Champagne dreams and tariff wishes, and every day they're hustlin'

The Trump administration made clear, at least for the time being, that it is not concerned with the stock market as it simultaneously and with lightning speed seeks to rearrange the global economy and redesign the executive branch. "We're focused on the real economy," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC. "I'm not concerned about a little bit of volatility over three weeks."

But the tariffs — perhaps even more the speed with which they are being thrust and parried — seem to be having a major impact on both Wall Street and Main Street, even though they've yet to have any material impact on the economy.?

Wall Street's market cap losses are about $5 trillion for the past three weeks (stocks rallied Friday for their best day since the election, but still notched a fourth straight losing week). The market correction (down 10% from a recent high) has been the most rapid since March 2020 — the midst of the pandemic.

Over the last three months consumer sentiment has declined to its lowest post since November 2022. This is all the more remarkable considering last year's obsession with inflation. Per the Wall Street Journal:

President Trump’s stop-and-start trade wars and other rapid-fire policy changes are making Americans feel gloomy about the economy. Their 401(k)s are down, and their expectations for inflation are up. Now they are paring back spending on extras such as vacations and home-improvement projects.?

Sometimes things happen only because we behave as if we believe they will, so in an economy in which consumer spending is two-thirds of GDP, less spending, out of any fears, real or imagined, is a real problem.

If you can call anything amusing about all this, it was President Trump's threat to impose 200% tariffs on champagne. It got the most headlines, more even than the seemingly more relatable U.S.-Ontario dustup that ended in a matter of hours, after threats of disrupting electricity to America prompted Trump to vow to double (to 50%) tariffs on Canada steel and aluminum. The next day Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose favorite photo-op prop is "Canada is not for sale" merch (which, by the way, is a magnificent entrepreneur success story), was borderline gushing about a White House face-to-face with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.?

Back to champagne (all European wine, but bubbly makes for a more sacrebleu!!! headline): I'm avoiding the word "escalate" since while one side in a dispute may react in a way which exacerbates it, it's impossible to go back far enough to the satisfaction of both sides to see who started it. Trump's position is that Europe treats the U.S. unfairly with tariffs and VATs, and Europe has tariffs and VATs to level what it surely sees as unfairness.?

But for the current round, the champagne tariff was promised because the EU put a new tariff on U.S. alcohol (I'm avoiding "retaliatory" as well). Europe is by far the largest export market for U.S. spirits, and when you are playing to hurt your opponent that's where you go. Meanwhile, sales of champagne as a segment of sparkling wine has been on the decline in the U.S., due to price. So a 200% tariff could not only make champagne even more prohibitive now, but have a lingering existential impact should the tariff war ever end.

Here's an exit question: What will have a greater impact on reduced alcohol consumption?

• Price?
• Health concerns??
• Gen Z indifference?
• GLP-1s?

The U.S. government is still firing people en masse, and some judges are telling it to stop and bring them back. So far, the newly unemployed aren't showing up in the national numbers. But at the other end of the spectrum, the over-employed, we just hit a record.?

About 8.9 million Americans have multiple jobs now, according to February’s jobs data. In absolute numbers, this is the highest since tracking began in 1994. As a percentage of the workforce (5.4%) it's the highest since the Great Recession. This deep dive was done by Sherwood News, which notes many factors: inflation, reduced ROI on MBAs, and the gig economy:

For starters, a single paycheck isn’t cutting it anymore: inflation has driven up the cost of everything, from groceries to rent to credit card bills, pushing more Americans to seek extra income. In addition, college degrees (even MBAs) no longer provide a straightforward route to an almost guaranteed steady job and salary, resulting in an increasing number of grads taking on multiple positions to get by. Per the St. Louis Fed, college graduates now make up about half of the multi-job workforce in the US, up from ~31% at the start of 1994.

Beyond the people who need more than two jobs, however, is a growing pool of side-hustlers, capitalizing on how it’s become a little easier to pick up some extra work. The rise of remote work and gig platforms have enabled full-time workers to clock in for second jobs at night or on weekends, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Chances are the number will increase; just as they eschew booze in greater numbers than their predecessors (see above), Gen Z is inclined to freelance: According to freelance agency Upwork, 53% of that cohort "are moving away from traditional 9-to-5 jobs in favor of full-time freelancing." And research done for and circulated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (which calls this category platform workers and digital entrepreneurs) found that Gen Z is the largest cohort and, with millennials, are the only age groups whose platform workers outnumber traditional.

Is this a bad thing? My generation (Boomer) believed getting a job meant a full-time job. We (and our parents …) believed that not having a full-time job meant you were lazy, or couldn't hold a job. "Career" was also a very big deal. You couldn't have a career delivering pizza. But now you can have a career that includes delivering pizza and also doing this and that, when you can and need, and be considered a respectable member of society.

Much more than ever before, anyway. We haven't gone all YOLO and FIRE yet, but progress is progress.?

From the over-employed to the underwhelmed.

Unemployment might be low, but so is employee confidence, according to new data from Glassdoor. Only 44% of employees said they were optimistic about their business’s outlook in February — the lowest percentage in the survey’s nearly 10-year history.?

Economic uncertainty and concerns about job security are driving the slump, Glassdoor’s lead economist wrote on LinkedIn. The record low is another indicator the labor market could be softening following a resilient start to the year.

This finding tracks with the latest LinkedIn Workforce Confidence survey:

… [T]heir confidence to find or hold a job is the lowest it's been since the survey began in spring 2020, when the pandemic rocked the economy, prompting layoffs and stalling hiring. Job confidence, scored on a scale of -100 to +100, hit +39 in February 2025, compared to +43 in April 2020.

Job confidence peaked in 2022 at +58, but has been slowly trending down since then; it dipped by 10 points in the past year, from +49 in February 2024. What's more? Present day job confidence appears similarly bleak for both men and women: Male employees, on average, are historically slightly more confident than their female colleagues — but so far this year there's little difference in their scores.?

Sentiment is tricky. You can't exactly worry yourself out of a job, but (see above) sometimes things happen only because we behave as if we believe they will. So, pessimism about the job market might make one less inclined to think about quitting a job one dislikes — or to spend. Worry is subjective but it could lead to objectively bad, hardly inevitable outcomes.

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