Back up the truck right up to the swamp, boys. Trump is bringing in a fresh load of alligators.
Hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson was feeling happy Wednesday morning.
After Donald Trump ridiculed Wall Street on the campaign trail, the President-elect tapped former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Steven Mnuchin to be his Treasury secretary and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to lead the Commerce Department. Trump even met with Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn inside Trump Tower.
It would suit Tilson just fine if voters who backed Trump because he promised to rein in Wall Street are furious now that he’s surrounding himself with bankers and billionaires.
“I can take glee in that -- I think Donald Trump conned them,” said Tilson, who runs Kase Capital Management. “I worried that he was going to do crazy things that would blow the system up. So the fact that he’s appointing people from within the system is a good thing.”
Gleeful Wall Street hedge fund managers. I think everyone can agree that’s mission accomplished. It certainly is as far as Wall Street is concerned.
If you were wondering why Wall Street recovered from it’s Trump Slump with unexpected speed, it’s because Trump immediately showed that he was not just ready and willing to play ball, but actually in a hurry to concede the whole game.
As Trump switches from using Wall Street as a punching bag to a farm team, bank stocks are roaring and executives and investors are sighing with relief. They’re not too worried about fury from Trump’s voters.
Celebrate, Trump voters. The trickle down will start any minute now. Any minute. Just keep waiting.
Maybe some of his voters thought that Donald Trump might select someone different to run the Treasury Department. But the Wall Street insiders laugh at the whole idea.
On Wednesday morning, as a former Goldman Sachs executive was getting into his car in the suburbs to drive into New York, he said he was relieved by the Mnuchin news. The executive, who asked for anonymity to talk politics, brushed aside a question about populist fury over Trump’s Wall Street picks by saying a blue-collar high school graduate wouldn’t belong at the head of the Treasury Department.
Thrill to the joy as one Goldman Sachs team at Treasury hands off to another Goldman Sachs team. And Mnuchin has great credentials. He not only sold the complex derivatives that caused the economic slump, he then turned around and bought out a subprime lender and used it to carry out crushing illegal foreclosures, mostly in poor minority neighborhoods. He hits every single limb on the financial schemes ugly tree.
Another former Goldman Sachs banker, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, is said by analysts to be under consideration for a job as a top Treasury deputy. He’s well known for once asking President Barack Obama when he’d stop bashing Wall Street.
Yeah, He stood up to President Obama for the super harsh treatment he has given investment bankers. Treatment so harsh that zero traders have gone to jail for wrecking the national economy. But since screaming at Obama is the inside track to fame in the Republican Party, Scaramucci is a shoe-in. And don’t forget.
Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, worked at Goldman Sachs, too.
They’re getting the old band back together! Those are some really nice alligators, Mr. Trump. Though the swamp is looking a little crowded. It’s probably time for a little expansion.
You can call it an infrastructure project.