01-31-2017, 02:18 PM
(01-30-2017, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Some of Trump's economic policies are neutral to mildly bad for business - less immigration, potentially tariffs - but they are by far outweighed by the positives - tax reform, regulatory relief, possible trade agreement renegotiation to favor American businesses. So on balance, Trump policies are beneficial to business.
None of these can be assigned a net positive or negative value. Tax reform is still an unknown, since it originates in the House but must pass muster in the Senate. Trade agreements will be messy and long in arriving, so they will have virtually no impact during this Presidency.
Warren Dew Wrote:However, stock prices aren't just dependent on business success. They are also dependent on long term interest rates. The lower the interest rates, the higher the price to earnings - P/E - ratio, and thus the higher the stock prices. In recent years, inflation rates and long term interest rates have been kept extremely - perhaps artificially - low, resulting in inflated stock prices.
Interest rates are driven by inflation. So higher rates tend to be driven by a more active economy. You noted the lack of inflation, but not the cause. It's lack of demand, because the consumers are not as well paid as they were, and therefore not able to buy nearly as much. I don't see Trump moving that at all.
Warren Dew Wrote:Trump's economic policies are on balance inflationary. Tax reform is deflationary, but tariffs, immigration control, and "infrastructure" spending are all inflationary. This is likely to push long term interest rates up, since long term interest rates tend to reflect inflation rates.
Tax reform is almost certainly inflationary, since tax cuts, if they actually happen, will not be matched by spending cuts.
Warren Dew Wrote:This is actually fine for the economy - our problem is more that inflation is too low than that it is too high, and higher inflation also leverages the benefit the US gets from high overseas dollar reserves - but it will decrease P/E ratios and stock prices. So we should expect stock prices to fall over the next decade or so, assuming Trump's economic plan isn't greatly modified.
If we get tax cuts and massive infrastructure spending, inflation will rise quickly.
Warren Dew Wrote:I would argue this is actually a good thing. Today's economy is tilted too far towards those who control the capital, which include stockholders, and too far against the workers who earn wages. Righting the ship involves restoring a larger share of the economy to the wage earners, which necessarily means reducing the share devoted to the capital owners.
Why do you think Trump, an active capitalist himself, will work to push up wages?
Warren Dew Wrote:And for capital owners who object, just remember the alternative is let the imbalance continue and get worse, which means that at some point, the workers will react even more violently than by doing something like electing Trump, perhaps taking "burn it down" literally. If there's a literal anticapitalist revolution, stockholders will lose everything. Even if there's just enough backlash to elect a Sanders and hand control of Congress to socialists - because it will be socialists, not neoliberal Democrats - capital owners stand to lose a lot more than a bit of stock value.
Here we agree. This may be the last chance for capitalism to be a productive force for all. I'm not holding my breath, but it may be driven that way out of fear.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.