Like an old cuckoo emerging at the hour, each time the Dow passes another thousand-point milestone, https://www.vanityfair.com/people/donald-trump#intcid=dt-hot-link seems to waltz onto Twitter and brag that he is personally responsible for the soaring stock market—that he is making America great again, that he is single-handedly enriching the American economy, and so forth. But what if that’s all specious nonsense? Sure, the Dow has eclipsed the 24,000 mark, but maybe the situation is far more complicated—and dire—than Trump could possibly fathom.
My colleague William D. Cohan, who spent more than a decade on Wall Street before joining Vanity Fair, told me on this week’s episode of Inside the Hive that the Dow’s run could soon be coming to an end. Cohan predicts that the culmination of Republicans’ tax plan could signal the beginning of a recession similar to 2008, which could slow the economy, facilitate a drop in housing prices, and crater Wall Street. So that, of course, leaves two questions: first, when is this fall going to happen? (Cohan believes imminently.) And perhaps more important, given the fact that Trump brags about his influence on the rise of Wall Street, who on Earth is he going to blame for the fall?
