2025 Recession Indicators Hit Fashion and Wall Street at Once

Tariffs, Recession, and “Intentional Pain”

• Multiple commenters argue the administration is openly accepting recession as collateral damage for aggressive tariffs, citing statements about “pain” and “hardship” being “worth the price paid.”
• Others push back that no one explicitly says “we want a recession,” and that claims of a deliberate crash to buy assets cheap or manipulate debt servicing are likely overestimating strategic sophistication.
• Broad agreement that a “minimum 10% tariff on all imports” raises costs, increases inflationary pressure, and meaningfully elevates recession risk.

Impact on Workers, Inequality, and Inflation

• One camp: many tariff supporters are working-class people in deindustrialized areas who feel they’ve already lost everything—factory jobs gone, precarious work, rising costs—so they’re willing to risk more damage for a chance to punish offshoring and maybe bring jobs back.
• Strong counterargument: tariffs are effectively a flat consumption tax, hitting the poorest hardest by pushing up prices on basics; even unemployed people on assistance will feel it.
• Several note that government aid is itself under threat and that “things can definitely get worse” than current hardship.
• Others emphasize that US still has manufacturing but far fewer jobs due to automation and efficiency—nostalgia for 1950s-style factory work is seen as unrealistic.

Party Politics, Messaging, and Media

• Some suggest Democrats should frame the tariffs as the largest tax increase in US history, especially because they were imposed unilaterally by the executive.
• Skeptics question how effective that is when Democrats also campaign on targeted tax increases (on corporations and the wealthy), while tariffs are broad and regressive.
• Discussion of whether Republicans remain “pro-business”: several argue they’re now more a party of the rich and of retribution than of markets or free trade.
• There’s debate over “low-information voters” and whether both parties’ bases are swayed more by culture-war demagoguery than economic substance, with class resentment and “if I’m going down, I’m taking you with me” attitudes highlighted.

Macro Context and Social Underpinnings

• Some recall when an inverted yield curve alone signaled recession; now policy is seen as actively steering toward one.
• A side thread links plainer fashion and “recession-core” aesthetics to deeper trends: declining youth sexual activity, widespread anxiety, social isolation, and economic precarity.
• Low fertility and reduced desire to “dress up” are framed as a kind of “no confidence vote” in the future amid constant crisis-feelings.