General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJeffrey Gundlach on Recession Odds, Jerome Powell's Stumbles, and Why Trump Might Bail in 2020
NYMAG
August 23,2019 at 9:10am
By Jebediah Reed
Trump seems to have set himself the difficult two-part task of both to waging a trade war with China while trying to keep the U.S. economy from slipping into recession. What do you make of his strategy?
I think maybe hes playing a dangerous game of intentionally weakening the economy so the Fed cuts rates and monetary easings work with a lag. Cutting rates now would probably be beneficial in the summer of next year, ahead of the election. Also if you put on tariffs, or scare consumers, then maybe you can take the tariffs off and youre moving consumption from today until 2020.
So you think hes trying to engineer a brief economic dip and a rate cut and then trusting things will rev back up again next year before election day?
Thats potentially a strategy. As I say, its pretty dangerous. Its hard to time the economy by, you know, blunt instruments. I dont know, it seems like hes working really hard to get the Fed to cut rates and the bond market is certainly helping. You know the bond market is telling the Fed theyre completely on a different planet.
You were, in fact, one of the first public figures to predict a Trump victory four years ago. If youre expecting a 75 percent chance of a recession, how do you see the 2020 election cycle playing out?
Ah, yes. Im glad you brought that up. The first time I publicly predicted Trump would win was in the Barrons roundtable, which was the first Monday in January 2016...But I cant even imagine Trump running for reelection if theres a recession in the summer of next year. I dont understand what he could run on...Trump could pull a Lyndon Johnson and just say, Im not running. Because hed probably know he was going to lose. And you know, Trump doesnt want to lose. Thats his reason for not running, he could do the most ridiculous thing ever. He could actually say in the midst of a recession, Ive completed my mission of making America great again, theres no work left to do, so theres no point in me running.
More here.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/jeffrey-gundlach-recession-bitcoin-why-trump-might-not-run.html
lark
(23,156 posts)If not for that, yeah, he'd resign because he's so freaking lazy and stupid and he hates having this pointed out daily. But he won't resign because the only thing worse than this is losing everything in court and having to dress all in orange because you couldn't tell his wrinkly clothes from his sagging wrinkly skin. Besides, he wouldn't get more food than the other inmates and that's totally intolerable.
Nope we have to take the office by force of tsunami voting and stopping as many of their cheating shenanigans as possible.
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)You are right that self interest rules.