I learned a lot from Taleb, I would assume he knows more than me on things in the economic domain

I understand his position on Trump. I had a different priority

I'm asking you to explain his position

Dad I'm just trying to learn

On Trump, basically he wasn't flustered by the 'noise' as he called it, and just focused on the populism, Trump's animosity to 'business as usual' technocrats, etc

Policy wise though

He assumed correctly the Trump campaign was a cynical attempt to buy votes and that the actual policies would be much more moderate, which was true in many ways

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Foreign policy he was hoping for much of that pull-out strategy, yet to be seen

I knew that was not going to happen based on his advisors

McMullin wasn't any better there, but at least he wouldn't be a foreign operative, something I suspected about Clinton and Trump

This reads like a Tom Clancy novel

Taleb misjudged Trump on one of the most important tail risks he cares about, the environment

I dont see how corporate and upper class tax cuts de leverage institutions large enough to need social bail outs (his whole point in antifragile, black swan and his most recent book)

He didnt misjudge trump, he ignored that tail risk

I can't quite parse that

Additionally please explain how pro corporate actions in the part of the FTC, just to name one trump stacked agency, lead to derisked institutions. The support of hegemony and monopoly seems counter to everything taleb said

Trump has only one real legislative achievement and has done nothing economically but cut taxes and deregulate corporations

Trump hasn't done anything on that front, things are worse and probably getter worser fasterer

Getter worser

Okay we are done here :)

Trump hasnt cut taxes is a bold stance

As is claiming he hasnt deregulated industries

Nice try

There was a tax cut for some, a tax raise for others

SALT deduction change was a tax raise on some

Doubly, the pressure on the fed to lower rates puts us in a situation where recession mandates fiscal, as opposed to monetary policy. Essentially mandating corporate bail outs

Fuck taleb and fuck trump

I'm not a fan of the Trump policies so I can't really explain why they were taken, but I suppose they could argue the corporate tax repatriation could have been used to pay off some debt, but I haven't seen numbers on those effects beyond the lack of wage growth

Fiscal policy is a given, no matter what the Fed does

Repatriation =/= taxable

That's the point if repatriation

That why it was not repatriated

Cool beans though

Part of Trump's explanation for the TCJA was to encourage overseas held corporate money to come back, hence the reduction to 21%

```Before the new tax law, companies kept much of their overseas profit offshore to avoid a 35% tax that kicked in when they brought the money back to the U.S. The Republican tax law set a one-time 15.5% tax rate on cash and 8% on non-cash or illiquid assets, regardless of where the profits sat.```

```Corporations brought $100.2 billion of overseas profits back to the U.S. in the first quarter, marking $876.8 billion that has returned since Congress overhauled the international tax system and prodded companies to repatriate more.

The cash that has come back to the U.S. falls short of the $4 trillion President Donald Trump said would return as a result of the 2017 tax law. Investment banks and think tanks have estimated that U.S. corporations actually held $1.5 trillion to $2.5 trillion in offshore funds at the time the law was enacted.```

Not as much as promised, but some of that is repatriation

it didn't translate to much wage growth, it mostly went to buybacks, so it was a silly gimmick to pump the stock market if anything

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1171486849350529025

So Taleb applauds Trump for trying to avoid war with Iran. I think destroying the nuclear deal with Iran was on the right path to that anyway so 2 steps back, 1 step forward on that one