April 21, 2025 • 8 mins
Chris warns of an impending “self-inflicted” recession driven by Trump’s tariff chaos and policy uncertainty. Citing businesses’ reluctance to invest amid unclear rules, he predicts two quarters of negative growth, likening the situation to a muted post-2008 recovery under Obama. Markowski advises investors to stay patient and courageous, treat market sell-offs as opportunities, and urges businesses to use the downturn to boost efficiency, while dismissing hopes that Fed rate cuts can avert the downturn. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast, explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
All right, everybody, we're going to talk about the R
word recession. In search of recession and Happy Easter everyone,
christ has Risen. I am got to talk a little
bit about recession because I see when coming. I think
we probably had one, or we definitely had one during
(00:38):
the Biden years. They just never really called it. We
had two quarters of negative economic growth. How why I know,
Kevin Hasset cent there's not gonna be a recession one
hundred percent not going to happen in twenty twenty five. Okay,
wo keep We're getting to a point in time where
I said, the businesses out there are like, I'm not
(00:59):
going to do it, but you're gonna invest. I'm not
invest I don't know what the rules are. You know
what the rules are? Okay. The Old Life serial commercial
back from the nineteen seventies with Mikey. I'm not going
to try it. Here'll try them. Mikey, try it. He'll
try anything, you know whatever. Businesses are not going to
do much when they don't know what's up sideways, backwards
(01:19):
or forwards. And this type of stop leads to what
not as much economic growth. And the technical definition of
a recession is two quarters of negative economic growth. Let's
go over it. Okay, this again, completely self inflicted recessions
(01:45):
are actually called by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Okay,
it's a group group out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. And they again,
they define the recession as significant decline economic activity spread
ass the economy lasting lasting more than a few months.
That is visible in measures such as GDP, employment incomes,
(02:09):
and industrial production. Okay, So the debate that's taken place
right now is that Donald Trump feels that in order
to stave off a recession, the economy is slowing. He
talked about his his you know, basic preemptive cuts. You
mentioned today that lower interest rates fed lower's interest rates.
(02:30):
That's magically going to stave it off. And just because
rates come down, short term rates come down, that means okay,
the party is on parties on again, Party on Wayne,
Party on Darting, No, no, no, no, anyway again. I
wrote a column about this back in two thousand and eight,
(02:51):
In Search of Recession, and I alluded to a television
program that I liked a lot when back in the seventies.
It was kind of like a precursor to some of
the stuff you have on today. It was hosted by
Leonard Nimoy, was called in Search of and in search
of Lennard Nimoy, would you know, look into UFOs or
(03:12):
the Lockness Monster? Or where or where did Amelia Earhart go?
Bigfoot was another one again, you know, it's kind of
like the pre podcast Leonard Nimoy ahead of his time
nineteen seventy show In Search of So we're going to
play the game of in search of Recession. Okay, they're
(03:33):
they're they're rare, they're hard to find. We again, we
have a very resilient economy, whether it be you know,
via technology, productivity, business efficiency companies, manufacturers, you name it.
(03:53):
They they can foresee problems, they see them coming down
the road. They understand how supply chains working. That's obviously
a problem today. They are going to work look for workarounds, okay,
and that's that's what they're doing right now. Supply chain management,
all sorts of things and again, it's it's not going
(04:14):
to happen overnight, and many businesses are going to get
hit harder than others. And again this those much of
my frustration that you've been listening to over the past
few weeks is the fact that it's going to be
much much harder for small businesses out there, harder, not impossible,
but much more difficult. Now, what I try to tell
(04:39):
people do during a recession, first and foremost, believe it
or not, stock markets end up outperforming during a recession
because it's anticipating coming out of the recession. It's the
lead in which is the issue. Now again, you can't
let recession change your philosophy in regards to your portfolio
(05:04):
and getting bent out of shape over it. You just
can't do it. Again. Media loves them a lot to
talk about. Lots of people discuss whether or not we're
going to have when or not. It happens all the time.
What I when I try to tell people to do,
We've we've talked about this here on the show. When
(05:27):
confronted by the recession monster, it shows up first and foremost. Again. Uh,
you know, I know that's difficult to swallow, but every
single time you have a market sell off or correction.
