Which Side Donald Trump's Bread is Buttered On

The Trump administration is seeking to roll back the fiduciary rule set up by the Obama administration.  This is the rule subjecting financial advisors to the same constraints that the legal profession has always been under.  And that is to base your conversation with your client to give advice to him or her that’s in the best interest of the client and not yourself.  My only remark here is that I thought this issue had been settled a year or two ago.  But now Trump is setting about the business of taking rights away and not adding them.  However I would by no means go as far as Norm Goldman would who claims that the right to an abortion can be found in the ninth amendment.  If I were the fetus I’d ask myself, “What about my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”  Trump has stated that he’s going to maintain LGBT rights established by the Obama administration.  Such is the immense power of the gay lobby. 

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Sunday pointed to the Obama administration’s actions as the basis for their selection of the seven countries. Trump’sorder bars citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the U.S. for the next 90 days.  “There were further travel restrictions already in place from those seven countries,” Spicer said on ABC’s “This Week.”   6 out of the 7 countries on the list – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria – were targeted for regime change by the U.S. 25 years ago. Specifically,   (Indeed, the U.S. previously carried out coups to implement regime change in these countries numerous times in the past.)

The 7th country – Lebanon – dodged a bullet, and Yemen replaced it.   But the world’s leading sponsors of terror are not on the list …  CNN notes:

In the hours after its release, many questioned why the list omitted other countries with direct links to those terror attacks. The 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.    All of this information pretty much speaks for itself.  

Saudi Arabia – which is not on the list – is the world’s largest sponsor of radical Islamic terrorists. The Saudis have backed ISIS and many other brutal terrorist groups. And the most pro-ISIS tweets allegedlycome from Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia is the hotbed of the most radical Muslim terrorists in the world: the Salafis (both ISIS and Al Qaeda are Salafis). And top American terrorism experts say that U.S. support for brutal and tyrannical countries in the Middle east – like Saudi Arabia – is one of the top motivators for Arab terrorists.  So whether you love or hate the idea of banning radical Islamic jihadis from the U.S. , the fact is that Trump – using a list compiled by Obama (in turn largely compiled by Neoconservatives pushing regime change 25 years ago) – is banning people from the wrong countries.

So what “fiduciary” duty does President Trump have to the nation?  He repeated that old chestnut we heard so often from the Obama administration that “It takes a thief to catch a thief”.  Have they ever done statistics on that?   We were told Trump is rich so he’s not swayed by lobbying money interest.  It’s the old Chuck Smith axiom that “The very rich have transcended their need for money”.  And yet the left charges that all Trump and those backers of his like Sheldon Adelson want to do is to get their hands on all those government programs such as Medicare and Social Security.  What I’m not seeing an alarming trend of now is the return of “get rich quick” psychology.  We hear a lot about “flipping houses” or the “greater fool theory”.  There is a renewed expectation that Real Estate prices will go on rising forever.  We have seem the return of those ads about “turning your house into a piggy bank” and living off of your accrewed home equity.  For a while the great recession scared these people off but they’re back now.  We hear in the news every day about the stock market making new highs.  This is the kind of news we frequently hear of at the tops of markets.  We are told that “you can’t trust the government because the government doesn’t produce anything”.  But what does the medical insurance industry “produce”.  Am I not by the laws of averages better off financially if I never spent a dime on medical insurance?  Why don’t more people bet on themselves staying well rather than convince themselves they’ll get so sick that they somehow “beat the system”.  The government operates on a much thinner profit margin than do private industry.  With all of that influx of capital from John Q citizen these business tycoons can get even richer.  We just told you that keeping interest rates really low plays into the hands of the very rich.  Investors in T Bills don’t get paid squat.  But the very rich can often borrow money at below the rate of inflation so it’s like they’re getting paid to take the money off your hands.  And with capital comes power to get more wealth.  Now they don’t have the constraints of doing things in the client’s interest but their own.  So the adage remains true of “investor beware!”   

The news on the soap opera is that Clowie is now being a real hard-ass about Nicole’s baby.  Not only will she not even let Nicole hold her own child but she has been taking medication so she can breast feed her baby, which she was sure to do in Nicole’s presence.  Nicole came there to tell her that she’s given up Damos and that there is now no impediment for taking back her child, if that’s what Clowie was afraid of.  After all before this Nicole and Clowie were friends.  But Clowie is a total flake and not worth having as any kind of a friend.  Her response was to call the police on Nicole saying that she was being harassed.  After this I got snacks in the afternoon from Rico.  I got two grape drinks and one package of graham crackers.  Then after deliberation I turned on Shawn Hannity for the first time in a while.  But Hanniday ran me off with that horrible country music he was playing.  It’s the very worst of both milenial music and country music.  It’s about as appealing as a main dish casserole of overcooked Brussels sprouts and broccoli.  It would stand to reason that a man with such wasted political views would have wasted tastes in music.  Shawn was bragging how Donald Trump has become more of a Born Again Christian.  Phil Robinson says so and we know he never lies.  Let’s play a game for a minute.  Suppose every historical word is true in the Bible as far as the resurrection and the Book of Acts and the writings of St Paul in the Epistles.  Even granting the sterling truth of all that where does it get you in terms of forgiveness from sin is concerned?  How many people have you met who are sinless.  That is, sin is a thing of the past for them.  They have been delivered from all sin and the consequences of it.  Well some may say “You’re being unfair.  Obviously we won’t know all that till after we die”.   So we won’t know if Donald Trump has been “delivered from all sin” till after we die.  I don’t know about you but I haven’t met that many people who have died and come back to tell us.