Wall Streeters are delusional, with a serious case of amnesia

I have to admit that the first thing I thought about when the news broke that Trump had been re-elected was to wonder how I might be affected. That could sound selfish, but I was basically following the kind of advice you hear on airplanes about securing your mask before attempting to help others. 

As with many Americans, the place I am most vulnerable is economics. But specifically, I am retired and depend on Social Security plus a small retirement fund as my sources of income. 

When it comes to the former, I would predict that, if Republicans are successful in doing anything about Social Security, it would affect future - not current - recipients. It is my retirement account that could take a hit since it is currently invested with the goal of producing growth and income. Given the fact that I'm in my "twilight years," I don't have a time horizon to make up for losses if the stock market crashes. 

Today I received an email from my financial advisors passing on what their company views as the outlook for 2025. Here's a summary (emphasis mine):

As we look to 2025, we remain cautiously optimistic. We’re cautious because no market environment is ever permanent, yet optimistic since constructive long-term technology trends are in place. Plus, potential tax policy and deregulation efforts in 2025 could provide some tailwinds — particularly from an economic perspective. While growth asset returns are not expected to be as robust in 2025, the investment environment should prove to be favorable for investors.

So they are "cautiously optimistic" that Trump's tax cuts and deregulation will contribute to a favorable investment environment. And yet they failed to mention two of Trump's most prominent campaign promises: tariffs and mass deportations.  That's the kind of financial analysis that some folks are calling "delusional."

Julia Coronado, founder of the research firm MacroPolicy Perspectives, told the New York Times that many Wall Street players have convinced themselves that Trump will only carry out the policies they support and not those they oppose, such as hefty foreign tariffs or mass deportations.

"A lot of people are using deductive reasoning and concluding that he’ll only do things that are good for the market... They can ride this wave of hope-ium through the end of January," said Coronado, who added that Wall Street's current view of Trump "feels delusional."

Even when these Wall Streeters acknowledge the way that tariffs would hurt the market, they tend to downplay whether Trump will actually implement his promises.

Barclays strategists estimated that proposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China - and any retaliatory actions - could drag S&P 500 earnings down 2.8%...

BofA Global Research expects a 1% hit to S&P 500 earnings if tariffs on China double to 40% while they rise to around 8% for the rest of the world, excluding Mexico and Canada. But with retaliatory tariffs, which hurt foreign sales, the earnings hit would rise to 5%, the bank's strategists wrote...

"They are trying to boost U.S. growth," Lefkowitz [UBS Global Wealth Management]

 said. "Tariffs would end up reducing it and Trump tends to focus on how the market is performing. For that reason, the market has been downplaying so far what we have heard on tariffs."

None of them ever mention the impact mass deportations will have on the economy.

But it gets even worse. Not only are these Wall Streeters delusional, they appear to have amnesia when it comes to deregulation - as Chris Hayes explained.  

So whether it's tariffs, mass deportations, or deregulation, all of the things Trump has promised to do will have devastating effects on the economy, as well as the stock market. 

My conclusion is that it's time to tell the financial advisors to take their "cautious optimism" and have a seat. A storm is coming and its time to batten down the hatches.

Our entire economy could hinge on whether Trump is too incompetent to implement his plans.

Somebody has been making a list and you can bet that we'll be checking it twice.

But Trump's biggest promise didn't make that list. He repeatedly blamed almost all of our economic challenges on undocumented immigrants and promised to deport them all. 

This week Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee reported that the president-elect's plans would not only fail to make our economy stronger, they would actually make things a whole lot worse. The title of their report says it all: "Mass Deportations Would Deliver a Catastrophic Blow to the U.S. Economy."

Depending on how many immigrants are deported, these mass deportations would: 

• Reduce real gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 7.4% by 2028,  
• Reduce the supply of workers for key industries, including by up to 225,000 workers in agriculture and 1.5 million workers in construction,
• Push prices up to 9.1% higher by 2028, and
• Cost 44,000 U.S.-born workers their jobs for every half a million immigrants who are removed from the labor force.

They also noted that Trump's plan "would cut $23 billion in funds for Social Security and $6 billion from Medicare each year because these workers would no longer pay into these programs."

As a marker, Democrats pointed out that, when it comes to GDP, "the economy shrank by 4.3% during the Great Recession." Deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants would more that double that.

What the report didn't address is that, in addition to those catastrophic results, it would cost the federal government over $300 billion to implement Trump's plan. For some perspective, that is about twice the annual budget of the entire Department of Homeland Security.

All of that happens if Trump is able to deliver on the biggest promise he made during the 2024 campaign. It could be that this one goes the way of his 2016 promise to "build the wall and make Mexico pay for it." In other words, the malevolence of Trump and his minions (ie, Stephen Miller) could be overwhelmed by their incompetence. 

So how does that feel America? Our entire economy could hinge on whether or not the next president is too incompetent to implement his plans. Jeeze!

