u/RealConsequence351

The current situation is disturbing

Elon Musk referred to Social Security and Medicare as entitlements and said “That’s the big one to eliminate.” The short clip has been shared a lot today and people are reacting strongly on both sides.

The comment comes up in talks about cutting government waste and spending. One angle worth watching is how any real moves on these programs could shift expectations around the federal deficit and borrowing. Markets often react to that through Treasury yields and sectors tied to government budgets.

What do you make of it?

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says the Liberation Day tariffs have done significant damage to the U.S. economy.

Since they took effect, job growth has basically flatlined outside of healthcare. The consumer expenditure deflator is now running at 3% year-over-year, up from 2.5% before the tariffs and above the Fed’s 2% target. Real consumer spending has slowed and the saving rate has dropped.

The tariffs did bring in $287 billion in customs revenue last year (up 192% YoY), which helped the fiscal picture. But Zandi’s view is that the net effect has been negative, with higher costs hitting households.

The article also flags a new supply shock from higher oil and commodity prices tied to the Middle East situation, which could compound the pressure.

Full piece here: https://fortune.com/2026/05/06/liberation-day-trump-tariffs-damage-economy-moody-zandi/

Obvious pressure points are retailers and importers facing higher costs on foreign goods. Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), and Amazon (AMZN) have all been adjusting prices or absorbing hits. Autos and anything with heavy global supply chains (Ford (F), GM) likely got squeezed on inputs too.

Samsung's semiconductor union turned down the company's $340,000 one-time bonus offer. They want the same deal SK Hynix gives its workers: annual payouts that hit $900,000 per employee in 2025, guaranteed for 10 years.

The union is pushing for a fixed share of AI profits from memory chips (HBM and such) instead of a one-off. Samsung's latest offer was 13% of fab operating profit as a single payment plus a 6.2% wage hike and some mortgage perks. Union started at 15% with no cap and a 7% raise.

If the strike goes ahead May 21 through June 7, direct losses are estimated at $6.9-11.7 billion. One earlier one-day action already dropped output 58% in a single shift.

Samsung semis are making solid money right now from AI server demand, but the broader group has been bleeding on chip shortages in other divisions.

Link: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/samsung-chip-workers-reject-usd340-000-one-time-bonus-demand-annual-payouts-like-sk-hynixs-usd900-000-workers-want-share-of-ai-windfall-impending-18-day-strike-could-cost-samsung-up-to-usd11-7-billion

Anyone watching 005930.KS or 000660.KS on this? Micron (MU) could see tighter supply if Samsung fabs go dark for 18 days. What's the read, short-term price spike in DRAM/HBM or just noise?

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said Germany has more capacity than the United States.

At the company:

• Artillery shells: 70,000 to 1,100,000 per year
• Medium-caliber ammunition: 800,000 to 4,000,000 per year
• Military trucks: 600 to 4,500 per year

Rheinmetall has 44,000 employees after receiving 350,000 applications in 2025 and targets 70,000 by 2030. New defense work is drawing from Germany’s auto sector.

This aligns with Germany’s goal to field Europe’s strongest army given Russia concerns.

Full piece: https://prm.ua/en/the-us-is-no-longer-the-leader-germany-has-become-the-largest-ammunition-producer-in-the-world/

How do you read this for defense names? RHM.DE versus US contractors like LMT, RTX, GD, or NOC?

Remember those Iranian drone strikes on AWS facilities in the UAE and Bahrain back in March? Amazon is still dealing with months of repairs, structural damage, power disruptions, water from fire suppression systems. Some regional services stayed degraded for weeks; banks and apps in the Gulf felt it.

This is the first time a hyperscale cloud provider has taken direct kinetic hits in a live conflict. AMZN took the brunt, but the precedent matters for MSFT and GOOGL too, they all have capacity in the same theater. Insurance recoveries will help, but the bigger issue is re-pricing geopolitical risk into every new data-center build in the Middle East or anywhere near active zones.

Capex guidance from all three is still massive, yet this event quietly raises the cost of capital for anything outside core US/Europe footprints. I’ve been underweight the group since the strikes; the valuation never fully reflected “our servers might get droned.” Now it’s explicit.

Oil and defense names got the obvious war bids. Cloud got the subtler one: higher insurance, higher security spend, slower expansion in contested regions. Not fatal, but it caps the multiple.

> May 1 (Reuters) - GameStop is preparing an offer for eBay ​as CEO Ryan Cohen pursues plans to boost ‌the struggling videogame retailer's market value more than tenfold, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

> Shares of eBay, which has ​a market capitalization of about $46 billion, jumped about ​10% in extended trading. GameStop gained 7%. The ⁠company has a market value of nearly $12 billion.

> GameStop has ​been quietly building a stake in eBay's shares ahead ​of a potential offer, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. It could submit an offer for eBay as soon ​as later this month.

> If eBay is not receptive, ​Cohen could decide to take the offer directly to the e-commerce ‌company's ⁠shareholders, the Journal said. Details of the potential offer could not be learned, the report added.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/gamestop-preparing-offer-ebay-wsj-reports-2026-05-01/

about time

Purdue Pharma, the OxyContin maker, is dissolving by the end of this week after a federal judge approved its criminal sentence. It gets replaced by Knoa Pharma, a new public-benefit company focused on the opioid crisis, as the final step in settling thousands of lawsuits. Purdue was always private, owned by the Sackler family, so there’s no stock to trade here.

The broader litigation did hit several listed companies that cut big checks to move on. The main drug distributors... McKesson (MCK), Cardinal Health (CAH), and Cencora (COR), put up about $21 billion combined across national and state deals. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) paid more than $5 billion tied to its Janssen opioid business. Those agreements came with releases from most future claims and payments stretched over years.

Now that the original company is gone, some of the legal overhang on the sector may finally lift. Anyone holding healthcare names or the sector ETF (XLV) might see a bit less risk built into valuations going forward.

Does this close the book on major opioid liability for public pharma and distributors, or are there still loose ends?

Link: Source

Seven lawsuits filed today in California accuse OpenAI of hiding a ChatGPT user who posted credible gun violence threats eight months before the Tumbler Ridge, Canada school shooting. Internal safety staff recommended alerting police, but the company overruled them on privacy grounds, deactivated the account, and provided re-registration instructions.

The suits claim this enabled the violence and that OpenAI delayed proper action to protect its $852 billion valuation ahead of an IPO. Altman apologized last week, but plaintiffs argue it came too late and served to limit visible liabilities.

Microsoft’s large investment and tech partnership with OpenAI puts MSFT directly in the line of fire on liability questions. NVDA and GOOGL could also see pressure if investors start pricing in tighter AI safety rules and higher legal risk.

CFDs on MSFT, NVDA, and tech indices are drawing trader attention for potential short-term swings. Commodities like oil (CL) and gold (GC) show little direct reaction so far.

Link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/school-shooting-lawsuits-accuse-openai-of-hiding-violent-chatgpt-users/