Markets Weekly February 15, 2025

Hello, my friends. Today is February 15th, and this is Markets Weekly. This past week, another exciting week in markets, packed with all sorts of events. Now, it looks like the S&P 500 is just below its all-time highs. I was thinking last week that maybe the highs for the year are in, and I can be totally wrong. That being said, I am not bullish at all. All right, so this week, first, let's talk about the data. We seem to have had a little bit of an inflation scare last week, so let's talk about why that came and went. Secondly, let's talk about the big news from the Trump administration, reciprocal tariffs. And lastly, let's take a look at Euroland where surprisingly, it looks like European stocks are absolutely surging. All right, starting with the data. So this past week, so as we all know, the market has been really focused on inflation data, because of course the Fed has been focused on it. And this past week, we got CPI and PPI. Now, CPI was expected to be, okay, modest 0.3% month over month, but it totally, totally blew past expectations and printed at a very hot 0.5% month over month. Now, the market took one look at that print and the bond market basically panicked, and you can see the 10-year yield here absolutely surging by around 10 basis points on that day. Now, that of course, reincant those fears of a resurgent inflation wave, maybe the Fed not even can't cut, maybe they even have to start hiking, and I know there are people on the internet who are afraid of that.

你好，我的朋友们。今天是2月15日，欢迎收听《市场周报》。过去这一周，市场上又经历了充满各类事件的激动人心的一周。目前看来，标准普尔500指数距离历史最高点还有一点差距。上周我还在想，或许今年的最高点已经出现了，但我可能完全错了。不过，即便如此，我对市场的前景并不看好。 好吧，这周我们先来谈谈数据。上周我们似乎经历了一场小型的通胀恐慌，来看看这背后的原因及其消退的原因。其次，我们讨论一下特朗普政府发布的重要消息——对等关税。最后，我们来看一下欧元区，令人惊讶的是，欧洲股市看起来在大幅上涨。 首先，从数据开始。过去一周，市场一直非常关注通胀数据，因为美联储也在密切关注它。这周我们获得了消费者价格指数（CPI）和生产者价格指数（PPI）。CPI预计会是每月增长0.3%，但实际数据远超预期，达到了较高的每月增长0.5%。市场对这个数据反应强烈，债券市场几乎是惊慌失措，你可以看到10年期国债收益率当天狂涨了大约10个基点。 当然，这重新燃起了人们对通胀浪潮可能卷土重来的担忧，甚至美联储可能无法降息，反而可能开始加息。我知道网上有很多人对此感到担忧。

But as you can also see from the 10-year yield, that inflation scare faded away really quickly, and why is that? Well, surely after, well, the day after, we got PPI. Now, PPI also seemed to be a bit higher than expected, but again, as we've talked about many times on this show, what the Fed cares about is not CPI, it's not PPI, it's not import prices, export prices, what it cares about is PCE. Now, if you know CPI and if you know PPI, you can have a very good calculation of what PCE will be. Now, although PPI itself was relatively hot, the underlying components within PPI that actually feed into PCE were kind of cool. And so the calculation for the expectation for PCE this month is gonna be okay, right? It's gonna show year-over-year progress on inflation. So that puts us back on track for the Fed to at least be in a wait and see attitude.

但是，正如你从10年期收益率中看到的那样，通胀恐慌很快就消退了，这是为什么呢？因为就在之后的一天，我们得到了PPI数据。虽然PPI看起来比预期的稍高，但是正如我们多次在节目中讨论过的，美联储关心的不是CPI，不是PPI，也不是进口价格或出口价格，他们关心的是PCE。如果你知道CPI和PPI，你就可以很好地估算出PCE。虽然PPI本身相对较热，但其中真正影响PCE的基础成分却相对冷淡。因此，本月PCE的预期计算会比较好，显示出通货膨胀的同比改善。这使得美联储至少能够采取观望态度，从而重新回到正轨。

Now, in addition to that, we also got some economic data on Friday retail sales that was surprisingly weak. And so that seems to have also kindled some concern about the strength of the U.S. economy. And on top of that, we have stuff like tariffs and so forth, which we're gonna talk about shortly. Now, one other thing that caught my eye this past week about the economic data was this really interesting piece in Politico by Ludwig, who was formerly the controller of the currency decades ago. The control of the currency is one of the one of three primary banking regulators in the U.S.

