The problem with the tax cuts is that most blue states are maintaining taxation of tips and overtime by decoupling those Federal provisions from state taxable revenue. They claim it's to protect state tax revenue, but it's really to hide any positive Trump tax cuts from their voters. In fact, 4 blue states/districts (NY, Maine, Illinois and DC) are considering increasing state tax rates on tips and overtime, thereby seizing the Federal tax savings for themselves and completely neutering any Trump tax cut benefits to their voters.
The question is - are these voters alert enough to the fact that they are getting hosed by their own state elected officials or will they simply vote "D" because of the steady diet of OrangeManBad.
The Left is in constant drama mode and amplifying ANY issue that they can manipulate to sway opinion. Weak people listen to that. The rest of us look at numbers.
For ex—GDP in US will be 3%, vs -.2% for Germany, 1.1% France, .4% UK, .75% Italy. Want to live there. y’all?
Incomes up, inflation down. We have work to do on messaging which hopefully will be top of mind in 2026.
News today that there was NO probable cause for the FBI raid of Mar a Lago, but Biden ordered them to do it anyway. Let’s see, cocaine in the White House, Biden calling a “lid” at 4PM, corruption enabled not just for Hunter but for Ukraine, 10-20MM illegal immigrants let into an open border (many of whom are now scamming us for welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies) etc. The $1B+ in Minn is just the tip of the iceberg. Note that in Trump’s first year U.S. born workers are being employed (iirc 1.5MM+).
Don’t buy the lies of the legacy media, which has proven itself to peddle lies (Russia gate, Biden is “sharp as a tack”, the “Inflation Reduction Act” will reduce inflation, Climate scams, DEI, ad nauseum).
You always have to look for the dog that’s not barking since the media is manipulative. They’re also not very smart and they’re also very lazy, that’s why they keep repeating the same tiresome stories.
Here’s a couple things that are never reported.
I’ve never heard of a Trump organization employee say Trump was a bad boss. Not once. Funny that.
Also, for all of the left’s hate of the rich, mainly out of envy, have they ever reported on why so many billionaires are willingly part of the Administration? I’m guessing there’s at least 10 billionaires working for the President. If you had a billion dollars, would you work for the person the left portrays Trump to be? Or even work for someone else? The left can’t ask that question because of their cognitive dissonance.
Originally coined by William Goldman, the screenwriter, who used it in the context of no one's ability to predict anything with certainty, especially what would be a hit or not in Hollywood.
John Bogle also used this quote to caution against market predictions.
The point being, of course that it's next to impossible to know what the future will or will not bring. Which you alluded to.
Good post. As for me, the midterm may indeed be bad for Trump, perhaps worse even than it typically is for incumbents. We'll see. That said, Trump could almost instantaneously improve his poll numbers by simply turning off his phone and cease posting. I bet he'd get a 5-7% boost by literally doing nothing. But ... that won't happen. The discipline we saw during the election has been overcome by the Trump we all know.
Had a good talk with a US Rep during the BBB legislative push (Big Beautiful tax cut extenuation). He (and several other R's) were considering tanking the bill so that the R's would get credit from the voters for the massive tax cut.
Not the right thing to do, but makes the voters happy to go ditch to ditch
As a nation we have lost a lot of patience for just about anything. I feel it. We can point to the instantaneous nature of communication, news, the 24/7 cycle, instant social media. Even in the trading realm, high frequency traders have traded in and out of a position after news breaks before many traders even knew it happened. It's all so fast, and it keeps getting faster.
Does anybody off-hand remember the news from last week? Or two weeks ago (without looking)? Politics is a microscope on the "Slide of the Day," where we've forgotten what the last Slide told us.
I think this has changed the nature of investing, relationships, work ethic, governance, dependency, addiction and almost every facet of our lives. Democrats were literally yelling at Trump about inflation within a month of taking office that he hadn't trounced inflation yet!
We expect everything now, so of course there will be a bias to what has just happened.
It's an investment/trading opportunity if you can figure it out.
A lot of times I'd love to put it all away and sit by the fire with a whiskey and just do nothing but look at it.
