Sanitation: Is the U.S. heading for a recession?

On the Money

By Lauren Young, Digital Special Projects Editor

Dear readers! I'm heading out of town for vacation, so I'm filing this newsletter a day early. – Lauren

"The Entire World is RIPPING US OFF!!!" U.S. President Donald Trump recently wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Last week, Trump threatened to slap a 200% tariff on wine, cognac and other alcohol imports from Europe, opening a new front in a global trade war that is roiling financial markets and raising recession fears.

Those tumbling stock markets along with signs of tightening credit may make the Federal Reserve's job even more difficult this week as U.S. central bank policymakers try to weigh whether consumer spending will suffer as households take stock of the potential blow to their net worth and greater difficulty in obtaining loans.

What do you think? Is a recession in sight? Or is the economy on the right path? Share your comments at onthemoney@thomsonreuters.com.

Here I am with Debra Whitman of AARP at SXSW in Austin last week.

How to age wisely

How long will I live? Will I be healthy? Will I lose my memory? How long will I work? Will I have enough money? Where will I live? How will I die?

Last week I attended a talk at SXSW in Austin with Debra Whitman, who is the author of The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 big Questions of Midlife and Beyond and chief public policy officer at AARP.

Whitman started her conversation with another question: What word comes to mind when you think of aging?

Just two people in the audience of about 30 people had a "positive" word to share. (Guess who was one of them? Me! My word was "wise.")

And here is a fun fact: People who report positive age beliefs early on live, on average, 7.5 years longer than those with more negative beliefs.

What word do you think of when it comes to aging? Write to me at onthemoney@thomsonreuters.com.

Read, watch and listen

Video of the Week

Rotation away from U.S. equities may continue. President Trump's escalating trade war may damage U.S. growth, the OECD warned – after a week that saw the S&P 500 slide into a correction.

Josh Passmore of Artemis says investors may continue to pivot away from the United States. Watch here.

Egg and booze watch

I have not been able to find eggs at my local Trader Joe's in weeks.

For the third week in a row, my local Trader Joe's in Brooklyn was sold out of eggs.

Even if you can find eggs, there is a good chance they are more expensive. Wholesale egg prices surged 53.6% in February.

No wonder the United States is importing more eggs from countries such as Mexico and Brazil while asking Europe for help to ease the egg shortage.

On the booze front, the threat of U.S. tariffs is prompting businesses and consumers to stockpile tequila, which can only be made in Mexico. Spirits companies are also freezing expansion plans and diverting resources elsewhere.

Mexico also is the third-largest importer of U.S. barley and the biggest importer of U.S. malt, which is made from germinating kernels of barley. (Malt is a key ingredient in beer.)

If Mexico issues tariffs in retaliation or switches to buying barley from other trading partners, experts say it could deal another economic blow to American farmers as U.S. consumers increasingly ditch beer.

Are proposed tariffs changing your buying habits? Have you stocked up on tequila or any other foreign goods? Let me know at onthemoney@thomsonreuters.com.

Tax talk

Will job cuts impact the Internal Revenue Service? REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

Have you finished your 2024 taxes yet?

Most people wait until April to file their taxes. I'm delighted to say that my husband and I submitted ours to the accountant this week.

With less than a month until April 15, here are some useful tax tips from WalletHub.

And a tip from me: To stay organized, I keep a spreadsheet which tracks our annual donations, along with business expenses.

That said, the Internal Revenue Service, the tax-collecting agency that has long been a target of scorn for Republicans, is planning to eliminate 20% to 25% of its workforce by May 15, according to a person briefed on the agency's plans.

The IRS had about 100,000 workers when Trump took office, meaning up to 25,000 are set to lose their jobs. What impact that will have on our tax returns remains to be seen.

With fewer staff on hand amid rampant identity theft, consider signing up for an IRS tool called an identity protection PIN, or IP PIN. When you register, you will get a six-digit IP PIN to use when filing your taxes each year.

You can find more information about it here.

A$k Lauren

Do you need last-minute tax help? Are you looking for better pet insurance? Send questions to onthemoney@thomsonreuters.com, and I'll tap my extensive source network and braintrust for expert advice.

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This newsletter was edited by Mark Porter.

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