Trump Presidency Crisis Continues: Stock market up only 33 percent

by philg

According to the New York Times, the crisis that began when Hillary Clinton failed to defeat Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 only intensified with the release of the Mueller report. Some recent items…

“It’s Not the Collusion, It’s the Corruption” (by David Brooks):

The first force is Donald Trump, who represents a threat to the American systems of governance. … The second force is Russia. If Trump is a threat to the institutional infrastructure, the Russians are a threat to our informational infrastructure. … The third force is Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. They are a threat to our deliberative infrastructure.

“The Mueller Report and the Danger Facing American Democracy” (Editorial Board):

But the real danger that the Mueller report reveals is not of a president who knowingly or unknowingly let a hostile power do dirty tricks on his behalf, but of a president who refuses to see that he has been used to damage American democracy and national security.

“In a Functional Country, We Would Be on the Road to Impeachment
Mueller laid out the evidence for members of Congress to take action against President Trump. Will they?” (Michelle Goldberg):

There are a lot of reasons Trump’s election remains a festering wound. It was a horrifying shock to many of us and, given his decisive loss in the popular vote, an insult to democracy. … It was probably naïve to think that Mueller could cut through such a thick web of falsity. But if anyone could have, it would have been him, the embodiment of a set of old-fashioned virtues that still ostensibly command bipartisan respect.

[The hero with “old-fashioned virtue” charged with uncovering Vladimir Putin’s puppet control of the U.S. government spent most of his time looking into which young women were paid to have sex with which older guys?]

“Mr. Mueller’s Indictment” (Editorial Board):

it turns out that Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors and investigators found “substantial evidence” that President Trump broke federal law on numerous occasions by attempting to shut down or interfere with the nearly-two-year Russia investigation. … In addition to pointing to possible criminality, the report revealed a White House riddled with dysfunction and distrust, one in which Mr. Trump and his aides lie with contempt for one another and the public.

“Mueller Hints at a National-Security Nightmare” (Joshua A. Geltzer and Ryan Goodman):

President Trump may claim “exoneration” on a narrowly defined criminal coordination charge. But a counterintelligence investigation can yield something even more important: an intelligence assessment of how likely it is that someone — in this case, the president — is acting, wittingly or unwittingly, under the influence of or in collaboration with a foreign power. Was Donald Trump a knowing or unknowing Russian asset, used in some capacity to undermine our democracy and national security?

The public Mueller report alone provides enough evidence to worry that America’s own national security interests may not be guiding American foreign policy.

“Mueller’s Damning Report” (Noah Bookbinder):

The fact that Mr. Mueller explicitly did not resolve whether the president engaged in criminal conduct only reinforces the need for Congress to consider whether Mr. Trump violated his constitutional obligations to the American people. … Congress and the American people have every right to insist that the individual who swears an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” has not abused his powers to protect himself or his associates from the reach of justice.

One thing that professional investors like to do when someone predicts forthcoming trouble for a company is ask “How’s the stock?” The implication is that the market is smarter than individuals and if a company is going to crash it should already be reflected in the price. (This kind of thinking took a beating in the Collapse of 2008!) Boeing seems like an obvious disaster, for example, but its performance is barely distinguishable from the S&P between October 1, 2018 (before the first 737 MAX crash) and the present. So the market isn’t too worried about Boeing even if most of us would rather buy a ticket on an Airbus.

U.S. stocks have been great performers compared to international peers since November 8, 2016. The S&P 500, for example, is up by roughly 33 percent (compare to 14 percent for Germany’s DAX). That’s seemingly inconsistent with the media’s portrayal of grave peril facing our nation and the need for every citizen to be outraged. Why do investors want to buy into a country that is controlled by foreigners who have an incentive to hold back the U.S. economy so as to limit American economic and military power?

If the NYT journalists and readers are convinced by their own hysteria, why aren’t they cheerfully (leveraged) short the S&P and preparing to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Switzerland once the big meltdown does occur?

Related:

  • Paul Krugman’s NYT prediction, Nov 9, 2016: “It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? … If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”

42 thoughts on “Trump Presidency Crisis Continues: Stock market up only 33 percent”

  1. This blog post gives us a good reason to charge the Trumpenfuhrer with stock manipulation. If a Nobelist clearly states that the stocks will never recover, they should not. To borrow from Marx(!), who are you gonna believe: a true scholar or your lying eyes?