The main issue is lawfare by activist judges illegally inserting themselves via lobbyists into Article 2 management of the president. F*cking failed upwardly lawyers ruin everything.
I don’t know if you will agree with this, but Trump and the Rs have until maybe June or July in order to turn perceptions around enough to affect the mid-terms positively.
You make a good point, but in my view the primaries have a different dynamic going on. My comment was focused on who will win the majorities in both the House and the Senate, so maybe I overlooked the primaries, what happens there, and how that shapes things.
But if the Dems win the House, everything will be fucked up by those lunatics….
While I really enjoy reading your thoughts and agree with most of what you believe and stand for,I have to ask you not to excuse our President so easily. We agree that much he has accomplished is good for America. At what price? Donald Trump is a despicable human being.
I believe his act is seriously fraying at the seams. Secure borders, less regulation, re-shoring of manufacturing, insisting NATO carry their weight etc is all good and overdue but at the same time this ruthless, self centered, despicable man embarrasses our country with his tone deaf lack of respect for so much…while lining his pockets.
I will continue to read you and agree with you on so many fronts but please call him out for the despicable cartoon character he is.
I am cool with NATO stepping up. There might not be a need for NATO anymore. I think we can ask questions about it. There is no Soviet Union. I am also cool with the blockade of Venezuela and it has roots in the Monroe Doctrine. Mexico caved on some trade stuff today. I am cool with changing how the Defense Dept buys weapons and I am cool with MAHA. So much government is just entrenched drek and if we don't challenge our assumptions it doesn't get better.
I didn't like his tone taking on colleges but sure appreciated that he did it. He closed the border.
I disliked the "govt gets equity" or "govt gets a dividend" bull with private companies. I abhor it. I dislike tariffs, but it's his gig. I am not deceived by the "we are making more money than ever because of tariffs" line.....it's just not mathematically provable.
His tone is a NYC real estate developer----and I am with you---it's not Presidential and it is not for everyone. But, like a lot of people, I am glad he fights. Republicans never had a fighter. They had faux fighters. Could he tone it down? Sure. Will he? Nope.
Believe it or not I don't think he is lining his pockets like Pelosi and others! Trump watches yes, but not grift/graft.
Agree with you very much that some of his tweets are pretty nasty, and in the case of Rob Reiner, I didn't appreciate it.
With regard to his comments about Rob Reiner, and there's a lot of fake viral videos and memes about this going around, but the fact of the matter is Rob Reiner did condemn the killing of Charlie Kirk and he did not gloat about the shooting of the president, but Rob Reiner has referred to Trump and his supporters as fascist and Nazis and Hitler like and if somebody called you those names or your siblings those names or your parents those names or your children those names I don't know if you would have begun your tweet with the words"a sad thing happened..."; you might have just laid into the son of a b**** right away and I might have also. I agree it was a sad and horrible thing, but that does not absolve or erase the past of a man who reached the Apex of his profession and provided much joy and pleasure and entertainment for millions of people, but was an a****** of a person. If we were in high school and he spoke that way I would have met him at the bike rack after school and he would have wound up in the hospital. More foul mouthed liberals spewing vitriolic and inflammatory rhetoric need to get their asses beat because words and requests and prayers have failed to address that and Jews and Christians and Hindus and agnostics and atheists around the world are losing their lives because a bunch of morons read what's written in media and listen to what's proclaimed on media that is spouting the liberal political nonsense of oppression and they find it justifiable to kill innocent people and I for one am sick and tired of it. When some videos go viral of me beating the crap out of a foul mouth individual calling me a Nazi when I've had 2/3 of my father's family wiped out in the Holocaust and I walk away laughing, maybe somebody else from that side of the political aisle will think twice before they shoot off their f****** mouth. Mike Tyson was absolutely correct when he said (and obviously I'm paraphrasing)social media has brought out too many people who need to get punched in the mouth and aren't afraid of that happening.
Dan's talking about Character and Integrity - Trump has none. I'm sure it's easy to rattle off a bunch of "what about so-and-so" but the president should be held to a higher standard and the bar has been lowered to middle school. The party that idolizes Lincoln and Reagan has fallen pretty far from the Character and Integrity they represented.
