It’s Government Not Technology That Lowers Living Standards – Ep.164

  • And then there was one; Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee for 2016
  • I remember when this Republican Primary started and the field was very wide
  • They had to split the debates up between the main event and the under card because there were so many candidates
  • Nobody in the mainstream really gave Donald Trump a shot
  • Even though I wasn’t supporting, Trump – I was supporting Rand Paul and more recently Ted Cruz as the candidates who were ideologically closest to me
  • I always thought that Donald Trump was a very serious candidate and thought that he had the best odds of winning and that’s what happened
  • I always recognized the appeal of his message
  • I know the economy is much worse than is generally perceived and, for the typical American, living in a rotten economy, Trump seems to be the candidate that is going to appeal to them
  • He’s not talking about cutting social security or taking away government benefits, he’s trying to be all things to all people
  • It’s a populist message – Everybody’s going to win, just elect me and I’m going to make all your problems go away
  • How am I going to make them go away? Because I’m different
  • I’m not your typical politician, I’m a billionaire businessman who knows what I’m doing and everybody in government are incompetent fools
  • He’s right about that part – everybody in government is incompetent
  • But that does not mean that Trump is a panacea to immediately make these problems go away
  • But you know what? Why not take a shot at it?
  • I knew that his message is powerful and would resonate
  • Everybody is writing him off, saying he will lose to Hillary Clinton
  • I don’t believe so
  • I think the media is still underestimating Donald Trump, despite the fact that they completely surprised them by winning the Republican nomination
  • He might surprise them again by winning the General Election and being our next President
  • Because, if you are anti-establishment, why would you vote for Hillary Clinton, even if you are a Democrat
  • Why do you think Bernie Sanders continues to get so much support?
  • He beat Hillary again in Indiana yesterday
  • But of course Hillary has such a massive lead, thanks to all these super delegates, it doesn’t even matter how many primaries he wins – he can win all the primaries from now until the election and Hillary is still going to be the nominee
  • Unless Bernie Sanders can flip the super delegates
  • Maybe if she gets indicted between now and the convention, well maybe that will do the trick
  • But Hillary Clinton couldn’t win in Indiana because there weren’t enough minorities there
  • When you just look your basic Democratic American, they’re overwhelmingly going for Bernie Sanders
  • The reason they’re doing that is for the same reason that Republicans are going for Donald Trump
  • I said many times I think Donald Trump will be able to tailor his message specifically to appeal to the Bernie Sanders Democrats
  • He’s not going to get all of the Bernie Sanders Democrats – the far left Socialists
  • But there are a lot of people who are voting for Bernie Sanders because they can’t stand Hillary Clinton
  • Trump has a good shot at getting those people, in fact I think Donald Trump can do better with the Democrats than Ronald Regan
  • And it was those Regan Democrats that really put Ronald Regan in the White House
  • Many people are too young to remember, but when Ronald Regan first got the nomination, the media said, well that’s it, he’s going to lose in a landslide
  • Nobody thought he could beat Jimmy Carter, an incumbent President and Ronald Regan was so far to the right, he was even more to the right than Barry Goldwater, and Barry Goldwater got demolished when he ran against Lyndon Johnson
  • But Regan ended up winning in a landslide
  • The same thing could happen with Donald Trump
  • By the way, I put out an article on my website today, “Make America Great Again” about Donald Trump, and about tariffs and protectionism – It’s a great article. Give it a read.
  • Now that Cruz and Kasich have dropped out, it will clear media space for Sanders and will help build his momentum
  • All of this will work to Donald Trump’s favor because the more people who do not vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries the more potential Democratic crossovers to Donald Trump
  • Sanders is saying all the right things about jobs and about free trade and NAFTA, and why would they vote for the Godmother of NAFTA, why don’t they vote for Donald Trump?
  • There was a lot of economic data out today, and in fact, it was a mixed bag
  • The main news that came out today was much worse than expected and this was the ADP employment report for April the first month of Q2, which was expected to produce a snap-back
  • They were looking for 193,000 jobs to be created, which would have been a slight decline from the 200,000 reported for March
  • The actual number came out at 156,000 jobs – Big, big miss! The fewest jobs created in about 3 years, according to the ADP number
  • To make it worse, they even reduced last month’s reported number by 6,000 jobs, down from 200,000 to 194,000
  • We lost jobs in manufacturing, and the gains were primarily in part-time and service sector jobs
  • The stock market was down again today, it had a pretty bad losing streak, in fact the NASDAQ is almost back in correction territory
  • The Dow was down almost 100 points, as well
  • The dollar was stronger ever since its new low yesterday morning
  • Gold was down about $5 or $6 today but it was down about $15 or $16 earlier today and it was also down a bit yesterday after reaching slightly above $1300 – couldn’t hold it
  • Meanwhile gold stocks have been slammed – down 5% today
  • This is normal action for a bull market – the most violent moves are down because bull markets climb a wall of worry
  • This is par for the course
  • Big moves to the upside usually signal capitulation and can indicate a correction
  • I think the catalyst for the gold selloff were the comments made Monday morning by Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart who said a June rate hike was on the table
  • I don’t know why anybody goes for this.  Is it on the table? I don’t think so, but it it’s there, nobody’s reaching for it.