Dow Hits 20000 for First Time
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
And even if it does hit a real, inflation-adjusted high in the next few weeks, it won't mean much. The Dow is a seriously flawed stock index, and it's certainly not a good way to measure what's going on in the overall economy.
On today's show, we rain on the Dow's parade and explain why a lot of very smart people say we should ignore the Dow.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/03/12/174139347/episo...
The Dow Isn't Really At A Record High (And It Wouldn't Matter If It Were) http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/03/05/173515767/the-d...
That said, the S&P 500 & Russell 1000 are also at all time highs.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXSP%3A.INX&ei=6-KIWNi7K...
https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXRUSSELL%3ARUI&ei=8eKIW...
None of these data points mean anything on their own. People that look at a chart a conclude anything at all are not doing enough analysis.
The stock market is not the economy. Stocks going up is not objectively good, and stocks going down is not objectively bad. Same for housing prices and cost of living.
When the pie grows, often the result is I have a shrinking portion of it.
The same goes for S&P 500.
"Trends persist until a clear reversal occurs."
In other words, if you find yourself falling, you're no longer rising.
Useful.
But yeah, as the other posters have said: S&P500 just hit a record high. So the underlying fact is "Stock Market reaches new highs" by any sane measurement.
"Significant comovements exist between the DJIA and US GDP."
https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:311767/FULLTEXT0...
I wish that we could just drop the Dow entirely and focus on the more modern indices like the S&P. I understand it has historic significance, but let the DOW lie.
I don't get it. Is someone forcing "us" to use the DOW in some manner? It is what it is, use the information how you choose.
This reminds me of people who complain about how the BLS calculates specific measures of inflation or unemployment. They list their methodology. Either you find the information important and useful, or you can choose to ignore it. We don't have to "drop" anything.
I think it's a lost cause, just like the metric system in the USA, but dropping the Dow and focusing on more accurate measures would, in a small way, focus people's attention on more important economic news.
Today we can calculate all the indexes several times a second. Thus the value of the dow (something easy to calculate) is not important today and we shouldn't use it.
But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes.
Why Trump isn't good for poor working class America - Assuming there's a large tax on every good coming into the country, then the cost of groceries will increase dramatically. The cost of cars will increase. The cost of consumer electronics will increase. The cost of many goods that Americans buy will increase and that will most directly affect the poor.
Why Trump isn't good for business - Many American companies source their parts from other countries. Increased tariffs and taxes impact their bottom line. Trump wants American companies to hire American and is willing to enforce it. American workers have a higher minimum wage. This also affects the bottom line.
Why Trump isn't good for the rich - If businesses are impacted then investments should decline, but if you've seen The Big Short, then it's possible that we could just have a fraudulent, unpredictable market instead. The huge tax cut should also benefit the rich, so actually, Trump does seem great for the rich.
All in all, I'd like to hear what others think and why this sort of thought isn't widely circulated.
It is still very possible that serious talk about major tariffs and trade wars from Trump might cause a US stockmarket wobble, similar to how the FTSE wobbled after Theresa May confirmed her desires for a "hard Brexit". This IMHO is the main angle of Trump's campaign that is potentially very bad for the business climate.
(Of course, there are many factors in a stockmarket's price so who knows. In the long run of course it is best to ignore day-to-day speculation. :) )
The graves of investors have been dug with political shovels.
Except a lot of things I've seen predicted about Trump so far (for one a total market crash) haven't come true. I see that maybe it takes longer... But presumably investors can also go through the same analysis you are and we should see a failing trend already. I've heard of a complete market collapse, a disaster, people losing their retirements (heard it on NBC right on the election night).
I think a lot of what the market does is unpredictable and attributing this to Trump or other political moves is probably a good way to lose money. Well at least I am not going to and buy gold and bitcoin or reshuffle my investments just because Trump is here.
> Why Trump isn't good for poor working class America - Assuming there's a large tax on every good coming into the country, then the cost of groceries will increase dramatically.
The United States is a net exporter of agricultural goods[1], where a large portion of the expense and challenge is transportation without creating a high amount of spoilage (as many of the products require a maintained temperature range and are only considered fit for human consumption within a (compared to dry goods) tight time-tolerance). On a much smaller scale, if you've been to a farmer's market and you've noted that the goods may come from a number of smaller farms, this (along with normalizing product with slightly variadic crop-yield) is often the "why."
