Of course, on the other side of meltdown their conviction in "the system" will collapse like a cheap tent. At that point, every politician will be fighting to get to the left of everyone else and otherwise get out of the way of the tidal wave of rage coming at them...
Few people realize what a colossal business failure Trump was. He inherited over $400 million from his parents and managed to squander it in the casino business. For a decade straight (1985-1994) Trump lost more money than any other businessman. Mostly other people's money. For the following decade 1995-2005, Trump was at it again, this time losing 90% of his investor's money. His company went public in 1999 at $34/share and was delisted in 2004 at $1.60/share. The company lost money every single year. His company reorganized in bankruptcy yet again and this time lost $2 billion between 2005-2009 before declaring bankruptcy.
In summary, no company went bankrupt more often than Trump Casinos in the past 30 years.
Then he went on reality TV and reinvented himself as a successful businessman. Only in America.
"Donald Trump ran the worst performing casino company on the stock market. This isn’t a matter of “opinion.” This isn’t speculation or politics. It’s a matter of plain fact."
Aside from Trump's takeover of the Federal Reserve and commensurate market manipulation, the story of the week was Deutsche Bank's mass layoff of 18,000 staff, coming just one week after U.S. regulators cleared the way for a big capital payout for shareholders.
It was echoes of Lehman Brothers just over ten years ago when top executives were paying themselves fat bonuses ahead of the collapse.
The odds of a bailout for the world's riskiest bank just went to zero.
"You don't need capital now, how about a big payout"
These capital payouts approved by regulators last week were based upon results of the latest bank "stress test", which somehow managed to pass the world's riskiest large bank on the verge of mass layoffs to save itself. Which gives an idea of the efficacy of these so-called stress tests.
One of the under-reported side effects of the global financial crisis, was that most of the riskiest lending was moved to intermediary hedge funds - called the "shadow banking" sector. The purpose of that was to get around the stress tests which prohibit overly risky-lending. Now, instead of lending to risky borrowers, banks lend to these intermediaries with "pristine" new balance sheets, which in turn lend to the risky borrowers.
Consider that fact in the context of record corporate debt and entire industries - Tech, Oil etc. that are now engaged in Ponzi borrowing to remain afloat.
"Nonbank lenders, often called “shadow banks,” now have $52 trillion in assets, a 75% increase since the financial crisis ended."
The companies face less regulation than traditional banks and thus have been associated with higher levels of risk."
July 2007: You've Got To Dance While The Music Is Playing
"The Citigroup chief executive told the Financial Times that the party would end at some point but there was so much liquidity it would not be disrupted by the turmoil in the US subprime mortgage market."
