Jeff Bezos is also on this "advisory team" and he's close to a mortal enemy of Trump.
I predict this is no more than a sunshine squad for PR reasons. Trump met with Al Gore for many hours as well, then nominated the most ardent climate change denier as head of the EPA the next day. As long as that kind of thing doesn't change (e.g. Trump literally comes out and says, "OK, I was wrong, I finally believe in climate change"), there's nothing here.
Particularly when it says, “meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implements his economic agenda.” - this is a man too lazy and detached to even be interested in his own intelligence briefings (http://www.npr.org/2016/12/13/505348507/what-exactly-is-the-...). All evidence so far points to him not caring at all what new ideas this panel brings, if even paying attention at all.
While I'm not a Trump fan and don't disagree with a ton of what you say here, people need to stop with this intelligence briefings stuff.
He said he doesn't need to dedicate time to have people tell him the exact same thing everyday, but to let him know when things change. If anything, that's an efficiency gain that a site full of programmers and avid "meetings are the devil" folks should appreciate. Every time that gets cited right now it roughly translates to "person who only reads headlines."
If Trump was too busy for briefings, it wouldn't be a big deal. But the "I don't want to hear the same thing every day" is likely very telling of how little he cares about details. Details are important and U.S. national security is at risk if the President doesn't want to know the nuances of current events.
> He said he doesn't need to dedicate time to have people tell him the exact same thing everyday
I don't believe that every president before Trump simply put up with redundant meetings. This is the busiest job in the world, presidents are intelligent people, somebody would have put an end to daily security briefings if they weren't useful before now.
Things change daily and he's the incoming president. He absolutely needs to dedicate the time. It's not like these are useless staff meetings to plan an upcoming holiday party.
Yeah this feels like an evolution of the "John Barron" strategy. Except this time he's leeching credibility from real people. It's a waste of time. The people who saw through him before will continue to do so, the people who ate it up before will continue to do so.
It seems he does pay attention to sources which "confirm" the things he already believes. Based on that, I can imagine a few unlikely but positive outcomes from these meetings.
Trump has spent a lifetime fighting contractors and trying to keep projects within budget. Maybe Musk and Bezos can persuade him to expand the use of fixed-price "space act agreements" at NASA (like those previously won by SpaceX and Blue Origin for CCDev) instead of the traditional cost-plus contracts. Trump has recently tweeted about Pentagon projects going over budget; maybe he can be persuaded to push the fixed-price model there as well.
He is a business man who takes business decisions. He cares not who is in the white house, provided he has access and he can benefit from this. He certainly will.
I remember seeing a bunch of "Elon Musk for president!" among certain social groups. And I was thinking that's like "He's my favorite musician! I want him removing my appendix!"
But that said, this is just noise anyway. It's not like these guys, however much we like them, will have any say in policy.
That reminds me of a Dylan Moran joke: "Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California. There's a perfectly ordinary English sentence. How did that happen!? ... He went over to the heavy thing, and lifted it, and put it back down and didn't move it anywhere. And then he did it again, hundreds of times, and he said to people who stopped to observe this aberrant behaviour, "Look how good I am at lifting the heavy thing in my underpants." Now, that may seem a little dim. But it was they who said "You're the man. You're the one we want to deal with immigration, and water rates, and taxes, and all that."
Are you or anyone you know a completely one-dimensional person? Do you have the capacity to learn just one (and no more) topic?
Stop acting like people can't learn or have multiple passions/knowledge domains.
Please, there's absolutely nothing special or unattainable about politicians. If anything, they are the people who are most trained, set in their ways and corrupted in the most corrupted system humanity has known.
I don't know capitalism seems pretty corrupting. I doubt people grow-up thinking gee I wish I could work for a company that hides research for years that my company produces a product that kills people and spends billions researching how to make it more addictive. or commit the largest ponzi scheme or pollute the environment or push drugs that have marginal benefit to people, etc.
Also, for every bribee in politics there's a briber as well.
corruption - dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power.
