Let’s start with a digression: Bill Wyman is or was a member of the Rolling Stones. (I know virtually nothing about the Rolling Stones.) He is now 88, but when he was 52 he married Mandy Smith, an 18 year old with whom he had been in a sexual relationship for four years. They were together for two years after they married and then separated and were divorced. What I read yesterday is that Bill Wyman’s son Stephen later married Mandy Smith’s mother. (I am assuming, for the purpose of this digression, that what I read it true; I don’t otherwise know, one way or the other.) When they married, Stephen was 31 and Patsy (Mandy’s mother) was 46. That means that Stephen married his step-grandmother (right?) making him his own step-grandson (right?). I am trying to picture the tree.

End of digression.

We went out for dinner to a nice upscale restaurant (Le Chat Noir in DC) last night with old friends. Because of the amazing stock decline, I thought that I should hold back on my spending and consumption and, to do that, I decided I wouldn’t get a drink. But then the market climbed about 3000 points, and I decided a drink was in order, and I had a very soothing vodka gimlet. Now the market has declined about 1,000 points from it’s last night high, and there is only one thing that I am thankful for. I am thankful for my vodka gimlet.

So once again, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell was right. What he always says is that there is one thing you can always count on regarding the behavior of Donald Trump. When he proposes to do something bold (and crazy), you can always count on him to back off before he does it. And, once again, he did. He backed off his reciprocal tariffs, we can buy vanilla beans from Madagascar without paying a penalty, and life is back where it was, right?

Wrong. We still have 10% tariffs on everything, we still have 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, we still have the tariffs he put on Canadian imports and of course we still have the 1,000,000% tariffs on Chinese goods (or whatever the correct number is today). That is the reason, I guess, that the 3000 Dow rise yesterday has turned into a 1000 Dow decline so far today.

Apparently, the biggest problem yesterday was not the stock market drop (from the Trumpian perspective) but the unprecedented decline in the purchase of US bonds, which threatens everything in our economy. I am not sure where the bond market is today. The market can lose confidence in our bonds quickly, but how long does it take to regain confidence. Trump says that he had been “following the bond market” and that now it is “beautiful”.

As to who convinced Trump to back off, that’s another story. Probably everyone but Peter Navarro, the man whom Elon called “dumber than a stack of bricks”, and then apologized profusely to the bricks.

Another quick digression. Since whatever Trump does has a gargantuan effect on markets, and since so many in Trump’s circle depend on the markets and have so many conflicts, what are the odds there has been insider trading and market manipulation? 100% is probably a conservative guess.

End of digression.

Of course, the reciprocal tariffs that Trump was to put on the world have only been postponed for a 90 day period until mid-July. My own thought is that the 90 days mentioned in Trump’s Truth Social tweet is meaningless. Based on the market’s experience yesterday, the pause may last the remainder of Trump’s term. Or, Trump being the loose goose he is, the 90 day pause itself could be canceled, and the tariffs could be imposed this afternoon. You just never know, which is why the question of market confidence is so much up in the air.

And then (if this is true), Trump has said that 70 countries have requested meetings to discuss individual tariff “deals”, or as he puts it 70 countries have said that they want to “kiss my ass”. Maybe now, they won’t be so anxious to meet.

As to China, from which we get about 16% of our imports, who knows? Even if we are in a fight with China alone, that fight will affect us in some ways unforeseen. And as to what will happen to our federal workforce, our federal buildings, our claims to Greenland, Panama, and Gaza, the wars in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, and the people being whisked off the street and sent to El Salvador………

We had an interesting conversation this morning with my Thursday breakfast group about the ethical roles of lawyers. The discussion was presented as the responsibilities of lawyers representing corporations whose activities create public health issues (tobacco companies, chemical companies, etc.), where the “client” is engaged in conduct which is dangerous and will be continuing (as opposed to representing a defendant in, say, a murder trial where the particular crime has already been committed and cannot continue), and the discussion quickly morphed into the responsibilities of lawyers who are working for the government and taking positions supporting actions which are both wrong (define that as you wish, or define it as positions which the lawyers themselves believe to be wrong) and continuing. The discussion goes to the definition of “client” when it comes to a government lawyers, the ethical responsibilities of lawyers which trump (now a cute word I guess) their responsibilities to their clients (however defined), and questions of failing to tell the truth in court proceedings or enabling witnesses to lie in court proceedings.

Guess what? It was an interesting discussion.