Dow Jones gained 31% during Trump’s first year

The change between the time of President Obama and President Trump is drastic.  For that matter the change between George W Bush and President Trump is ALSO drastic.  Or to Bill Clinton or George HW Bush… even in some ways, compared to “Ronaldus Magnus” as some of us like to call Ronald Reagan, the conservatives’ usual modern ideal.

The facts are pretty stark, and despite the media’s unreasonable hatred for Donald Trump (which would NOT have existed had he only run as a Democrat – that is how shallow this is), from a business standpoint at least, they have to acknowledge this president as the creator of real change. Here are just a few of his early actions since his election victory and inauguration:

• Trump quickly moved to cut regulations put in place by previous administrations. He did these from Day 1, when he started with an executive order to basically suspend the Obamacare penalties for not holding health insurance
• Trump had a pathway – to cut two regulations for each new one enacted
• To drastically revise the flow process by which new construction is authorized, for roads and infrastructure most notably
• Optimism!  The man campaigned boldly and told America that we would get tired of so much winning.  Well, we’re not tired yet, but there HAS been a lot of winning.  The markets spiked as soon as he was elected, no doubt because businesses and investors knew he would set them free to roar, where Hillary – even though many big business leaders voted for her – Hillary would have done nothing different at best to get the market going.

Admittedly, the economy was starting to move more on its own before the election, even with the prospect all but assured that Hillary Clinton was to be the next president.  However, this was a rather burdened recovery – President Obama’s aura, if you will, was negative about the USA – and it seems that the charge laid against him by conservatives that his attitude reflected a message of “America’s best days are behind us… get used to being not so great anymore.”

This was his rhetoric, and it impacted the very “feel” of the United States and her people.  One of the really unique things about Mr. Trump is optimism.  Relentless optimism.  But 30 years ago there were more like him. Now he sticks out like a sore thumb, and would have been normal in the 1970’s and 1980’s now seems like almost an insane sort of big difference.  But that rhetoric alone was enough to spark movement.  Then with action after action to follow that rhetoric up, things took off.

As a showman, Mr Trump is unusual, because he is absolutely direct in attributing positive results to himself.  They are not always directly true.  However, if one takes really careful and honest account of things – sometimes the gestalt, sometimes actual policy changes; the factors change from issue to issue – it usually shows that the man is exactly right in the attribution of success in the USA to something he did or said. Domestically speaking, this president has shown himself to be a giant already.

On the geopolitical stage things are a lot more difficult to understand.  With the very recent action taken by Turkey to bomb US-backed Kurds in Syria, the US’ stupid choice of allies is becoming more and more evident.  Something is seriously wrong on the world stage as regards the USA and its efforts to maintain what looks like hegemony.  Trump is full of bluster there, and he gets a lot of criticism, but again, signs of change seem to happen when he pushes something.  Presently the best example of this seems to be with the slow mitigation of the inter Korean conflict, but it still seems all too often that the President is somehow under the hale of very odd or hawkish opinions about foreign policy.  This is hard for me personally to believe though. Although having an outside-of-the-American fishbowl perspective helps my understanding a lot, I find it incredible to subscribe to the idea that Trump just doesn’t know the way things really are in the world.

Our Disruptor-in-Chief has done good things for the USA at home.  His speech to the United Nations General Assembly was electric and spot on in the vision of a unity of sovereign nations.  I believe the man is too smart to make himself a hypocrite, so it seems that watching and waiting is the best move.  Apparently the markets agree with this point of view as well, as very little is happening so far in the markets even with wars and rumors of war.

This is a fascinating period of history, and one well-worth watching.