MAGA 2.0 is a backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement

Recently I wrote that MAGA 2.0 is a backlash to the MeToo movement. But there was another major event during Trump's first term that sparked a backlash: the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the mass protests that ensued. 

Contrary to what Trump and his supporters would have you believe, the protests were mostly peaceful. 

About 93% of racial justice protests in the US since the death of George Floyd have been peaceful and nondestructive, according to a new report.

The findings, released Thursday, contradict assumptions and claims by some that protests associated with the Black Lives Matter movement are spawning violence and destruction of property...

About 7,750 of those protests were linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, the report states. Peaceful racial justice protests took place in more than 2,440 locations across all 50 states and Washington, DC – violent demonstrations occurred in fewer than 220 locations, according to the report.

I remember tearing up when I saw this: 

Those protests were so massive and multi-racial that even a cynic like Ta-Nehisi Coates was optimistic about their potential for police reform. 

But then MAGA and right wing news went to work scaring folks with an endless focus on the few instances of violence, along with claims that Democrats wanted to defund the police (a lie). Folks like Tucker Carlson even claimed that Derek Chauvin didn't murder Floyd - it was all a lie. 

To understand how threatened MAGA folks were by the BLM movement, we need look no further than the fact that yesterday, a jury found Daniel Perry (a white ex-Marine) not guilty for the murder of a homeless Black man, Jordan Neely. Right wingers aren't just celebrating the verdict. They're claiming that "the BLM era is over." Here's Megyn Kelly:

Same thing from Chris Rufo.

Make no mistake: the Black Lives Matter era of “restorative justice” is over and the real spirit of justice is returning to America...Today’s verdict marks the end of an era. BLM, which seemed unstoppable four years ago, is finished.

Perhaps even more pernicious is the attempt to smear Jordan Neely (just as they attempted to smear George Floyd), a black man who was homeless as a result of drug addiction and mental illness.  Here's what the richest man in the world (who is also apparently the shadow president) had to say:

There are a lot of directions a conversation about all of this could go, not the least of which is a discussion about how abhorrent these people are. But let's keep this in mind as we go forward: the MeToo and BLM movements shook up the status quo of our white patriarchal culture so profoundly that we are now in the midst of a huge backlash. I have no idea where all of this ends, but I am confident that their fear indicates that those movements were powerful. In an odd way, that brings me some hope. 

Why I'm not buying Trump's claim that he'll work with Democrats to protect DREAMers

One of the things I've been thinking about over the last few days is how I'm going to deal with four more years of the daily onslaught of ignorance, lies, racism, and sexism spewing from the mouth of our next president. Part of the problem is that I'm in my "twighlight years," and don't have a lot of time to waste. It depresses me to think that much of that time will be consumed by anger and despair over the state of our country. But I can't simply ignore it all either. 

That dilemma was brought home today with the reporting about Trump's interview with Kristen Welker. In typical fashion, the president-elect said a lot of stupid, ignorant stuff. But given that I'm going to do my best to focus on his plans for immigration, I want to take a few minutes to break down some of the nonsense he spouted. 

Here is a summary of what he's promising to do:

• Deport every undocumented immigrant,
• End birthright citizenship, and
• Work with Democrats to protect DREAMers.

Estimates are that the cost of deporting 11 million undocmented immigrants would be around $300 billion - not to mention the humanitarian disaster it would be or the devastation it would bring to our economy. 

According to Pew Research, there are currently about 4.4 million U.S.-born children who live with an undocumented parent. During his interview with Welker, Trump said (1) they'd be deported with their parents, and (2) he'd end birthright citizenship. That means tossing out provisions of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Here's what's at stake with that one:

Amidst all of that, it might sound jarring that trump is promising to work with Democrats to protect DREAMers. But don't pin your hopes on anything positive on that front. All we have to do is remember what happened during his first term.

Trump has always talked positively about DREAMers. But in 2018, a bipartisan group of senators worked out a compromise that would protect them from deportation - as well as increase border funding and place limits on legal immigration. Trump signaled that he would support their work. 

But when the senators showed up at the White House to discuss their proposal, they were ambushed - most likely by Stephen Miller. Unbeknownst to the bipartisan group, several immigration hardliners attended the meeting - which ultimately became famous for Trump's comments about not wanting immigrants from "shithole countries." In other words, that proposal met the same fate as the bipartisan border bill this year. So excuse me if I don't put much stock in that promise. It's all a shit show of ignorance, lies, and racism. 

The next four years are going to be exhausting - at best.

MAGA 2.0 is a backlash to the MeToo Movement

One year after Mr. "Grab 'em by the p*ssy" was elected president in 2016, Time Magazine's Person of the Year was "the great silence breakers" of the MeToo movement. 

This reckoning appears to have sprung up overnight. But it has actually been simmering for years, decades, centuries. Women have had it with bosses and co-workers who not only cross boundaries but don't even seem to know that boundaries exist. They've had it with the fear of retaliation, of being blackballed, of being fired from a job they can't afford to lose. They've had it with the code of going along to get along. They've had it with men who use their power to take what they want from women. These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought.

