[onlycoffee]

So, the country is better off with 1) a weak president, 2) a weak dollar and 3) poor shareholder value?

[pjc50]

I think you could make strong arguments for all of those:

- fairly sure the Federalist society wrote a lot of words on why strong king-like presidents were bad; a strong individual post is a license for arbitrary whims of power

- weak currency improves exports; the Chinese strategy for decades was a weak RMB to the extent that the US complained about it endlessly

- "shareholder value" tends to be a horribly short termist metric that encourages hollowing out the business, reducing investment, and pinching the employees until they start leaving

[woodruffw]

The country is better off when we improve it directly, rather than optimizing for weak proxies like shareholder value.

It’s also best to discharge any gut feelings you might have about a “weak” versus “strong” dollar. They’re economic qualities, not moral ones.

[RC_ITR]

I know you’re being snarky, but a dictatorship with limited export opportunities and extreme inequality isn’t exactly the paradise you think it is.