We gotta get this sucker rebalanced! That’s the rallying cry on Wall Street, where “Because Scott Bessent told me so” is the answer to every question.
Government (Guvment) is too big, and if you wanna know what the problem was these last four years, and thereby why the US electorate decided to give Donald Trump a chance to get himself impeached a couple more times, and maybe lead another armed assault on the US Capitol, it’s real simple: Joe Biden crowded out the private sector.
On Monday, Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson quoted Bessent 10 times (at least) in the course of insisting on the point. Bessent’s recent remarks “resonate with us,” Wilson said, adding that the Biden administration “crowded out the average American and company.”
The important thing to keep in mind when you listen to Bessent — net worth $500 million on a poor day — and people like Wilson — net worth $Chief US Equity Strategist At A Top 5 Wall Street Bank — is that they’re really just concerned with the American everyman and bettering his plight. This is about regular people. Kitchen table issues. Your local pub owner. Single mothers working three jobs. It’s definitely not about tax cuts, and it surely isn’t about fortifying the top of the social pyramid and ensuring it stays as rich, as white and as male as possible.
If you don’t believe that, just ask a rich white man. “It’s been a ‘k-economy’ with a minority of haves and a large majority of have-nots [and] this is the primary reason why President Trump was elected for a second term,” Wilson, noted political scientist, explained Monday, adding that “despite the prominent discussion of how well the economy was doing last year, polls suggested many voters believed the economy was not as strong as advertised and they voted accordingly.”
Maybe. But voters believe all kinds of other things too. As of 10 years ago, for example, a quarter of Americans believed the sun orbits the Earth. That figure’s probably higher today. Polls show Americans also believe that 25% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, a misconception which Elon Musk leveraged to shutter USAID this year. The real figure, for those of you who still care about facts, is well below 2%.
Of course, I’m glossing over a critical distinction, and thereby positing a kind of strawman. It’s absolutely the case that economic aggregates can paint a terribly misleading picture of economic reality for everyday people. Pointing to those aggregates and declaring the economy in fine fettle isn’t the same as pointing to incontrovertible proof that the planets orbit the sun. But the question isn’t whether “regular people” experienced an economic miracle under Biden (plainly they didn’t, Main Street economic miracles being like unicorns, which is to say hard to spot), the question’s whether voters’ perception of the economy reflected their own experiences or rather press coverage and propaganda — “vibes,” if you will.
It’s also worth noting that Trump didn’t run primarily on the economy. Trump ran on the culture wars, immigration and, eventually, the notion that his second term was ordained by God who, according to Trump, saved him from an assassin’s bullet.
Even when Trump and JD Vance talked about the economy on the campaign trail, it was subsumed under the grievance politics banner. Who did Vance blame for spiraling housing costs? The Fed? Nope. Democrats? Nope. Not primarily. Permitting? Maybe, but again not primarily. Illegal immigrants. He blamed illegal immigrants “competing” with Americans for scarce housing. (They also compete with Americans for the best cat meat. The cost of pet barbecues in Ohio was off the charts last year, and Kamala Harris’s excuses aside, I think we all know why.)
But Trump’s going to fix that. He’s going to deport that competition, and that’ll bring housing costs down (pet meat prices too, as the supply of good cat loin won’t be artificially suppressed by thieving Haitians), and once Trump, JD, Scott and Elon get done re-privatizing Biden’s “woke” communist hell (a place where white men who get paid half a million dollars to be wrong about the stock market have to suffer the injustice of sharing the office Keurig with a black woman who, back in the good ol’ days, knew her place on the side of a syrup bottle), this thing’s gonna be a lean, mean, private machine.
“Comments like the ‘economy is strong’ or ‘the consumer is doing great’ may be overly optimistic when one considers GDP growth has been so dependent on government spending despite ‘full employment,’ or the fact that a large majority of consumers are struggling,” Wilson went on Monday, recalling the pre-Biden years, when everyday people had more than enough and never struggled.
And hey, no one’s saying this is gonna be easy. You don’t go from Biden’s Venezuela to Trump’s “golden age” overnight, and without going even more broke first. “The path is likely going to be rocky,” Wilson said, parroting Bessent and Trump, on the way to saying that Morgan Stanley “agree[s]” with Bessent that once the pain’s over, “the stock market has a lot of upside if [Trump’s] policies are implemented properly and there is a true transition from public to private economic growth.”
So, you know, hang in there Main Street. I know it’s been a rough ride these last few years, but the communists are gone now, and the white men are hard at work crashing the stock market and laying off the entire government so that your life can be a little more bearable. If the economy starts shrinking, be comforted that it was never actually expanding in the first place. That was a lie foisted on you by the communists.
And look, if it doesn’t work out, we can always just dress up like vikings, arm ourselves with bear spray and storm the castle. “Be there, will be wild!”
“If Trump’s policies are implemented properly”
I don’t get the sense people are listening to what they are actually saying at this point. Like Mike Wilson actually said this with a straight face and didn’t smirk or chuckle to himself?
Money != merit, Mike is living proof of that.
Love the sarcasm
And to think that I once respected Wilson more than most of the street blowhard chorus. Ah well.
The polling on foreign aid is astonishing. But not as much as a poll of Republican voters which revealed that they estimated that 28% of the population is transgender.(That triggered a lively round of speculation and finget pointing among the four alumni of a rock band in once played in because that estimate meant that one of us must be trans.)
Totally agree, sadly, laughed out loud a couple of times!
Great satire. Wilson is shilling for Bessent & co.’s self-interested market torpedoes. I’ve apparently missed the Wall Street narrative that blowing up the US economy is the path to future prosperity. Bessent apparently missed the first fifteen years of recent Japanese deflation, in his arrogant belief that they can “rebuild better” after destruction of consumer & business confidence. Unbelievable.
Bring back that painted guy with the horns ! Show us you mean business !
You didn’t hear the news? Hegseth just made him a 5 star general in charge of US european command.
I’d rather hear from McEligott right now, than from Wilson. VIX at 28 and so on.
Wilson’s value has always been his long-running BAML investor surveys and the consensus positioning/sentiment data therein. Other than as a reporter of that data, he’s never struck me as a perspicacious market thinker.
You’re getting Mike Wilson confused with Michael Hartnett.
I’m sorry – you are right. My apologies to both!
Scotty doesn’t know!
I can’t believe Mike’s so trusting
While Trump’s right behind Scott combusting
Putin’s got him on the phone
And he’s trying not to moan
It’s a three way call and Scott knows nothing
(RIP Michelle Trachtenberg)
H, you are in rare form today. I love it. This is what makes this a very entertaining read.
Bravo, H.
…and extra thanks to Sgt Hulka from Dewey Oxburger…
I might have added “Have fun.” to the 2nd to last paragraph…
H., are you serious? Wilson said those things? No wonder a friend at MS ignores him. I won’t talk on the phone with most clients, as I am forced to listen to such misogynistic bullshit and mumble my agreement. I also won’t listen to you disparage things that I know – so notes like this is as close as we get. It is why equities have weird relationips wih empirical data – and lately it’s the worst ever. Maybe I am one of the 28% transgender (One question? Was that Democrats only or all of us?)
John, Some of this is satire. Are you unable to discern that? I mean, here again I feel like I should emphasize that it’s not always clear to me that you’re reading my stuff correctly. You seem to sometimes miss the point, and other times you seem genuinely unapprised of when I’m kidding and when I’m not. Don’t get me wrong, there are no misattributed quotes in this article. But it’s a satirical piece.
I can’t be the only one who thinks we need an Odd Couple show featuring H and John.