Before the market plunged last week -- was it really the largest one-day drop in history? It depends on whether your counting dollars or percent -- Trump was all eager to take credit for the phenomenal rise in stock prices. Economists and most savvy investors know that the president has very little to do with such a rise -- or fall.
And if any policies had anything to do with the steep climb, it was more likely the Federal Reserve Board -- and President Obama's policies. Most economists and savvy investors also know that this kind of super-charged rise in market prices is more properly seen as a bubble that, sooner or later, will undergo a correction, which means sell-offs that bring it down to a more reasonable growth rate.
But Donald likes shiney objects and "the greatest numbers," even if they are false. So there he was claiming credit for his effect on the economy that produced such great numbers.
So what did he do with the big plunge in stock prices this week? You guessed it. He had nothing what so ever to do with that, really. In fact, rather, he claimed he did -- wait for it -- because it was all part of the great growth he has stimulated. The plunge was just a mistake that investors made. They should have held on instead of selling. Whatever, it was not his fault.
Got that? Proclaimed as would any proper Emperor without any clothes on. Take credit for the rise; say the drop is someone else's fault.
Actually, it sounds more like a garbled version of someone trying to explain to him about bubbles and corrections . . . except that he didn't quite get it.
* * *
Second item on the Naked Emperor list: President Trump wants a great military parade right down Pennsylvania Avenue. See, when President Macron of France invited him to visit during Bastille Day Celebrations, that included a wonderful military parade that he loved. Macron is no fool. He knew Trump would love the pomp and would revel in having such a display saluting HIM.Of course, now in asking for a parade in Washington, his advisers have made certain that it is framed as something to honor our brave military men and women serving.
[And we just won't mention that military parades are generally the province of authoritarian regimes, like Russia and China -- and par excellance -- North Korea. How do NK soldiers manage to sustain that high-kick march style?]
Anyway, bubbles burst. The market is going through something of a corrective, unrelated to Trump's mangled theory of what caused it. And, aside from those whose duty it is to flatter the president, there's a lot of bubble-bursting about the parade.
Democrats have focused on the expense (millions) that could be put to better use. On Pennsylvania Avenue (the parade will go right by the Trump Hotel, of course), the tank tracks will tear into the asphalt, meaning an additional expense to resurface the whole street afterwards.
Others have said that it is a display of weakness, not strength. We Americans tout our ideas, our values, our democracy -- not our military might. One even quoted the flinty old Margaret Thatcher, who turned up her nose at displays of power, saying:
"A display of power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
And then there was a tweet from retired Major General Paul Eaton who said that Trump's past praise of authoritarian strongmen . . . made clear that he wasn't really interested in celebrating the military. In a tweet he added that "the parade idea underscores his authoritarian tendencies, and that our military is not there to be 'used and abused' to prop up his image." He added that the parade was "about making a display of the military saluting him. . . . Unfortunately, we do not have a commander in chief, right now, as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman."
Ralph
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