I'm Voting to Take the Bad With the Good. Here's Why

“See that man driving that Cadillac, Tony? That’s Mr. Knodel; he’s the richest man in town. If you work hard, you can be rich just like him someday,” said my father.

I was only 10 or 11 at the time, but as the son of a struggling dirt farmer, I understood that I should have great respect for successful businessmen.

I’ve always been very Libertarian when it comes to social issues, such as legalizing same-sex marriage and marijuana. However, when it comes to fiscal issues, I am extremely conservative and very pro-business.

As an investor who wants the businesses you invest in to succeed, you’d be wise to pay close attention to the Democratic side of the 2020 presidential ticket. That's because there is a decent chance we could elect our first democratic socialist president on Nov. 3.

Related post: Bernie Sanders will be our next president, and he will take 70% of your income!

I was raised in Washington, one of the most liberal states in the U.S., and despite massive Jeff Bezos/Amazon financing, Seattle voters just packed its city council with liberal/progressive candidates.

Bezos and Amazon contributed a record $1.5 million to a super PAC run by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce to back a slate of pro-business candidates.

The reason behind Amazon’s political push is simple. In 2018, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a “head tax” of $275 per employee on local businesses making more than $20 million a year.

Amazon has 45,000 employees in Seattle, so that head tax would have cost the company more than $12 million a year.

Naturally, Amazon was none too happy. In response, it announced it would halt a planned expansion that would have created 7,000 new jobs.

No wonder Amazon supported a slate of pro-business candidates.

Now, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are accusing Amazon of trying to buy the council. “The election results are a repudiation of the billionaire class, corporate real estate and the establishment,” said Warren.

Sanders made his position clear on Twitter ...

Remember, this is the same Jeff Bezos who owns the liberal Washington Post and can’t stand Donald Trump!

Pro-business policies seem to be lacking on the liberal ticket so far. You can’t blame Bezos for looking out for his own business.

Now, to be fair, I want to tell you that I voted for Trump in 2016 and will vote for him again in 2020. To be truthful, I really don’t care for him as a person, but I am delighted with:

• Unemployment at a 49-year low

• 3%-plus GDP growth

• The largest tax cuts in U.S. history

• 100 new all-time highs for the stock market, and

• Median household income at all-time high.

My father had similar feelings about Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

FDR pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression, created the Social Security system and led the country to victory through World War II. No wonder most scholars count FDR among the likes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as our greatest presidents.

But you know what else FDR did?

He put my father, my nine uncles/aunts, and my grandparents (all U.S. citizens, by the way) in a prison camp for four years during WWII just because they were of Japanese descent.

That’s one of the greatest presidents of all time?

In a lot of ways, absolutely! But he was also guilty of one of the most grotesque, painful acts of racism the U.S. has ever seen.

Trump has some serious, serious flaws of his own. But I think his overall body of work, like FDR, is filled with great accomplishments.

And those of us looking through this political field with an eye toward pro-business policies see a lot of potential here.

Best wishes,

Tony Sagami

P.S. If we end up with a new president next year who gets their Medicare for All wish, it's going to put a lot of hospital stocks on life support. Like these four >>