I hope you and yours enjoyed a blessed Thanksgiving Day last week. Yesterday was Giving Tuesday. If you have not participated yet, please join me and many others who give all year long. There is no end to the good that our contributions can do for those who have much less in terms of the world’s abundance.
Some of you will remember the late great sportswriter, Dick Puhr, who sometimes put a potpourri of topics together in a column. Today I will copy that pattern.
I understand many of you may be still smarting from the election results. It is amazing to me that a CBS poll found almost 60 percent of those contacted were favorable to President Elect Trump’s proposed high-level appointees.
If you have a friend or family member concerned about treatment of LGBTQ+ folks, you might call attention to the fact that Scott Bessent, being nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, is the second gay person Trump has named to a cabinet level position. The first was Richard Grenell in 2020, who may be involved again as a special envoy next year.
Will tariffs sink our national ship through renewed inflation? The progressive President Teddy Roosevelt said to walk softly and carry a big stick! The promise of tariffs in response to unfair trade or other misbehavior of some other countries is a big verbal stick in the hands of The Negotiator in Chief. The economy performed really well during the first term.
Neither candidate talked much about cutting spending to lower or eliminate record federal deficits of the past two decades. Although many since President Reagan have referred to cutting waste and corruption, it has been just talk. It will be quite interesting to see if Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as dollar a year men will be able to have any good effect on this. I would rather not be paying for researchers to study the mating habits of exotic species.
As previously discussed, stock markets generally rise in the first year of a new presidential term unless there is some horrendous shock to the system. The great investor, Stanley Druckenmiller, says such should occur in the form of a credit reset. At Grant’s Fall 2024 Conference at The Plaza in NYC, he discussed the rising level of bond and loan defaults, but admitted a debt tsunami could be 6 months or 6 years away.
Most corrections of excess borrowing happen when most people are optimistic and sanguine. Markets can and do remain way out of balance for long periods of time. That is why I am still optimistic in the near term and invested in rising stocks and funds. However, I am carefully watching for seismic tremors ahead of the next earthquake. After all, Mt. St. Helens did finally blow its top.
(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)