Literally and Seriously

Lifted this article by Matt Levine from Bloomberg. I copied and pasted the relevant parts. Original here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-30/immigration-orders-and-odd-tenders

I think sometimes about how Anthony Scaramucci compared the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule to Dred Scott, the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting slavery and ruling that African-Americans can’t be citizens. "The left-leaning Department of Labor has made a decision to discriminate against a class of people who they deem to be adding no value,” said Scaramucci, a fund-of-funds marketer who was also an adviser and spokesman for Donald Trump’s campaign. And he said that, if Trump were elected, he’d repeal the fiduciary rule.

Trump, meanwhile, never said that. Instead he promised to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States. Scaramucci tried not to think about this: “I’ll make a prediction right now that he will not put a ban on Muslims coming into America,” he once told Gawker. Did he believe that? Or did he think that the Department of Labor rule requiring financial advisers to put their customers’ interests ahead of their own is the great moral evil of our time, comparable to slavery, and that a ban on Muslim immigration was an acceptable trade-off to end that evil?

Now Trump has his Muslim ban, sort of. On Friday – Holocaust Remembrance Day – Trump issued an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S. The ban covered U.S. lawful permanent residents who have spent years following the law and building lives here, interpreters who heroically helped the U.S. military, children of U.S. citizens, dissidents who fought hostile regimes, scientific researchers, Syrian Christians, British Olympians, and endangered refugee children who were carefully vetted to be allowed into the U.S.

But you know what Trump hasn’t done yet? Repeal the fiduciary rule! Or even talk about it. Its future remains uncertain, and while there is a good chance that it will eventually be repealed, big brokerages are moving to implement its changes now anyway.

This is a widespread pattern. Many people in the business and financial and technology communities listened to what Trump said, and cheerily assumed he’d do something completely different. Sure he talked about restricting trade and banning Muslim immigrants, but what they heard was that he’d enact “sensible immigration policy” and pro-growth trade agreements, reduce taxes, cut back regulation and generally improve conditions for business. As I said in November:

Peter Thiel and others said that Trump should be taken “seriously but not literally.” Taking Trump literally means believing that he’ll do what he says. Taking him seriously means believing that he’ll do what you want.

And what has happened so far? Immigration bans (with more to come), abandoned trade agreements, “alternative facts,” unprompted promises to bring back torture. And what has not happened so far? Tax policy is a complete mystery, with an unclear and walked-back promise to impose a border tax. Health-care policy is even more mysterious. Trump has made vague promises to cut regulations by 75 percent, but his specific regulatory focus seems to be on increasing penalties on companies that move operations abroad. Everything Trump literally said is coming literally true; everything the serious people heard remains an unserious hope. Businesses may eventually get the tax and regulatory reform they wanted, but it’s not a priority. The technology industry, and some others, are beginning to figure this out:

Trump has “had this extraordinary honeymoon where Wall Street has kind of discounted all the negative aspects,” Richard Fenning, the CEO of consultancy Control Risks, told Bloomberg Television. As companies react to the migrant ban, “perhaps that honeymoon is starting to be over,” he said.

More than that, though. One upshot of Trump’s executive order is that United States lawful permanent residents, who have jumped through years of hoops to comply with the intricate immigration rules enshrined in U.S. law, are no longer protected by that law. They can be deported at the whim of the President, or his advisers, or a Border Patrol agent. (The order originally barred lawful permanent residents, though after some confusion, now it will not, unless the Secretary of Homeland Security wants it to. On the other hand, soon it may apply to citizens.) The nation of laws that they immigrated to is gone, replaced by a nation of arbitrary rule.

If the president can, without consulting the courts or Congress, banish U.S. lawful permanent residents, then he can do anything. If there is no rule of law for some people, there is no rule of law for anyone. The reason the U.S. is a good place to do business is that, for the last 228 years, it has built a firm foundation on the rule of law. It almost undid that in a weekend. That’s bad for business.

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Fact check: permanent resident is allowed to enter the country from those 7 countries.

Sweeet… rent control is ILLEGAL!!! It’s coming!!! :grin:

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Sorry for posting so much Trump stuff here. But it should be clear to everybody Trump is everywhere in people’s decision making. From important ones like “should I buy a house?” to mundane ones like “can I go out of the country to visit my parents?” Multiply this by millions of people and we get a major economic problem.

