Time Will Tell

The black swans held a massive victory party last night. Not because Trump won, but because they showed the world that they are the real rulers.

Being a NY real estate guy, I have always known Trump is a terrible person. My former partner who at one time was worldwide head of real estate at Citibank, hated him. She and he had bitter battles when he was bankrupt and she was seizing assets. I know other bankers, lawyers and contractors who have had dealings with him, and nobody had good things to say. However, now he is president and we need as a nation to be fully supportive or the world will come apart.

As I feared the press is already on the attack with their usual rhetoric. CNN today was its usual self - attacking him and having Chris Cuomo and Amanpor make stupid statements, still blaming the Russians. MSNBC actually had Al Sharpton on as a commentator. Shows you how out of touch the media is. Kelly Ann told Cuomo to stop the negativity and he went on to try to claim "it is not us, it was the campaigns".

The press just does not get it. The NY Times was a loser for the last several years, and it will continue to decline at a faster pace. CNN has lost the battle to Fox and will likely have to change out the commentators who are now completely discredited. Many years ago Connie Chung made a luncheon speech I was at, and she said the press had devolved into a bunch of lazy unprofessional kids who just rush out a story without bothering to check veracity. She decried how the press had become rumor mongers and unprofessional. They sure have. They will probably not change much until they realize the world has moved on to social media and the press has minimal credibility now.

If you have been reading The Rant for a long time you know I have been saying the world is changed and very high risk, and the black swans are circling. We just entered a major inflection point in history. I have been reporting that in Europe the right wing is ascendant. LePen is likely to win the French election next year. The EU is going to come apart once that happens and now with Trump in power that trend will accelerate. The EU will realign into blocs and there will be massive turmoil as things sort out over the next several years. The French will go back to the Franc. Germany will shift right as the refugees create social, crime and fiscal issues. As ISIS gets destroyed they will try to wage war in Europe thru more terror attacks. You do not want to invest in Europe. The world is rapidly shifting right and the changes will be generational. Brussels will be neutered. NATO countries will invest much more in defense and will be forced to build up their armies.

Here is what I believe will happen in the US. Trump has two years to make massive changes and this is what I believe they may be. Obamacare is replaced with some type of more free market plan that Ryan already has. Corporate taxes will be reduced to maybe 15% or maybe a bit higher. Personal taxes will be reduced. All executive orders by Obama will be reversed. Most of the massive regulation Obama put in place will be cancelled. The Supreme Court will get a conservative justice right away and Ginsburg will try to hang on until she dies in office to try to deny him her seat. She will not last 4 years. Trump will get at least 2 and maybe 3 judge picks. The Supreme court will decide by what strict constructionists think the constitution says not the left wing politics of Sotomayor. It will be much more pro-business. Antitrust cases will go away. Sanctuary cities will lose funding and San Francisco and Berkley and Boulder will go nuts. The border will somehow be secured and Mexico will not pay. Border Patrol will be materially increased. Gang members will be arrested and deported but everyone else will get to stay here. Ryan will stay as Speaker. Trump will do what any good NY real estate guy does, he will get up from the table until he gets a deal close to what he wants.

That is key to a lot of what Trump will be able to do. If you listened carefully to what he said, it was I will redo NAFTA and will walk from the table if I do not get what we need.

There will be a revised NAFTA but Mexico will suffer a lot because many US companies will not move plants there until they see what revised NAFTA says. They will also not defy Trump early on and risk his wrath. Mexico takes a big hit. The Pentagon and US defense contractors are big winners. Defense spending will ramp up by huge numbers. The military will add over 200,000 people over the next two years. Weapons spend will dramatically increase. This will add a lot of new jobs between the additional military and the added jobs in defense plants. Private equity will take a big hit with carried interest going away and this will make a small part payment for the tax cuts. Estate taxes will mostly go away. Cops will be respected again And racial strife will end as Trump tries new ideas to build charter schools, and rebuild the ghettos. There will be no more honoring the families of the thugs like Brown and Travon the way Obama and Hilary did. He will honor the cops. The downtrend in crime will get reinstated. Transgender anything will go away.