Ha, so the party of manufactured Russian collusion and false Steele Dossier and false Russian hoax and false Hunter Biden's laptop is Russian disinformation and false border is secure and false Joe Biden is fit as a fiddle and false January 6th had no FBI agents and on and on and on is reputable and credible? Get a grip 🤣
Any of these seem befitting of the president of the United States? Do they strike you as particularly Reagan-esque? He should be held to a higher standard and he's made the US a laughing stock.
• “Grab them by the pussy” (2005 Access Hollywood tape).
• “When you’re a star, they let you do it” (same tape).
• Calling women he disliked “fat,” “ugly,” or “disgusting” (multiple instances).
• Saying Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” after a debate.
• Referring to Stormy Daniels as “Horseface.”
• Publicly rating women’s attractiveness in interviews and debates.
• Calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.”
• Repeatedly using “crazy” to dismiss female critics.
• Calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “murderers” (2015 campaign launch).
Dan's talking about Character and Integrity - Trump has none. I'm sure it's easy to rattle off a bunch of "what about so-and-so" but the president should be held to a higher standard and the bar has been lowered to middle school. The party that idolizes Lincoln and Reagan has fallen pretty far from the Character and Integrity they represented.
You must be really pissed that he didn't fawn all over Rob Reiner upon his demise. The endless sirens of what a shitty person he is are blaring. Admittedly, it would have been nice if Trump kept his mouth shut.
But... let's ponder what Mr. Reiner might impart upon the passing of Trump at the hands of Don Jr. slitting both his and Melania's throats.
Is he going to impart a gracious take? Haha.
For as much as Trump fights back, and as crass as that is, put yourself into his shoes. The guy is relentlessly attacked no matter what he does. It's an addiction for the haters.
They are already making plans to put on celebratory parades upon his demise. These same folks who whine about his lack of grace are at the ready to be 20x worse than Trump when the time comes.
"lining his pockets"? He's the only president in our lifetime whose net worth decreased rather than increased. I know it's uncomfortable for liberals to face facts but you ought to try it.
What would attribute to Hunter Biden not increasing his wealth by 6-10 times? He had worked so hard and used all his oil knowledge to secure the Burisma spot on the board. Why is he broke? How about Ms. Pelosi and her stock brilliancy? I won’t even ask about the Clintons.
The problem with the tax cuts is that most blue states are maintaining taxation of tips and overtime by decoupling those Federal provisions from state taxable revenue. They claim it's to protect state tax revenue, but it's really to hide any positive Trump tax cuts from their voters. In fact, 4 blue states/districts (NY, Maine, Illinois and DC) are considering increasing state tax rates on tips and overtime, thereby seizing the Federal tax savings for themselves and completely neutering any Trump tax cut benefits to their voters.
The question is - are these voters alert enough to the fact that they are getting hosed by their own state elected officials or will they simply vote "D" because of the steady diet of OrangeManBad.
Great question!!! We will see
The Left is in constant drama mode and amplifying ANY issue that they can manipulate to sway opinion. Weak people listen to that. The rest of us look at numbers.
For ex—GDP in US will be 3%, vs -.2% for Germany, 1.1% France, .4% UK, .75% Italy. Want to live there. y’all?
Incomes up, inflation down. We have work to do on messaging which hopefully will be top of mind in 2026.
News today that there was NO probable cause for the FBI raid of Mar a Lago, but Biden ordered them to do it anyway. Let’s see, cocaine in the White House, Biden calling a “lid” at 4PM, corruption enabled not just for Hunter but for Ukraine, 10-20MM illegal immigrants let into an open border (many of whom are now scamming us for welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies) etc. The $1B+ in Minn is just the tip of the iceberg. Note that in Trump’s first year U.S. born workers are being employed (iirc 1.5MM+).
Don’t buy the lies of the legacy media, which has proven itself to peddle lies (Russia gate, Biden is “sharp as a tack”, the “Inflation Reduction Act” will reduce inflation, Climate scams, DEI, ad nauseum).
