Well there are 3 huge IPOs supposed to go out this year. This hurts liquidity and clogs the pipes.

And then for early stage venture, where I work, it will be harder to raise funds and move new ventures forward. Especially given the extreme shifting of public assets to loyalists.

Overall it’s a bleak time for American exceptionalism. The only companies that are in vogue are AI and Defense. Biotech continues to get hammered because who needs medicine when we can just bomb people with AI right?

I used to believe the unwinding of the Petrodollar would take a generation, it's now likely to happen this year.

Trump's wild late night rants threatening civilian infrastructure gave all the cover Iran needed to take out the infrastructure of any of our allies that have US connections or bases. The effects of those attacks on infrastructure already completed will take years, if not decades to repair.

The US, like Russia before it, has shown itself to be a paper tiger.

We need to get the Epstein class out of government at all levels, deal with the consequences of the return to hard currency, and rebuild what we can of our nation.

Buy puts, wait for Trump to say something dumb (don't worry, it won't take long), sell, return to step one.

Undocumented migrants in particular are vital to the economy. The agricultural and construction secotrs would collapse without them. They are paid sub-minimum wage because they're undocumented. And if they complain about low pay or working conditions, you just call in ICE to round them up, pay a token fine and rinse and repeat [1].

While people are distracted with these culture war issues, you proceed with your actual agenda of giving all the money in the government coffers to the already-wealthy.

The problem comes when these culture war issues become the goal not the distraction such as doing mass deportations. At that point you're now molesting the money and the wealthy will only put up with that for so long.

So now we have what is (IMHO) the biggest geopolitical error in US history by starting a war of choice in Iran with no specific goals, no exit strategy and no path to victory (whatever that means).

Sure defense contractors benefit as we have to replenish all those munitions we're using but you're spending $1-2 billion every day for a war you cannot win while strangling the global economy, destroying alliances and eroding US power.

And on top of that you're insider trading, which isn't money for nothing. By manipulating SPY puts, for example, you're stealing money from your donors and from ordinary people. This could ultimately hurt the supposed "integrity" of the markets.

Part of the reason the Cabinet is filled with incompetent sycophants is to mitigate the risk of being 25A'ed, meaning removed from office via the 25th Amendment.

My prediction is that if a large scale ground invasion happens in Iran and it goes badly, which I think it will, to the tune of tens of thousands of casulaties, the president will be 25A'ed.

[1]: https://abc7.com/post/ice-agents-arrest-680-in-largest-raids...