I agree that a recession seems pretty much baked in at this point. Even if all the announcements were reversed, the unpredictability alone has caused business investment decisions to fall off a cliff, and that alone is a big headwind for an economy. Multiple economies.

But recessions come and go. The mere fact of a recession doesn't really change the value of the typical stock, since almost all of the value of any equity is past the ten year mark. There is pretty much always going to be a recession or two in any given decade, much like any farm is going to have winters and bad crops off an on. Lean years, fat years, we all know the drill.

The BIG question, to me, is to what extent any of the recent global changes are longer lasting than a typical recession or bear market. If, for example, global trade intensity is going to be 20% lower in the next 15 years than it would otherwise have been, that is a true and lasting drop in value for virtually all companies bigger than a corner store, not a mere cyclical pricing change. There is a good chance, for example, that there are billions of dollars worth of factories and equipment and goodwill sitting on company balance sheets that are no longer worth anything at all, because they are located in the wrong place to sell profitably to the destination where their erstwhile clients are located. History shows us that tariffs are often very quick to add, but can take decades to unwind again.

I don't have an answer to any of that, but I think that is the interesting question to ponder. What, if anything, are the more lasting consequences?

Jim