I didn’t expect to be impressed, and I wasn’t. I’m really not one of his fans.
Quick bullet points:
- His nods to populism seemed to be insincere. I really don’t believe that we’ll see any effort to crack down on, for example, Chinese trade/currency manipulation.
- He couldn’t resist inserting yet another “there are people on both sides” who are nasty bit, as was his digression about milk spill regulations, and icky regulations.
- Raising taxes on millionaires, and banning congressional insider trading and lobbying by campaign bundlers are winners, but won’t pass this Congress.
- His statements on spending war savings on infrastructure is nothing new.
- His call for establishing a financial crimes unit is probably a good idea, assuming that it is not just rearranging deck chairs.
- I liked his shout out to Richard Cordray heading the CFPB. It was pretty much his only “in your face” to the ‘Phants.