me how this makes sense…
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18tPngxFzg/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Well, I wouldn’t say this is leading to a more stable foundation. I think of it as more of an American Brexit, a foolish choice to isolate that has no potential benefits for anyone. Well, maybe it will help Putin’s Russia, so it’s not all negative
Brexit is a great analogy. How did that work for the Brits?
Poorly.
Gifting WSJ article. Intro: “Britain’s decision to raise barriers with its largest trading partners has broadly come to be seen as an act of economic self-harm”
Osteoarthritis in both of my knees seemed to come on precipitously, and I reached the point where walking a block was very painful. After my left total knee replacement last year, a PT came to my home 3 days post-op. I thought to myself, “you’ve got to be kidding”. She said “By two weeks out, the pain won’t be so bad. In six weeks, you will be getting around reasonably well. At three months you’ll be glad you had the surgery.” I said “You mean it will be three months before I’m glad?!” She smiled. And she was right. The importance of PT following knee replacement cannot be overstated. And there is a window of opportunity for recovery of good range of motion that is only open for a finite period. I had the other knee replaced five months ago. I am grateful for modern medicine and pleased with my outcome.
As for the parallels to market volatility, this, unlike my health, is something I can do nothing about. So I chose an asset allocation that would allow me to sleep well no matter what the market does.
I have been asking that as well. What is the possible or likely new value from this economic crisis? So far no answer.
The problem as I see it is the misconception we can put the world back as it was in the 1950s.
This is not going to end well, except perhaps for China.