Dalio’s Questions (2/3)
Jordan —
You’ve been busy typing!
Yep, as I’ve spent increasing chunks of my time investing in the public markets, my respect for Dalio has only increased. His clear-eyed analysis of macro-events is, maybe, the best out there. I also found his Principles to be a fascinating, smart read (recommended to all).
Did we read the same article? (sort of kidding). Here goes:
- You state that it is obvious that Trump is “trying to optimize for American capitalism and employment at the expense of government and foreigners.”
While this is clear/obvious to you, it is not to me, nor others, including (genius) Dalio. In his post, Dalio calls out Trump’s clear populist roots. To that end, I see Trump as optimizing for optics above all else. You see Trump as optimizing for end results— capitalism / jobs for American workers. I think that’s laughable. His efforts appear to optimize for attention not substance: the “saved jobs” at Carrier, “protecting” coal jobs through withdrawing from Paris, or his bluster about repealing NAFTA.
2. As happened in a previous exchange, I don’t think you actually answer/take a position on a question that you, yourself, highlight. You just asked some questions.
Maybe my biggest frustration with Trump is that I see him as shamelessly intellectually dishonest. Given his clear populist roots and campaign rhetoric — I should be one of Trump’s biggest supporters. Fighting for American jobs, not cutting the safety net (social security, medicare, medicaid), health care for all — these are Trump’s greatest hits from the campaign (and even after). Why did I, just two paragraphs up, damn him as “optimizing for optics”? Because he paid these things lip service, put publicity stunts next to them, and has basically done nothing to help them — or in fact done the opposite (like his proposed budget cuts impacting these people).
So, I suppose Dalio’s question #2 is part of the reason that I view Trump as a fraud.
If Trump wanted to help workers and put America First, he’d propose a VAT and delink healthcare from employment and partially fund it directly from VAT proceeds. As I’ve written in my books, and is obvious based on arithmetic, that would fix a meaningful cost disadvantage the American worker suffers from. Instead: Tax cuts that the vast majority of would flow back to the top 1% of earners (and tax payers, to be fair). I am not aligned with this in any way.
3. I agree. He’s chosen conflict, and theoretically this could work. Here, at least, we agree. Yet, I see no there there. He’s not trying to get to substantive policy solutions that make sense to me.
Im not sure of the grand theme here, though. I’ll let you wrap this up.
surya
