Also section 174’s amortization of software development had a big role.
I would add one more: me too-ism from CEOs following Musk after the twitter reductions. I think many tech CEOs (e.g., Zuck) hate their workforce with a passion and used the layoff culture to unwind things and bring their workforce to heel (you might be less vocal in this sort of environment... think of the activists that used to work at Google).
I see evidence of a collusion. My friends at several tech companies (software and hardware) received very similar sounding emails in similar time frame. I think the goal was "salary compression". Management was terrified of the turnover and salary growth so they decided to act. They threw a bunch of people on the labor market at once to cool it down. It would normalize eventually but you don't need long. Fired H1-B holders have to find a new job within 2 months or self deport.
Now that someone's said to Trump's face that Wall Street thinks he always chickens out, he may or may not stop doing it.
The point is he’s powerless not to. The alternative is allowing a bond rout to trigger a bank collapse, probably in rural America. He didn’t do the prep that produces actual leverage. (Xi did.)
edit: grammar
Current issue is community banks have 3x the commercial real estate exposure of other banks [1]. They're also less liquid and have a lower ROA. So in cases where the shock comes from outside the financial sector, they tend to be the first we worry about.
[1] https://www.fdic.gov/quarterly-banking-profile 33% vs 11% of total assets
"You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics" (D. D. Eisenhower).
Trump did zero preparation for this trade war. It's still unclear what the ends are, with opposing and contradictory aims being messaged. We launched the war simultaneously against everyone. The formula used to calculate tariffs doesn't make sense. And Trump decided to blow out the deficit and kneecap U.S. state capacity at the same time he's negotiating against himself on trade.
The U.S. President can take on the bond market. Most simply by taking the budget into surplus, thereby threatening its existence. But Trump didn't do that. He didn't even pretend he was going to do that. Instead, he's strategically put himself in a position where he has to chicken out, and it honestly seems like he's surrounded himself with people who are too high, drunk and/or stupid to see that. He's the poker player who shows up at the table, goes all in, looks at his cards and folds in one move.
Same behaviour that bankrupted every institution he's ever been in charge of before. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting different results.
It's possible he'll stop chickening out to win his internal argument against that reporter who said he always chickens out. Feeling like he's winning seems to be important to him and he holds grudges for a long time. In that case the American economy goes bye bye.
We already know he wants to end the dollar reserve currency status, because he said so - trade deficit and reserve currency status are different words for the same thing.
So many dumpster fires but only a few official bankruptcies, well that's always what's on the table and anything goes.
Back in the 20th century almost everybody knew that Trump was not trustworthy, especially not with money, give me a break, that's what made him such a tragic/comic character.
It's almost like people forget with any org where he is the ultimate decision-maker, if there is challenging debt with no quick way out, he is more likely than most to declare bankruptcy. Otherwise it would require acumen he has never had to right a faltering ship. Plus he would be bogged down when he wanted to shift his focus to schemes that were more promising to him personally. Like other pie-in-the-sky deals back then, or something like his memecoin today. So many times in different orgs with different/leading personalities it's only a declaration away anyhow. Not normally on the menu for the best of the real decent businessmen, but what do you do when you get one that's far from the best and not even decent?
If there were some deep insight into his personal financial situation over the years, especially recently, there might be a more accurate picture whether he would be inclined to "one day" just decide to declare the whole USA bankrupt and move on to greener pastures himself. Or if the decision has already been made, who knew? Or would believe it yet anyway?
Any President could always have made more money doing something else, the whole time it's only been a matter of integrity, or lack thereof.
Mission accomplished.