BloggeRhythms

Yesterday, JP Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, made it clear that Trump's election is expected to bring about a much needed raising of the image of the nation’s business community. In presenting the importance of thriving businesses, Dimon offered an example that’s well-worth repeating.

Dimon said: “145 million people work in America; 125 million of them work for private enterprise; 20 million work for government—firemen, sanitation, police, teachers. We hold them in very high regard. But you know, if you didn’t have the 125 you couldn’t pay for the other 20. Business is a huge positive element in society. But for years it’s been beaten down as if we’re terrible people. So I think it’s a good reset.”   

And then today, providing similar evidence of his intentions to rebuild the nation’s status from its eight year decline in performance and image, Trump resorted to tweeting to get his no-nonsense message across.     

Karen DeYoung reported @washingtonpost.com that “before lunchtime” yesterday, Trump said he’d expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal, “upending a reduction course set by presidents of both parties over the past four decades, and called for the United States to veto a pending U.N. resolution that criticized Israel’s settlements policy.”

Although not calling for more nuclear weapons, Trump was referring to “the threat of nuclear proliferation” and “the need to improve and modernize our deterrent capability.”

In another pre-dawn tweet, Trump condemned an Egyptian measure regarding “the construction and expansion of settlements” in the West Bank and mostly Palestinian East Jerusalem, along with “the transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians.” He specifically stated: “The resolution being considered . . . should be vetoed.” 

Consideration of the  resolution itself had been circulated at the United Nations for weeks, while similar measures had for years brought a consistent U.S. veto. But it wasn’t until Wednesday night that word began to circulate that the United States might abstain and allow it to pass, which is what spurred Trump to act in response.

Only last weekend  Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi told a Portuguese news agency that Trump “has shown deep and great understanding of what is taking place in the region as a whole and Egypt in particular. I am looking forward and expecting more support and reinforcement of our bilateral relations.”

While campaigning, Trump frequently criticized what he described as the administration’s failure to fully support Israel, and late Wednesday Trump officials said the transition team gave the administration a “heads-up” that the president-elect was going to publicly call for a U.S. veto.

As a result, while the reasons weren’t made entirely clear, Egypt withdrew the resolution.

Current State Department spokesman John Kirby said that Egypt had pulled it back in order to have “discussions with its Arab League partners” over the wording of the text. 

“Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who supported an abstention and was clearly expecting to deliver a pre-vote speech announcing it, along with an outline of future prospects for Middle East peace, canceled his plans.”

So, here we have in just two days of this week, dramatic changes in attitude toward the positive coming from the CEO of the nation’s largest bank, having almost two and a half trillion in assets. Followed by solid indications of restoration of the nation’s defensive nuclear capabilities. And then a major demonstration of respect for Trump coming from Egypt’s president, who now has a new perspective on Israel’s relationship with the U.S.

And all of this regards a man who hasn’t even officially taken office as yet. 

The quite dramatic difference in the effectiveness of real leadership was addressed yesterday by Newt Gingrich who predicted on Fox News Channel that once Trump is sworn in, “he will undo much of President Barack Obama’s legacy, which he attributed to Obama’s reliance on executive orders.

“What you’re watching is a man who realizes all of a sudden that like 90 percent of his legacy is going to disappear because he didn’t do the hard work of passing legislation, he didn’t reach out to the other side,” Gingrich said. “[Y]ou watch — starting the opening day when Trump starts to repeal all these executive orders, it’s going to be like one of those balloons that deflates. The Obama legacy is going to this, down to a core to 10 or 15 percent of what he originally did. The rest is all going to disappear within a year.”

However, while Gingrich’s analysis is quite correct, it seems his timing assumption is not. Because, considering that Trump's not even been sworn yet and looking at what’s already been accomplished it won’t take anywhere near a year for the “rest to disappear.”

In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if on Inauguration Day, when Obama arrives to attend the ceremony, much of the crowd in attendance asks: “Who’s that? And why is he here?“

That's it for today folks.

Adios