In a break from the monotonous political horseshit questions levied at Trump, CNBC did a good job in an interview this morning– getting Trump to discuss business and how he’d approach managing the U.S. economy. I’ll try to get the video up later when available. In the interim, here are some of my notes.
He thinks Yellen is great, but she’s a goner. He’d probably replace her. He does, however, like low interest rates. Moreover, he feels a rise in the interest rates would have a disastrous effect on the U.S. economy. I’ve been saying this for 5 years. He noted how it would be nonsensical and deleterious to the management of our soon to be $21 trillion debt load to have it at higher rates. The lower the better. And he favors a weak dollar policy.
In regard to the debt, he fashioned himself ‘The King of Debt’. He thinks we should refinance the national debt at longer durations. In other words, buy back the short term paper and finance long term. People like Jim Cramer have been begging the treasury to do this for years. I recall when he had Tim Geithner on Mad Money a few years ago and asked him to do that. Timmy, basically, laughed at Jim and made him look stupid.
Trump wants to use some of the savings realized on debt refinancings for infrastructure spending. He cited our schools, tunnels, bridges and airports as being unsafe and disgraceful. Furthermore, he said he’d be the single best person in the history of the White House to rout out the corruption in the bidding process, since he knows all the tricks of the trade. No more 30 year highway jobs.
Obamacare is a horrible mistake, according to Trump. Both premiums and deductibles will skyrocket in 2017 and it needs to be replaced. He noted how ‘almost no one’ benefits from it.
Lastly, and without question my favorite part, Trump mentioned how in Iraq we’d build a school, only to see it blown up. We’d rebuild it and it’d get blown up again. We’d build it 4 times; meanwhile, if a school was needed in Brooklyn or Oklahoma we wouldn’t have the money for it. He described this mishandling of the treasury, this gigantic fraud, as being criminal. We’ve spent upwards of $4 trillion in the middle east since the beginning of the Iraq war, and have nothing to show for it.
In summary, Trump wants low rates, refinanced debt, big infrastructure spending, weak dollar, better trade deals (NAFTA is going away) and he will repeal Obamacare.
Update:
Here is part of it.
There came into Egypt a Pharaoh who did not know…..
Ok frog. Let’s here your rebuttal. Can’t wait.
I don’t see Obamacare going away after all the expense/effort of insurance cos/hospitals adopting it. It’d be better to focus on weeding out the corruption and bullshit in the healthcare sector too. $100k charges for surgeries “negotiated” down to ~10k, $100 gauze etc. Fix that, just like the gov’t. contracts, and the general public reaps the benefits.
United is pulling out of Obamacare. That should have been your tell.
any time a sector is subsidized it gets corrupt. if you ever go to an emergency room, you will see rampant over charging through, test and procedures that are not needed but can be billed.
man I guess I was dreaming to think that trump was going to tank the market before printing up a storm to get rid of the rats first. Guess if he already thinks he has control, he may fear the crash and try to prevent it now. you cant get rid of corruption without pain, so if he tries to just keep it going now that he has control, we will see epic failure using our last bullet without cleaning house.
how about stop spending 52% of taxed-payers monies on the military .. we’re being financially buried by our own aggressive paranoia and war mongering
700+bill per annum on the defense budget. It’s insane.
its tough to get a bully to give up his bat when he is been hitting home runs for 60 years.
the reason we won WWII is cus we were independent then. now we want to control the world. greed kills
Lyin’ Ted gone, now it’s Crooked Hilary ( these monikers stick with voters I think ) who’s the next to go.Fer cryin’ out loud Bernied Sanders is giving her a hell of fight. Love the new hair Hils, btw, Angela Merkel called and wants her stylist to come back home now.
I’ve never believed Trump believes any of the sewage he’s spewed in the early phase of his campaign. That it was just a ruse to gain the support of the bottom feeding white trash failures that make up the modern GOP’s ground forces. That all the talk of Moo-slums and Mexican walls and egregiously inaccurate Black crime statistics was just to warm the hearts of those pathetic ‘Muricans obsessed with Christian Jihad and the ability to procure assault weapons.
