Appointing the right people

Milley was one of Trump’s favorite generals. Now he’s a villain of the right.

But in the span of just one year, the man former President Donald Trump appointed as the nation’s top military officer has found himself at the center of political firestorms on both ends of the political spectrum.

One year ago, Milley came under withering criticism after he strode with Trump across Lafayette Square outside the White House for a photo op after federal agents forcibly cleared the area of racial-injustice protesters. And then last week, the same general was battered by conservatives after he dismissed as “offensive” GOP lawmakers’ characterization of military leaders as “woke” for studying the origins of racism.

As many have already observed and is plainly obvious, Trump reallllyyyy has a knack for appointing people who either betray him later, quit, and or subvert his agenda.

General Milley Cyrus/Mouse is just the latest in a string of disappointing appointees. West Point may as well rename itself Woke Point. Gorsuch is another disappointment. Jerome Powell, the fed chairman, is a bigger stooge for Wall St. than even Greenspan was, the latter who at least raised rates as the economy boomed during the 90s and the mid-2000s, but Powell has no plans to raise rates at all for 2022 and even 2023 despite the economy and stock market booming and seeing bigger gains than even in the 90s. This is a reason why I remain invested in the market, yet at the same time it’s evident that the ‘free money’ policies that began in 2008 are here to stay, as Biden copies the Trump playbook of massive stimulus spending for the fludemic, with each new invented variant (delta, epsilon, lambda, rho, tao, etc.) being an excuse for more stimulus spending.

Contrary to the Chicago School think tanks and mainstream conservatives, who insist that stimulus spending is wasteful and or creates and incentive for people to not work, unconditional cash remittances are popular on both sides of the aisle, so the spending will likely continue. As it turns out, people like free money…who would have thought, and don’t care about the possible consequences. Inflation has ticked up a bit, but much of the inflationary gains are in transportation, in part due to oil and gasoline prices surging. Things are still a long, long way from the hyperinflation of the 70s and early 80s. In 1980 interest rates were at 10%, making home ownership prohibitively expensive, but long-term mortgage rates are still rock-bottom. A lot of Americans are not working, but this predates Covid and is part of the long-term trend/transition to a post-scarcity, post-work economy.

Going back to Trump, if he is reelected (which is unlikely given how well the economy and stock market is doing), but if he is, will he avoid the mistakes he made earlier in appointing the wrong people? I’m not optimistic. I think Trump is still stuck in his ‘best and brightest’ mindset, of only looking for candidates who are the most credentialed or have the most experience, instead of individuals who actually stand for promoting an ‘America first’ agenda.