[Spooky23]

The hard part is that except for the insiders using the drama to enrich themselves, nobody really knows.

My guess is that POTUS, who fancies himself a master negotiator, will try to leverage this to get some concession to declare victory and grift some money - the markets are going to crash and I’m sure the whole Trump, Elon, and the billionaire family and their orbit has pits and short sales in for next week.

The question is what will other countries do? Targeting software is an obvious way to inflict pain on the US government.

You and I are pawns. For you, the smart move is to be prepared to slash your costs quickly. That means figure out what costs you can slash. Have an idea of who to lay off, what contracts to terminate, and what services to drop. If you depend on foreign partners, how do you afford a higher rate or replace them with someone in your jurisdiction? The goal is survive to fight another day if you depend on foreign trade or on US business of you are outside the US.

All of this sucks and will hurt a lot of people. But it’s outside of your control, accept that and don’t blame yourself.

[scarface_74]

I’ve been slashing costs since 2020. More so because I thought the bottom was going to fall out of tech salaries and I didn’t want to have to chase BigTech comp.

I spent a year paying off debt after working for BigTech remotely (no longer there), moved to a condo 1/3 the size of our house in tax free Florida after our youngest graduated.

Our budget now as far as fixed expenses is only 3.5% more now than it was after we first paid off all of our debt at the end of 2020 even though inflation is up 21% since that time.

We save more than 3.5% in state taxes.

[theyinwhy]

This creates the impression that we can provide for everything ourselves. The reality is that we need global service and consultancy partners for the kind of work we are doing.