As is intuitive, the challenges of transporting (food) product become more complicated over greater distances and time. This very obviously translates to greater expense, which means that the economic choice to sell internationally is only made when less profit can be had if remaining in the domestic market. An exception to this pattern is if a product is unrealistic to turn a profit on if attempting to grow in a non-native climate (e.g. trying to grow bananas in Alaska or coffee).[2]
What this means is that the USA can handily supply its own food product, with its lands available for agriculture easily being enough for its population, opposed to high-density regions such as China, which are approaching the point of being dependent on globalization to feed its population or a foray into geopolitics to get more arable land.[3] Put another way, the USA is rich in food goods to the point that, unless Russia decides to make up for a major global deficit[4], the US can demand higher prices for its exports. Further, being the world's dominant market, the USA can demand more favorable prices on its imports, due to the fact that it is more than capable of domestic supply and, if the cost of international trade becomes unwieldy, will instead invest in domestic infrastructure and supply, which adds further challenges for international competition -- "the cost of groceries" will only increase to the point that it becomes logical to switch to domestic supply. Coffee and tropical foods may increase in price, but consumption rates are a marketing problem due to a wealth of substitute goods.
[0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/ [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery... [2] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12285198 [4] https://www.ft.com/content/af66f51e-6515-11e6-8310-ecf0bddad...
This also serves as a reminder that there are relative advantages. The US is great (climate-wise) for producing corn, soybean, etc, but there are some OTHER foods that we are less good at producing than other countries, be it climate or infrastructure. Basic trade principles show that it's better all around if everyone focuses on their specialties and trades rather than each trying to be fully self-sufficient.
So it's a bit simplistic to say our grocery prices will rise only to the point where it makes sense to switch to domestic production...that switch implies a lot of inefficiencies, which means that there is an upper cap on how much prices can rise, but not that we want to get to that point.
Oh, totally. Corn, specifically, has a really interesting history in grading, purpose, and politics in America. A lot of corn growing is meant to keep supply of other good down, that is, if the farm is not just paid to _not grow_ at all.
> The US is great (climate-wise) for producing corn, soybean, etc, but there are some OTHER foods that we are less good at producing than other countries, be it climate or infrastructure.
That's somewhat true, but becomes more true in time with repeat yield of nitrogen-fed corn production. That's mostly infrastructure though (with some time to rotate and repair soil).
> Basic trade principles show that it's better all around if everyone focuses on their specialties and trades rather than each trying to be fully self-sufficient.
Better "all around" for market efficiency in international-driven trade. The market in New York State could be optimized for specialized production that would well-exceed its own demand (with a couple areas of Long Island converting from specialty/rare goods to more general production).
> So it's a bit simplistic to say our grocery prices will rise only to the point where it makes sense to switch to domestic production...that switch implies a lot of inefficiencies, which means that there is an upper cap on how much prices can rise, but not that we want to get to that point.
You said it -- there is a huge amount of waste and risk in going international with product, so producers will go domestic at the earliest point possible. Foodtech (why I've done research into this topic) is really fascinating because of the complexity and fuzzy political costs.
The simplistic textbook economics case for "free trade" simply doesn't exist in the real world because the underlying assumptions do not hold.
However, the USA's role in food security for countries that rely on globalist trade structures cannot be overstated -- for the example of China, in the absence of very significant new trade agreements, the US could demand higher prices for its food exports, as their alternative would be reverting to far less profitable industries.
He accomplished little in a country that really does need some "market friendly" reforms.
Also, be wary of the difference between being pro-business and pro-market:
https://promarket.org/donald-trumps-economic-policy-pro-busi...
I think that "command and control" and "free market" economies are the extremes of the spectrum, neither optimal, with lots of room in between.
Trump has talked a lot, but we don't know where he will actually fall, policy-wise. It's not out of the question he implements economically beneficial policies. We should judge what he does, not what he says.
Did the US just not hand over all its influence in Asia to China by doing that ??
Heck, I'd be happy if Congress would pass legislation to make the minimum-wage automatically adjusted too.
So making mistakes in inevitable, and it's safer to err towards inflation than deflation.
By reducing the corporate tax rate, he is on a path to ending double taxation.
You're confusing median-income consumers with median-income producers. The latter will benefit from increased prices if the product is made at home, by them.
> Why Trump isn't good for business - Many American companies source their parts from other countries. Increased tariffs and taxes impact their bottom line. Trump wants American companies to hire American and is willing to enforce it. American workers have a higher minimum wage. This also affects the bottom line.