CEOs and other decision makers of companies certainly have power. Several of them have hid the side effects of their products to continue making money.
You're being downvoted because capitalism has nothing to do with the topic at hand. But, because I feel like tilting at windmills, I'll say this: there's nothing inherently corrupting about capitalism. Corruption is inherent to human nature and exists in socialism, communism and every other form of government ever invented.
The reason for this is humans naturally sort themselves into hierarchies and people will always strive to better their position in those hierarchies. With better position comes better chance at survival for you and future generations of you.
Money helps in the climb up the hierarchy, but it's not sufficient in most cases. Most climbs require power. Money can sometimes buy power, but it's not nearly as effective as trading favors, forging political alliances and manipulating people through blackmail.
Money influences power outside of capitalist systems as well. CGP Grey's video 'Rules for Rulers'[0] does a great job of illustrating why.
Yes, but he's a bit of a paradox in this respect because he clearly values his own opinion over everyone else. Given some of the positions he's filled, with some of the personalities he's chosen, to pick a team that's clearly liberal and forward thinking team in this aspect vs. (anecdotally, I haven't read the actual evidence supporting this) the very staunch flat earth, climate denial, intelligent design type conservatives who don't even believe in evolution in other aspects... that's a gigantic paradox to have on one team.
I don't know if having this spectrum of people is a strategic move on Trumps part for some deeper purpose or if it's just because they believe the things he believes and he's trying to make for an easy political life.
"in this respect because he clearly values his own opinion over everyone else."
Musk or Trump? :)
Musk might be liberal on some kind of social issues, but he's more of a libertarian than anything, he's not remotely some kind of 'bernie' guy.
Musk told his wife, as they were having their 'first dance at the wedding' - that 'he's the alpha' in the relationship. Does that sound progressive? Or how about dumping his wife who bore 5 children for a girl 1/2 his age? Prog cred?
Also " very staunch flat earth, climate denial, intelligent design type conservatives "
... this is casual bigotry on your part. 'Flat Earth'? Seriously? You're just going to throw that in?
And you do realize it was Father David LeMaitre - a Catholic Priest and Physicist, who conceived of the 'big bang'?
Anyhow - I'm not going to defend any of that necessarily, but your remarks amount to a casual kind of bigotry which is the bane of political discussion these days. Try to avoid this crude kind of stuff.
And FYI Trump was a 'NYC tough-guy Democrat' for most of his life. The Clinton's went to his and Melania's wedding for gosh sakes.
Anyhow - neither Trump nor Musk could truly be considered classically liberal or conservative in either sense of the term.
Funny: both of them are good businessmen, but neither of them have the faintest grasp of economics.
Evidence that Musk has not "the faintest grasp of economics"? I'm not sure that you can make that claim about anyone who has a company that they created that is worth >$1bn.
Also, as long as people don't reject Flat-earth, climate-denial, or intelligent design, they are condoning those things. The Republican party have been masters of allowing these beliefs to come along for the ride for years. 2 of them seem to be rooted in religious freedom, and can be safely left out of political discourse. the 3rd, climate change denial, needs to be discussed, and needs to be handled on the basis of facts instead of beliefs.
When you look back though the past few decades or so of political history really only two options exist. The politicians we have elected were utterly incompetent (based on campaign promises vs what was achieved) or they achieved the goals that were the most important to them. I believe it is the second option, they care little about a balanced budget and a great deal about enriching the donor class.
Basically nobody believes in 'Flat Earth' it's ridiculous that you'd put that in there.
And it's surprising how many CEO's in tech don't have a grasp of economics.
Elon doesn't know what the Fed's QE program does or what it means.
Watch investors speak about what they think of the future, and of business, then watch Elon, Zuck etc. speak. There's a marked difference. The investors are economically literate, and usually speak in those terms. Founder don't.
Elon is in 2 business that are fundamentally affected by things like currency, interest rates, consumer credit - Solar City and Tesla. And he never - ever - talks about it.
