Category Archives: Politics

Trump’s immigration ban is terrible for entrepreneurs–Samia Bahsoun

Samia Bahsoun, EMBA ’17

From TechCrunch

Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting Muslims, immigrants and refugees are moves that pander to the dangerous forces of racism and xenophobia.

These bans will worsen a worldwide humanitarian crisis, isolate us from our friends and allies, and make us even more vulnerable to terror attacks. Moreover, if these foolish actions are enforced, it will result in dire consequences for the economic well-being of our country. Immigrants of all races, creeds and national origins form a vital part of America’s economy as workers, job creators, and entrepreneurs.

I’m an immigrant of Lebanese Muslim descent. I’m also a telecom infrastructure expert, entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of Capwave Technologies, based out of Asbury Park, New Jersey. Before launching Capwave, I helped restructure and launch several telecom startups and served as a strategic adviser to Fortune 500 companies. I hold a graduate degree in electrical engineering, and am currently enrolled in MIT’s Executive MBA program.

As an immigrant and successful small business owner, I’m living the American dream.

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Trump’s tax promise looks like just another of his tweets–Robert Pozen

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen

From MarketWatch

Although Donald Trump claims that his forthcoming tax plan will be “phenomenal,” he is in truth not likely to propose something really new.

Before the election, Trump put forth a broad tax plan and then a narrower plan.  But even the narrower plan created a budget deficit of roughly $3 trillion to $4 trillion over 10 years, according to the dynamic scoring of the independent researcher Tax Foundation.  That steep increase in the national debt would present major challenges, given rising interest rates and much larger budget pressures from entitlement programs.

Soon after the election, President Trump lambasted the border adjustment tax ( BAT ) plan of the House Republicans. Then he began to be more favorable to the BAT because he believed — wrongly — that it would impose a large tariff on Mexican imports to pay for the wall.  In fact, the BAT would effectively impose a tax on all imports, which would probably be absorbed by importing companies and their customers.

So there are three main questions about what type of tax plan Trump could propose. 

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How should companies operate in the age of Trump? – Daena Giardella

Daena Giardella, MIT Sloan Sr. Lecturer

From The Hill

“Sensemaking,” one of the four leadership capabilities, is the ability to make sense of what is happening in the greater marketplace and discern emerging changes and patterns. In the era of President Trump, business leaders and CEOs need to shift their sensemaking skills into high gear. Along with that, they may have to exercise Improvisational Leadership skills in the Trump universe.

CEOs, like the rest of the country, are faced with the challenge of making sense of Trump’s policies and actions, but his favorite method of communication – Twitter – sows chaos not clarity. Typically, when CEOs or leaders want to convey an important message, they talk to key stakeholders, convene a meeting, or give a nuanced speech to build relationships and foster buy-in with targeted audiences. A tweet has no eye contact, nod, smile, or handshake. A tweet’s brevity can foster confusion because it has no context.

Tweets by the president singling out specific companies with thumbs up or down can rattle markets, precipitate boycotts, unnerve CEOs and boards, and affect stock prices – if however briefly.But even if they dislike Trump’s tweets, many business leaders are encouraged by the president’s attitude about rolling back regulations; his comments about reducing taxes are music to their ears. However, a reflexive decision to placate or ingratiate oneself to any powerful figure, even the President, may prove to be a big mistake. Trump may be gone in four years, or even sooner, but your customer and client base will be with you for decades.

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How to increase retirement savings of 60 million employees – Robert Pozen

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen

From Pensions & Investments

Senate Republicans are voting to repeal the Labor Department’s recent rules that would have expressly allowed states and cities to sponsor a type of individual retirement account, called an automatic IRA. These votes will rescind those rules, because they already have been rejected by House Republicans and the administration supports rescinding them.

While Republicans objected to a patchwork of state-sponsored retirement plans, Congress should promptly pass a federal automatic IRA invested by the private sector. This vehicle, developed by conservatives, is the most feasible way of substantially increasing retirement savings in the U.S.

About a third of all Americans have no retirement savings, and most don’t have enough to retire comfortably. The main reason: More than 60 million American employees have no retirement plan offered to them by an employer.

Such employees are eligible to set up an IRA at a qualified financial institution and receive a tax deduction. But very few get around to filling out an application and making regular contributions.

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Take Back the House – Simon Johnson

MIT Sloan Professor Simon Johnson

MIT Sloan Professor Simon Johnson

From Moyers & company

The House is designed to reflect public opinion, and this can shift quickly — as we have seen throughout the past two centuries, and under Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama.

Future historians will trace the unwinding of Trump’s presidency back to a speech at Gettysburg on Oct. 22, in which the candidate made some very specific commitments (watch from the 16-minute mark in this video). Specifically, President-elect Trump faces three serious problems rooted in the way political realities — Republican control of Congress — will force him to govern.

First, Trump will not deliver on what he has promised because he can’t.

His first Gettysburg promise was to “propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress” — and there were great cheers in the crowd when he said this. Last Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said term limits will not happen (“We have term limits now; they’re called elections”). There is no way the president can force the Senate Majority Leader (or the Speaker of the House) to bring legislation to the floor. Check the Constitution on that.

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