2017 Mar 1^st

I’m guessing that Trump’s handlers have him somewhere in a rubber room where he can’t tweet some absurdity and spoil his speech. The speech was well delivered; he did that, but who knows who wrote it. Bannon, who is given credit for his disastrous presidential acceptance speech, was not allowed near this one…and a good thing too!

Trump cannot open his mouth without exaggerating something or outright lying about it. This speech was not an exception. Trump claims we spent 6 trillion dollars in the Middle East when the Department of Defense says we spent much less than 2 trillion. He could have made his point perfectly well if he had stuck to the facts, but once more the absurd exaggeration, and his ego, won out.

He said immigration costs us billions of dollars a year but their economic impact is positive.

Once again he comes out with the conservatives’ favorite fright figure, that 94 million people are out of the labor force. That number includes retirees, college students and stay at home moms; another deliberate mislead. The fact is that unemployment is less than 5 percent but you’ll never see that mentioned by Trump or appear on Fox News. Trump claims he “inherited a mess;” that is another bald-faced lie.

He signed an executive order cancelling the “Clean Water Bill” so that now coal mines can dump wastewater in our rivers again—but he said that he would “promote clean air and clean water,” another lie.

He said we “left our borders wide open for anyone to cross” but both the number of agents and their budget have doubled since 2001.

His speech lasted just on hour but there was a lie or a gross exaggeration, on average, every 12 minutes of that speech.

His speech was very popular with the Wall Street crowd. It looks like regulations will be reduced and that means profits will increase and that means stock values will go up. In addition, taxes will be reduced meaning there will be more money available to spend and that also means yada, yada.  Government spending will increase because billions of defense dollars are needed. Infrastructure repair in needed as well and it could soak up a trillion dollars. Woah!! Let’s all buy stocks! Get in right away! That seems to be what’s going on right now because at the market’s close the Dow was up about 300 points.

Old poker players (and I qualify on both counts) recognize when somebody is “betting on the come.” This means you are betting on the expectation that you’ll be dealt the cards you need to improve your hand. Sometimes you have four cards to a flush or four cards to a straight and the right next card could mean you have a winner…but you aren’t a winner yet.

That is the case here. All of this spending is not likely to be popular with Republicans who control congress and who will have to pass the laws the spending requires. The money will have to come from one of three sources: cutting programs like Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. These all help people with moderate incomes and Trump vowed not to touch them. The Republicans might borrow the money and thus raise the national debt; that is a major no-no. The power elite might raise taxes. (Yeah, I know there is not much chance of that, but it is possible.)

Wherever the money comes from, one undesirable thing comes with it and that is inflation. Ms. Yellen suggests that interest rates may rise this very month. Keep your eye on the price of gold.