A quick one for once …..
I wrote before how timing is everything – obviously hard work is a major factor of success but timing is everything both good and bad.
Imagine if you will you became president of America. “Ugh” is probably your first thought but lets play pretend here and assume you had to do it. We all have ideas in our head of what we would like to do to ” change the world”, I would argue that you can do much more in times of crisis than times of posterity.
I am by no means advocating support for Donald Trump ( neither am i advocating resistance FYI ) but if you look objectively at it which time in history would you prefer to become President of the US ? Now or 8 years ago when Obama came into office.
On the face of it 8 years ago seems like a horrible time to come into office. The world was literally reeling from a global financial shock to the system, massive social unrest and the treasury was holding a gun to the head of congress looking for $800bln of tax money to bail out the fat cats on wall St and so on and so on.
Now Donald Trump inherits an office in charge of an economy at near full employment, despite what he says which is trucking along nicely- not killing it but not doing badly either. Where some of the biggest arguments of the last year or so has come from whether they should let transgender individuals use which ever bathroom they associate with – hardly a bear market pre-occupation.
If you legitimately want to change things – and I would argue that if you take Trump at his word ( a hard thing to do admittedly ) then it seems much easier to change things in a crisis than in times of relative prosperity.
“Never waste a good crisis”
I find it inconceivable that DT will actually be able to change anything – because at the moment no one is feeling enough pain to consider it completely broken. It would seem that Hank Paulson had the right idea 8 years ago – he sensed the urgency in the air and he took advantage – he gave politicians almost no choice and he got what he wanted. DT needs an environment of crisis to achieve the things he wants to do in my opinion and it will take him time to realize that.
Politicians move slowly – businessmen do not. Businessmen are adept at applying pressure at the right time to get what they want – in this respect I think DT will actually welcome with open arms a weak business environment – the sooner he realizes that the better.
Im not saying he will create weakness in the economy on purpose ( as I doubt he is capable of doing it anyway) but I certainly think if things started moving to the downside he would be wise to not stand in its way….. risky strategy but so is doing nothing for four years.
VeryBearish 