It's always an opportunity. Time and time again. Again we
talk about this when it comes to our process. You
(05:50):
have to have you have to have patients, and you
have to have courage. When things are getting harry. Do
not try to predict mark get tops and bottoms, Warren Buffett.
It's not capable of doing it. We're not capable of
doing it. It just doesn't work. Over time, markets will
do extraordinary, even bizarre things. Again, I could talk about
(06:17):
sucking it up during a recession markets, whatever it may be.
But one of the things that you got to also
take a look at when it comes to recessions and
how I like to describe them, oftentimes you want to
use it as an opportunity for your business, your household
in regards to cleaning things up, cleaning things up, where
(06:38):
can I create greater efficiencies. This goes back to our
concept that we preach all the time about being anti fragile,
where you're going to deal with the shock. You're going
to absorb the shock. You're not gonna shock's not going
to break you. You're not fragile, You're not going to
just be resilient, but you're going to come out on
(06:58):
the other side of the shock stronger than you were
going in. Again, the way things are, the terrain as
it sets right now, what is taking place the White House,
how they're handling things. Absolutely, absolutely, do I see a
recession in the cards. And no, it's not something that
(07:19):
Jay Powell can stave off. Again, it's an uncertainty recession.
It's a self induced uncertainty recession. And again you want
to actually even think about, I'll give you another kind
of explain this. I wrote many pieces post Great Recession
and how it was handled by Obama and how that
(07:40):
was one of that was the weakest post recession recovery
we'd ever seen. And the reason being was uncertainty. All
sorts of rules and regulations and everything that Obama was
throwing at the economy at that point in time, trying
to rejigger everything out of Washington, d c. And it
didn't help. In hell, this is why you had muted growth.
(08:01):
If you remember back in the time, at the time
they were true believers, you had Obama and Biden, what
they were doing, Biden coming out there, it's recovery summer,
and it was this recovery, this and recovery that and
they really believed it until they didn't anymore, and then
they just said, hey, you know what, this country is
not going to go back to the type of growth
that we had seen in the past that was just unsustainable.
(08:23):
They thought they could do it, they can't. Again, We've
got to clear the decks when it comes to regulation.
We got to clear the decks when it comes to
all of this. It's certainly when it comes to tariffs
that is the only way through. Watchdog on Wall Street
dot Com
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast, explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
All right, everybody, we're going to talk about the R
word recession. In search of recession and Happy Easter everyone,
christ has Risen. I am got to talk a little
bit about recession because I see when coming. I think
we probably had one, or we definitely had one during
(00:38):
the Biden years. They just never really called it. We
had two quarters of negative economic growth. How why I know,
Kevin Hasset cent there's not gonna be a recession one
hundred percent not going to happen in twenty twenty five. Okay,
wo keep We're getting to a point in time where
I said, the businesses out there are like, I'm not
(00:59):
going to do it, but you're gonna invest. I'm not
invest I don't know what the rules are. You know
what the rules are? Okay. The Old Life serial commercial
back from the nineteen seventies with Mikey. I'm not going
to try it. Here'll try them. Mikey, try it. He'll
try anything, you know whatever. Businesses are not going to
do much when they don't know what's up sideways, backwards
(01:19):
or forwards. And this type of stop leads to what
not as much economic growth. And the technical definition of
a recession is two quarters of negative economic growth. Let's
go over it. Okay, this again, completely self inflicted recessions
(01:45):
are actually called by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Okay,
it's a group group out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. And they again,
they define the recession as significant decline economic activity spread
ass the economy lasting lasting more than a few months.
That is visible in measures such as GDP, employment incomes,
(02:09):
and industrial production. Okay, So the debate that's taken place
right now is that Donald Trump feels that in order
to stave off a recession, the economy is slowing. He
talked about his his you know, basic preemptive cuts. You
mentioned today that lower interest rates fed lower's interest rates.
(02:30):
That's magically going to stave it off. And just because
rates come down, short term rates come down, that means okay,
the party is on parties on again, Party on Wayne,
Party on Darting, No, no, no, no, anyway again. I
wrote a column about this back in two thousand and eight,
(02:51):
In Search of Recession, and I alluded to a television
program that I liked a lot when back in the seventies.
