Trump Renews Confidence by Ignoring Russia Firestorm at CEO Town Hall
On Tuesday, President Trump held a town hall with CEOs and business leaders to discuss infrastructure and reducing regulations in order to help alleviate the restrictions that have plagued businesses.
“I mean if we say, we’re giving to New York City hundreds of millions of dollars to build a road someplace, it doesn’t help if they can’t start because it’s going to take seven and a half years to get the permits,” Trump said.
Amongst those in attendance was NYSE President Thomas Farley who called the meeting very “productive,” and that the “president was on message, wanting to signal his business friendly stance” during an interview on the Fox Business Network.
The Russia-Trump controversy has engulfed the White House over the past few weeks, taking away from Trump’s agenda, and his promise to fix the economy.
But Farley, who had similar fears about whether the president can stay on message of reducing regulations and cutting taxes, as opposed to Russia and wiretapping, had his concerns subdued “quite a bit” following the president’s performance at the town hall event.
“He focused on reducing regulation, his quest to reduce regulation and to have smarter taxes. There wasn’t a lot of specifics around timing. He did give a few examples, and he talked about now and some of the permitting processes for complicated federal projects that can take 10 years, and he wants to see regulation reduced smartly,” Farley said. “And, he was very clear to say he still wants to protect investors, consumers, the everyday public, but see 10-year projects reduced down to a one year permitting process.”
He went on to add, “In this day and age, where it’s a very competitive global market place, we need to see smarter, sensible taxes, and we need to see smarter, sensible regulation that still protects, in my case, investors, you know investors who use the New York Stock Exchange, and in general the investing public, and the general public. But we can do that without the labyrinth of regulations we put on our businesses, many of whom were here today in the White House.”
Farley also noted that the president and his agenda is “unquestionably” a big reason for the recent success at the NYSE.
“I think that manifests business confidence has improved, consumer confidence has improved since the election. The Dow Jones was all the way down near 17,000 on the night of the election, if you remember the futures really diving, and now it’s up what? 15 percent.”
Another concern that has American workers anxious is the rise of technology, and whether their jobs are at risk to robots, or aritfical intelligence.
When asked whether the NYSE exchange expects to see the number of people on the stock exchange floor shrink as it technology continues to improve, Farley told Neil Cavuto, host of Cavuto Coast to Coast, that “humans are what make us unique.”
“So, it’s really that blend of the good old fashioned humans and the technology which makes us what we are, and enables us to get all those leading IPOs that you referred to.”