No Guardrails

I had a brief - three sentence? - conversation about politics with our long-time financial advisor, with whom we get along great because we don't talk politics.  This was probably in January, before the inauguration.  He felt optimistic, because "the markets responded well to him the last time."

I've signed up for a number of newsletters which I hope will keep me in post topics indefinitely.  The first one came this morning, and here's what a hedge fund guy told the reporter who's writing the newsletter:

The on-again, off-again tariff threats have created a situation... in which the smart money has decided that the new administration is in the process of squandering all of the pro-business good will it rode in on to cater to the president's "insane" whims on tariff policy.

I know that I am, and have been, a little obsessive about my study of history and politics, so I don't expect other folks to be picking apart everything that happens in those realms.  But he told us all about his "insane" tariff policies, in some detail, and it didn't sound to me like something good.  On the campaign trail he described - without using the term - a trade war, which (like most wars) is not good for anyone.

Interestingly enough, the hedge fund guy quoted above goes on to note that Trump was just as "insane" during his first term, but his Secretary of the Treasury kept him from damaging the economy:

...part of the reason for the recent volatility is that Wall Street has realized that "there's no Steve Mnuchin around this time." Mnuchin, the treasury secretary during Trump 1, may have been the one man who kept the president from his own worst economic impulses. Without a Mnuchin-like figure having Trump's ear, he said, there are no guardrails left.

That's interesting - and important.  I have no sympathy for people who are surprised by this (he literally said he was going to do it) but there are many of us who feel that all this might be a passing fancy, and maybe he'll move on to something else.  However, with nothing to guide him but his own narcissistic impulses - maybe not.