现在，除此之外，我们星期五还收到了零售销售的经济数据，这数据竟然比预期的要弱。这似乎也引发了一些对美国经济状况的担忧。此外，我们还有像关税这类的问题，待会我们也会谈到。另外，过去一周让我关注的还有一个经济数据方面的有趣内容，那就是Ludwig在Politico上发表的一篇文章。Ludwig在几十年前担任过货币监理署的主管，货币监理署是美国的三大主要银行监管机构之一。

And what he has done is that he's been looking at the data and just going out and talking to people. And he's trying to reconcile this huge difference between the economic data, which everyone tells us is very good and does look pretty good. And that feeling that the people have, that the economy is not doing well. And that big gap seems to be due to a couple of things One is that when you're looking at the unemployment, for example, Ludwig thinks that a big problem is that the unemployment rate, whereas it's pretty low, say 4.1%, it doesn't really capture the experiences of a lot of people.

他所做的事情就是查看数据，同时亲自去和人们交流。他试图调和这个巨大的差距：一方面是经济数据，大家都说这些数据很好，的确看起来不错；另一方面，人们却感觉经济状况不佳。这个巨大差距似乎由几个因素造成。其中之一就是，以失业率为例，虽然失业率相对较低，比如4.1%，但这个数字并不能真正反映很多人的实际情况。

He makes the claim that it doesn't capture people who are looking for jobs, but just totally discouraged and gave up and it doesn't capture the experiences of people who are working part-time, and not because they want to, but because they just really can't get a better job. And so by his calculations, and again, this is, there are many ways to look at this. There's no right way, is that the unemployment rate taking into account these things is hugely higher than the 4.1%. Again, his number is, you know, 27%. That seems to be kind of a bit exaggerated from my perspective. But the second thing that he shows, which I find to be much more interesting is his view on inflation.

他声称，失业率没有统计到那些找工作但感到非常沮丧并放弃的人，也没有统计到那些被迫兼职工作但其实想找更好工作的人。因此，根据他的计算，尽管有多种计算方法，没有绝对正确的方法，考虑到这些因素后，失业率要比当前的4.1%高得多。他的计算结果是27%，在我看来这有些夸张。但我认为他提出的第二点更有意思，那就是他对通货膨胀的看法。

Now, as we all know, CPI year over year is, you know, say 3%. Now, what he's saying is that the CPI is a basket of goods that tracks 80,000 prices. But in fact, of course, in our day-to-day lives, we don't actually buy 80,000 goods. We only buy a small subset of these prices. And when he's focusing on the small subset of prices that middle and lower-class Americans buy, you know, stuff like eggs or shelter, things like that, he's saying that over the past few years, the inflation rate has been much, much higher than what's been portrayed in CPI. And so basically, CPI is not a good measure of the experience of the American middle class. And that it might be one of the reasons why everyone feels so down about the economy, so down about inflation. It's because these indexes that are meant to capture nationwide price levels over a wide range of goods just doesn't reflect accurately the experience of the typical American family.

现在，我们都知道，CPI（消费者价格指数）同比增长，大约是3%。他说CPI是一个追踪80,000种商品价格的购物篮。但是实际上，在我们日常生活中，我们并不会购买80,000种商品。我们只购买其中一小部分。当他关注于美国中下层阶级日常购买的小部分商品时，比如鸡蛋或住房这些东西时，他表示过去几年，这些商品的通胀率远远高于CPI所反映的水平。所以，CPI并不能很好地反映美国中产阶级的生活体验。这可能是为什么大家对经济和通胀感到悲观的原因之一。因为这些原本旨在反映全国范围内各种商品价格水平的指数，并不能准确反映典型美国家庭的真实体验。

And I think that this is something that I feel that is much more reasonable than that huge unemployment rate that he has. So that's something to think about and when interpreting sentiment. Okay, the second thing that I wanna talk about is of course the big tariff news. Now, this past week, we had two new announcements on tariffs. One of course was tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump is so thinking that steel and aluminum are something of an issue of national security. So he's trying to protect these US industries. Now, looking at the data, it seems like this will largely impact countries like Canada and Mexico, where the US imports a lot of steel and aluminum.

