First, some PonziNomic terminology:
Worker: Someone with a job
Consumer: Someone who buys things
Taxpayer: Someone who pays taxes
Now, in order to believe in modern *Free trade* PonziNomics, it's absolutely critical to pretend that these entities described above are all different people. Because, if they happen to be all the same person, as they are in reality, then this will all collapse with extreme dislocation i.e. right now. But the Idiocracy should have learned all that in 2008, prior to when bailouts and printing money proved by definition that the "system" has already failed. Meanwhile, there are no such things as Black Swan events in finance, there are just greedy idiots being greedy idiots. And hence just in time, Taleb is out informing us just how smart Donny Trump is - he's not an idiot after all, he's crazy like a fox. In the hen house...
As usual Taleb can't see the forest for the trees, which is his signature book-selling specialty. Topics that could be rendered down to a two page pamphlet somehow end up as a six hundred page rambling essay. Unfortunately, getting back to Trump, a billionaire born on third base could NEVER fix the problems of inequality that are endemic to the U.S., and global Ponzi scheme, but let's see what Taleb has to say:
Trump has promised to fix some things in system that, left unchecked, will sooner or later lead to wealth accumulating disproportionately at the top end
[Left unchecked, sooner or later, 30 years ago]
Trump could still prove to be a disappointment if he ends up abandoning his promises
[You mean by putting Goldman Sachs in charge of Treasury, making Carl Icahn economic advisor, putting Wilbur Ross at Commerce and then rolling back Dodd-Frank]
"Trump is not an idiot"
[There's your Black Swan event, right there, son]
Which gets us to the next topic, the latest from Dr. Ed Yardeni:
Death By Amazon
Amazon is also a piranha-like corporation that eats up retailers, particularly the anchor stores, and doesn’t even leave the bones
Amazon is killing lots of businesses. In the process, it may also be killing inflation...Amazon has pummeled rivals with price cuts enabled by its smart logistics and relentless drive toward efficiency. Labor-displacing warehouse robotics give Amazon a cost advantage, and it aims to one day deploy delivery drones to extend its edge all the way to the customer’s doorstep
In other words, Amazon is killing businesses and displacing labor, so they can deliver cheap junk made in China to the customer's doorstep. There's a "Black Swan" lurking in there somewhere, let's see if we can find it:
ZH: Highest Tech Inflows Since DotCom Bubble
Let's pile everyone who believes in this bullshit into the same stock, and then flush them down the toilet of history. Not my idea, but it will work...
Google this: What else can I buy for $950, before it crashes?
Taleb:
By vowing to fix America's “metastatic” tax code, Trump is on the cusp of accomplishing something truly remarkable by solving a problem 32 years in the making
Or he's just going to con them non-stop until they self-implode. The important thing is that "no one saw it coming"...
