The election of Donald Trump has generated lots of startling statistics. Here is another: Ray Dalio, head of the Bridgewater hedge fund, crunched the biographies of the incoming administration and found that the top eight officials have a total of just 55 years of government experience, much of which was in the military.
That is paltry compared to the past eight presidents. Barack Obama’s top team (president, vice-president, chief of staff, attorney-general, and secretaries of state, commerce, defence and treasury) had 117 years of collective experience; for the presidencies of George W Bush, Bill Clinton and George HW Bush, it was 80, 101 and 79 respectively.
Mr Trump’s top team has, however, spent a collective 83 years’ in business. Mr Obama’s administration had just five — yes, five — years.