It was kind of like a precursor to some of
the stuff you have on today. It was hosted by
Leonard Nimoy, was called in Search of and in search
of Lennard Nimoy, would you know, look into UFOs or
(03:12):
the Lockness Monster? Or where or where did Amelia Earhart go?
Bigfoot was another one again, you know, it's kind of
like the pre podcast Leonard Nimoy ahead of his time
nineteen seventy show In Search of So we're going to
play the game of in search of Recession. Okay, they're
(03:33):
they're they're rare, they're hard to find. We again, we
have a very resilient economy, whether it be you know,
via technology, productivity, business efficiency companies, manufacturers, you name it.
(03:53):
They they can foresee problems, they see them coming down
the road. They understand how supply chains working. That's obviously
a problem today. They are going to work look for workarounds, okay,
and that's that's what they're doing right now. Supply chain management,
all sorts of things and again, it's it's not going
(04:14):
to happen overnight, and many businesses are going to get
hit harder than others. And again this those much of
my frustration that you've been listening to over the past
few weeks is the fact that it's going to be
much much harder for small businesses out there, harder, not impossible,
but much more difficult. Now, what I try to tell
(04:39):
people do during a recession, first and foremost, believe it
or not, stock markets end up outperforming during a recession
because it's anticipating coming out of the recession. It's the
lead in which is the issue. Now again, you can't
let recession change your philosophy in regards to your portfolio
(05:04):
and getting bent out of shape over it. You just
can't do it. Again. Media loves them a lot to
talk about. Lots of people discuss whether or not we're
going to have when or not. It happens all the time.
What I when I try to tell people to do,
We've we've talked about this here on the show. When
(05:27):
confronted by the recession monster, it shows up first and foremost. Again. Uh,
you know, I know that's difficult to swallow, but every
single time you have a market sell off or correction.
It's always an opportunity. Time and time again. Again we
talk about this when it comes to our process. You
(05:50):
have to have you have to have patients, and you
have to have courage. When things are getting harry. Do
not try to predict mark get tops and bottoms, Warren Buffett.
It's not capable of doing it. We're not capable of
doing it. It just doesn't work. Over time, markets will
do extraordinary, even bizarre things. Again, I could talk about
(06:17):
sucking it up during a recession markets, whatever it may be.
But one of the things that you got to also
take a look at when it comes to recessions and
how I like to describe them, oftentimes you want to
use it as an opportunity for your business, your household
in regards to cleaning things up, cleaning things up, where
(06:38):
can I create greater efficiencies. This goes back to our
concept that we preach all the time about being anti fragile,
where you're going to deal with the shock. You're going
to absorb the shock. You're not gonna shock's not going
to break you. You're not fragile, You're not going to
just be resilient, but you're going to come out on
(06:58):
the other side of the shock stronger than you were
going in. Again, the way things are, the terrain as
it sets right now, what is taking place the White House,
how they're handling things. Absolutely, absolutely, do I see a
recession in the cards. And no, it's not something that
(07:19):
Jay Powell can stave off. Again, it's an uncertainty recession.
It's a self induced uncertainty recession. And again you want
to actually even think about, I'll give you another kind
of explain this. I wrote many pieces post Great Recession
and how it was handled by Obama and how that
(07:40):
was one of that was the weakest post recession recovery
we'd ever seen. And the reason being was uncertainty. All
sorts of rules and regulations and everything that Obama was
throwing at the economy at that point in time, trying
to rejigger everything out of Washington, d c. And it
didn't help. In hell, this is why you had muted growth.
(08:01):
If you remember back in the time, at the time
they were true believers, you had Obama and Biden, what
they were doing, Biden coming out there, it's recovery summer,
and it was this recovery, this and recovery that and
they really believed it until they didn't anymore, and then
they just said, hey, you know what, this country is
not going to go back to the type of growth
that we had seen in the past that was just unsustainable.
(08:23):
They thought they could do it, they can't. Again, We've
got to clear the decks when it comes to regulation.
We got to clear the decks when it comes to
all of this. It's certainly when it comes to tariffs
that is the only way through. Watchdog on Wall Street
dot Com
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.