Tuesday, January 10, 2017

DEUTSCHE BANK KISSES THE RING

Deutsche Bank lavishes praise on Trumponomics:
Trump's plans could double US GDP growth by 2018, Deutsche Bank says

President-elect Donald Trump's policies have the potential to trigger a new age in U.S. economic growth that could serve as a global template, according to a Deutsche Bank forecast.

Gross domestic product growth would be double its current level under an agenda that cuts regulations across a broad swath of critical sectors, enacts tax reform that slashes personal and corporate taxes, and calls for at least $1 trillion in improvements for bridges, roads and other public projects.

"This policy mix has the potential of reigniting productivity growth and raising U.S. growth potential," David Folkerts-Landau, chief economist at Deutsche Bank, said in a report for clients.
Trump-friendly Infowars had a measured response to this story:



At Newsmax, the headline is "Deutsche Bank Predicts Massive US Economic Growth Under Trump." Massive!

Now, Deutsche Bank couldn't possibly have a motivation to butter Trump up, could it?
... Trump may find himself in the position of choosing between US interests and his lenders' interests. There's no better example of this than the $364 million Trump owes the struggling Deutsche Bank, which is staggering under fierce pressure from US financial regulators who want the bank to pay for its misdeeds during the run-up to the 2008 mortgage crisis....

As it has hit trouble, Deutsche Bank's stock has fallen in the past year to levels so dangerously low that the German government was reported to be considering stepping in to prop up the bank. But on January 20, the newly inaugurated President Trump will have the ability to remove all that pressure on one of his most loyal creditors.

"I know of no case where a president has come in with hundreds of millions of dollars of indebtedness, to an entity that is under investigation for these types of alleged misconduct and in the midst of a negotiating a settlement that could put the president's principal lender out of business," says Norm Eisen, a former special counsel for ethics in the Obama administration. "The conflict is so blatant."
As ProPublica's Jesse Eisiger said on NPR last month,
Deutsche Bank ... had major problems in the financial crisis and also had bad lending practices and took advantage of borrowers and abused mortgage securities and now is in talks with the Department of Justice to settle those misdeeds.

And these settlement talks are ongoing, and there's been reports that it might be a settlement worth up to $14 billion that Deutsche Bank would have to pay, which is a huge amount. But if, for instance, the Trump administration wanted to go softer on Deutsche Bank because of those relationships, it might reduce that fine.

... Deutsche Bank could in theory offer better loan terms for the Trump Organization in exchange for a reduction of the fine.

On the other hand, Trump could threaten a greater fine in exchange for better loan terms or sweeter practices from the bank. It can go both ways. There's a carrot and stick here....
Trump's ego is now stroked. Let's see what happens to that fine now.

1 comment:

Jimbo said...

Needless to say, the Deutsche Bank "analysis" is simply ludicrous. Even at its red-hottest growth period, Chinese GDP didn't double over a few years time and the US economy is an advanced, mature economy. 3% per year would be a pretty big stretch under the most optimistic scenarios. Besides, simply doing away with regulations wholesale introduces huge instabilities to the economy with the very high likelihood of a big economic crash. I know, why am I taking seriously the Deutsche Bank "analysis"? This is Trump World where anything goes and no one has to be a responsible grownup.