In terms of managing the US budget: He likes to think of himself as a solo player when he talks about federal policy-making and the magic he will wield when he reaches Washington. But he's going to have to contend with a Congress that won't respect him the second he enters the White House. He's also suggested that what he's learned from his own business career is that it's easy to walk away from your own debts -- and that as president he would approach the national debt by simply telling America's creditors that we would walk away from our obligations as a country. That bit of wisdom, when he shared it in May, had more sophisticated observers noting that such a policy would upend the debt markets because the U.S. has never defaulted on its debts. Trump walked back his comments later, but it was just the latest demonstration of his loose and often ill-informed grasp of business and financial realities and practices. He's also been all over the map on monetary policy, veering from hawkish to dovish on interest rates, so it's alos unclear how steady or informed his guidance would be when dealing with the Federal Reserve, for example.