One of the seminal moments for that movement came a year later when Oprah Winfrey gave this speech at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards ceremony. 

The tears we shed during that speech were a testament to the power of all of the women stepping up to be "silence breakers."

One of the people who feared that power was Steve Bannon. During an interview with Joshua Green, he acknowledged that Oprah could "represent an existential threat to Trump’s presidency" if she decided to campaign for Democrats in 2018.

But, Green wrote, Bannon believes the most powerful backlash to Trump is bigger than Winfrey, who’s been the subject of much 2020 speculation. He’s most concerned by the women-led wave of liberal, anti-Trump activism, fueled by the #MeToo movement.

“The anti-patriarchy movement is going to undo ten thousand years of recorded history,” Bannon told Green. “You watch. The time has come. Women are gonna take charge of society. And they couldn’t juxtapose a better villain than Trump. He is the patriarch.”…”This is a definitional moment in the culture,” Bannon told Green of the Hollywood awards ceremony.

In her speech, Oprah declared that, "For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up." That terrified members the patriarchy whose power over women depended on silence. 

It is important to keep those days in mind as the president-elect - who has been accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 18 women and was found liable by a jury for sexual abuse - nominates several men to his cabinet who have been accused of sexual assault.

In defense of one of those nominees (Pete Hegseth), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said that "We've all had some indiscretions in our past and things like that." On the one hand, it is truly abhorrent for Roy to refer sexual assault as simply an "indiscretion." But he also says what a lot of us learned during the height of the MeToo Movement: sexual assault is practically ubiquitous in this culture. 

Steve Bannon knew that, when women stood up and spoke out, the whole patriarchal culture was threatened. So the backlash against that possibility is now underway as the "p*ssy-grabber" tries to reinstate male dominance over women in ways both large and small. 

They think we're going to keep quiet while they do that. Will we?

The Afghan refugees that Trump wants to deport

On Sunday, 60 Minutes told the harrowing story of how Jason Kander (read about him here) used private resources to get 383 refugees out of Afghanistan after the U.S. pulled out of the country.  The focus of the story was on the nephew of Kander's translator, Rahim Rauffi, who had received death threats from the Taliban because he possessed critical documents from his work in payroll for Afghanistan International Bank.

Rahim has access to the list of tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked directly with everybody from the UN to the U.S. Embassy, to any other multi-lateral just trying to build democracy in Afghanistan, everything that the Taliban stood against, and everything that once the Taliban took over, one of their first priorities was to find those people and make an example of them by imprisoning them or killing them.

If you didn't see the segment, I highly recommend watching it. As I commented while it was airing, "if this were a movie script it would be rejected as too wild to be believed." But here's what Kander wants us all to take away from the story:

I want Americans to know that every Afghan that they meet did something heroic to get here. And when you first meet them they might be in a job where you may not think about that. They might be bussing your table. They might be driving your Uber. But these are some of the most industrious and resilient and incredible people that you'll ever meet. And I just would like every American to know that.

What the 60 Minutes story didn't cover was the immigration status of these Afghan refugees. It is most likely that they're covered by humanitarian parole, which has been granted to 133,000 Afghans, but is only valid for two years.  

Donald Trump has promised to end the "outrageous abuse of parole,” meaning that Rahim, his family, and the rest of those rescued by Kander would be at risk of deportation. In case you thought the incoming administration would be sympathetic to Afghan refugees, keep in mind that Vice President-elect J.D. Vance suggested that they might be terrorists. 

I wish 60 Minutes had included this risk of deportation when telling this important story. But when/if you hear about Trump ending humanitarian parole, perhaps Rahim's family will come to mind and we'll remember Kander's words about these heroic, industrious, resilient, and incredible people.

The least tyrant-proof part of government: DOJ

Donald Trump, who made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, or imprison the "enemy within," has nominated Kash Patel to be FBI Director. Here's what he's promised to do: 

Here is Trump’s nominee for FBI Director Kash Patel calling for “offensive operations” to jail Americans who they consider “the enemy.” “We will go out and find the conspirators... Yes, we are going to come after the people in the media."

[image or embed]

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:02 PM

I was reminded that, very early on in the first Trump administration, Benjamin Wittes wrote that the least tyrant-proof part of government is the Department of Justice. To make the point, he quoted Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who also served as U.S. Attorney General (emphasis mine).

What every prosecutor is practically required to do is to select the cases for prosecution and to select those in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain.

If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his case, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm—in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.

Wittes goes on to point out that the safeguards against this ultimately "reside in an institutional culture at the Justice Department, and that is precisely the sort of thing a tyrant leader can change." 

So, if confirmed as FBI Director, Patel will be able to prosecute/sue/harass anyone Trump deems to be an "enemy within."

Wittes concludes that, "There is, in fact, only one way to tyrant-proof the American presidency: Don't elect tyrants to it." 

Oops, too late for that.