Spicer was determinedly dour and looked miserable. He was puffy, pinched and pale. And little wonder: Trump has sucked the lifeblood out of him.
.. Washington is abuzz with speculation about when Spicer will be shown the door, but it doesn’t really matter. His credibility, and his dignity, have already been defenestrated.
.. Trump has a long history of walking out of disasters unscathed. It’s those around him — the Spicers of the world — who are destroyed.
- Trump entities filed for bankruptcy protection six times. Investors, lenders and workers took hits — and Trump moved on.
- Trump was caught on tape boasting to Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women — and Billy Bush lost his job.
- Corey Lewandowski and
- Paul Manafort poured themselves into Trump’s campaign and were unceremoniously dumped.
- Michael Flynn is out and potentially in legal trouble.
- The FBI’s Comey arguably handed Trump the election — and learned of his dismissal from TV.
- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tarnished his sterling reputation in just two weeks.
- Vice President Pence has been “unflagging in his loyalty,” only to be made “the public face of official narratives that turn out to be misleading or false.”
- Trump humiliated Steve Bannon by publicly downplaying their association.
- Trump repaid House Speaker Paul Ryan’s loyalty by winking at calls for Ryan’s ouster.
- Attempts to defend Trump by aides Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have left them sounding clownish.
.. avoided answering questions by saying no fewer than 22 times how very “clear” he or Trump had been about this or that.
.. And, as many a Trump loyalist has discovered, you are useful to Trump until you are not — and then you are cast aside.
What effect the Trump administration will have on the housing market
At a meeting of the National Association of Home Builders in August, Trump said that “there’s no industry, other than probably the energy industry, that is more overregulated than the housing industry.” However, changing those regulations may be beyond his scope.
.. “He could try to use his power to ease it, but a lot of the problems are at the state and local levels,” Goodman said.
.. Goodman said the two biggest issues the housing market faces are supply constraints and credit availability.
.. But Trump’s stance on immigration could have a detrimental effect on housing supply.
“Immigration plays a big part in the labor force for construction,” Smoke said. “It’s one of the constraints we have in new construction.”
.. Something to watch under Trump could be what happens to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Reform efforts have stalled the past several years. But hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, who is part of the president-elect’s economic policy team, could push for action. Paulson bought shares of Fannie and Freddie in the hope of cashing in when they regained their independence. Since being placed under government control, the mortgage-backers have sent nearly all their profits to the U.S. Treasury, not investors.
“Paulson cares passionately about this, given his positions,” Goodman said.
Walmart Chief Defends Investments in Labor, Stores and the Web
In the last year, Walmart has stopped selling Confederate-flag merchandise as well as assault rifles, has publicly supported gay rights and, after years of criticism, has raised its minimum starting wage to $9 an hour.
Now, progressives may be cheering, but Wall Street is not. Investors fear that Walmart’s heavy investments in labor, in the Internet and in discounts will weigh on the retailer’s short-term earnings — and many are running the other way.
“Walmart expects a return from these wagers,” Michael Lasser, a retail analyst at UBS, wrote in a note. Still, “it’s unclear if its investment of $1.5 billion in labor and ‘several billion dollars’ in pricing will push it ahead of others, or just keep pace.”
.. Walmart.com is set to offer 10 million products by the end of the year. That is impressive, until you consider that a shopper will find an estimated 300 million items for sale on Amazon.com.
.. Last year, Amazon sold almost $90 billion worth of products online, compared with just $12.2 billion Walmart sold through its website. E-commerce still makes up only about 2.5 percent of Walmart’s annual sales, and its growth online is slowing.