    So let’s impeach the mo********er. Oh wait! Am I allowed to use the word on this board? Can I freely quote from a member of Congress in reference to the President of the USA?

    • M: That’s a good point. Democrats accuse Trump of getting rich when foreigners stay at one of his family’s hotels. But he could have made $billions simply by purchasing out-of-the-money options on the S&P 500 on the day of his election. Folks who read Paul Krugman would have been happy to sell those options!

    • phil: Trump violating the emoluments clause of the constitution is not an issue for you?

      Also it’s an assumption that Trump would have any assets to invest in the S&P to make $billions.

    • Trump most certainly not violating emoluments clause of the constitution. It was created to protect against situations that were easily constructed when after War of Independence many in US of A were former British royalists, and some were in favor of France, others recent German immigrants and early Dutch settlers. If anything, Trump is the most financially independent US president of recent decades. He is not beholden to foreign investors, has no need to collect speaker fees as one former Democratic president has been doing and his wealth ($65 million, large multiples of original net worth) is not dependent on sweet book deals with agency owned by Germans (Bertelsmann) and British (Pearson) as one of the other Democratic president. Who knows who Bertelsmann and Person investors are? Those are really long term deals with foreign powers that return more than being long on S&P 500. Trump even refunded very small hotel fees booked by foreign government entities , before elections. Mueller report says that Russians did not even knew phone / contact info for Trump and that Trump campaigned explicitly rebuffed all their attempt to contact them. Would be interesting to look int Democratic speaking fees in Russia, UAE and such. But nobody will.

    • “If anything, Trump is the most financially independent US president of recent decades.”

      You’re taking his word for that, and he’s not exactly known for telling the truth.

  2. Nothing in any of those NYT excerpts suggests anything that should cause the stock market to fall. So you copied and pasted a bunch of words for no reason at all. However, considering the fact that S & P 500 is at a level around three times the level of ten years ago, a crash is quite likely in the not too distant future. I look forward to a post from you blaming it all on Trump.

    • Mmm an interesting economic theory — that if the stock market within a ten year period triples “a crash is quite likely in the not too distant future.” Wonder why our friend “Vince” is sharing that keen insight with us — for free — rather than trying to make some money on his theory.

    • A country whose national security, democracy, and “informational infrastructure” have all been destroyed shouldn’t be marked down due to risk? Investors who bought Japanese and German stocks and bonds right before World War II did just fine despite the national security problems that developed in 1944 and 1945 (following earlier problems with their democracies (especially Japan; there was never a clean vote for the government that they had, I don’t think))?

    • On the other side those who had Russian debt or owned any property in Russia before Communist revolution were plastered., loss of 100% and often lives Does modern USA look more like workaholic single ethnicity Japan or Germany or like multi-national Russian empire before Communist revolution? No analogy is perfect.

    • Who even knows what informational infrastructure is. I wouldn’t worry about its effect on the stick market. The obsession with the markets is ridiculous anyway. Also, Japan has been admitting quite a few immigrants in the last 10 – 20 years. Germany has been bringing in many for over 50 years.

    • Wonder why our friend “Vince” is sharing that keen insight with us — for free — rather than trying to make some money on his theory.

      This is such a brilliant point here. Perhaps it’s the answer to Philip’s question. David Brooks and the other NYT columnists are probably shorting the stock market heavily. They’re just not talking about it because that would cut into their profits.

    • 1. “Also, Japan has been admitting quite a few immigrants in the last 10 – 20 years. Germany has been bringing in many for over 50 years.” – Japan and Germany were not diverse societies before, during, and long after WWII, and Japan is still is not.
      2. Information plays critical role in economy and yet has higher role in trading.

    • “Also, Japan has been admitting quite a few immigrants in the last 10 – 20 years”.