I generally agree with everything he’s said above. If Trump is elected and follows the pro-business agenda above, I will be quite pleased. Of course, when he neglects to build that wall or march the coloreds into furnaces, the mobile home dwelling rubes who helped put him in the Oval Office will not be pleased.
I think the next president will be a 1 term president, imo.
I like his take on debt restructuring. Extend the national debt for as long as possible to protect the budget from swings in interest rates and reducing volatility as a whole.
I want to see Trump win so that he destroys America. The people deserve it.
Fuck you.
Trump is still a Democrat. Good for him. Since he’s running as a Republican, he is required to bash Obamacare,even though Obamare is a step in the right direction. It is as good as Obama could do, given the GOP Congress members trying to block everything.
Other than that, Trump is similar to Bernie on the issues there in Fly’s summary.
This was actually brilliant strategizing by Trump. Voters wanted Democratic policies but they have been successfully brainwashed by Right Wing news sources to only vote for Republicans. So what does he do? He runs as a Republican, but proposes mostly progressive type policies.
Progressive Keynesians and progressive peaceniks have been saying these same things for years. But no one listened to them, because voters were brainwashed to think that Democrats are evil. Now Trump says them, and people think they are brand new concepts.
Some of this is stuff that Obama has wanted to do, but the bought and paid for GOP Congress has blocked him. If Trump were to be elected, he’d still have to deal with how he would get these things through Congress. The only way he could is if voters voted in a progressive Congress to support him in these ideas. So what’s he going to do? Say “Vote for me, and vote for Democrats for Congress?” It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.
Congress wouldn’t support him just because he’s from the same party. It’s doing the will of the donors who bought them that matters to the Congress members. Congress members get “primaried” all the time, for not being Right Wing enough for their donors, e.g. the Koch brothers. E.g. Eric Cantor got primaried like that.
And the Kochs’ group of wealthy donors, is spending 984 million dollars this year to make sure that Congress is Right Wing enough for them.
Maybe Trump should wait until after he secures the GOP nomination, and then ask Bernie or Elizabeth Warren to be his running mate.
Wake up frog. Trump will make Bernie older and as always useless and the fake do the two week long rain dance. You know. Dance for two weeks non stop. Salvation is on the way.
In regard to the debt, he fashioned himself ‘The King of Debt’. He thinks we should refinance the national debt at longer durations. In other words, buy back the short term paper and finance long term.
…Trump wants to use some of the savings realized on debt refinancings for infrastructure spending.
Fly, did you distort what he said, or is Trump really suggesting that the debt be refinanced at higher rates (which you get at the longer durations) so we can use the savings for infrastructure spending?
US debt isn’t like a mortgage, where you pay back principal over time and can reduce your monthly cost by moving to a longer term.
Here’s an interesting review of Trump’s foreign policy speech yesterday.
Trump’s Foreign Policy Mishmash
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/29/trumps-foreign-policy-mishmash/
All you folks who thought Obama should give Trump credit for the idea of telling China and Japan to stop unfairly manipulating their currencies, where are you now? Are you ready to ask Trump to give Obama credit for the ideas of spending on our country’s infrastructure and having no problem with debt?
I didn’t think so.
Politics is very tribal for many people. My tribe good. Your tribe bad. Ideas don’t matter at all to most voters. It’s only WHO says the idea that matters. Authoritarian followers.
Here’s a web site of a Canadian psychologist who did his research on authoritarian followers. He published a whole book of research on the web in pdf form, for free.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Ideas don’t matter at all to most voters. It’s only WHO says the idea that matters.
You’re correct here, of course. But given we are from different tribes, I strongly disagree, until an elder statesman of my tribe claims these ideas as his own.
Teeny-weeny-hands though. Littlest fingers. (Big wall though)