Opinion and Commentary By Donna Westfall – November 23, 2024
$36 Tillion is a huge, gargantuan, enormous debt. The highest it has ever been and President-elect Trump wants to see it reduced. It appears that his pick for Treasury Secretary just might accomplish that goal.
BACKGROUND:
Scott Bessent is another billionaire being called one of the most brilliant men on Wall Street. That alone doesn’t mean he’s qualified to reduce our debt or accomplish anything else. But, he has an impressive background. When I took a look at just some of the highlights of his career I gasped when I saw he was mentored by and worked closely with George Soros as early as the 1980’s after graduating from Yale. Continued working with Soros during the 1990’s and again in 2010. Soros is best known for earning $1 BILLION in a single day by shorting the British pound known as BLACK WEDNESDAY. Bessent resigned from Soros Fund Management (SFM) and founded a hedge fund company which closed five years later. In 2011 he went back to SFM as Chief Investment Officer from 2011 – 2015. Then left to start up his new firm, Key Square Group.
You may know that George Soros is a dyed in the wool donor to Democrats. Bessent was too. Then things changed for Bessent but I haven’t been able to find out exactly what turned him around.
Since 2015, Bessent changed allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party donating money to candidates and to Trump. Now, Bessent wants to be part of the team all heading in the same direction and under the leadership of incoming President Trump.
So, I watched Bessent talk on FOX News about his “3, 3, 3 Plan” once he’s on board as Treasury Secretary.
1.) Cut the deficit by 3% each per year. There are lots of ways to reduce the deficit which apparently the current Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has either never heard of or just followed the lead of the worst President in my lifetime who increased the deficit to record highs.
You’ve heard of tariff’s. That’s one tool that Trump used in his last Presidency and plans to use as a negotiating tool for this upcoming Presidency. First off our country imports a lot of products such as from China, Mexico, India, and Vietnam as just a few examples.
Tariff’s are not a new thing. Alexander Hamilton originated tariff’s back in the early days of our country because there was a trade imbalance. America needed money in it’s coffers plus industry and jobs. Sound familiar? The very first Congress passed the Hamilton Act of 1789. President George Washington signed it into law. Cheaper imports is nothing new. Just look at all the merchandise at the local WalMart maufactured in China.
By imposing tariffs and excise taxes via the Hamilton Act of 1789 on products like whiskey, rum, tobacco, snuff and refined sugar the infant treasury had a steady supply of funds. By the way, Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury.
2.) Add 3% GDP Growth through deregulation. GDP = growth domestic product = which is the monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period in America. I would hope this means that more industry and jobs will be brought back or reinstated or created in our nation. Mention was made that over the last 50 years our country has lost a lot of manufacturing companies, industry and jobs. Can’t wait to see who will or what will be brought back, resurface or creatively invent new industries/jobs.
Listen, technology and robotics have certainly impacted jobs. There’s no stopping that. Industries like tobacco manufacturing is expected to decrease by 50% over the next decade. This is due to a steady decline of smokers who are now aware of the harmfulness of smoking tobacco. The demand is just not there.
Steel Mills. Six US mills have closed due to bankruptcies. In the 1950’s, 700,000 people were employed by the steel mills. Nowadays, steel is produced in China. Jobs in steel mills in our country as of 2018 is down to around 83,000. There are smaller steel mills these days in our country.
Shoes, hats and clothing. Most shoes these days are made in China, (60% or about 13 billion pairs), India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Why? Because labor is cheaper. Our country has for the most part priced itself out of these markets.
When my paternal grandmother came to this country, she had a job in a hat factory. These days, almost 60% of the hats made for export come from China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
Clothing: Again, China accounts for over 50% of global textile and apparel exports
3.) Produce 3 million barrels of oil or equivalent per day. Not knowing what “equivalent per day” meant, I looked it up. It means energy produced by a certain amount of natural gas that is considered equal to the energy produced by one barrel of crude oil.
This “3, 3, 3 Plan” sounds really ambitious. What I particularly liked was his stance on lowering taxes and regulations.
Besides Susie Wiles being nominated the first woman Chief of Staff, Scott Bessent will be the first openly gay Secretary of the Treasury. He’s married to John Freeman, a former New York City prosecutor. They have two children. Saw a headline that before the election, Bessent put their Charleston, South Carolina house up for sale. Did he possess a crystal ball or have a premonition on the outcome of the election? Maybe he and Trump have been in discussions for quite a while. Just today, an article in Reuters by By Lawrence Delevingne and Carolina Mandl point out some inconsistencies in Bessents Key Square Group which went from a high of $5.1 billion of assets under managements in 2017 that shrank down to $577 million in December 2023. Just keep in mind that Key Square is more than just the hedge funds. There is mention though that their company’s other lines have expanded.
Ending note: Bessent and Soros have not spoken since 2016.
