We often focus on the obvious about Trump: Thin-skinned narcissist, cheesy reality television star, criminal, schoolyard bully, prolific liar, lazy spray painted hair-weaved fake, skirt chasing philanderer, welsher, and pretty much all-round shitbag.  But that’s not all.  Except for disassembling our government and packing the courts with incompetent ideologues, Trump really doesn’t do anything.  His trade wars are circular and have only accomplished 3 things – bankrupting US farmers and businesses, costing the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, and finally, handing global trade dominance to the Chinese.

But there is something else he does that almost no one focuses on; he roils the markets with his sudden proclamations.  It goes something like this:

Trump runs a never ending cycle in almost everything he does while never really accomplishing anything.  Without warning, he slaps tariffs on selected imports, crashing the markets, then he starts making off the cuff comments about some kind of “deal” that increases with time.  The market rallies, nothing with trade changes, then he attacks China (or whatever country du jour), crashes the markets again.  Rinse and repeat.  He uses the same tactic with not only trade talks, but in negotiations with allies, foes, and actually dangerous countries like North Korea.  Part of his tactic includes spouting bullshit on national television while standing in front of his helicopter with turbine engines screaming in the background, called by Stephen Colbert “Chopper Talk”.

But it’s more nefarious than that.  Every time Trump shoots off his mouth and moves the markets, somebody makes a lot of money while somebody else loses a lot of money.  I have always believe he does this on purpose, especially when markets are sagging due to his trade wars or other idiocy.  In fact, one of his buddies, aging corporate raider Carl Icahn, saved millions when he dumped $31 million in shares of steel industry stocks just days before Trump announced steep China import tariffs.  But it gets worse – in October, Vanity Fair published an article documenting very suspicious trades in the S&P futures markets timed precisely to make hundreds of millions of dollars when a Trump proclamation moves the markets.  We know Trump intentionally manipulates markets with lies.   One well documented case was last August when Trump blatantly lied at the G7 summit that he was talking to top officials in China when there were no talks occurring.  The markets rallied at the lie, only to trade off when nothing happened – again.

Trump has always gotten away with questionable, if not outright illegal activity.  It’s engrained in his DNA.  He’s not constrained by rules and laws normal people follow, and it would not be in the slightest bit surprising that, in addition to his random lying, he (or someone close to him) was actually signaling to associates when he was going to make some big proclamation so they could get on the right side of a particular trade to rake in cash.  It certainly looks like it.  As one of Vanity Fair’s trading sources said, “There is definitely some hanky panky going on.”