      The statement strikes one as bizarre. According to this pro-immigration site, the rate of migration in Japan is 0 (zero) , a country where 98.1% of population is Japanese.
      https://www.migrationpolicy.org/country-resource/japan

      Apparently, the rate has been zero since 2000:
      https://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=ja&v=27

      The number of refugees accepted in 2017 was 20 (twenty):
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/16/japan-asylum-applications-2017-accepted-20

    • Ivan,
      He’s probably counting the illegal immigrants who primarily settle in Shinjuku, Tokyo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku).
      Our blessings are the Japanese blessings too, see:
      https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/07/14/national/media-national/media-stews-growing-chinese-numbers-japan/
      You may also want to check out this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Incident
      It’s not made in Hollywood, but I am hearing a remake is in the works.
      You know, illegal immigration is good for America: this is partly because it’s illegal and thus it defies Trump.

    • M,
      According to one of the links:

      “The net migration rate does not distinguish between economic migrants, refugees, and other types of migrants nor does it distinguish between lawful migrants and undocumented migrants.”

      Not sure how they count the “undocumented migrants”, so take it for what it’s worth. Perhaps, the majority of Chinese eventually leave the country, the number of permanent residents appears to be 28% of the total you quoted which seems to match the 0.5% of the overall Japan population. Otherwise, how they arrived at zero migration rate ?

      Thank you for the movie link.

    • Ivan,
      Sorry for being sarcastic towards the NYT and the progressive propagandists on this board. I am afraid that might have tripped you to challenge me on the numbers I’d never published.

      Undocumented immigration is indeed tracked by the Japanese police: please watch the movie to see how it all works. Despite boasting Jackie Chan on the actors list, it’s a worthy movie and Derek Yee is a serious director, nothing to do with Hollywood.

      Please forgive me for being sarcastic. My stomach churns when a liberal preaches the merits of immigration while encouraging illegal border crossings. It’s like a thief who advocates for free movement of goods.

    • Vince, going through the thread, initial mention of Germany and Japan in first reply by philg: “Investors who bought Japanese and German stocks and bonds right before World War II did just fine despite the national security problems that developed in 1944 and 1945 ” Seems to refer to WWII era.

  3. “Was Donald Trump a knowing or unknowing Russian asset, used in some capacity to undermine our democracy and national security?”

    So now serious newspapers of record are worried about evil Russian mind control of the Presidential unconscious?

    • As I wrote in not so distant past, Russian commies whom the NYT used to like so much, are guilty of apostasy, a sin punishable by death in some peaceful religions, hence the hatred towards the traitors.

  5. Of course Trump tried to shut down the probe — he knew the underlying allegations were nonsense and he wanted to do the job he was elected to do without the interference of Robert Muller.

    • Trump without a precedent turned all requested documents and made all requested available to Mueller investigation. I am sure that he wanted to stop investigation be he never acted to even impede Mueller. He had legal executive privilege to hide staff from Mueller but he never used it and even his waived lawyer – client privileges. It is plain illegal by congress to use the info attained this way to go after Trump on non-collusion related staff. I am not even mentioning that claim of collusion looked bogus from the outset and Mueller probably already knew that there was no collusion for some long time.

    • Except that most of the issues are minor and related to what started investigation. 14 days for Manafort, non-crime self-admission for Flynt who wanted to protect his son … Manafort staff was common knowledge in DC, crimes occurred long time ago, some of them when Mueller was FBI director and decided not to prosecute him back than… Nothing for Page who was attacked at the outset, not even charged… Total hogwash. Wikipedia can not be relied upon for un-biased info and analysis for some time now.

    • “Wikipedia can not be relied upon ”

      You’re denying that these charges were prosecuted in a court of law now? If they’re so minor, why didn’t the judge dismiss them? Why didn’t they take them to a jury trial where their peers could see how minor they were and find them not guilty?

      Since you refuse to acknowledge indisputable facts, what is even the point?

    • That Wikipedia piece on the glorious achievements of the investigation does seem to have been written by an insider. Example: “Russian spy Maria Butina…” (the young woman who was a Piper Warrior student pilot)

      By contrast… https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/25/politics/maria-butina-case/index.html

      Prosecutors, meanwhile, have acknowledged that Butina is no Russian spy. But they insist her crime was still nefarious and that she acted as an “access agent” to help spot people who could be recruited as intelligence assets down the road.

      “Butina was not a spy in the traditional sense of trying to gain access to classified information to send back to her home country. She was not a trained intelligence officer,” prosecutors acknowledged in a court filing. But, her actions “had the potential to damage the national security of the United States.”

