Trump as President? Meaning for Landscape Architects?

We live & die by oil down here in Texas. Simple as that. To be fair, there are other industries that shore things up, but when the oil guys are down & out, everyone feels it. I’m in favor of meaningful regulations, but want fewer of the ones that aren’t accomplishing anything. And $3.00/gal gas (currently $2.00/gal around here). $3.00 seems to be the tipping point between a stable economy and a booming one here in the lone star state.

https://placesjournal.org/news/after-the-election/

I see it as a boom for private sector building and a bust for middle class and public sector. Deregulation tends to support the elites, not the middle class. But deregulation may also open up funding opportunities for people to access and leverage – you know, kinda like what led to the great recession. So IMO, grab your ankles and hold tight.

 He has stated that he plans to put forth a Trilion dollars on our infrastructure.  And, go after ALL forms of energy, including renewable energy. 

How will he pay for that? And how will he convince Congressional and GOP rank-and-file deficit hawks to agree to it? Promises are cheap. Infrastructure requires cash.

He’s a successful developer, understands business & jobs.  I also thought it was interesting to note that while he is President of the U.S., he will NOT be accepting a “salary”.  Nor, will he be controlled by “special interest groups”…he doesn’t need their money.  

Actually that is questionable. He is  certainly a sly businessman. But most of his accomplishments depended on cheating, strong-arming and stiffing governments and contractors. But now we are those contractors!

I think it wasn’t free market ideals alone as much as a blend with a social engineering agenda (let’s get everybody into a home whether traditionally qualified or not) that the market responded to, then followed up with some pretty creative ways of passing on the inevitable risk. Mortgage backers would have been far more careful lending if they weren’t prodded into the everybody-in-a-house craziness but then regulators looked the other way at the bundling of strange packages that got passed on to “investors.”

I am retelling this from the insights of someone behind the scenes in banking who passed it on. Bush actually warned that the system was in big trouble that had been accumulating (and I wasn’t a Bush fan). In fact, it was Congress that flatly rejected his call for years to reform the mess. His repeated attempts for more supervision were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems. At any rate, the government as well as banks were up to their eyeballs in it, and it’s ludicrous to see any side or party try to ride around now like a knight on a white horse. Kinda like how the A.C.A. appealed to insurance companies and they are now bailing out as we begin to see the inevitable results of attempting to ignore the logical operation of insurance rates….that is, the avoidance by young people who are resisting their assigned role to pay what they don’t need (yet) themselves, in order to fund older sicker people who can’t cover what they didn’t prepare for. People don’t like to save for the future, wait for their goodies, or accept basic consequences ….who could imagine that?

A little p.s. Could maybe all the reckless building era be partly a way to “keep a lot of people busy” as the least vulnerable part of the economy to foreign competition that we were letting into everything like textiles, steel etc.? Think about it…surveyors, lawyers, designers, contractors, tradesmen, land sales people, all the distributors or carpets and wallpaper and lighting and appliances (even if products were imported), the ladies who “show” houses…the decorators, magazine photographers, landscapers…

I don’t think I’ll invite any of you to my Christmas party.

Jonathan…..You might want to go back and do some serious “research” on the causes of the “housing/economic crisis near the end of Bush’s final term. Ever heard of Democratic Congressman “Barney Frank”??? He was responsible for pushing “Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac” big time! Of the 19.2 million sub-prime loans out there, 62% of them belonged to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Barney Frank realized his error in 2007, but, by then, it was too late. A lot of blame to go around on that deal…Dems, GOP, Bill Clinton & Bush too.

Obama put a TON of taxpayers’ money out there in his famous “Stimulus Bill”…yeah, to create all of those “shovel ready jobs”…what a joke!

And, I have worked very closely with many developers…yes, I know how they think and operate. Most businesses are all about “the bottom line”. The Developers I designed for were more than “fair” with me and my LA fees…and I was always watchful of how the “contractors” were treated by my Developer Clients. If all developers went really “green” as so many believe they should…you wouldn’t see many projects going up, because profits would be minimal. For instance, installing “solar panels” takes at least 20 yrs. to break even…few developers operate like that. Maybe one day, when you get some “real experience”, you’ll understand?

I hope Trump’s staff is getting a TON of “shredders” ready, so they can feed Obama’s “regulations” to them…LOL. Then, our Nation can get back to work and we can put the 95 million Americans who are out of work…back to work. Had Hillary been elected, she wanted OPEN borders, that could easily have allowed well over 100 million additional illegal immigrants to stroll into the U.S…making out debt worse, stressing our resources (water, food, energy & jobs)…more crime & drugs too. Hillary wanted OPEN borders, so she could get millions more illegals into the U.S. to vote for her & Democrats.

I, for one, am very optimistic for our Nation & the LA profession…due to Trump’s win in this election. Hillary would have just added 8 more years of “Socialism” to our Country…and ZERO additional jobs.

Bob