我认为，与他所说的那高得离谱的失业率相比，这更为合理一些。这是我们在解读情绪时需要考虑的一个因素。好的，我想谈的第二件事是关于重大的关税新闻。在过去一周里，关于关税有两个新的公告。其中一个是针对钢铁和铝的关税。特朗普认为钢铁和铝涉及国家安全问题，因此试图保护美国这些行业。根据数据显示，这项政策似乎主要会影响像加拿大和墨西哥这样的国家，因为美国从这些国家大量进口钢铁和铝。

The second thing he's talking about is his big reveal, that is his big plan for tariffs that he teased repeatedly and that is reciprocal tariffs. Now, in a prerecorded, okay, it wasn't live, but it was a recorded press conference that was released after the fact, it seems like he's gonna start his big tariff plans in on April 2nd. The markets took a look at this and just totally surged. It seems like the market is assuming that this is just kind of a negotiable employee because of course today is April 5th, February 15th and April is far away. I think this is a very, very incorrect and can be fatal assumption for the market because the reason that he is putting forth these tariffs starting in April has a lot to do with a legal framework that he's using. Now, President Trump is doing a lot of things that are controversial, right? We have a doge being challenged in court and many other things being challenged in court. So in order to carry out his goals, he needs to do things in a way that's legally defensible. Now, tariffs, when we talked about tariffs on Canada and Mexico, he used something called AIPA, International Economic Emergency Powers, whereas the president can himself declare an emergency and then impose tariffs.

他谈到的第二件事是他的重大宣布，也就是他多次提及的大关税计划，这个计划叫做对等关税。在一个预先录制好的新闻发布会上（不是现场的），他宣布将在4月2日开始实施这个大关税计划。市场对此作出积极反应，股市飙升。市场似乎认为这只是一种谈判策略，因为现在是2月15日，距离4月还有一段时间。我认为市场这种看法是极其错误的，甚至可能会导致严重后果。因为他选择在4月开始推行关税的原因与他所使用的法律框架密切相关。现任总统特朗普正在进行许多有争议的举措——例如一些政策在法院受到挑战等。因此，为了实现他的目标，他需要在法律上站得住脚地去做事。在对加拿大和墨西哥施加关税时，他使用了所谓的《国际经济紧急状态权力法》（IEEPA），根据这条法规，总统可以自行宣布进入紧急状态并施加关税。

Now, he was claiming fentanyl and so forth, which was totally valid for Mexico. So for Canada and using that to enact tariffs for his aluminum and steel tariffs, he was actually relying upon a lot of paperwork done during his first administration. In the executive order, there's a whole bunch of citations from proclamations and studies done in 2018 about steel and aluminum and using that as a justification to put on tariffs.

现在，他宣称芬太尼等问题，这对于墨西哥来说是完全合理的。因此，对于加拿大，他利用这一点实施了铝和钢铁的关税政策。他实际上依赖了他第一任政府期间完成的大量文件。在行政命令中，有许多引用自2018年关于钢铁和铝的公告和研究，并以此作为加征关税的理由。

Now, in order to do these new round of tariffs that could be to raise revenue, could be to a reshore American manufacturing, now that requires a lot of new studies to be done in order to use a section through one tariffs. Now, that paperwork was set in motion on day one of his presidency through a series of executive orders and hard look, Duneck, Secretary of Commons has been saying that these studies will be done on April 1st. And so on April 2nd, the president will have the sufficient paperwork to do these tariffs.

为了实施新一轮的关税措施，这可能是为了增加财政收入，也可能是为了让美国制造业回流，现在需要进行大量的新研究，以便通过具体条款实施关税。从他上任的第一天起，这些文书工作就通过一系列行政命令启动了。商务部长Duneck一直表示，这些研究将在4月1日完成。因此，到4月2日，总统将具备足够的文件来实施这些关税。

Now, there's been a lot of discussion on just how Trump wants to do tariffs. Some people talked about across the board tariffs that would maybe slightly increase over a month or a target a tariffs. It seems like what he settled on is what he calls reciprocal tariffs. That adds something that is, I guess, politically more defensible. Basically, for example, the European Union, tariffs American cars by 10%, US tariffs, European cars, much less. And so we would just be reciprocal and so the US would tariff European cars at 10%.

