2017 First Quarter Commentary

President Trump fails to grasp that governing requires more than a committed base.  The ultimatums he’s issued and controversies he’s sparked have been deeply disruptive, with so far little progress to show for it all.

Trump is an excellent winner, a poor loser.  He’s declared bankruptcy four times, admittedly not a mark of shame in our dynamic economy.  The only public company he’s led, Trump Hotels and Casino, he pillaged as chairman and CEO, receiving $44 million in salaries and bonuses, enjoying the good life on the company’s dollars, and engaging in sweetheart deals to enrich his private business empire, until finally wiping out shareholders in 2005.

Trump declared that even as chairman in this instance: “I wasn’t representing anybody but myself.”  No wonder many banks on Wall Street would no longer lend or do business with him. His business actions were inexcusable, in this sole instance in which he managed a public enterprise, before 2017.

Are you familiar with the child’s game Ker Plunk, 1967, or the somewhat similar Jenga, introduced in 1983, where pulling out the sticks and planks would eventually lead to the collapse of all the marbles?

As Wall Street likes to rhyme, the rally to the upside in the stock market since election day has become known as the Trump Bump.  US stocks gained +12% from the election to the end of winter, without really much of any decline on a single day.  It’s been all blue skies and sunny days.
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Times have a way of changing.  At the risk of being a conspiracy theorist, check out Louise Mensch, especially if you’re a Twitter user.  Perhaps only weeks away from change at the top, do you think the page will turn over on this era?  Of course it will.