On the other hand, there is now less red tape to get domestic projects done. It goes both ways.
> Why Trump isn't good for the rich - If businesses are impacted then investments should decline, but if you've seen The Big Short, then it's possible that we could just have a fraudulent, unpredictable market instead. The huge tax cut should also benefit the rich, so actually, Trump does seem great for the rich.
Apparently the stock market disagrees about the decline in investment. Fraudulent market is possible under any president.
So using your numbers, globalization would have actually raised wages by 10% compared to what they would have been if we didn't have it and a lot of people's job here would consist of making t-shirts in sweat shops.
So will just have to see if other nations call his bluff, and whether or not he will then back down from implementing the tariffs.
Some of my smartest friends (at hedge funds) placed large bets mid to late 2016 that the market would decline. Now here we are.
The lesson isn't that Trump is awesome for the economy (maybe he is, maybe he isn't) or that the market won't crash tomorrow (maybe it will, maybe it won't) but rather that even the so-called experts are relatively clueless when it comes to financial timing. Remember Brexit? Same story. Good lessons for the rest of us trying to invest. If you want to learn more, read 'The Bogleheads Guide to Investing' [http://fave.co/2jpTKmf] which is an excellent place to start.
Wasn't it expected that the markets would rise as soon as uncertainty about Trump started dropping off? Market pricing tries to look ahead.
Even more worked harder to sell useless drugs for the epidemic.
Not only that but the bad impact was one of the given reasons to not do the thing in the first place. "A Brexit vote might cause some problems but they are fixable" is a pretty different message to "A Brexit vote will cause an instant recession".
That said, who worked to make sure that the market didn't crash after Trump got in office?
In one way, the more people that bought put protection on their stock portfolio created the bullish pressure that took weeks to unwind.
(When you buy puts, the market maker is going long the stock as their own hedge. most akin to a bookie)
The underlying dynamics of the market have supported the people who have been long on it.
The pound dropping has a number of effects (good or bad, it depends on your perspective). It pushed up the market in some areas where the were bargains to be had. It hammered others. It also changed the trade balance of payments
Great in the short term if you're an exporter. Terrible if you're buying a supercomputer, or planning a trip. These sorts of things have a much longer term impact.
Put money in diverse holdings and let it compound. It's not hard.
However, in the longer term, the market will adjust to Trump and Brexit accordingly as actual decisions get made and impacts are felt, it's difficult if not impossible to predict what these might be with any degree of accuracy, one could speculate but ultimately there's just too many moving parts.
I'm not sure I'd promote Bogleheads in specific, but the general theme of passive index fund investing is a good one to make. If you don't want to take big risks or pay big fees, that's the way to go - that's what I do at least.
Look at how long it took for the housing market bubble to grow before bursting - 15 to 30 years, depending upon which policies you view as being contributing factors.
It's also been shown that the President has less affect on the economy than people's perception would have them to believe.
Those predictions were for short term effects.
You're thinking pre-Trumponomics. The president causes billions of dollars to disappear into thin air with 140 characters. He has a real and measurable impact on the economy, for good or bad.
>It takes a long time for economies to correct to a President's actions- on the order of years. It's better to judge a President's effect on the economy at the end of their tenure than at the beginning.
I'm not certain you completed your statement... The OP was about "experts" being unable to time the market. If it takes years for the market to correct, even if the underlying assumption about a market crash is correct, you have to time it properly. Otherwise you'll take years of loses to make the same off the crash as someone who placed their bets moments before the crash.
Brexit probably will have large negative effects on the UK's economy... but it will take a long time to figure that out.
Some of Trump's policies are also likely to do long-term damage, but not in the short term.
If you knew what a market would do - you wouldn't share it with everyone for free.
You may, however, attempt to manipulate some market through these means.
It was rather amusing yes. I stayed up late during the election night watching NBC (it is my new comedy channel, alongside Fox and friends).
So after showing a blue map for months reporters were in disbelief and shock, almost in tears. That didn't last long. Because around midnight or so the mood lifted. It looked like after-hours trading and overseas markets were headed down. So just like that the sadness turned to optimism and they printed out a few graphs (because as we all know if it is printed on paper it becomes official) and were telling people how they were right, they predicted a massive crash. There were insinuation of people losing all their retirement money. Etc, etc.
The amusing (or tragic, of course) part is after failing to predict the outcome of the election, they turned right around and with the same confidence were talking about a total economic disaster.
Of course market shot up even higher next day than before.
It is interesting that they would rather want a total crash of the market justify their prediction of Trump.