现在，关于特朗普如何调整关税有很多讨论。一些人谈到可能会略微增加一个月的全面关税，或者是有针对性的关税。似乎他最终选择了他称之为"对等关税"的做法。 这个策略可能在政治上更容易辩护。简单来说，例如，欧洲联盟对美国汽车征收10%的关税，而美国对欧洲汽车的关税要少得多。因此，美国会采取对等措施，对欧洲汽车也征收10%的关税。

Now, and this is something that I think, when played on TV, would be a lot more politically palatable than just putting on big tariffs on everyone. After all, you can just say that this is fair, so we'll do this. Now, what an interesting wrinkle in his executive order is that President Trump considers that value-added tax to also be a tariff. Now, every country has a different tax system in the US.

现在，我认为如果这件事在电视上播出，其政治接受度会比对所有人征收高额关税要高得多。毕竟，你可以说这是公平的，所以我们会这样做。有趣的是，特朗普总统在他的行政命令中认为增值税也算作一种关税。而在美国，每个国家都有不同的税制。

We have things like sales tax. We have things like income tax. And a lot of other countries, the European Union in particular, they have something called a value-added tax, which let's say that you are in manufacturer, you buy raw goods for $10 and then you sell, you add value to it and you sell it as it finished good for $20. So you add $10 in value-added and so you have to pay $10 on that value-added portion. It's basically something like a sales tax.

我们有一些税种像是销售税和所得税。很多其他国家，尤其是欧盟，他们有一种叫增值税的东西。假设你是一个制造商，你用10美元购买原材料，然后经过加工后以20美元的价格出售这个最终产品。在这个过程中，你增加了10美元的价值。你需要为这个增加的部分缴纳增值税。增值税基本上就像是一种销售税。

Now, the US doesn't have that, but when the US, so exports to other countries, they put on a VAT tax on this. And this is just kind of like their sales tax, but the Trump administration is thinking that this is kind of like a tariff. And technically, it's not the case. But by interpreting this VAT thing as a tariff, it really opens the possibility of what kind of retaliation they can put on Europe.

现在，美国没有这样的机制，但美国在向其他国家出口商品时，这些国家会对进口商品征收增值税。这类似于他们的销售税，而特朗普政府认为这有点像关税。严格来说，这并不是关税，但如果把增值税解读为关税，就可能为美国对欧洲的反制措施打开大门。

Now, in addition to these reciprocal tariffs, the executive order also mentions things like non-tariff barriers, maybe regulatory or things like that. A lot of times, US farm products, for example, are perceived to be not safe from other countries. And so that could be construed as a non-tariff barrier and that could be subject to some retaliation as well. Now, looking across the European Union, it seems like the notable countries that could be subject to some retaliation would be like Germany, for example, which exports machineries and cars to the US has a sizable current account surplus and goods.

现在，除了这些互惠关税之外，行政命令还提到了一些非关税壁垒，例如法规上的障碍等。很多时候，美国的农产品被其他国家认为不够安全，这可以被视为一种非关税壁垒，并可能遭到一些报复。在欧洲联盟中，像德国这样的国家可能会因为出口机械和汽车到美国、拥有可观贸易顺差而成为潜在的报复对象。

Now, other concerns that the Trump administration may have with the European Union is something they call the digital services tax. Again, the US has big tech and big tech sales all around the world. And the Europeans have been trying to claw back some of that revenue that the big techs make in Europe by imposing a digital services tax, which we don't do in the US. And that might be making a Trump upset as well.

特朗普政府对欧盟可能还有其他担忧，其中之一是所谓的数字服务税。美国拥有大型科技公司，且这些公司的产品销往全球。而欧洲方面一直试图通过征收数字服务税来追回这些科技公司在欧洲赚取的部分收入，而这种税在美国是没有的。这可能也会让特朗普感到不满。

So in any case, it seems like the big tariffs are definitely coming. They are delayed for legal reasons. And they could be happening in April. And I think the big focus right now for the Trump administration is against Europe. And so there will be room for negotiation, but I think the market is misunderstanding this if it's just Trump bluffing, laughing around, and just goofing off because at least so far, the legal delays is a legitimate concern. And we'll see what happens in the coming weeks. That brings us to our third topic, which is the absolute outperformance of the surging of the European stock market. Now, if you look at this chart of the German stock market, DAX against S&P 500, you'll notice that the German stock market is absolutely surging far, far outforming the US, which really hasn't been the case the past few years where the US, particularly US tech, has massively outperformed everyone in the world.

