Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on Macro, Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, March 5th, and today we are catching up on the state of the union, the macro landscape, trade war, tariffs, bonds, all the things that are driving markets into a tizzy right now.

Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod.

Hello, friends. This has been, to put it lightly, a volatile week in markets. Sentiment is flipped

back and forth as tariff implementation begins and a growth scare looms on the horizon.

We've seen Bitcoin experience some of its most violent moves for this cycle, and stocks are no less volatile. The macro picture feels chaotic to

match a whirlwind opening to the Trump administration. And if you thought we would get some clarity

from Donald Trump's state of the union-esque thing, technically it's not a state of the union,

but that's how the administration was treating it, so whatever. Anyway, if you thought you were going to get clarity from that, you were, I'm sorry, sorely

mistaken. The record length and 90-minute speech offered plenty of red meat to the culture war,

but relatively little clarity on economic policies. Trump discussed tariffs, but only in very

general terms. He mentioned Mexico and Canada, but offered no clarity on what the policy would be by the end of the week. The broader logic presented by Trump was that all nations should expect reciprocal

tariffs to match their own trade barriers. The president called out friend and foe alike,

making it appear that South Korea was just as likely to be a target as China. He said,

whatever they tariff us, we tariff them. Whatever they tax us, we tax them. If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market.

Trump also foreshadowed generalized tariffs on food imports intended to go into force at the beginning

of April. Summing up, the president declared, tariffs are about making America rich again and making

America great again. And it's happening and it will happen rather quickly. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're okay with that. It won't be much. On other economic issues, Trump largely reiterated his plans.

He pledged tax cuts, including removing the tax on tips overtime and Social Security. He promised to

balance the budget, but gave no timeline. Ultimately, this was a populist leader delivering a message

of success to his base, and frankly skipping right on past the uncertainty that has markets on edge. Trump once again promised to usher in a golden age for America,

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