Firstly, Brexit hasn't happened yet, and nobody knows the plan. Every time the PM asserts something about where we're headed plan-wise, the markets tank. Once Article 50 is invoked, you'll see GBP slide and FTSE will get... interesting. Because a lot of the FTSE is made up companies with a lot of different EU dependencies, it's hard to call where it's going to go. But it's not likely to be good for most investors.
As for Trump and the stock markets? Well, suggesting an "immediate crash", that was silly.
Right now though, the US is in the same place as the UK is with Brexit: nobody is quite sure what's about to happen. He's made a lot of promises that he might not actually be able to keep. If he does, it's likely to cause some serious mayhem in the markets. Not least: he's specifically said he wants to devalue the dollar.
Just let that sink in for a minute: the sitting President of the United States of America got into the Oval Office by promising to lessen the dollar's buying power and value.
The hope then is that this will make US shares more favourable to overseas investors, imports more expensive promoting internal trade (and therefore jobs), and therefore US business more worth overall.
Will it work? Who the hell knows? None of us. And that's why it's too early to call those predictions of decline, wrong.
The market has been in a steady climb for 8ish years and had been sideways for nearly a decade before due to the internet bubble and mortgage/housing/banking based Great Recession from 2008, so it was more robust on a bounce off that massive dip. Trump inherited a very low volatile market.
Flipside is Trump is coming in on record highs, other presidents come in on lower than highs usually due to the change/uncertainty, may lead to a lower total increase over 4/8 years. The last two presidents came in on huge dips/volatile markets, internet bubble busting and housing bubble/fraud in 2006-8 leading to Great Recession while wages stagnated the whole time. This market still has fuel in it as it is still bouncing from those.
I am sure we will see some dips coming from the interest rates going up. No policies or interest rate changes have happened just yet to stop the bull.
Side note, typically Republican presidents have a lower overall performance on the markets[1].
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlazaroff/2016/07/26/democra...
Whether it's worth the damage done to the poor and the environment is yet to be seen.
I think this might generally be correct however he seems to be more vehemently "Pro American Worker" and so far when that collides with his "Pro Business" stance the worker is currently winning. Attempting to get businesses to repatriate jobs is not necessarily a "pro-business" stance.
Further, if the ACA benefits anyone, it benefits people who don't work but receive subsidies. So getting rid of it is a decided plus for workers.
Jobs in government, not in private industry. Would you rather we all go on the gov payroll?
Arguably companies would come in to replace the government. Private security, private trash pickup, private road maintenance. It would work, but I'm not sure how well
Sure, the ACA has some short-term, especially anecdotal benefits. I'm glad your wife was able to use it productively while it was available to her... but the ACA is loaded up with give-aways paid for with other people's money - so it's unsurprising that there are some who think it's a good deal for them.
If I give you my neighbor's big-screen TV, I'm sure you'd have a great story about getting a big-screen TV. But you aren't the only party in that transaction.
Long term, the system set up by the ACA is collapsing. Insurers are fleeing from the markets because they don't make economic sense without ever increasing government subsidies to the industry.
Worse, the big promise of the ACA was that it would lower costs for everyone without changing their doctor-patient relationships. Those were lies. Not just mistakes, but pre-meditated and documented lies.
Many states have their own programs as well.
It's a gaint fucking mess they need to cut the shit and just throw everyone on Medicaid
I heavily support the pre-existing condition clause in the ACA but the rest of it is a clusterfuck. The way it's designed inscentivizes only the riskiest people to join groups and everyone else to go without insurance.
The ACA's "profit model" is also greatly skewed towards overcharging the young and healthy. Our oldest generation is the most wealthy population group and our youngest are reletively one of the poorest in US history... As a young healthy male my insurance cost has gone from $55 to over $300 a month due to the ACA. I recently just ditched insurance because that's too much money to pay for a service I get hardly any benefit from.
It's yet another money siphon built by the boomers to fuck over the mellenials.
Sharing equally in the productivity of the society is just communism. It fails every time because people have varying levels of productivity but when you compensate everyone equally no matter what effort they apply, you get a tragedy of the commons situation.
Communism has been tried many times and has never been shown to be good for workers.
I think looking at it as a zero sum thing is framing it the wrong way anyway though.
Does it have to be an executive action?
Traditionally, the President wasn't the one creating the laws to begin with. So if Congress passes a law and Trump signs it, is it his action then?
