The Friday Folly: A Letter to My Future Self

Found in my drafts folder, dated August 2nd, 2025

Dear Me (One Year From Now),

I'm writing this on a Friday that will live in trading floor infamy. The Dow fell more than 500 points, the S&P dropped 1.6% for its worst day since May, and the Nasdaq crashed 2.2%. By the time you read this letter, you'll probably know whether today marked the beginning of something bigger or just another summer tantrum that smart money shrugged off by Labor Day.

Trump unleashed fresh tariffs while simultaneously calling for Powell to resign, because apparently there's no economic crisis that can't be improved by attacking the one institution that's kept this whole charade from imploding. The jobs report was weaker than expected, which should surprise exactly no one who's been paying attention to the slow-motion trainwreck that tariff policy has made of hiring confidence.

But here's what I want you to remember about today: the absurdity wasn't just the market's reaction—it was the pretense that any of this was unexpected.

Powell admitted back in July that the Fed would have already cut rates if not for Trump's tariff circus. The writing has been spray-painted on the wall in neon letters since spring. Powell said the Fed held off on cuts due to economic uncertainty and inflation risks from tariff policies. Yet somehow, somehow, the collective financial brain trust acted shocked when this exact scenario played out.

I watched traders today toggle between CNBC and Twitter like hyperactive day-traders, searching for someone to blame for outcomes they could have scripted months ago. Yesterday we were hitting fresh records on Meta and Microsoft earnings, today we're discovering that maybe—just maybe—systematically raising the cost of everything while attacking the central bank isn't optimal policy.

The psychology of it all feels like watching a drunk person insist they're fine right up until they face-plant into the parking meter. Markets spent months convincing themselves that tariff threats were negotiating tactics, that Powell couldn't actually be fired, that jobs data didn't matter when tech earnings were strong. Today was the face-plant.

What strikes me as I write this is how predictable the unpredictable has become. Every Trump tariff announcement follows the same script: initial market panic, pundit speculation about "strategy," gradual realization that the policy is exactly as destructive as advertised, then surprise when the inevitable consequences arrive.

We've already seen one major crash this year when Trump announced sweeping tariffs in April, yet here we are in August, acting like lightning couldn't possibly strike the same stupidity twice.

Future Me, I hope by the time you read this, someone will have explained to me why we collectively keep forgetting that trade wars don't have winners, just varying degrees of losers. Maybe you'll have figured out why markets are so determined to learn the same lesson over and over, like a goldfish with a gambling addiction.

Or maybe you'll just laugh at how naive I was to think today was remarkable. Maybe by your time, 500-point Dow drops on tariff announcements will seem quaint—the equivalent of being shocked that rain makes things wet.

Either way, remember this feeling: the exhausting absurdity of watching avoidable disasters unfold in real-time while everyone acts surprised. Remember the traders who swore "this time is different" right up until it wasn't. Remember the pundits who explained why obvious consequences couldn't possibly happen, then scrambled to explain why they were inevitable after they did.

And for the love of compound interest, remember that markets hate uncertainty more than they hate bad policy—but they hate the combination of both most of all.

Tell me you at least figured out whether we ever stopped pretending any of this was sustainable.

Your confused but entertained past self,

P.S. If you're reading this during another tariff-induced crash, just know that I'm already sorry for whatever fresh hell 2025 dumped on your desk. At least we can't say we weren't warned.