Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Donald Trump asking if his administration plans to raise the Social Security retirement age. That's the whole story. A senator wrote a letter.
The Senate has committees. Those committees have hearings. Those hearings have witnesses who testify under oath. Warren skipped all of that and went straight to certified mail. She wants to know Trump's plans for Social Security reform before those plans exist, which is like asking your dog what he's thinking about dinner next Thursday.
Trump doesn't have a plan. He never has a plan. He has vibes and a teleprompter that someone else wrote. The retirement age could go to seventy or it could go to thirty-five or they could replace the whole system with scratch-off lottery tickets distributed at Cracker Barrel. Nobody knows because nobody's decided yet. Warren is asking for the recipe while the kitchen is still on fire.
Here's what matters for your trades: nothing. Social Security reform takes an act of Congress. Congress can barely pass a bill to name a post office after a dead guy. The last major Social Security reform was 1983, which means most of the people trading on this headline weren't alive when it happened. But sure, go ahead and buy puts on healthcare stocks because a Democrat wrote a strongly worded letter. That's definitely how policy gets made.
Retail traders are now scanning Warren's letter for keywords like "benefit cuts" and "means testing" so they can build a six-part investment thesis on Google Docs. They'll backtest it against nothing, forward-test it in a paper account for three days, then go all-in with their rent money. When it doesn't work they'll blame market manipulation instead of the fact that they traded a f*cking letter.
The retirement age isn't changing this week. It probably isn't changing this year. Warren knows that. Trump knows that. You're the only one who doesn't.
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