无论如何，看起来高额关税肯定会来。由于法律原因，它们被推迟了，可能会在四月实施。我认为，目前特朗普政府的主要关注点是针对欧洲。因此，会有谈判的空间，但我认为市场如果仅仅认为特朗普是在虚张声势、开玩笑、闲逛，那就是误解了，因为至少到目前为止，法律上的延迟是一个正当的担忧。接下来的几周我们会看到事态的发展。这就引出了我们的第三个话题，即欧洲股市的绝对表现优异。如果你看看德国股市（DAX）与标准普尔500指数（S&P 500）的走势图，你会注意到德国股市正在强劲上涨，远远超过美国股市。这在过去几年中并不常见，因为美国市场，特别是美国科技股，曾经大幅领先于全球其他地区。

Now, you could think of this as pretty strange, right? As we all know, the European economy hasn't been doing well. Their biggest economy, their Germany, basically has been teetering on recession. And to add to that, we know that tariffs are coming. But there's also been another really important development in Europe or a couple, actually, that has been really beneficial. First off, it seems like the Russia-Ukraine war is about to end. Now, that has been something that's been hanging on the European economy for some time. It's really bad because obviously, if you are in a war zone, a lot of investors don't want to invest there. There is heightened tail risk there. And on top of that, we know that Germany in particular has been historically relied upon Russian energy. And during the Russian-Ukraine war, they've tried to move away from that. And that has caused electricity costs in Germany to absolutely surge, making their manufacturing uncompetitive and further contributing to economic slowing. So President Trump basically came out of the blue and said, I had a 90-minute discussion with Putin, and everything's going well. We're going to meet in person in Saudi Arabia, and we're probably going to end the war very shortly. Ending the war, very good for Europe. And you see that reflected in the SOG price. You see that in a strengthening euro as well. Now, there's this interesting chart here of energy prices in Europe, and you can see them coming down.

现在，你可能会觉得这有些奇怪，对吧？正如我们所知，欧洲经济一直表现不佳。其最大经济体德国几乎陷入衰退。再加上，我们知道关税即将来临。但是，欧洲也发生了一些非常重要且有利的发展。首先，俄乌战争似乎即将结束。这场战争一直对欧洲经济造成负担。这非常糟糕，因为显而易见地，在战争地区，许多投资者不愿投资，风险很高。此外，我们知道德国一直以来依赖俄罗斯的能源。而在俄乌战争期间，他们试图摆脱这种依赖，这导致德国的电力成本猛增，使其制造业竞争力下降，进一步导致经济放缓。所以，特朗普总统几乎是突然宣布，他与普京进行了90分钟的讨论，一切进展顺利。他们将在沙特阿拉伯亲自会面，很可能会很快结束战争。结束战争对欧洲非常有利。你可以在SOG价格中看到这种反映，也可以在欧元的走强中看到。这里有一个关于欧洲能源价格的有趣图表，你可以看到价格在下降。

And if there is peace in Eastern Europe, and Germany goes back to buying gas from Russia, you can see that gas prices come down significantly over there, and that will make Europe more competitive again. It doesn't seem like it's going to have a big impact on oil. As we all know, Russia has continued to sell its oil on the markets, not with sanding sanctions. Huge amount of loopholes. It seems like Russia basically sells the India, it says China, and so that hasn't been a problem. It's been the Nagghast front that's more of a problem. It's Nagghast locked into that infrastructure where they have a pipeline to Europe. And now, if peace goes well, maybe that can resume. And so that reduces a lot of downside risk for Europe.

如果东欧实现和平，德国重新开始从俄罗斯购买天然气，你会看到那边的天然气价格会大幅下降，这将使欧洲再次具有竞争力。看起来这对石油的影响不大。众所周知，尽管受到制裁，俄罗斯仍然在市场上出售石油。制裁中存在大量漏洞。俄罗斯主要将石油卖给印度和中国，因此问题不大。天然气成为了更大的问题，因为天然气被锁定在输往欧洲的管道基础设施中。如果和平进展顺利，也许天然气交易可以恢复。这将大大降低对欧洲的风险。

Now, the second tailwind for European stocks seems to be the possibility that Europe will actually be doing more fiscal stimulus and remilitarizing itself. Again, as we know, doing a lot of fiscal spending, especially when your economy is depressed, boost growth, boost stock market, and when your economy is depressed is not inflationary. Now, there's a, I think there's two things that happened the past week that seems to suggest that Europe really is on the cusp of trying to rebuild its military. First off was the, was how the matter in which Trump reached a, oh, Trump is talking to Putin. So basically just Trump just called Putin and didn't tell anyone else in NATO.

