Macro Dragon: Treason for Trump?

Macro Dragon: Treason for Trump?

Top of Mind…

• Touched on the skew & potential known unknowns this wk on Mon’s Macro Dragon: WK # 46 = Joe Biden = 46th POTUS…
  
  
• No trade views nor market focus today… just delving into the disarray that is US Politics…
  
  
• Unless you have been under a rock, or don’t follow global geopolitics closely, then you will know that despite Biden winning the electorate, where even in “close” states he is still ahead by thousands of votes – Trump has not conceded.
  
  
• The ground for dissent was already laid way before the elections, when on numerous occasions Trump alluded to conspiracies of election fraud that was to come. I.e. they are going to try to steal the election from us.
  
  
• And of course he & Trumpland have not let up on this, in anyway.
  
  
• Now what is not even up for dispute (rationally that is) is that, any election recount – and they are doing a full recount in Georgia of over 5m votes by hand – is not going to change the Biden lead. I.e. if the spread was a few hundred votes in a swing state then absolutely there could be a difference, in Georgia’s case the difference is 14,111 to Biden.
  
  
• Oh & guess what, based on Politico, Biden has 290 electoral votes – so even if theoretically there are 14,112 incorrectly counted votes & Trump wins Georgia – it makes no difference, as Biden will still be comfortably over the 270 finish mark.
  
  
• Its also worth noting that a whole week has gone by after the US elections Nov 3 date & the Trump, as well as mostly republican field has not provided any evidence whatsoever of voting fraud. And it goes without saying for the vast majority of their base, their Tribe it does not matter – as that is the state of tribalism in the left & right in the US, they will literally walk off a cliff if need be.
  
  
• Now its easy to say that if it was the left/Dems in power, none of this would have happen – yet that’s likely hard to believe as well. The left also has hardcore extremists as the right – bottom line, anywhere where the rational is a justification for violence against another side, because of a disagreement on values & principles, is where one needs to draw a line, if one wants to enforce & maintain a civil society – we need to protect people from the themselves. The outliers of society, who seem to scream with the volume of the mases, but actually speak for a minute fraction of the country. And by a line, we are talking serious as cancer no tolerance line, none of that Obi-Chemical Attacks Syria line fluff.
  
  
• However by both popular vote & electoral vote we are talking about a bigger margin of victory on Biden vs. Trump, than Trump had vs. Hillary. So the paradox & hypocrisy here knowsno bounds – if it was any other major nation in the world, the US leadership would be calling them undemocratic, tyrant, barbaric, uncivil, etc. Yet when its in your backyard, it’s your legal right (sure Mosco Mitch) to pursue lawsuits despite the legal weight of them being zero & negligible, yet the long-term structural effects on the culture, psyche & dreams of your nation being forever scarred.
  
  
• Because going forward, whoever wins the WH in future elections, the other side will claim fraud, conspiracies & witchcraft. And yes, there is a BIG Investment opportunity here – stay tuned for our Saxo’ 2021 Outrageous Predictions dropping on Dec 8/9.
  
  
• Trump is on major time decay & whilst most world leaders have rightly congratulated the president elect Joe Biden, Russia & China have yet to acknowledge this. Now on Russia’s side, one can understand, as the Chess Master of Chess Masters excels in sowing political turmoil for the US. In China’s case, its just being smart… i.e. why give Trump the opportunity to break the phase, cause more volatility between the two nations, as he still has c. 69 days left. Time Until Trump Leaves Office
  
  
• Now whilst the voting fraud lawsuits have negligible grounds on successful execution (albeit they allow Trump to save face & to roll this “conspiracy game” into his next show business gig), one thing that has very strong footing, that will be getting even more solid the longer the Trump’s Camp plays this charade, is Treason.
  
  
• And Treason, may become a theme for all future presidential candidates & elected officials in positions of power to keep in mind. Treason has a special distinction in the US constitution – according to the Interactive Constitution from ConstitutionCenter.Org:
  
  “Treason is a unique offense in our constitutional order—the only crime expressly defined by the Constitution, and applying only to Americans who have betrayed the allegiance they are presumed to owe the United States.”
  
  
• The idea behind the treason clause, was to mitigate any incumbent government from snuffing out “legitimate political opposition”.
  
  
• It gets better, i.e. from the perspective of extending to those aiding & facilitating treason – i.e. the buck would not stop with say Trump or a future president, it would also be the chain of people supporting that view.
  
  
• Quoting again from the Constitution Center, which is quoting aspects of the US Constitution.
  
  

  “The Constitution specifically identifies what constitutes treason against the United States and, importantly, limits the offense of treason to only two types of conduct: (1) “levying war” against the United States; or (2) “adhering to [the] enemies [of the United States], giving them aid and comfort.”
  
  

• Now it’s the Dragon’s understanding that there is still technically three states that have not been “called” by the all the major US networks which are Alaska (Almost 100% expected for Trump, given huge 56.9 vs 39.1 split), Georgia (Expected for Biden) & North Carolina (Expected for Trump) – i.e. at best Trump gains +16 for Georgia & Biden still wins at 274.
  
  
• Yet from a governmental official basis, the states have until Dec 14 to work out any disagreement on the election results. On 6^th of Jan, congress gets together for the final count.
  
  
• So the stakes exponentially explode for Team Trump, if post 6^th of Jan they still refuse to concede & continue to their unsubstantiated, contradictory & false claims on electoral fraud. Its also worth noting that Sleepy Joe, has not become Joe “Cool as a Northern Breeze” Biden, about all this. Despite general protocol being a process of transition, sharing of budget, national security information, etc… - Again this should not be surprising, as Trump has been nothing but non-conventional & always consistent in looking after numero uno, el Trumpo!
  