You always have to look for the dog that’s not barking since the media is manipulative. They’re also not very smart and they’re also very lazy, that’s why they keep repeating the same tiresome stories.
Here’s a couple things that are never reported.
I’ve never heard of a Trump organization employee say Trump was a bad boss. Not once. Funny that.
Also, for all of the left’s hate of the rich, mainly out of envy, have they ever reported on why so many billionaires are willingly part of the Administration? I’m guessing there’s at least 10 billionaires working for the President. If you had a billion dollars, would you work for the person the left portrays Trump to be? Or even work for someone else? The left can’t ask that question because of their cognitive dissonance.
And these folks made their money via private business, not from some NGO or gov’t grift.
Case in point, Bernie Sanders who formerly railed against “millionaires and billionaires”…until he got his third house and is a millionaire himself.
"Nobody knows nothing."
What?
Originally coined by William Goldman, the screenwriter, who used it in the context of no one's ability to predict anything with certainty, especially what would be a hit or not in Hollywood.
John Bogle also used this quote to caution against market predictions.
The point being, of course that it's next to impossible to know what the future will or will not bring. Which you alluded to.
"Only time will tell," in other words.
I always enjoy your perspective.
Good post. As for me, the midterm may indeed be bad for Trump, perhaps worse even than it typically is for incumbents. We'll see. That said, Trump could almost instantaneously improve his poll numbers by simply turning off his phone and cease posting. I bet he'd get a 5-7% boost by literally doing nothing. But ... that won't happen. The discipline we saw during the election has been overcome by the Trump we all know.
Your lips to God's ear.....make it happen.
Had a good talk with a US Rep during the BBB legislative push (Big Beautiful tax cut extenuation). He (and several other R's) were considering tanking the bill so that the R's would get credit from the voters for the massive tax cut.
Not the right thing to do, but makes the voters happy to go ditch to ditch
Your alternative view is the correct one.
The online media is always looking for clicks, hence the endless and dumb news cycle.
Left wing media is always “Republicans Gone Wild!” and right wing media is always “Democrats Gone Wild!”
Don’t give them clicks. Seek out reliable sources with grounded analysis and ignore 99.9% of what’s online.
Vanity Fair article is case and point. The lying about the Brown student, another.
As a nation we have lost a lot of patience for just about anything. I feel it. We can point to the instantaneous nature of communication, news, the 24/7 cycle, instant social media. Even in the trading realm, high frequency traders have traded in and out of a position after news breaks before many traders even knew it happened. It's all so fast, and it keeps getting faster.
Does anybody off-hand remember the news from last week? Or two weeks ago (without looking)? Politics is a microscope on the "Slide of the Day," where we've forgotten what the last Slide told us.
I think this has changed the nature of investing, relationships, work ethic, governance, dependency, addiction and almost every facet of our lives. Democrats were literally yelling at Trump about inflation within a month of taking office that he hadn't trounced inflation yet!
We expect everything now, so of course there will be a bias to what has just happened.
It's an investment/trading opportunity if you can figure it out.
A lot of times I'd love to put it all away and sit by the fire with a whiskey and just do nothing but look at it.
Then the phone buzzes...
The main issue is lawfare by activist judges illegally inserting themselves via lobbyists into Article 2 management of the president. F*cking failed upwardly lawyers ruin everything.
I don’t know if you will agree with this, but Trump and the Rs have until maybe June or July in order to turn perceptions around enough to affect the mid-terms positively.
Do you think they have that long? There are primary elections.
You make a good point, but in my view the primaries have a different dynamic going on. My comment was focused on who will win the majorities in both the House and the Senate, so maybe I overlooked the primaries, what happens there, and how that shapes things.
But if the Dems win the House, everything will be fucked up by those lunatics….
While I really enjoy reading your thoughts and agree with most of what you believe and stand for,I have to ask you not to excuse our President so easily. We agree that much he has accomplished is good for America. At what price? Donald Trump is a despicable human being.
I believe his act is seriously fraying at the seams. Secure borders, less regulation, re-shoring of manufacturing, insisting NATO carry their weight etc is all good and overdue but at the same time this ruthless, self centered, despicable man embarrasses our country with his tone deaf lack of respect for so much…while lining his pockets.