现在，欧洲股市的第二个推动因素似乎是欧洲可能会增加财政刺激和重新军事化。我们知道，大量财政支出，特别是在经济低迷时，会促进经济增长和股票市场发展，而且在经济低迷时并不会引发通胀。我认为，上周有两件事情似乎表明欧洲确实正处于重建军事实力的边缘。首先是特朗普跟普京进行了沟通，而特朗普只是给普京打了个电话，却没有通知北约的其他国家。

And so the European leaders there were very upset and very shocked that they were basically left out in the cold. And so in the Russia-Ukraine war, it's basically the Ukrainians going out and fighting and the US providing the lion's share of financing and technology and weapons and so forth. So it seems like the Europeans have been left out and they feel weak. And so it feels like by, they feel that since Trump kind of ignored them, they got to be ready to take care of themselves, right? They can't be relied upon the US being supported to them. So there's more than ever kind of some will to try to remilitarize. And if you look at this chart of they're spending on military, so recently it's been better, but over the past 10 years, they've really been under spending on military relying very much on the US to defend them.

因此，欧洲领导人对此感到非常不满和震惊，因为他们被基本上搁置在一旁。在俄乌战争中，主要是乌克兰人在前线作战，而美国则提供了绝大部分的资金、技术和武器支援。所以，欧洲人似乎被排除在外，他们感到无力。因此，他们觉得自从特朗普基本上忽视了他们后，他们必须做好准备自行应对，因为不能再依赖美国的支持。所以，现在比以往任何时候都更有意愿重新武装。如果你看看他们的军事支出图表，最近有所改善，但在过去的10年里，他们在军事上的支出一直不足，很大程度上依赖美国来保护他们。

Now the second thing that happened that is that JD Vats went to the Munich Security Conference and gave a speech that seemed to suggest that, you know, this NATO thing that this alliance we have may not be as secure as it used to be. Now I listened to the speech and I personally liked it and I know there are people on the internet who don't. But the speech is basically saying that JD Vats goes to this huge security commerce in Europe and saying that we are allies because we have shared values. But lately we've been seeing some things on the continent that are troubling to us. First, we saw that there was a election in Romania where the pro-Russia candidate won and that election was basically canceled. And with the European Union claiming that there was Russia infiltration. And then you have the senior Eurocrat theory, Breton basically go on TV, basically say that, you know, if the right-wing populist party in Germany alternative for Dweutschland wins in Germany, don't worry, we have tools to fix that as well.

现在，第二件值得注意的事情是JD Vats参加了慕尼黑安全会议，并发表了一篇演讲，似乎在暗示北约这个联盟可能不像以前那样牢固。我听了他的演讲，个人很喜欢，但我知道网上有一些人并不认同。演讲的基本意思是，JD Vats参加了这个在欧洲的大型安全会议，并指出我们之所以结盟是因为我们有共同的价值观。然而，最近我们在欧洲大陆上看到了一些令人担忧的事情。首先，我们看到罗马尼亚举行了一次选举，亲俄候选人获胜，但该选举基本上被取消了，欧盟声称这是由于俄罗斯的渗透。然后有高级的欧盟官员布雷顿在电视上表示，如果德国的右翼民粹主义政党德国的选择党赢得选举，不用担心，我们有办法解决这个问题。

So there's that sense that, you know, the European Union not super strong supporter of democracy. And then JD Vats points out to many illustrations where, seems that there's a lot of censorship in the EU where the police in Germany, for example, can go raid people's homes for posting things that are perceived to be anti-feminist. And of course he did not mention this example, but a famous recent example was where a German businessman caught a European politician to be fat. And here's a photo of her and there was a criminal investigation on him for saying that. Thankfully he did prevail in that issue. So, and then JD Vats points out to the fact that, you know, a lot of people in Europe are troubled about mass migration, but the government doesn't seem to respond.