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Hope it could come, depending on who and how many Supreme Court judges he can appoint.

At least many SF stupidvisors will be busy attacking the new president. If stupidviosrs are busy and have no time to squeeze citizens, we the people will be happy ever after.

Stupidvisors are totally worse than nothing. Hope the guy will keep the stupidviosrs busy with attacking, protesting, shouting,

CA sanctuary state may come sooner… :smiling_imp:

http://thehill.com/latino/317085-calif-considers-becoming-sanctuary-state

Will it backfire?

Are you stunned?

Relax, breathe and relax again.

Separate opinions from facts.

It’s not election season, now is the time to relax

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/01/31/gingrich-trump-administrations-astonishing-continuity-is-stunning-left.amp.html?client=safari

Billionaire Ray Dalio’s honeymoon with President Donald Trump is looking to be short lived.

Dalio, who in November was bullish on the incoming president’s ability to stimulate the economy, is now saying he’s more concerned that the damaging effects of Trump’s populist policies may overwhelm the benefits of his pro-business agenda.

“We are now in a period of time when how this balance tilts will be more important to the economy, markets, and our well-beings than normally dominant drivers such as central bank policies,” Dalio and co-Chief Investment Officer Bob Prince said in Bridgewater Associates’ “Daily Observations” note to clients on Tuesday.

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This line is golden. Remember it:

Taking Trump literally means believing that he’ll do what he says. Taking him seriously means believing that he’ll do what you want.

Honeymoon officially over. The shortest honeymoon in history.

This billionaire earned 2.4% last year? What’s their specialty?

“Bridgewater Associates, based in Westport, Connecticut, oversees $160 billion in assets. It returned 2.4 percent in its Pure Alpha II fund last year, overcoming losses in the first half.”

What honeymoon? Protesting never stopped from one year ago to today. Huge protest before and after the inauguration, there is only bittermoon, no honeymoon at all.

If protesting is every day and you get protest no matter what, do you think he would pay attention? People will be saturated with protests and just ignore it.

It’s is the historic moment. This political reality is from many decades of liberal movement. Today’s event could be a pause and correction in the decades long liberal movement. But it could be reverse of liberal movement as well.

I think what happened is inevtitable. If it was not Trump, it would be someone else. If it was not today, it could be 4 years later. There is no escape, people are not happy with the politics, they want a change or at least a correction. It would be help the left of they use some moderation and change their fiercely attacking style

I don’t know if the democrats are in denial or what, but Trump is doing what he’s been saying since 2015. I still don’t regret voting for him; probably the best vote I’ve ever cast.

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Now, only after protest and a court order. Green card holders were turned away previously. If Trump had actually gotten someone with a brain to look at his EO he could have avoided the fiasco. Of course, maybe that was his intent all along.

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Read this article and tell me you are not scared:

Bannon wants to wage war against Islam the religion and China. That’s, oh, half the humanity. It’s my ultimate bear case. I really hope it doesn’t happen.

Yes, Steve, I understand how important face is. We all do. Now just chill out and don’t forget to take your medication.

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If you voted for Trump in California your vote didn’t count…I voted for Gary Johnson, just can’t stand the orangeman…But the fact that he is pissing off liberals is worth it…And scaring traditional centers of power is good too… republicans and democrats that are part of the Washington shit machine need to shaken to their core…

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Doesn’t matter; the intent is what matters to me. California is a lost cause.

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It’s less than 2 weeks since trump became president, but it seems that his reelection chance is now over 90%. Most of his policies are not even announced yet. He seems to understand the art of politics, even though he is a new politician and he is not familiar with the Washington mechanics.

I hope to dear God that everything works out, but I have to admit, I like his style. Just get things done!!! No dilly dallying around… sure, probably should have vetted fully the travel policy and cascaded that down to the guys/gals on the ground. He wants to get things done and I don’t blame him. Shoot, our freaking Stupidvisors could learn a thing or two from The Donald…

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Just don’t let trump, well I mean bannon, wage war on china ok? Trade war or shooting war. Deal?

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