BTRTN August 2019 Month in Review: Trump's China Syndrome: Be-VIX'ED, Bothered and Bewildered
Born To Run The Numbers provides its monthly review for August, a month in which Trump baffled many with his gyrations on trade, guns, the G-7, hurricanes, and Greenland. Wow.
http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2019/09/btrtn-august-2019-month-in-review.html
Excerpt:
"It is not often that one concludes that Donald Trump is vexed. But it is hard to avoid that conclusion after an erratic August in which Trump flip-flopped like a fish on the two big issues of the month, China and gun violence. You may be familiar with the “VIX,” the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s measure of stock market’s expected volatility. If Trump had his own VIX index of personal volatility, it would have been off the charts. Despite attempts to position his confounding statements as “smart negotiating” to keep his foes “off-balance,” he has indeed appeared to be both bothered and bewildered about the best path forward, particularly on China.
It has never been quite clear what Trump has been up to in China, in terms of strategy. Obviously, China, the second largest economy in the world, has been a currency manipulator and technology thief, and deserving of a comeuppance of some sort. But of what sort has bedeviled U.S. presidents for some time. To the extent that Trump was choosing amongst strategies, which is highly unlikely, he has chosen a perilous one – the “trade war.” Why the first-term president, a re-election underdog, thought he could outlast a counterpart with a Job For Life, emanating from a culture famous for the “long play,” is beyond logic. Particularly since China, a foe on trade, is a potential ally that Trump needs in his battle to wrest nuclear capability from North Korea."
= new reply since forum marked as read
Summed up thusly:
