At FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver does a scenario analysis of the Trump presidency:
When faced with highly uncertain conditions, military units and major corporations sometimes use an exercise called scenario planning. The idea is to consider a broad range of possibilities for how the future might unfold to help guide long-term planning and preparation. The goal is not necessarily to assess the relative likelihood of each scenario so much as to keep an open mind so you’re not so surprised when events don’t develop quite as you’d expected.
Applying the method to President Trump, the scenarios Nate comes up with are:
- Trump keeps on Trumpin’ and the country remains evenly divided.
- Trump gradually (or not-so-gradually) enters a death spiral.
- Trump keeps rewriting the political rules and gradually becomes more popular.
- Trump mellows out, slightly.
- Trump cedes authority.
- Trump successfully pivots to the populist center (but with plenty of authoritarianism too).
- Trump flails around aimlessly after an unsuccessful attempt to pivot.
- Trump is consumed by scandal.
- Trump is undermined by a failure to deliver jobs.
- Trump’s law-and-order agenda is bolstered by an international incident or terrorist attack.
- Trump plunges America into outright authoritarianism.
- Resistance to Trump from elsewhere in the government undermines his authority but prompts a constitutional crisis.
- Trump becomes Governor Schwarzenegger.
- Trump’s button-mashing works because the system really is broken.
That list is by no means exhaustive. I’m sure you can come up with your own scenarios. For example, a scenario that isn’t mentioned (although it resembles #9) is that the United States goes into a deep recession, Trump’s approval rating falls below 25%, and he’s impeached.
Of the scenarios listed Trump’s opponents tend to subscribe either to #2 or #11. Note that Trump’s opponents have been claiming #2 since he threw his hat into the ring and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they’ll be right eventually.
Contrariwise, Trump’s supporters have inclined to scenario #3 or #14.
I think that by far the most likely is scenario #1 and I presume that Nate does, too, based on its position, followed by #7, although I think that the scenario I listed above is practically a done deal if we enter a deep recession.
There’s always a tension between the degree to which presidents make presidencies happen and the degree to which presidencies happen to a president. Events matter. A relative lack of crisis and lots of good news made President Clinton’s tenure in office a golden age. Crisis after crisis coupled with bad decision making turned President George W. Bush into a bum.
/Trump/replace/rnd(Washington,Adams,Jefferson,…,Obama)/
I’d be willing to bet as much as $1.47 on #14, given the proper odds.
I’m afraid I don’t find much useful in Nate’s scenarios. There is no precedent for this situation. Trump has the political power, the Left (not a very useful term at this point, but…) owns the culture. My analogy is tissue rejection, and I still like it. Trump is indigestible by the culture. And the great thing (from my point of view) is that he has zero skills to enlarge his base. So far, according to the polls, he’s actually lost ground and is supported by fewer people than voted for him.
I think the best Trump can hope for is ‘crazy uncle’ status in which he is ridiculed or ignored while we all look at our watches impatiently waiting for him to go away. But that’s probably a fantasy because Trump will almost inevitably start a war. He’ll need to, emotionally, to validate himself. His pet Nazi Bannon says war with China is imminent, plus he expects yet another shooting war in the ME. Iran? China? North Korea? Maybe two at once? And then it’s 1968 again.
“the Left (not a very useful term at this point, but…) owns the culture.”
This is vividly illuminated by their recent string of election victories.
Roy:
Stay tuned. Your idiot president just drew a moral equivalency between the United States and Vladimir Putin. He’s nyet my president, he’s nyet the legitimate president, he’s incompetent, unfit and dangerous. He’s a low-rent con man, the kind of half-smart grifter who preys on the rubes. And on top of that, he’s a traitor. Unsustainable.
OT- Any thoughts on Trump wanting to repeal the fiduciary rule? How will we all be better off if financial advisers can place their own profits ahead of serving their client? Would Bernie Madoff have been innocent of wrongdoing under Trump rules?
Steve
I read this thread this morning, but had no time to respond.. However, it’s been on my mind thinking about what scenario I thought might come into fruition. #1 is probably the best bet, especially considering the tremendous push back Trump is receiving at the get go.
