Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke say Trump won because of 2008.

Trump won because he had a consistent message and Hillary is hatable.

There was arguably a populist movement

Absolutely, although I'm not sure whether you're being condescending or you actually want to know their economic predispositions

Trump won b/c Hillary ran the worst, most over confident campaign of my lifetime

Could Trump beat Bloomberg?

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Could Trump beat Bloomberg?

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yes

He's now a successful incumbent

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Do you believe the 2008 financial crisis had anything to do with Trump winning?

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Absolutely

Unrelated to the OP except for the 2008 financial crisis element.

Has anyone on this board read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand?

If so, have you noticed the parallels between the Madoff investment scandal and the scene from the novel involving the San Sebastián Mines scandal perpetrated by protagonist Francisco D’Anconia?

If anyone is familiar with that scene from the novel, I strongly suggest reading it again with the Madoff scandal in mind.

When you consider that Madoff was in New York “to witness the farce,” as was D’Anconia when their respective stories broke, take note of Ayn Rand’s close ties to Alan Greenspan, and Greenspan’s close ties to Madoff, and the fact that in both instances one brilliant, extremely wealthy individual destroyed billions of wealth from people whose only claim to ROI for the projects was that they trusted the two men (real and fictional) based on their prior record of savvy investing.

The parallels are absolutely staggering.

Maybe Madoff knew what was coming and who was responsible for the unsustainable model his close associate and close friend of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan was pressured to implement to buy time for politicians.

I’m not saying Madoff is a protagonist in the non-fiction version, but D’Anconia most certainly was a primary protagonist in the novel.

Is it that outlandish to think that a man nearing death might desire to punish those who corrupted America and America’s financial system, and did what he did knowing that he’d die in prison because it was the right thing to do?

His motive couldn’t have been simple greed as the media would have you believe. He was an elderly man with more money than God. He had to know he’d eventually be caught and all of his investors would suffer the losses.

Just food for thought. I reread the novel recently and could not deny the similarities between the Madoff scandal and the fictional San Sebastián mining scandal written by Greenspan and Madoff’s mutual friend Ayn Rand. Greenspan even helped write the novel if memory serves me.

I know it sounds crazy. But I’d ask those who haven’t read the book to withhold judgment until such time as you have read it, and compared that particular scene to the Madoff situation.

The coincidences seem to be too many and in too many ways to be pure coincidence.

Full disclosure, I’m not 100% convinced that Madoff’s actions were inspired by the mining scandal in Atlas Shrugged. However I can’t with a straight face say that I am convinced that they were not.

Read up on both if you care to, and if you already have, please share your own thoughts regarding the theory.

There’s a lot in that book that 65 years later seems to be more prophecy than pure fiction.

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Do you believe the 2008 financial crisis had anything to do with Trump winning?

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I think it was more about the Great Malaise Speech of 1979. Either that, or the rejection of bimetallism in 1896 . . . or maybe something Grover Cleveland did in his second term.

I think that if the Democrats had been smart in 2008, they could have completely avoided President Trump and at least locked up the White House for a considerable time. They should have told Obama to cool his jets in 2008 and let Hillary have the nomination. She very likely beats McCain and unless she completely effs up, she could have won again in 2012. If she had, bring Obama into the mix then. Either way, Obama is eligible to run in 2016 and Trump likely doesn't enter the race. Even if Trump still does and goes on to win the GOP nomination, Obama would have gotten considerably more support than Hillary did.