Comment: You mean that Paulson guy who blackmailed Congress for money to get out of the 2008 financial crises?
The 13-member group, whose average member has a net worth in the high double-digit million, features several longtime Trump business associates but only one academic economist, Peter Navarro of the University of California-Irvine. He specializes in trade with China, which Trump has made the centerpiece economic policy of his campaign.
The team's best-known names, in conservative policy circles, are Steve Moore, the founder of the Club for Growth advocacy group and a former economic columnist for the Wall Street Journal; David Malpass, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and is a former Bear Stearns economist; and Harold Hamm, a self-made oil billionaire who was a top energy adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. Inside the campaign, the team is led by policy director Stephen Miller, a former aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and deputy director Dan Kowolski.
Other advisers include Dan DiMicco, a former CEO of steelmaker Nucor; Steven Mnuchin, Trump's national finance director, who is chairman and CEO of the investing firm Dune Capital Management; Steve Roth, founder and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust; hedge fund billionaire John Paulson; Howard Lorber, CEO of the Vector Group in Florida; real estate investor Tom Barrack; bankers Stephen M. Calk and Andy Beal; and financier Steve Feinberg
The campaign's policy team will be led by national director of policy Stephen Miller and deputy director Dan Kowalski.
In a release announcing the group, Trump said it was ''comprised of some of the top economists in the country as well as the most successful industry leaders in finance, real estate and technology.
"I am pleased that we have such a formidable group of experienced and talented individuals that will work with me to implement real solutions for the economic issues facing our country," Trump said in a statement emailed Friday.
A full breakdown of his economic team per CNBC:
- Paulson is the founder of investment firm Paulson and Co., and made billions betting against subprime mortgages in 2007 leading up to the financial crisis.
- Roth is the billionaire head of Vornado Realty.
- Hamm is a billionaire oilman and CEO of Continental Resources.
- Lorber is the CEO of tobacco and real estate company Vector Group.
- Mnuchin is Trump's national finance chairman, and the chairman and CEO of hedge fund Dune Capital Management.
- Barrack served in the Reagan administration as deputy undersecretary of interior, and is founder and chairman of Colony Capital.
- Calk is the chairman and CEO of The Federal Savings Bank.
- Beal is the billionaire founder and chairman of Beal Bank and Beal Bank USA.
- Feinberg is the billionaire co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management.
- Malpass is a former Bear Stearns chief economist who has had high-ranking roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
- Navarro is an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine.
- Moore is a former member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board and a founder of the Club for Growth.
- DiMicco is former CEO of steel company Nucor.
To be sure, an economic policy focus would mark a welcome shift for the Trump campaign and would allow the billionaire developer to showcase his business acumen which he has repeatedly pitched to voters.
He will, however, have to do it without Carl Icahn.
According to Reuters, the billionaire investor, who as we documented earlier has never been more bearish and thus in alignment with Donald Trump who recently urged Americans to reduce their stock market expsure, turned down an invitation to join Trump's economic advisory council because Icahn is considering funding and managing his own Super PAC focused on regulatory reform, Icahn's general counsel told Reuters on Friday.
"Mr. Icahn declined the opportunity to join the Trump economic advisory council because at this time, we're still considering whether to fund and manage our own Super PAC focused on regulatory reform," Jesse Lynn, general counsel to Icahn, said by telephone. "FEC (Federal Election Commission) rules would limit that activity if Mr. Icahn were to become directly involved in the campaign by joining the council."
Last October, Icahn said he was forming a Super PAC with an initial commitment of $150 million, representing the biggest one-time injection of money in the history of such political action committees.
And while we doubt that Icahn has much to be concerned about when it comes to money, we wonder if his political ambitions aren't spreading him too thin. We doubt the Icahn of the 80's would allow himself to make such massive market bets as the one we documented earlier, at a time when investments based on fundamental analysis make zero sense, as there no longer is a market but a central bank-determined policy vehicle, whose only purpose is to restore confidence in a broken system kept afloat with $200 billion in central bank liqudity every month, and of course to reflate a few hundred trillion worth of debt.
"Comment: You mean that Paulson guy who blackmailed Congress for money to get out of the 2008 financial crises?"
Different Paulson. The guy who blackmailed Congress back in '08 was Henry Paulson [Link]
... (who) served as the 74th Secretary of the Treasury. He had served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs ...
Trump's team member is John Paulson [Link] ... an American hedge fund manager and billionaire who heads Paulson & Co., a New York-based investment management firm he founded in 1994.
Neither should be confused with the late comedian and perennial presidential candidate Pat Paulsen [Link] who said "All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian," and had the presidential campaign slogan: "I've upped my standards. Now, up yours."
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