The Trump era dawns today, amidst a storm of both honest disagreement and an overwhelming degree of infantile protest.  What will Trump mean for the retirement account of the self-directed investor?  I’m Bryan Ellis.  I’ll break it down for you right now in Special Episode #240 of Self Directed Investor Talk ----- Happy Inauguration Day, self-directed investor nation!  Welcome to the podcast of record for savvy self-directed investors like YOU, where if you give us just 7 minutes a day… we give you back MASTERY as a self-directed investor! Ahhh yes… pomp and circumstance.  I really enjoy it, honestly.  I’ve watched all of the inaugurations, and the day’s events leading up to them during my adult lifetime, and it’s really so fascinating to me.  You can frequently tell a WHOLE LOT about how the President will behave in office solely on the basis of how they behave during inauguration.  In fact, that was more true of Obama than for anyone else, but that’s old news, because there’s a new sheriff in town. His name is Donald Trump, and he’s a billionaire real estate developer… and he’s already changed the political landscape of America in a way that nobody every predicted… I mean, NOBODY AT ALL… except, for Donald Trump. That’s kind of an interesting thing, isn’t it?  I’ll bet it’s safe to say that when Trump announced his candidacy on June 14 of 2016, I think there was probably one and only one person in the entire country… the entire WORLD… who believed he’d be the next president, and that was Trump. He was right.  The entire rest of the world – including me, by the way – was wrong. But what will this mean for you and me as Self-Directed Investors?  I’ll tell you, right now, my friends. But first, two things: Number One:  More than any other day, I’d REALLY love to get your feedback about what I have to say.  Just go to today’s show notes page at SDITalk.com/240 to leave your comments. Number Two:  Remember – always and forever – if you need some funding for your business or real estate deal, and ZERO PERCENT sounds like the kind of interest rate you’d like to pay to borrow that capital, then stop by SDITalk.com/credit.  We have a great FREE WEBINAR there that will tell you exactly how that can be done.  And it’s the best kind of credit, too… totally unsecured, and not connected to your personal credit report.  Doesn’t get better than that, so visit SDITalk.com/credit. What will Trump mean for Self-Directed Investors? All in all, I think that Trump could prove to be OVERWHELMINGLY GOOD for those of us who take care of our own investment decisions.  I mean, stratospherically excellent.  And understand… while I did vote for Trump in the general election, I did not vote for him in the primary, so it can’t be said that I’m a Trump fanboy. So here’s what I’m expecting: The most immediate impact on you as a user of retirement accounts – self-directed or otherwise – is that TRADITIONAL accounts will become a bit less valuable and ROTH accounts will become a bit more valuable.  That’s under the assumption that Trump succeeds in reducing personal income tax rates, which is a great thing, but also means that the tax deduction you’d receive for contributions to a Traditional IRA or 401k would inherently result in less real dollar savings for you.  So that’s the first real, tangible effect. Second, if Trump succeeds – in part or in whole – in two of his stated objectives, the economy will simply explode to the upside and the stock market would have some serious upside pressure.  Those two objectives are: Number 1:  Reduction of CORPORATE income tax rates to 15%.  Now just understand… that is HUGE.  Or maybe it’s YUGE.  Currently, that rate is 35%... so Trump is proposing to slash corporate rates by well over half.  What does that mean?  The Tax Policy Center estimates that $473.3 BILLION dollars was collected in 2016 in corporate taxes.  A very crude calculation would suggest that this change alone would leave over $200 BILLION dollars in t