Making government more
efficient is an admirable goal. But this administration is bent on destroying
it, putting our lives and businesses at risk.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
MAR 11, 2025
More than 50 years ago, the Canadian singer-songwriter Joni
Mitchell warned us in Big
Yellow Taxi about the risks of taking so much of
what Americans have for granted. She sang: “Don’t it always seem to go / That
you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Every day feels like we’re increasingly on the very cusp of
seeing so many safeguards disappear. All the guardrails, rules and
regulations, and other protections that we’ve relied upon for decades as
individuals and businesses are being illegally and abruptly ripped away and
discarded. The culprits are a bunch of kids led by a billionaire turned loose
by a president emboldened and enabled by sycophants, spineless politicians, and
a radically conservative Supreme Court.
Thousands of our peers, neighbors and veterans are being
thrown out of their jobs, turned out on the streets, and left without
healthcare after giving years of their lives in the service of our country.
The Road to Recession
Any business owner or manager who thinks that their
operations, employees and customers aren’t going to be adversely affected by
these ill-considered and heartless actions is both foolish and blissfully
unaware of what’s coming. Thousands of middle-aged professionals are now
unemployed and facing difficult future prospects.
Go ahead and dismiss them as bureaucrats if you want to
pile on, but their loss will have dire consequences for the economy and
immediate ripple impacts in real estate and retail as well. The Atlanta Fed’s
GDPNow model is predicting a
negative 2.4 percent growth in the first quarter. Not exactly
the direction that anyone hoped we’ve be moving.
We can also expect more performative theatrics and threats
to shut down the government from the MAGA clowns as the newest funding and
budget deadline fast approaches on March 14. The uncertainty and chaos that are
the hallmarks of this administration mean that business is far more likely to
be a complete bust this year than a bonanza for anyone but the wealthiest
Trumpists.
When Deregulation Becomes Damaging
As Elon Musk and his minions continue their rampage to
destroy as many of the federal regulatory agencies as possible in the shortest
possible time, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that the thousands of
honest, hard-working, middle class people who used to work in these entities
actually attempted, in good faith every day, to protect our health, to free us
from scams and financial frauds, to save our children from fatal diseases, and
to assure that the air we breathe and the water we drink every day isn’t toxic.
Did they sometimes overstep, or get us stuck in a
regulatory quagmire? Absolutely. But you can bet that we’re going to miss them
a bunch now that they’re gone. The completely unnecessary Texas measles
outbreak — a gift from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy
Jr. that has already killed two people – is just the tiniest tip of the
oncoming iceberg as the Trump Titanic and the Musk Massacre lurch on.
The defunding and destruction of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and the National Weather Service as hurricane season
approaches is criminal. Entire states are still flooded in the
South, another sad and sickening sign of the decay and devastation that
Trump has wrought. People will die, but hey, we’ll save a few bucks.
Here Come the Crypto Scammers
And, because nature abhors a vacuum, we can soon enough
expect, as the federal regulatory oversight diminishes, that we’ll see a newly
energized and enabled band of crooks, crypto scammers and lowlifes taking
center stage. They’ll be launching constant waves of illegal schemes and scams, unsafe
or useless products, and a multitude of other mendacious atrocities aimed at an
ill-informed, under-educated, and unprotected population. And, of course,
they’ll be following the examples of the president, who will no doubt get a
piece of the action.
Our companies and our commerce depend on trust, the rule of
law, consistency and the predictability that the very much maligned rules and
regulations which are being ignored or breached provide for us. And, as we’ve
already experienced with Trump’s timid tariff retreats last week, an
inconsistent policy execution is an anathema to the markets and to our allies
worldwide. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
of Canada, and everyone else abroad now understand that Trump is a feckless
bully, that he backs down wherever anyone stands up to him.
It’s too bad that the Democrats and the shabby remnants of
what used to be the Republican party haven’t got the same willingness or
ability to resist this boorish blowhard and pop his boastful bubble.
If the messaging about what’s to come isn’t clear enough,
Trump’s minions and Cabinet flunkies have already aborted some 100
investigations and enforcement actions against criminal corporations that were
underway at the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and
other agencies. In the name of deregulation, it’s now open season for corporate
crooks.
Consider the most recent executive order launching the
latest crypto fraud feast. In this instance, massive, leveraged purchases of
key cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple were exquisitely
timed and closed mere hours before Trump’s announcement about creating a U.S.
Strategic Crypto Reserve. World Liberty Financial, a project directly
linked to Trump’s family, bought more than $20 million in digital assets just
days before the announcement. This was another example of flagrant in-our-faces
insider trading.
If the crypto reserve scam wasn’t an obvious and blatant
bailout for Trump’s kids and their crypto cronies, the announcement also
specifically called out the names of struggling minor crypto offerings like ADA
and SOL which 99 percent of the world’s population have never heard of, nor
could Trump himself most likely name.
Trying to reward the crypto bros, tech funders and Wall
Streeters who helped put him in office by bolstering these bogus “currencies”
and threatening to use our federal Treasury funds to purchase vast quantities
of these risky, digital assets is only the latest amazingly overt Trump effort
to line his own pockets at our expense.
The biggest losers, though, are his deluded followers
who’ve been victimized by rug pulls and already lost millions of dollars
on his previous crypto schemes. Watching the parade of supplicants, schemers,
and scammers streaming to Mar-a-Lago to pay millions for meals with Trump couldn’t
be a more obvious demonstration of the pay-to-play world we now inhabit.
If We Do Nothing, Our Businesses Will Suffer
Unfortunately, so much of our typical human behavior is
driven by indifference, avoidance and denial that millions of otherwise
well-intentioned business owners are doing nothing. They are sitting on the
sidelines, at a loss as to what they can do to effectively change the course of
so many of these actions. The result is frustrating inaction and paralysis,
which only further enables the bad actors.
Until it happens directly to you or to those you know and
care about, all of this insanity and destruction of plans, positions, people
and potential seems remote. We’re unsure who, exactly, is being hurt or when
the harm is expected in part because we’re constantly flooded by lies and
misinformation from the MAGAs and right-wing media about the wonderful
financial results and savings being secured.
But know this: If at this late date you do nothing and say
that “it’s not my business,” you might not have much of a business left when
the dust finally settles.