Most engineers are financially and especially economically illiterate.
But I don't think you actually need to understand econ really well to be a CEO or a good entrepreneur, I just think it's really weird that they don't.
You're describing the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics. Pretty much every successful entrepreneur I know has a very solid grasp of microeconomics, oftentimes much more solid than most economists or financiers. They don't always have a detailed understanding of macroeconomics, and many of them don't need one to run their businesses.
When you can steal market share from existing incumbents, oftentimes with a 10x better product value proposition, then currency, interest rates, and consumer credit are rounding error. They don't matter - you have a potential market that is many times greater than the current size of your company, so you just convince your competitors' customers to switch to you and you get growth even if the economy as a whole is contracting. But on a macro-level, this is zero-sum, because your gain is your competitor's loss. On a macro-level, the only things that lead to everyone's gain are improvements in productivity and better use of unemployed resources.
Now, when it comes to the original thread subject, this is very relevant: it's worrisome that Trump seems to be treating the U.S. economy as a whole the way you would treat a business, and is applying microeconomics tools in a situation subject to macroeconomics. But it's not true that Elon, Zuck, etc. don't understand economics; rather, they understand economics, but the part of it that is relevant to their daily lives is different from the part that pundits and economists care about.
"When you can steal market share from existing incumbents, oftentimes with a 10x better product value proposition, then currency, interest rates, and consumer credit are rounding error."
Tesla does not have a product that is fundamentally superior to anything.
Regular car companies releasing amazing electric cars that are now 'long range' and for 1/2 the price.
Tesla's nice display and 'danger modes' are a gimmick.
They are running out of competitive advantage very quickly.
Apologies for the casual bigotry - I may have spoke flippantly and without carrying out much in the way of in depth first hand research as I should have, but I have heard many reports in this vein, and perhaps it is media BS/propaganda that has proliferated this idea, but if there's any truth to them, then that's a yuuuge gap on one advisory team.
>And you do realize it was Father David LeMaitre - a Catholic Priest and Physicist, who conceived of the 'big bang'?
*Georges Lemaitre, and note that he was Catholic, not Evangelical. It's the latter that has a strong cohort of anti-evolution, arguably anti-science-as-a-whole types.
> And you do realize it was Father David LeMaitre - a Catholic Priest and Physicist, who conceived of the 'big bang'?
Actually, I was not aware of this, that's really actually quite interesting. Probably the most interesting thing in your dismissal of my flippant use of 2 words :D
It's hard to pin Musk down as a libertarian when his companies rely on fat government subsidies and contracts. There probably isn't a real label for someone like him other than pragmatist or opportunist.
It's such a crazy and demeaning thing to say to someone, especially 'right after the fact' at the wedding, after the vows.
'Buy the way, this is the other part of the deal you just signed!'
I stick my foot in the mouth all the time, but I would never do anything like that.
He's crazy rich, powerful and famous, marrying a young, probably a little naive woman ... the 'roles' seem rather obvious, no reason to demean the poor girl.
He's an old real estate hand, they're used to more diversity than will ever be found in SV/Tech or stereotypical business in general. Real estate is the art of compromise between extremely diverse people/groups.
I'd say there's probably more diversity working in real estate than most any other large industry. Today you're meeting with some commie union leader, tomorrow a bank prez, next week you're buying off some environmentalist with a donation to their cause. Local political leaders for your plot of dirt could be anything from ultra left to ultra right and you gotta work with them to make your money. Not to mention you're buying and selling to absolutely anyone, money talks. Local urban governments vary from ultra left to moderate and you gotta work with them. The neighbors are all over the political map and if you want them to sign off at the planning commission meeting...
I suspect that Trump deliberately sets things up so that there are multiple people involved who will disagree, which enables him to maintain control of the situation by picking who to support and how much.
I first noticed this with the muddle over who was actually the leader of his campaign team, and then with the Bannon & Priebus setup: giving them equal prominence makes them more subservient to Trump, since if they can't agree they both need to plead their case to Himself.
