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 Monday, March 17th, and today we are once again trying to figure out what is going on in Trump's economy.

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. Well, friends, the stock market disintegration and the potential for a U.S. recession continue to be

the biggest story in markets.

Last week ended with the S&P 500 down a further 2.3%, the third straight week of major losses

for a combined 8% drawdown.

There's only been four green days since the index set an all-time high on February 19th.

This is now the worst drawdown since the summer of 2023, and the mood is getting distinctly

sour on Wall Street. Peter Chair, the head of macro strategy at Academy Security, said,

it is finally settling in that there's no Trump put and there is no way the economy can manage

so many shocks effectively. Doge,

firings, tariffs. Administration figures have been active in the press throughout the drawdown,

but contrary to traditional political strategy in the U.S., there has been very little support for

markets. While last weekend featured comments from the president and the Commerce Secretary,

Treasury Secretary Scott Besson is now the singular voice

for the administration, and his position is very clear. On Thursday, speaking with CNBC's squackbox,

Besson said, we're focused on the real economy. Can we create an environment where there are

long-term gains in the market and long-term gains for the American people? I'm not concerned

about a little bit of volatility over three weeks.

He continued, the reason stocks are a safe and great investment is because you're looking over the long term. If you start looking at microhorizon, stocks become very risky. So we're

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