The military will be told to go win wars and not be social experiments with transgender soldiers. Rules of engagement will be changed to kill the enemy instead of cater to political correctness. There will be an infusion of another 5,000 US soldiers into Iraq and more into Syria to back up the destruction of ISIS. The bombing campaign will be stepped up to what it should be. By March ISIS will have been defeated. They will try to carry out major terror attacks, but now the world will call Islamic terror what it is and there will be a more aggressive fight and coordination. Putin and Trump are from the same mother and will get along. Putin is like all bullies - he will realize he cannot push Trump around like he does Obama and he will work out a modus vivendi because he knows he has at least 4 more years to deal with a new US president. Bullies back off if they find they cannot intimidate the other guy. The Iran nuke deal will get torn up and Iran will find itself back under sanctions. The Germans will scream but Merkel is now in a very weak position so she will not be able to stop Trump from re-imposing them at least for US companies and anyone wanting to do business in the US especially banks. This will be world changing. The Saudis won big on this, Israel won huge. Developers win because the EPA will be defanged. Climate change legislation is dead and the Paris pact will be defunct.

College campuses will no longer have the threat that unless they find a bunch of young guys to charge with sexual whatever they lose funds. PC on college campuses will be pressured to end although for quite a while there will be protests and other such things. Today professors are telling students they do not have to take exams because they are so upset. Give me a f-ing break. This is exactly what is wrong with American colleges today. It is just telling kids boo hoo if you feel bad you get excused from work.

I still think Trump is nuts and a really terrible person, but he is president now so we need to deal with reality of what next. Paul Ryan has already reached out to heal the rift and they have already planned a quick special session to pass repeal of Obamacare and undo the regulations and do other things quickly. Ryan will remain as speaker. The SCOTUS vacancy will be filled immediately.

Most important the entire world is about to change. We will see if for good or bad but change it will in massive ways. The tide of anti-socialist, anti PC, anti-diversity, anti-entitlement, anti-establishment of the past 70 years is washing across the world and Trump is simply the ultimate example of what had already been happening with Brexit and in Europe. As far as the stock market- it will now rise. Taxes will get cut, the Supreme Court will not be activist, anti-trust will end, some type of infrastructure program will be instituted, defense spending will jump, banks will be free to lend, regulations will be drastically reduced, and corporate profits will rise.

Go all in now. You already see the market reaction is up after the shock. Wall Street elite misplaced their bets, Hollywood and the press way over played their hands, and college professors and administrators will have to get over it. Hilary and crew go to jail.

I started Ross Rant in late 2007 when I told a tiny group of friends the market was going to crash and nobody believed me. I sold out of the market in May 2007. My broker thought I was nuts. In January 2008 I told people at the big hotel conference that the hotel industry was going to crash in 2008. They told me I was stupid. I began emailing my little group of friends with these kind of thoughts and so the Rant was launched. They encouraged me to expand that, and so began the Rant. In August 2008 I told a few friends driving to a golf outing that Lehman would go bankrupt, and nobody believed me. So now I said Trump and the Republicans would win, and few believed me. In fact, one of my good friends of 50 years bet me $100. So how did I do that. Not smarts. I have no data base. Difference is, I spend a lot of time observing trends and traveling, and talking to real people on the ground all across the country at all walks of life. I do not read the NY Times nor do I watch NBC or CBS or CNN. I talk to lots of real people who are doing whatever they do day to day and try to glean tidbits and connect the dots. Any of you can do the same and probably better than me. I just try to disconnect myself from what the talking heads are saying, and the latest fad of political thinking, and try to see it from a distance with some objectivity.

To my Democrat friends, suck it up - the world just changed dramatically - we will see if for better or worse.

Joel Ross