因此，有人觉得，欧洲联盟并不是一个强烈支持民主的组织。而JD Vats指出了许多例子，似乎在欧盟内存在很多审查。例如，德国警方可以因为有人在网上发布被认为是反女权主义的内容而突袭他们的家。当然，他没有提到这个具体例子，但一个著名的例子是，最近有一位德国商人因为称一位欧洲政客为"胖子"而被调查，不过幸好他在这件事上还是赢了。JD Vats还指出，欧洲有很多人对大规模移民感到困扰，但政府似乎并没有回应。

And so what JD Vats said was from the perspective of Washington, he's getting the sense that, you know, it seems like it's just a bunch of special interests here in Europe afraid of their own people. The organizers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations. Now again, we don't have to agree with everything or anything that people say, but when people represent, when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them. Now to many of us, on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests, hiding behind ugly, soviet-air words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way or even worse, win an election.

JD·瓦茨从华盛顿的角度提出，他感觉现在的欧洲就像一群特别利益集团，害怕自己的民众。此次会议的组织者禁止代表左翼和右翼民粹主义政党的议员参与讨论。当然，我们不必同意所有人的观点，但当政治领袖代表着一个重要的选民群体时，我们至少有责任与他们对话。对我们许多人来说，在大西洋的另一边，这看起来越来越像是旧有的顽固利益集团，他们躲在“错误信息”和“虚假信息”这样的词后面，只是不喜欢有不同观点的人表达不同意见，更不用说投不同的票，甚至更糟的是赢得选举。

You know, the US doesn't really, now if you're not, you know, seem to be super supportive of democracy or freedom of expression, these are core values of the United States. And so when we protect Europe, we don't really know what we're protecting. We don't really know what the European Union stands for. Yes, we know that wants protection from Russia, but what does the European stand for? Now, that I think is a very strong statement that suggests that the US is not so supportive of this NATO alliance, and that would be consistent with President Trump's approach of America first. And so, again, this is making a lot of people in Europe mad, but also urging them into action. We got to spend more on defense, do more deficit spending and so forth, and that is good for the European economy.

美国现在似乎不再像以前那样非常支持民主或者言论自由了，而这些曾经是美国的核心价值观。因此，当我们保护欧洲的时候，其实并不太清楚我们在保护什么。我们无法明确了解欧盟代表什么。是的，我们知道欧盟希望得到保护，以免受俄罗斯的影响，但欧盟真正的立场是什么呢？这实际上是一个很有力的观点，表明美国对北约联盟的支持态度并不那么坚定，这与特朗普总统的“美国优先”政策是一致的。这让欧洲的很多人感到不满，但也促使他们采取行动。我们需要增加国防开支，加大赤字支出等，而这对欧洲经济是有利的。

So that seems to be responsible for the huge surge in European equities, but I would also take a step back in and look and think that, you know, if a lot of people were moving money from Europe to the US to chase that USL performance, to run away from the war zone, you know, maybe some of them will repatriate back to Europe, especially now that if the war ends, there's going to be a need to rebuild Ukraine, and that's going to take a lot of money as well. And also suggest a lot of opportunities for growth there. Okay, so that's all I prepared for today. Exciting week to pass week.

这似乎就是欧洲股市大幅上涨的原因。不过，我也想退一步思考一下，如果之前很多人因为战争而把资金从欧洲转移到美国追求其市场表现的话，现在战争结束后，也许他们中的一些人会把资金重新转回欧洲。尤其是现在乌克兰需要重建，这也需要大量资金，同时也意味着大量的增长机会。好吧，这就是我今天准备的全部内容。过去一周是令人兴奋的一周。

You know, I think every week is going to be exciting. I find myself watching Trump press conferences every single day to find out what will, what happens in the markets. And honestly, the central banks seem more and more irrelevant as the day goes by, which is something that I have been emphasizing to you guys for some time. All right, thanks so much for tuning in. Talk to you all next week.

你知道吗，我觉得每周都会很精彩。我每天都在看特朗普的新闻发布会，看看市场会有什么变化。说实话，中央银行现在看起来越来越不重要了，而我也已经跟你们强调这一点有一段时间了。好的，非常感谢大家收看。下周再聊。