{"id":1533,"date":"2017-08-30T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2017-08-30T17:30:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T21:30:28","slug":"the-potus-confidence-the-markets-and-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2017\/08\/the-potus-confidence-the-markets-and-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"The PotUS, Confidence, the Markets, and the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hung out with Amal Graafstra at a Penguicon a few years back (we were both there on the DIY Track: He was installing RFID and NFS chips in people’s, I was teaching folks to build little synthesizers), and so this snippet caught my eye\u00a0while I was reading this article about the shelf-life of homebrew technological body modifications<\/a> (e.g.,\u00a0 <\/span>installing a magnet in your fingertip or a chip in your hand): <\/span><\/p>\n

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For me, though, the metaphorical value is the point. The magnet was a little piece of the future, and its slow loss coincides with a period of pessimism that\u2019s much bigger than me. To get a sense of how popular biohacking hardware still was, I emailed Dangerous Things, which produced my NFC implant and sells a variety of other chips and magnets. Founder Amal Graafstra told me that sales had been going up, until the 2016 presidential election \u2014 when no one bought anything for a full week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shaken, Graafstra sat down and thought about who was buying his products. \u201cReally it just comes down to people that are excited about the future in a very basic sense,\u201d he says now. \u201cI think one way or another, people lost faith in humanity, and in a sense lost faith in the future. And had much more pressing current concerns than, \u2018What am I going to do with this cool implant?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This got me thinking about the President, and his extremely high level of confidence that recent strong performance in the markets is because we are so confident in him. <\/span><\/p>\n

Consumer confidence is purportedly at a 17-year high<\/a> (other figures put it at a 15-year high, but close enough), and business confidence may be at an 8-year high<\/a>, but look at a chart and you’ll see it was at a 5-year low twice, first plummeting after Trump entered the race and then again after he won and then making a huge recovery in Q1 of 2017.\u00a0 <\/span>To me, this looks a lot like folks being really relieved that, even though the Worst Thing had happened, the world didn’t end\u2014and that certainly matched my experience, as a small businessperson, and the timbre of conversations I had with clients (even those who theoretically “won”).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The
The long, gradual climb of the S&P 500 from the Great Recession to the 2016 election (blue line).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, although he likes to kvell about how good he’s been for the markets, I’ll note that he’s taking credit for a trend that started in the first quarter\u00a0of Pres. Barack Obama’s first term, and has continued ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n

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They should teach this interview in journalism schools to show how you stop someone from lying on live TV. pic.twitter.com\/VZ6TgjM3wa<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) August 18, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n