Billionaire hedge-fund manager Seth Klarman is known as much for his virtually unblemished 34-year money-making track record as he is for keeping an extremely low profile. So it was all the more remarkable when, back in February, he chose to devote his Baupost Group letter to investors to the topic of the mad man in the White House. “Despite my preference to stay out of the media,“ Klarman wrote in a letter that made its way to The New York Times, “I’ve taken the view that each of us can be bystanders, or we can be upstanders. I choose upstander.” He proceeded to opine that investors who had gotten swept up in the Trump tide’s promise of “stimulative tax cuts” were “ignoring the risks from America-first protectionism and the erection of new trade barriers.” Even if Trump did end up delivering on lower tax rates, Klarman warned that relying on voodoo economics to fix the national debt would “drive government deficits considerably higher.” And then there were the “erratic tendencies and overconfidence in his own wisdom and judgment,” “inconsistent with strong leadership and sound decision-making.” The big takeaway for investors, Klarman wrote, was that “Trump is high volatility, and investors generally abhor volatility and shun uncertainty.”

Eight months later, after having been able to reflect a bit more on the situation, does Klarman feel any better about the fact that Donald Trump is president? In a word, no. In two words, hell no. New York Magazine reports that at the Robin Hood foundation’s investment conference last week, an annual event in which investors pay around $7,500 to take in words of wisdom from the most respected minds in the industry, Klarman sounded pants-pissingly worried about 45. “The president is a threat to democracy,” Klarman said, according to an audio recording obtained by New York. “He has attacked journalists . . . He’s attacking judges. He’s violating all sorts of democratic norms, from the emoluments clause to questioning the election and threatening to lock up his opponent. People don’t focus on this, but Nazi Germany had a constitution before Hitler came to power and at the end of the war they had the exact same constitution. It lasted all the way through, but democracy didn’t.”

Meanwhile, billionaire real-estate investor Barry Sternlicht, a friend and golfing partner of Big Orange, said that while in the past he’s been able to laugh at what a buffoon Trump is, it’s less funny to see that buffoon in the White House. “I expected him to go to the middle, because I thought he wanted to be great,” Sternlicht said of Trump in off-the-record remarks obtained by New York. “I played [golf] with Donald Trump and his golf game is like his presidency. He’s amusing as my friend, but he’s not very amusing as president of the United States. And I’m a Republican.”

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Securities and Exchange Commission says it’s probably going to prosecute fewer instances of fraud

If you were worried that Donald Trump was serious about a single thing he said on the campaign trail, including his pledge to stop Wall Street from “getting away with murder,” put your fears to rest. On Thursday, Steven Peikin, co-director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division, said that not only will the commission not be taking a harder line against the financial industry, but it will be letting more transgressions slide. Of course, the regulator can’t just come right out and say, Go hog wild. Instead, Peikin suggested that while, to the naked eye, prosecuting fewer cases might seem soft on Wall Street, it’s actually going to scare the whole industry straight. “It may be the case that we have to be selective and bring a few cases to send a broader message rather than sweep the entire field,” Peikin said at a securities conference.