Basically, Trump haters will do everything they can do to discredit and destroy him. People who have supported him will hang on, despite all the bad press, because to them he represents a clarion voice for what they want and haven’t gotten from government. Those in the middle, will be torn as to what to believe. Consequently, the nation will continue to be divided, which to the progressives is the next best thing to winning.
Re Fiduciary Rule,
I don’t think its black or white as it seems.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/powell/2016/10/12/merrill-lynch-commissions-retirement-accounts-fiduciary/91743356/
http://www.financial-planning.com/news/jp-morgan-nixes-commissions-on-retirement-accounts-possibly-signaling-fiduciary-rules-staying-power
The practical effect is to stamp out the approximately 1-2% of advisors who enrich themselves at the expense of their clients by manipulating the accounts they manage to have excess commissions. The expense is to do so the government is getting rid of advisor managed retirement accounts that are commissioned based, going forward they are going to be fee based regardless of the number of trades.
For small / medium accounts where the advisor is ethical and does not trade a lot, charging a fee will cost more then a couple of trades a year, so they will pay more in the new rule or they will need to self manage in a self directed account.
A good analogy is buying a car from a salesman on commission vs on salary. Who provides a better deal, well it depends.
As with a lot of regulation, the idea is sound, but the implementation leaves something to be desired.
The history of the enforcement of financial regulations, particularly notable in recent years, is that regulation is used as a club to beat small operators with while the major players are largely immune. If financial regulators were selfless saints or mindless automatons, there would be no problems but neither of those is the case.
I have no strong feeling on the fiduciary rule as such but, generally, I think the problem of conflict of interest in the financial sector is intractable.
Seems to be a recurrent theme here Dave. The rich folks are untouchable, so don’t even try to do anything about them. I am kind of in agreement with this, but darn if it isn’t galling. Now we have gone and put them closer to controlling government.
Steve
Also, this has provoked interesting talk in my long term email discussion group. All of the right wing doctors are now claiming that they have no legal responsibility to place a patient’s needs ahead of their own financial interests.
Steve
That’s a development I’ve been complaining about for years. They may have no legal responsibility but they certainly have an ethical responsibility.
@Michael,
“Stay Tuned”.
Yup, that’s what I’ve been doing for quite a while now. You, on the other hand, seem to have gathered enough information to not only have a deep understanding of the man but also enough to predict the future for the next few years.
I can’t help but think that if I were as prescient you I’d be Donald Trump’s landlord instead of hanging around here in the low rent district.
That’s no reflection on our host. This is the classiest place I can afford.
😉
That the rich folks are untouchable has been a feature of larger government.
The fiduciary rule should of course remain, it’s just a fancy way of saying don’t commit fraud. More important is a degree of self responsibility in handling ones financial affairs. Here’s a straightforward question for all. When you are 25 yrs old should your portfolio be 80% stocks and 20% bond funds. When you are 60 should it be 50/50. When you are 75 should it be 80% bond funds and 20% stocks. Allow some leeway for personal taste. Stylistically, this is a fairly common prescription.
Starting with the baseline understanding that corporate CEOs have been known to commit seppuku upon finding out that we have purchased their stock, I have never believed in a strict formula, but rather adjusting to the amount of risk I think I can take.
Steve
The thing that bugged me from the article was that the financial firms figured out they will make more money from the rule as currently implemented — which raises red flags as to whether the regulation will be successful (getting better advice for less cost or same cost).
A more realistic take on having someone else manage your investments — most people, including most advisors do worse then market on a risk/return basis. As Guarneri notes, its better to just simply use 2 to 3 stock and bond etfs and reweigh according to age every year. The problem is its very hard to stick to such a strategy, and the rewards of beating the market is too much (e.g. 1% above market returns compounded over 30 years) so its easy for people to grasp at that low chance.
Probably the best regulation is to show potential new customers the average return of all accounts at a broker vs just standard 60/40 stock/bond etf mix. Show what they are getting (advice that won’t actually make them any money)…
Finally figured out what you meant by coup. And of course it was not a suggestion for a coup, unless it was another article. The discussion about the military rejecting an order is nothing like declaring a coup.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/06/and-then-the-breitbart-lynch-mob-came-for-me-bannon-trolls-trump/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ed%20pix&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks