Welcome to the Trump Slump. Merry Christmas.
It’s happening right before our eyes. When His Orangeness was elected by the slimmest of electoral margins in 2016, normal people cringed, understanding that this chapter in our history was going to be a complete disaster. Trump has certainly met that expectation; his erratic reality television show behavior has destroyed everything from 100 year-old international alliances to entire industries. His tariff war has cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in economic value; his withdrawal from the TPP handed international trade dominance to China and Australia; his idiotic rantings on twitter have roiled the markets and destabilized politics in the US. The entire world is either laughing at us, or worse, preparing for the lunatic in the White House to declare World War III over some fabricated crisis.
Up until now, the markets have shrugged off Trump’s insanity, primarily because they’ve enjoyed the trillion dollars he’s pumped into the economy with unneeded tax cuts causing skyrocketing deficits. The result was overheating the economy which caused inflation to raise its ugly head, forcing the Fed to act by raising bank rates. His shutdown of the federal government over his idiotic wall is the last nail in the coffin of the 2018 economy. The Dow has plummeted 4,000 points from its highs; this is the worst December since the Great Depression. The market the last 2 years has now returned only 4% per year, barely beating inflation.
Instead of trying to understand what the hell he’s doing, Trump bumbles around, attacking everything that moves; he spent Christmas Eve savaging the Fed for the inflation HE PERSONALLY CAUSED. Even worse, the Fed is now the only agency standing in the way of this hair-weaved moron from pushing the entire country into the abyss. He has never grasped that the POTUS is supposed to CALM the markets, not burn them down; this narcissist is playing with matches while standing knee-deep in gasoline, complaining that he doesn’t have a blow torch. On top of that, of course, the invertebrates in Congress have fled DC to celebrate the holidays in hiding while the economy burns down around our ears and almost a million federal employees go without paychecks at Christmastime.
This is the worst disaster I’ve witnessed, including the last disaster started by GWB ten years ago. The difference? GWB was just a dumbass who surrounded himself with evil neocons and Darth Cheney, but at least he wasn’t nuts. Trump, a loose cannon, is singularly the most corrupt, narcissistic, and insane POTUS in the modern era, including Nixon. He’s run off all the adults who tried to restrain his worst instincts. And, as Mueller gets closer, he gets more dangerous and erratic; finally, after almost 2 years of complete chaos, the markets are now destabilized and plummeting. This one won’t end well.
Merry Christmas.