      (Marina Butina was allegedly having sex with an older gentleman who paid her college tuition in exchange. This the Feds described as “money laundering”. Maybe laundry was required, but I’m not sure it was for the money…)

    • You’re making too much out of the use of the word spy. The Wikipedia article goes on to mention what she specifically pleaded guilty to, so you can just ignore the word spy.

    • Thanks, Vince. I am just glad that the national debt was expanded so that my grandkids can one day pay for the investigation and prosecution that brought this dangerous South Dakota-based international agent (not “spy”) to justice.

    • + 1 Vince. Better suggestion: you can ignore the entire wikipedia propagandist entry. Probably it was written by someone paid by Putin under the table. How you can prove it was not?

    • So only crimes which reap a profit for the government should be investigated?

      The Mueller investigation was a net positive for the national debt, but you’re still upset that it was conducted.

      As for Anonymous, that article has 181 references but since you refuse to believe anything it’s entirely possible the entire Mueller investigation never actually happened and was invented by the media for ratings.

    • baz, how much $$$ exactly Mueller restored to US government. Sure less than $35,000,000. I am not even talking about agitation and productivity lost, probably around 1% of national GDP. You would even believe it if donated to Wikipedia and put in an article with references there.
      But this is about constitutional issue of trying to negate results of election and cover previous administration interference into election, which is thankfully backfired. I believe Mueller investigation and even read it, he is definitely competent dude. He found no prior Trump connections to Russian government and stated that Trump and his campaign rebuffed all Russian attempts to contact them. That’s where the report needed to stop.
      There is also part probably written by H. Clinton donors full of insinuations, that’s Dems belletristic.
      If Dems rebuffed Russian attempts to connect like Trump did and did not enable their own questionable personnel to manage their systems than they would not be hacked. This is not Trump but previous Obama administration that dropped the ball and let Russian government interfere, in parallel with its own efforts, and in parallel to doing nothing about foreign cyber attacks on US defense and financial organizations.
      I followed most of the criminal cases resulting of Mueller investigation in detail and concur with previous posts that consider them either routine that should be pursued much earlier or unimportant.

  6. Thanks Phil for copying and pasting the NY times. I only get 5 free articles a month and usually waste them on restaurant reviews. It does seem like it is a silly newspaper full of fake news.

    • Are you sure their restaurant reviews are not fake news? There are plenty of examples, especially for the outer boroughs.

      I still remember their non-review of The Imperial Palace, then the #1 Chinese/Cantonese seafood restaurant in the whole of NYC. A lengthy column summarized the history of the Chinese in America, celebrated the ethnic diversity of the Queens county (where the restaurant is located), published a soppy picture of a Chinese toddler holding chopsticks half of her height, discussed the (lack of) decor. Their verdict: one star. Guess which one topic was not mentioned at all.

    • I don’t look at NYT as a guide to what is true (though sometimes they get a fact or two correct, I’m sure!). I look at it as a guide to the kind of logical contortions that coastal elites engage in.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/magazine/kay-jewelry-sexual-harassment.html

      as a recent example. Men were getting paid way more than equally qualified and productive women. But the retailer was too stupid to figure out that it made better financial sense to hire only women. They were just draining shareholder assets paying men above-market. compensation. Then look at the reader comments. None of these folks questioned the newspaper’s premise that a profit-seeking corporation would be squandering money to satisfy its man-loving (characterized as woman-hating) tendencies.

      It is also a great guide into the quality of critical thinking that American college graduates are capable of!

    • “though sometimes they get a fact or two correct, I’m sure!).” this is unverifiable hypothesis. Back when I was reading NYT weekly reporting on news items that I could verify independently or had intimate knowledge of were all wrong or at best contained some resemblance to truth. And I had to believe in other news I had no prior knowledge of that was printed there. I long was contemplating unsoundness of trying to get news from NYT. I started to read it less and less frequently every time astonished on how newspaper slid. NYT news was supplanted by at best unqualified and usually malicious opinion. Any reason to read NYT was gone with its last wordsmith,William Safire. It even lost literary significance.

    • And I thought Phil was reading the NYT mainly for its crossword puzzle. 🙁
      Could you guys please comment if the crossword is fake too?

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