I will continue to read you and agree with you on so many fronts but please call him out for the despicable cartoon character he is.
I am cool with NATO stepping up. There might not be a need for NATO anymore. I think we can ask questions about it. There is no Soviet Union. I am also cool with the blockade of Venezuela and it has roots in the Monroe Doctrine. Mexico caved on some trade stuff today. I am cool with changing how the Defense Dept buys weapons and I am cool with MAHA. So much government is just entrenched drek and if we don't challenge our assumptions it doesn't get better.
I didn't like his tone taking on colleges but sure appreciated that he did it. He closed the border.
I disliked the "govt gets equity" or "govt gets a dividend" bull with private companies. I abhor it. I dislike tariffs, but it's his gig. I am not deceived by the "we are making more money than ever because of tariffs" line.....it's just not mathematically provable.
His tone is a NYC real estate developer----and I am with you---it's not Presidential and it is not for everyone. But, like a lot of people, I am glad he fights. Republicans never had a fighter. They had faux fighters. Could he tone it down? Sure. Will he? Nope.
Believe it or not I don't think he is lining his pockets like Pelosi and others! Trump watches yes, but not grift/graft.
Agree with you very much that some of his tweets are pretty nasty, and in the case of Rob Reiner, I didn't appreciate it.
With regard to his comments about Rob Reiner, and there's a lot of fake viral videos and memes about this going around, but the fact of the matter is Rob Reiner did condemn the killing of Charlie Kirk and he did not gloat about the shooting of the president, but Rob Reiner has referred to Trump and his supporters as fascist and Nazis and Hitler like and if somebody called you those names or your siblings those names or your parents those names or your children those names I don't know if you would have begun your tweet with the words"a sad thing happened..."; you might have just laid into the son of a b**** right away and I might have also. I agree it was a sad and horrible thing, but that does not absolve or erase the past of a man who reached the Apex of his profession and provided much joy and pleasure and entertainment for millions of people, but was an a****** of a person. If we were in high school and he spoke that way I would have met him at the bike rack after school and he would have wound up in the hospital. More foul mouthed liberals spewing vitriolic and inflammatory rhetoric need to get their asses beat because words and requests and prayers have failed to address that and Jews and Christians and Hindus and agnostics and atheists around the world are losing their lives because a bunch of morons read what's written in media and listen to what's proclaimed on media that is spouting the liberal political nonsense of oppression and they find it justifiable to kill innocent people and I for one am sick and tired of it. When some videos go viral of me beating the crap out of a foul mouth individual calling me a Nazi when I've had 2/3 of my father's family wiped out in the Holocaust and I walk away laughing, maybe somebody else from that side of the political aisle will think twice before they shoot off their f****** mouth. Mike Tyson was absolutely correct when he said (and obviously I'm paraphrasing)social media has brought out too many people who need to get punched in the mouth and aren't afraid of that happening.
Dan's talking about Character and Integrity - Trump has none. I'm sure it's easy to rattle off a bunch of "what about so-and-so" but the president should be held to a higher standard and the bar has been lowered to middle school. The party that idolizes Lincoln and Reagan has fallen pretty far from the Character and Integrity they represented.
Ha, so the party of manufactured Russian collusion and false Steele Dossier and false Russian hoax and false Hunter Biden's laptop is Russian disinformation and false border is secure and false Joe Biden is fit as a fiddle and false January 6th had no FBI agents and on and on and on is reputable and credible? Get a grip 🤣
Any of these seem befitting of the president of the United States? Do they strike you as particularly Reagan-esque? He should be held to a higher standard and he's made the US a laughing stock.
• “Grab them by the pussy” (2005 Access Hollywood tape).
• “When you’re a star, they let you do it” (same tape).
• Calling women he disliked “fat,” “ugly,” or “disgusting” (multiple instances).
• Saying Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” after a debate.
• Referring to Stormy Daniels as “Horseface.”
• Publicly rating women’s attractiveness in interviews and debates.
• Calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.”
• Repeatedly using “crazy” to dismiss female critics.
• Calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “murderers” (2015 campaign launch).
• “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime.”
• Referring to immigrants as “animals.”
• Saying some countries are “shithole countries.”
• Telling four U.S. Congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from.
• Calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” (repeated over many years).
• Mocking Warren’s ancestry claims despite requests to stop.
• Saying a judge couldn’t be impartial because he was “Mexican” (re: Judge Curiel).
• Referring to COVID-19 as “the China virus” or “Kung Flu.”
• Describing immigrants as an “invasion.”
• Claiming immigrants were “eating the cats and dogs” in U.S. cities.
• Repeatedly asserting millions voted illegally with no evidence.
• Claiming the 2020 election was “rigged” despite dozens of court losses.
• Saying voting machines “switched votes” without proof.
• Accusing election workers of crimes that led to harassment and threats.
• Claiming he won states “by a lot” after certified losses.
• Saying COVID would “disappear” quickly when advisors warned otherwise.
• Promoting unproven or dangerous COVID treatments rhetorically.
• Claiming January 6 was a “day of love.”
• Calling the press “the enemy of the people.”
• Labeling judges who ruled against him “Obama judges” or corrupt.
• Calling prosecutors “thugs” and “deranged.”
• Referring to political opponents as “vermin.”
• Saying immigrants “poison the blood of our country.”
• Encouraging chants of “Lock her up.”
• Suggesting generals or officials who disagreed were “stupid” or “losers.”
• Attacking Gold Star families verbally.
• Mocking a disabled reporter at a rally.
• Using schoolyard nicknames as a primary rhetorical strategy:
• “Crooked Hillary”
• “Sleepy Joe”
• “Little Marco”
• “Low-energy Jeb”
• “Crazy Nancy”
• Violence-Adjacent or Authoritarian Rhetoric
• Saying protestors should be “roughed up.”
• Offering to pay legal fees for rally violence.
• Suggesting police should be rougher with suspects.
• Saying “maybe Second Amendment people” could deal with opponents.
• Praising authoritarian leaders for being “strong.”
• Saying he’d be a “dictator on day one” (even if framed as a joke).
• Threatening retribution against political enemies.
• Saying critics should be “investigated” simply for opposition.
Dan's talking about Character and Integrity - Trump has none. I'm sure it's easy to rattle off a bunch of "what about so-and-so" but the president should be held to a higher standard and the bar has been lowered to middle school. The party that idolizes Lincoln and Reagan has fallen pretty far from the Character and Integrity they represented.
Trump is probably on the upstanding and moral side for being a New York City real estate developer.
He is noisy and flawed but we cannot spare this man. He fights.
You must be really pissed that he didn't fawn all over Rob Reiner upon his demise. The endless sirens of what a shitty person he is are blaring. Admittedly, it would have been nice if Trump kept his mouth shut.
But... let's ponder what Mr. Reiner might impart upon the passing of Trump at the hands of Don Jr. slitting both his and Melania's throats.
Is he going to impart a gracious take? Haha.
For as much as Trump fights back, and as crass as that is, put yourself into his shoes. The guy is relentlessly attacked no matter what he does. It's an addiction for the haters.
They are already making plans to put on celebratory parades upon his demise. These same folks who whine about his lack of grace are at the ready to be 20x worse than Trump when the time comes.
So, look in the mirror is my best suggestion.
"lining his pockets"? He's the only president in our lifetime whose net worth decreased rather than increased. I know it's uncomfortable for liberals to face facts but you ought to try it.
His net worth decreased during his first presidency largely because of Covid.
His net worth has increased by about 25% since January.
I know it's uncomfortable.
Should we talk about the 6-10X increase in net worth for Eric, DJ, Ivanka, and Barron since January?
What would attribute to Hunter Biden not increasing his wealth by 6-10 times? He had worked so hard and used all his oil knowledge to secure the Burisma spot on the board. Why is he broke? How about Ms. Pelosi and her stock brilliancy? I won’t even ask about the Clintons.
Did I endorse these examples you share? No.
I was pointing out that the comment about Trump losing money as president is untrue.