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Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

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Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#151
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pipeline will create jobs and decrease fuel costs (pro business and worker). Freezing federal hiring will decrease the tax and regulatory load shouldered by everyone (pro business and worker). The ACA was shown to have been sold to the workers based upon lies regarding costs and access to their doctors. It's imploding under its own weight. Further, if the ACA benefits anyone, it benefits people who don't work but…

I agree that the pipeline will decrease fuel costs, and provide temporary construction jobs, however the net will be that the oil businesses will increase their profits and need fewer workers to transport the oil to market. Until workers can share equally in the profits of a business, I think it is dishonest to equate removing regulatory "burden" as pro business. Trickle down economics effects simply do not happen.

"Until workers can share equally in the profits of a business"

Sharing equally in the productivity of the society is just communism. It fails every time because people have varying levels of productivity but when you compensate everyone equally no matter what effort they apply, you get a tragedy of the commons situation.

Communism has been tried many times and has never been shown to be good for workers.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#152
post #13

Remember when nearly the entire business media predicted that if Trump was elected the stock market would crash immediately? Some of my smartest friends (at hedge funds) placed large bets mid to late 2016 that the market would decline. Now here we are. The lesson isn't that Trump is awesome for the economy (maybe he is, maybe he isn't) or that the market won't crash tomorrow (maybe it will, maybe it won't) but rather…

And here we are, invested in index funds, outperforming the hedge funds again...

Bingo. So many macroeconomic prognostications in this thread, none of which will be correct. The fact that "smart hedge fund" guys are making stupid bets on a market crash is hilarious.

Put money in diverse holdings and let it compound. It's not hard.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#153
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your list is largely comparable to what one would see as a list of goals from someone sympathetic to European style socialism. And yet the USA is the dominant economy in the world. How do you square that reality with your claim of what a "pro-business politician" would do?

Sure, I wrote out a big answer just above.

You wrote rationalizations for the policies you mentioned, but you didn't address my point that the real world example of the economic dominance of the USA would be evidence that you're incorrect.

You'd think that if your policies were good for business, countries that had adopted those policies would be the most economically successful.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#154
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

I have this - admittedly very condescending - theory that a large part of the middle class is still "financially illiterate". Wages are hardly ever discounted for inflation and thus growing wages (in absolute terms) make most people happy. Even if their purchasing power is declining. As long as there is no sharp increase in prices most people won't complain.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#155
post #154
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

I have this - admittedly very condescending - theory that a large part of the middle class is still "financially illiterate". Wages are hardly ever discounted for inflation and thus growing wages (in absolute terms) make most people happy. Even if their purchasing power is declining. As long as there is no sharp increase in prices most people won't complain.

People read their pay stubs more often than their grocery bills. You can suck a lot of money out of the middle class by making the latter go up more quickly than the former.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#156
post #58

Listen to this episode of Planet money in 2013: Despite all the celebration, the Dow Jones industrial average has not hit record highs recently. If you adjust for inflation, the highs just aren't as high as they seem. And even if it does hit a real, inflation-adjusted high in the next few weeks, it won't mean much. The Dow is a seriously flawed stock index, and it's certainly not a good way to measure what's going on…

It makes no sense to inflation adjust the DJIA price index. Because the index discards cash dividends, by adjusting for inflation but not dividends you're ending up even further from the real returns of a DJIA portfolio then you were before.

The same goes for S&P 500.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#157
This is nothing more than a sugar high before the inevitable Trump crash. He likes to take credit or stuff other people did. Then when Trump actually does something and it doesn't go well he pushes the blame onto someone else.

The stock market indexes were already up significantly as a result of Obama's policies. I'm just not here for Trump or others assigning credit to Trump for something Trump had very little to do with.

This is what you call speculation. Under Obama people had to prove out their finances. Under Trump gut feeling is enough.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#158
post #71

I understand that people believe Trump is good for business. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the rich. And I also understand that people believe Trump is good for the blue-collar worker. But I don't understand how Trump could be a good influence, in the long term, on business and the stock market, when looking at his positions and policy changes. Why Trump isn't good for poor working class…

> All in all, I'd like to hear what others think I think that "command and control" and "free market" economies are the extremes of the spectrum, neither optimal, with lots of room in between. Trump has talked a lot, but we don't know where he will actually fall, policy-wise. It's not out of the question he implements economically beneficial policies. We should judge what he does, not what he says.

He did pull the US out of the TPP. And I'm confused why they did not affect the market like I thought it would.

Did the US just not hand over all its influence in Asia to China by doing that ??

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#159
post #74
post #23

This is driven by expectations of Trump's deregulatory agenda. He says he's going to cut 75% of regulations. I can't believe this is happening. America is back people.

I never understood this line of reasoning, as if regulations were some extrinsic property. "I'll take one quart of regulations, a three feet of rules" It doesn't work that way. The practice of regulation is non-linear in terms of its formulation and result. Long, complicated regulations could be relatively meaningless, while short rules could be really important. Saying we are going to cut 75% of regulations is usele…

Since ignorance of the law is no excuse, you still need to read and understand those "long, complicated regulations that are relatively meaningless" to determine if they apply to you, and if so how to comply with them. Removing those regulations would make doing business easier with minimal downside, especially for smaller companies that can't easily afford large armies of lawyers to understand the law.

Re: Dow Hits 20000 for First Time

#160
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the pro-manufacturing-in-the-US, anti-import stuff.

I have yet to hear about any movement on those campaign talking points.

He had a big meeting with manufacturers two days ago and is incentivising US manufacturing through the threat of tariffs.
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