Donald Trump unveiled a 13-person economic advisory team in advance of a speech planned for Monday in which he has promised to share specific proposals for creating jobs and growing the economy.
The all-male team, which will be led by two campaign advisers, is stocked with billionaires, Trump business acquaintances, and five guys named Steve.
Trump, who has made no secret on the campaign trail of his disdain for over-priced policy experts, opted for a team dominated by real estate developers and Wall Street bankers and investors whom he apparently does not consider part of the mafia of Wall Street "fat cats" he so frequently assails from the stage.
Here's what you should know:
1. Team Trump is stocked with billionaires.
Trump will be advised by an economic team that includes four billionaires on the 2016 Forbes Billionaires List: Hedge fund investor John Paulson has an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion; bank founder Andy Beal is worth $9.4 billion; oil-and-gas man Harold Hamm is worth $5.1 billion; and hedge fund investor Steve Feinberg brings up the rear with a mere $1.1 billion.
And two more of the team members have appeared on the Forbes Billionaire List in the past and may well be worth $1 billion or more: Vornado Realty Trust chairman Steven Roth, and real estate investor and Colony Capital founder Thomas Barrack. (Forbes, meantime, pegs Trump's net worth at $4.5 billion.)
2. His economic advisers have a lot in common, demographically speaking.
Trump's economic team consists of 13 white men ranging in age from 50 (Federal Savings Bank chairman and CEO Stephen Calk) to 74 (Vornado's Roth). The average age is 62 for the 12 members for whom ages were available.
3. Several made their fortunes in real estate.
Trump recruited many of his advisers from the industry he knows best. Both Roth and Barrack built their fortunes with savvy bets on real estate, for instance. Howard Lorber is chairman of Douglas Elliman, the largest residential real estate brokerage in New York City, with more than 4,000 brokers who sell and rent, among many New York properties, Trump-branded condominiums. (Lorber is also a hot-dog mogul as chair of Nathan's Famous.) Paulson made his name -- and several billion dollars -- on a wildly successful bet against subprime mortgages on the eve of the Great Recession. And Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker and film producer (involved with the movies American Sniper and Mad Max: Fury Road), also runs a hedge fund that steers a real estate "opportunity" fund for clients.
4. They don't have much experience in economics.
Only three members of the team have notable experience in economics: David Malpass is founder of an economics research firm based in New York, served in advisory roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and was a chief economist at Bear Stearns, which famously collapsed in the financial crisis; Stephen Moore is an economist and policy writer who was also president of the conservative Club for Growth; and Peter Navarro has a Ph.D in economics from Harvard and is a professor of economics and public policy at the Paul Merage School of Business at UC-Irvine.
The economist Justin Wolfers of the University of Michigan pointed out on Twitter that only two of the 13 advisors have studied economics beyond an undergraduate level.
The team of advisers will be led by Trump policy director Stephen Miller (another Steve!) and deputy policy director Dan Kowalski, both former Congressional Republican staffers.
"I am pleased that we have such a formidable group of experienced and talented individuals that will work with me to implement real solutions for the economic issues facing our country," Trump said in a statement accompanying the announcement.[/B]