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
No he is definitely not. Trump is anti-business and he makes that very clear. His campaign promises and actions since election are super clear that he is pro-his-wealth and not pro-business.
A pro-business politician would raise taxes on the wealthy, provide tax cuts for the middle class, increase the corporate tax rate, improve immigration so that more people could come in to the country, address massive business risks like climate change with a serious face, improve healthcare for everyone in nation, etc. A pro-business politician would want a healthy and wealthy middle class, a stable climate, and good tax structure to incentivize smart people to come here and build useful things. More businesses are more likely to succeed in a society that is healthy, resourceful with its environment, and with enough wealth shared that income inequality does not destabilize the structure.
Trump is the opposite of being pro-business. Trump is not fiscally conservative or pro-business at all - the very idea that he is would be considered an "alternative fact" - a lie.
It's simple Tragedy of the Commons at first. Republicans / Republican Presidents are generally pro-greed and pro-riches, not pro-business, and those are different things. What you want in a good business environment is not achieved with Republican policies. This can be seen with the past few presidents - good economic times and growth with Democrat policies, and poor economic times and decline with Republicans.
Specifics.
> A pro-business politician would raise taxes on the wealthy, provide tax cuts for the middle class, increase the corporate tax rate
Henry Ford is the good example here of showing why this is pro-business. Give your country a stable, wealthy middle class (pay your auto-workers more, a lot more), and then they will be able to buy your products and your company will thrive. Roads will be built for your cars to drive on, with those taxes!
Wealthy people are important in a capitalistic society, but income inequality and extreme wealth present dangers, not useful things. Income inequality will catch up with the business as the middle class fades and doesn't buy their products.
Want a pro-business environment? Increase corporate taxes to fund schools and education and infrastructure so that more people will grow up healthy and wealthy and wanting to buy things.
> Improve immigration so that more people could come in to the country
Is this really a debate, especially here? Most of the smart people in the world who can create wealth and businesses do NOT live in the USA. If they wanted to live here, or did live here, that would be great.
> Address massive business risks like climate change with a serious face
The climate is changing, and it's going to kill a lot of people that could have been buying your products. It's going to displace hundreds of millions of families and settlements. Food production and distribution is going to be wildly affected. Basic things that should be stable in a business environment will not be stable. Climate change is the biggest RISK for corporate profits in the world (though right now you could also see it as an opportunity - if you recognize that it needs to be addressed).
> improve healthcare for everyone in nation
Again is this really a debate? Isn't it obvious that healthy people will be better for business? Do you want your customer base to be dying? Or your employees worried about disease? That's not useful for business.
And yet the USA is the dominant economy in the world. How do you square that reality with your claim of what a "pro-business politician" would do?
You'd think that if your policies were good for business, countries that had adopted those policies would be the most economically successful.
We could very well owe the current dominance of the US due to the unfolding of events in World War 2. Aside from that, there are many countries that could never have the dominance the US has just due to the difference in population alone. An economy based on a domestic market of 300 million people is always going to have some advantages (and disadvantages) compared to one with 3 million people, even if those 3 million people are better off on average in every measurable way.
So many other variables...
A number of economists disagree with you.
* Opaque
* Consumer paid
* Subject to Perversion through Deductions / Inversions
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/opinion/abolish-the-corpo...
Like what? If anything, more jobs instead of more and more social programs would do a lot to actually get people to a decent livelihood...
Even if the factories come back, the jobs won't.
US "web" companies must now store EU data in Europe. Any foreign company that wants to compete in Europe needs a European office and datacentres now. Good luck getting European customers for a US startup now.
China is notoriously protectionist. They manipulate their currency exchange rate, engage in market dumping to hurt competitors in other countries, require foreign firms to have a Chinese "partner" which is more like a parasite that steals money and IP.
There's many more examples. To a certain degree the US government has a job of protecting US businesses just like it protects it's citizens.
For important resources like steel and rare earth elements, US businesses have been driven out not because it's so expensive but because foreign countries heavily subsidize the industry and create artificially low prices. "Bringing the jobs back" will work but only if the US govt retaliates with import tariffs or subsidies of its own
I take that back, the 2nd part is beyond even statism.
One of the key provisions of the TPP was to force Asian countries to adhere to strict US copyright laws. And that makes sense, since IP companies' products are what the US really exports on makes money on - nobody is buying US fridges and ovens in large quantities. And if you can't get China to respect IP laws, then you have no future there.
Maybe I'm completely confused about the TPP, but I'm frankly pretty surprised the market's reaction so far has been one giant "meh".