The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1][2] During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was essentially dead. Flat-Earth models were in fact held at earlier (pre-medieval) times, before the spherical model became commonly accepted in Hellenistic astronomy.[3]
I am in awe of how quickly our distaste for lobbyists and money in politics has faded now that a woman is not running for president.
People keep saying Trump's cabinet and team is "business leaders and political outsiders" when it's hard to imagine people more "inside" than lobbyists.
> I take this as a sign that politics are out, and simple business administration is in.
Distraction accomplished.
> Of course real cynics will yell too much power is being given to business people.
Real cynics will point to the evident factional politics in the substantive appointments and that the thing you are giving so much weight to is a powerless advisory body.
The thing is, the government is not a business. Even if the motives of the Exon CEO were pure, why should I think he'd make a good diplomat. I wouldn't want an astronaut performing surgery.
Honest question, what does this mean for all the talk of Silicon Valley doom and gloom under Trump's presidency? Was all that just fear mongering? How do we understand this move?
The doom and gloom was of course a lot of fear mongering (the Hitler comparisons grow old very quickly). Trump talked so little of policy during the campaign we really have no idea what he is going to do. That in of itself is also scary because it is an unknown. While he was not my pick for POTUS, I'm holding a wait and see attitude. Historically Trump's public views were liberal, and he leaned democrat so we'll see how his actions break from the rhetoric. So far, he certainly does not seem to be following a playbook that anyone could have guessed.
As someone else who didn't vote for Trump, I too am sick of seeing all this fear mongering. Though in all fairness I've listened to people use it on Obama, Bush & both Clintons for the past few decades. For me, it reduces the credibility of someone's view points when they overuse this tactic.
My grandparents grew up and lived under Hitler. I was practically raised by my grandmother in fact, and I asked a lot of questions. To compare the two is an absolute joke. If you took any politician, I guarantee you could make comparisons. That does not mean they're the next Hitler at all.
Not only did Trump talk plenty about his policy ideas and followers notably chose him based on these policies, Trump's views have never been expressly "liberal".
Furthermore, plenty of people have predicted exactly how Trump would turn out. During the race, the left media continually argued that Trump would be appointing "1%ers" to his cabinet, and that is exactly what has happened.
As for his "playbook", he clearly doesn't have one, and this has been consistently stated by opponents. But he's still as predictable as any other politician. This myth that he is somehow unpredictable is absurd. It's pretty clear exactly how he intends to run this country.
Historically his views have been liberal, even though many have flipped and flopped again [1].
The policy ideas appear in hindsight to be inflaming rhetoric. Make deals, build a wall, and deport people in the US illegally. The funny part is that those things are exactly what is happening today. Maybe the deals will be different, but there is already a fence across large parts of the Mexican border (fun aside, Obama and Hilary voted yes for it as senators[2][3]), and under Obama more people have been deported than ever before[4]. So really, no change.
Appointing DC elite and/or 1%ers to cabinet positions is basically par for the course. Maybe Sanders would have appointed more normal people?
I hate being put in a position to defend Trump because I think he also has tons of problems. But, this is who we have for the next 4 years so I'm going to watch what happens and hope it's more good than bad.
You don't have to defend Trump if you don't want to.
1. WP article reads like a "top 10" clickbait article. Only a few things in that list are accurately associated with economic or social liberalism. Liking Hillary Clinton doesn't make you a liberal, for example. The press thing at the end is also absurd.
2. Being right about Hillary Clinton's wall thing doesn't make you a liberal. I don't know why you included this.
3. ??? See #2.
4. Once again, Obama or Hillary being less "liberal" doesn't make Trump more liberal.
>The policy ideas appear in hindsight to be inflaming rhetoric. Make deals, build a wall, and deport people in the US illegally. The funny part is that those things are exactly what is happening today. Maybe the deals will be different, but there is already a fence across large parts of the Mexican border (fun aside, Obama and Hilary voted yes for it as senators[2][3]), and under Obama more people have been deported than ever before[4]. So really, no change.
and
> Appointing DC elite and/or 1%ers to cabinet positions is basically par for the course. Maybe Sanders would have appointed more normal people?
