The Louie De Palma Presidency

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Check out the below YouTube clip. It’s a classic clip from the sitcom Taxi and it should remind you of someone.

Who does this remind you of? Does it remind you of the current White House occupant? It certainly reminds me of President Trump. Here’s Louie’s resounding defense of his stock-broker stint:

What you call disgusting, I call selling. I’m better at this business than any of you. I just don’t look the part. I don’t behave like the rest of you. I didn’t go to the right college. Or any college. But let me tell you something, Mr. Grey, I’m gonna leave here feeling good about myself. Because I know that I succeeded. You have to stay here knowing that some guy off the street can outdo ya.

Now let’s take that resounding defense and imagine how President Trump might say it when he assists with the “peaceful transition of power” in 2021 or 2025.

What you call disgusting, I call America-firsting. I’m better at this business than any of you. I just don’t look the part. I don’t behave like the rest of you. I don’t hobnob with the Hollywood elite. Or any cultural elite. But let me tell you something, Madam Speaker, I’m gonna leave here feeling good about myself. Because I know that I succeeded. You have to stay here knowing that some reality-show tv star off the street can outdo ya.

President Trump’s greatest achievement by far is showing the American people just how lightweight our political class is. Think about it. How hard is it to be a Democrat? Champion everything our Progressive Overlords hold dear, get elected, spend ever-increasing amounts of other people’s money to enlarge the government’s bureaucracy but fix nothing, and then bask in the glow of our media elite as they gush over your brilliance and compassion. Conversely, how hard is it to be a Republican? Rail against deficit spending and illegal immigration, get elected, do nothing to reduce deficit spending and illegal immigration, and then be a gracious punching bag as our media elite call you everything from a moron to a racist.

President Trump, however, doesn’t abide by the script. Would a President Jeb, Mitt, or Johnny go around Congress and crackdown on illegal immigration by diverting funds from the military to build a wall and by leaning on Mexico to stop the caravan bullshit? Would a President Jeb, Mitt, or Johnny dare to call CNN “fake news”? Would a President Jeb, Mitt, or Johnny have the cojones to call out Hunter Biden and the honest graft that made his $50,000-a-month, no-show job possible?

The Personal Finance Angle

By no means is this post meant to be an endorsement of President Trump. I just call ’em like I see ’em. President Trump, a political neophyte, holds his own against our vaunted political class because our vaunted political class gave up thinking a long time ago. The Democrats, Republicans, and their toadies in the media all play a part. And as long as everyone sticks to his or her part, everyone gets some power, and everyone gets to make bank on that power. The only problem is that for the past 50 or so years the actors in Washington have confined themselves to one tired old play. Change the script on them and they’re completely flummoxed—as a boorish jerk with a Twitter account has proved resoundingly.

“Okay, okay,” I hear you fuming. “What does all this Louie De Palma presidency crap have to do with personal finance? You do allegedly run a personal finance blog, you know.”

Oddly enough, I do believe there’s a personal finance angle to our Louie De Palma presidency. And to prove it, I must first turn to The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett.

In the field of stock-market investing, Warren Buffett has very likely coined the greatest axiom of all time:

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

Now, let’s take this axiom and apply it to our political class. Given the pathetic state of our political class, here’s how I see the application of Buffet-like wisdom going down:

Be doubtful when our political class is sure and sure when our political class is doubtful.

Finally, let’s take two deeply-held FIRE-related beliefs of our political class and bump them up against our new-found political axiom.

1. Our political class is sure that everyone needs to go to college.

Really? Does everyone also need Olympic-level training when it comes to athletics? After all, if everyone had access to elite trainers and elite training facilities, everyone would become Olympic athletes, right?

College is a scam on two fronts. First, only about 15 percent of the population has the cognitive chops to handle such rarefied subject matter as calculus and organic chemistry. Sending 70 percent of high school graduates off to college is sheer folly. It’s not making the cognitively average and the cognitively weak any smarter. And our colleges are keenly aware of this. That’s why they’ve created a slew of fluff courses and fluff majors. If they remained dedicated to real unabashed higher education, their enrollment numbers would plummet.

Second, college is a scam because it has become expert at wasting a student’s time and money. The training for most entry-level jobs in most fields requires little more than 10 to 15 rigorous courses. If a kid wants to become an accountant, for instance, just teach him or her the fundamentals of accounting. And if he or she masters those fundamentals, give him or her a certificate so he or she can get a job as a junior accountant. Then after three years of real-world accounting experience, he or she would be eligible to take the CPA exam. Training people to be competent junior accountants shouldn’t be anywhere near as time-consuming and money-consuming as our colleges make it out to be. Forcing aspiring accountants to take 25 to 30 utterly superfluous courses (hello, vaunted bachelor’s degree!) is an affront to decency and common sense.

2. Our political class is sure that globalism and massive low-skilled immigration from the developing world are good things for the American economy and the American worker.

Yeah, for smart and disciplined Americans they are. But what about not-so-smart and not-so-disciplined Americans? How have they managed since their factory jobs were shipped to China and their ability to compete for the remaining service-sector jobs was upended by an abundance of legal and illegal immigrants who see the minimum wage as a princely sum? The fact is they haven’t managed the two-pronged hit of globalism and massive low-skilled immigration very well. And our political class has nothing to offer them for their “lack of coping skills” but welfare, vulgar entertainment, and sexual license. And those pitiful balms just aren’t cutting it—as the steep rise in suicide and opioid addiction amongst the working class grimly attests.

There are, of course, many other deeply-held FIRE-related beliefs of our political class that warrant comment. But I’ll leave those for future posts. No need to bore the crap out of you and turn this post into a half-assed philippic. Let me just conclude by saying I have a very low opinion of our political class and if you hold liberty dear and want to grow financially, socially, and spiritually, you would be wise to question everything our political class says and does with extreme prejudice.

Final Thoughts

Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Are we in the midst of a Louie De Palma presidency? And if we are, is that the symptom of a thoroughly corrupt and thoroughly pathetic political class? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.