The text of the agreement was drawn up as secretively as possible because everybody knew the only point was to help the fortune 500 and fuck over everyone else.
I'm glad it's dead.
The psychology is mildly fun, just like a 50th birthday may be more celebrated than a 49th. Round numbers appeal to us. But 20k dow says nothing more about the state of the economy than the 19.9 dow did a few days ago.
It's not the 20k vs 19.9 it's a) the record high, b) the upward trend.
Having some milestones to pause and ponder along the way makes sense.
If so, why did such noted liberal economists (like Krugman) make such dire predictions about where the market was going after Trump won the election?
Are they to be disregarded because they obviously place a lot of importance on the stock market?
When Trump's trade policies take hold there should be a rush to form manufacturing startups to make stuff in the USA for the industrial supply chain, e.g. power cords, circuit boards, paints, etc. I expect these to form in the traditional centers of manufacturing excellence - urban areas where minorities will enjoy relative job prospect improvements.
The article might have already discussed this, but I can't tell because of the paywall.
I'm not exactly shocked that an ego-driven, heavily pro-business Republican President with full congressional control and majority of states under Republican governorship could drive the market up.
good indicators
- Stock Market Capitalization to GDP (This is Warren Buffets's favorite). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DDDM01USA156NWDB?
- Q Ratio aka Tobin's Q Ratio (total price of the market divided by its replacement cost)
- S&P 500 CAPE (PE10) and Shiller PE (PE)
- S&P 500 Price to Book Value
None of them alone, but all of them together.
- Put 1/3 of it in now and the other 2/3 in when the next crash hits - Wait until it all goes to shit and put it all in then, keeping it in a high-yield savings account until then (they make about as much as CDs these days)
Would love to hear opinions!
I typically just invest it all at once with no attempt to time the market.
If i'm really nervous, i might make 12 equal investments over a year. Again, no attempt to time the market.
The only time i've ever timed my investment based on the market is buying post crash. Getting a 3% return over a week was nice after the brexit slump.
How long until next crash? When is the crash over and things start to climb again? You cannot know before after the fact, so it ends up being a big gamble. I'd say invest now, possibly over a few months if you want to spread the risk.
The stock market indexes were already up significantly as a result of Obama's policies. I'm just not here for Trump or others assigning credit to Trump for something Trump had very little to do with.
This is what you call speculation. Under Obama people had to prove out their finances. Under Trump gut feeling is enough.
"Customers" will be a lot less likely to spend money if they aren't adequately protected when they do. Regulations also exist to protect the health and safety of the US citizens. It protects business from getting sued when they didn't follow the regulations.
So businesses and consumers benefit from regulation and that there is no gain to be had here. We are just trading the small gains in stock price for lots of additional risk legally and otherwise.
I didn't even bring up the fact that Trump may unwittingly get us into a trade wars with some of our biggest trading partners by threatening to go to war with them or threatening them with tariffs when they don't do what we say.
I can't believe this is happening. America is back people.
Bonus: when Trump "freezes the size of Federal employment" do you think that will be match by a freeze in contracting, or a boost in crony contracts?
And that's where you're wrong. If done right, 3x to 4x more expensive up front and less TCO in the long run.
Trump: "I have a problem (e.g. Wollman Ice Rink) but know nothing about this topic. Who is the best company that makes ice rinks?"
Makes a few calls to hockey teams to find this information.
Learns the name of the company.
Calls CEO of the ice rink company.
After 15 mins of conversation, learns that freon-based ice rinks suck the monkey and that brine-based ones last forever.
Total elapsed time: Probably an hour.
Hires ice-rink company to help with Wollman Rink.
Project completed in four months and under budget.
No studies, no meetings, just results.
Government bureaucrats: REEEEEEEEEE!
Media for the last year and a half: "Donald Trump will NOT be able to build the wall."
Just now, Donald Trump: "We will start IMMEDIATE CONSTRUCTION of a border wall."
I haven't seen a single fake news site report that though, they are all pushing the alternative fact that contractors will be hired en mass.
Also the 2nd very solid Matt Levine article I've read in this thread, I think I detect a pattern.
"I'll take one quart of regulations, a three feet of rules"
It doesn't work that way. The practice of regulation is non-linear in terms of its formulation and result. Long, complicated regulations could be relatively meaningless, while short rules could be really important.
Saying we are going to cut 75% of regulations is useless. Point to specific rules and regulations.
For more, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average