Yea, which is the point: he is actually totally predictable, and like I said, the junk about him being hard to predict is nonsense. You said he was unpredictable... but now you're disagreeing with yourself? I'm super confused on what you're trying to say.
Consider that this talk was during an election, where people are inclined to be biased and partisan.
There's indeed a good chance that none of the doom and gloom will play out. Silicon Valley excels at "failing fast", and the latest signs are showing they're adjusting quickly already.
“I think a bit strongly that Trump is probably not the right guy” for the presidency, and wouldn't be the best candidate to represent the U.S. abroad, he told CNBC.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s economic and environmental policies “are the right ones,” Musk said.
It is said that Trump is not afraid of having advisors the disagree with him. Trump making Musk an advisor does no invalidate Musk's earlier position on Trump.
I'm curious how things changed? Advising someone doesn't mean you have to agree with them. In fact wouldn't you want to advise someone you don't agree with? Try and direct them more towards your opinions?
It would be one thing to prefer one candidate over the other.
But Musk's remarks are very strong.
Basically: "This man is not qualified for the job" is a very string rebuke.
And then to go on his panel? It's a little hypocritical.
Trump knows that these guys value their careers more than their credibility, and he's making Elon Musk, Mitt Romney etc. 'kiss the ring' and 'eat their own words'.
They will likely have to say positive things about Trump in the future, coming out of meetings etc..
I'm by not means a Trump fan but there are shades of brilliant Machiavellian bits about this.
Trump knows that these guys value their careers more than their credibility, and he's making Elon Musk, Mitt Romney etc. 'kiss the ring' and 'eat their own words'.
You really think the likes of Musk and Bezos can't sleep at night because of risk to their careers? These guys don't worry about credibility because they make their own credibility. This is more of a position of "I'm a captain of industry, if the President wants to call me to ask a question, I'll take the call". Doing so is both good business (good for their businesses at least), and is compatible with a position of "this man is not qualified for the job", because "that's why he's got me on his advisory board". If anything, it's a subtle, shrewd move on the part of Musk.
Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick are both admirers of Ayn Rand and likely supporters of Donald Trump (although they probably couldn't express their support prior to November 8th).
Kalanick is an obvious choice for Trump, being a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand fanboy.
Musk is a much more surprising choice, not just because of his obvious environmentalism. Both Kalanick and Musk are well-known for not being very worker friendly. At least Musk leads by example. He destroyed his own marriage through overwork and expects his employees to do the same.
To be fair to Musk he was managing two pretty revolutionary businesses at once, both of which where going through very very tough times. This puts strain on any marriage and his broke. During this tough times. He still managed to hold it together. That's superhuman.
It's not like he was a mid level white collar exec staying too long at the office.
Unless these people have any real and appointed power in the administration, I'm skeptical. This reeks to me of showmanship and a "carrot" to counterbalance the "stick" of political reprisal for Rs joining the Hamilton electors.
I like the idea of term limits on congress. I think it makes sense. There are a few things to like in there but I tend towards the middle of the political spectrum.
We have term limits in California. What they have done is removed any institutional experience. For example, instead of having people who have specialized in an area run a committee on that topic, everybody is shuffled.
I predict this is no more than a sunshine squad for PR reasons. Trump met with Al Gore for many hours as well, then nominated the most ardent climate change denier as head of the EPA the next day. As long as that kind of thing doesn't change (e.g. Trump literally comes out and says, "OK, I was wrong, I finally believe in climate change"), there's nothing here.
Particularly when it says, “meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implements his economic agenda.” - this is a man too lazy and detached to even be interested in his own intelligence briefings (http://www.npr.org/2016/12/13/505348507/what-exactly-is-the-...). All evidence so far points to him not caring at all what new ideas this panel brings, if even paying attention at all.