  
• It’s worth noting that currently the Senate is 50 seats to the Reps, 48 seats to the Dems & 2 seats pending from Georgia – must be the water down there, eh? – which will have a run-off on Jan 5^th. Given how much the Dems have spent ($100m in South Carolina alone) & vastly underperformed, the skew is very much to the Reps. I.e. Yes, we’ll still get a fiscal deal – Cocaine Mitch & Joe Biden go back – yet the heavy deadlifts will one again fall to Powell & the Fed (more on that later this month).
  
  
• The future political landscape – despite Biden campaigning successfully on a centrist strategy, something that the Dragon & many others thought was doomed to fail from the start… KVP got that dead wrong (believe he’s words were “stick a fork in it”), as well as the blue tsunami… i.e. was not even a blue sneeze – of the US is likely to get even more extreme. With the Dems likely to maintain the WH in 2024 (the power of the incumbency is huge, literally only a handful of administration have been the unique losers to hold only one term), we could get an even more extreme metamorphosis of Trump in 2028.
  
  
• Worth noting that Trump will be Biden’s current age of 78, in 2024 – so if he can survive his legion of tax & liability claims… he should not be written off. Also as he is almost certainly going to launch some form of media network. The extreme nature of the political landscape is coming at a big cost, the likes of AOC likely cost the Dems seats in both votes in the House & Senate – because some of the measures being advocated are just to damn extreme & in a real-world environment have to sustainability in a semi-civil society of rule & law. As to the Trump family, no doubt they will try to be like the Kennedy’s in politics – can easily write off the two older sons. But his daughter Ivanka, his son Barron & perhaps even more importantly his son-in-law Jared (‘proper’ Billionaire by inheritance & super strategic) are almost certainly going to be central in US politics for decades to come.
  
  
• One last point that is important for everyone to keep in mind – yes, Biden is the 46^th POTUS of the US of A. And no doubt he will do his best to govern for both sides, he has more presidential essence in his pinkie than Trump will ever have. Yet the whole “we won” , “they lost” narrative is naïve & single-brain celled. In a civil & sustainable society, the us / them narrative sets the floor & ceiling for what can be accomplished.
  
  
• There is still a lot of structural & societal focused equitable reform & regulation needed in the US of A (as well as a lot of other ‘bastions” of western democracies). We cannot just keep pouring more water (loose fiscal & monetary) into a bucket that is littered with holes & tears. This is the thing about taxes that politicians keep missing. Its not that people are not willing to pay higher taxes, its just they cannot see where their taxes are going, how much of it is being used optimally, how much is slippage & how much is downright being thrown in to a bottomless pit? And obviously the reason that transparency is lack from most governments is because it tends to be the latter or they don’t even know.
  
  
• Even the tech heavy state of California has become a bad joke for years now – best entrepreneurial minds in the world, setting the bell curve on innovation, best schools, blah, blah, blah… yet you stepping over homeless bodies & avoiding dog pop & needles to get into your Tesla? C’mon… That’s not the greatest country in the world… That’s just a narrative that the elites (those with actual assets & yes, if you don’t know who the elites are, well guess what, you are the elite… it’s a relative world & the vast majority of people don’t own any equity or securities whatsoever, lets alone have enough cash on hand to survive a month or two without a paycheck) tell themselves to absolve themselves from responsibility.
  
  
• Yes this was likely the highest voting turnout in over a century in the US, with over 150m Americans having voted. Kudos to those that got out there & voted – still think if you are mandated & required to pay taxes, its should also be your civil duty & law to vote (like in Australia), regardless of it was for Biden or Trump.
  
  
• Voting is skin in the game, not voting & staying home pointing fingers & complaining is cancerous. Still even on the subject of voting, make the hard decision – voting for someone you know is 100% going to lose, because you will feel better about it yourself, is cowardice & your just selling yourself short.
  
  
• It’s like making the effort to get to the gym, taking a hard look at the treadmill & the assault bike, then deciding to eat the biggest chocolate cake known to humankind while sipping on a long Island ice tea – I mean, what the F#%$! You may as well join the finger pointers & lazy-boy couch surfers. Make the hard decision for your family, friends, fellow citizens & yourselves – life is not always about clear & easy choices. Because the pathway of easy choices has led us to the unsustainable system that we now have in the US & many other places around the world.
  
  
• Yes Biden will likely win the popular vote by a margin of over +5m votes (total of +77m), yet there was still +72m people that voted for Trump – despite the out of this world abysmal & complete lack of response, accountability, responsibility & strategy around Covid-19.
  
  
• This is just stunning & is not about republican or democrat, just the biased human genetic bias of tribalism & unquestionable authority bias that the masses tend to have.
  
  
• To put it differently, if we did not have the Covid-19 outbreak, Trump would have won & he would have won by a landslide.
  
  
• That. Is. Mind. Blowing. That. Is. Politics. It. Is. The. Art. Of. Spin. Where. Trump. Reigns. Supreme. 

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Dragon’s Plate…

• In case you missed it previously – been super well received, thx for feedback, sharing & support on this project folks - the first in hopefully a string of exclusive Dragon Interviews series with exceptional professionals with skin-in-the-game, across different strategies, asset-classes & backgrounds.
  
  
• We kicked off with Singapore Based, AVM Global Opportunity, run by the talented & always exceptional Ashvin Murthy.
  
  
• The timing of the interview is uncanny as it was at the cusp of the last US presidential elections that AVM was launched. It’s worth noting since the interview, the fund has also been nominated for the Singapore’s Best Hedge Fund of 2020, given its consecutive five straight positive months at the start of this volatile year.

Please click here for interview link.

You can follow & learn more about AVM here.

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