I have no confidence in Trump to lead the US towards any more supremacy than what it has now. The man is a con, a cheater, a liar, a scripted actor, a phony, and a crooked businessman bankrupted 5 times and bailed out by nefarious characters. He is pompous, not trustworthy, and egotistical. But, he is also a funny, charming, genius and charismatic speaker who can sway people's minds into believing whatever he says. No doubt, Trump has the magic touch. There are millions of Trumptards to prove it.
But Trump is no Ross Perot. Perot lost a self-funded election. Perot showed the American people with on-screen graphs the tragedy of allowing its industries to relocate to China under a free-trade setup. Perot was a self-made billionaire who could have kept the US great with sound policies but Americans shot themselves in the head by voting for a clown and idiot. I knew where the US was heading back then to where things now stand. Voter stupidity combined with an equally matched leadership destroyed manufacturing in the US.
Ross Perot had the smarts to keep the US on a good footing, unlike Trump who lacks the right stuff. Now the only way the US stays ahead is by bullying and having the best crappy currency among crappy currencies and that won't change anytime soon.
The story I heard at the time is that GHW Bush's people (spooks) had a chat with Perot about how tragic it would be if there were a terrorist attack at his daughter's wedding. Perot dropped out, got to dance at his daughter's wedding. After having established himself as a flake, Perot could fulfil his contract with his donors and resume his candidacy.
Assassination squads to win the hearts and minds of the unwilling. This shit goes on all the time. Tow the line or the line will tow you. I wonder how many congressmen have been blackmailed into compliance.
It's likely one of the treasonous crime families such as the Bush, Clinton or any of the others of the demonic parasite caste that may well have threaten him or his family subtly or not, it's the nature of such creatures. The rule of righteous law means nothing to those that operate from the reptilian mind, like rattle snakes, they will always be a threat until decapitated.
Such throw backs of evolution will remain a tool of evil until they are unbred out of existence, if ever.
Ross Perot was a NWO stooge who "entered"(was strategically placed in) the 1992 race precisely to ensure that Bill Clinton was elected. The three men were close friends. The whole election, and every one since, was rigged and scripted.
It occurs to me that Trump and many other analysts are all wrong. It is Apple that offshored their manufacturing and it is Apple, NOT CHINA, that pays the tariff. Then they pass as much of the tariff to the customer. It is a tax on Apple and their customers (US), not CHINA.
Nice objective and balanced piece (I have been critical of you on these points lately so I want to explicitly 'call you out' when you do something great as well). You wrote : 'Jumping to conclusions has become second nature in our modern information field, with instant gratification culture requiring immediate results at all times" -- so true. And you staying balanced and objective today was the antidote to such an instant gratification culture. Well done.
Convinced US wants Russia to win, at least Trumps side.
2nd edit; Tossed off comment. Not talking Elite win. Talking people. US has not "won" a war ever. Nor has Israel. They may have made a lot of money, but ever more enemies.
The corruption is the biggest cost of business. They need a big war to kill off all the "free" loaders. Thus the on going double down on, "we are gonna kick your ass".
3rd edit; Winning, Romans won tons of battles, but ultimately, lost the war. Long view, you win a peace, war creates too many vendettas.
Sure you got a dirty tricks plan to kill all your enemies, what's left, a bunch of inbred psychopathic lunatics buried deep underground for how long till it's safe to come up?
Here's where some smart ass science guy fires in with a little safe and effective slogan. Make bombs not families.
Three times since 2014 Russia had agreements on paper that the Ukrainians would die to have now. As Putin promised! He seems ready to fight for peace. You know, when we all win!
Just a suggestion. Watching old Rambo movies is not gonna inspire a settlement we ALL can live with!
Just how indoctrinated are you? Yanklands entire global communist Uniparty government wants only the kike owners of Yankland to win.
Do try and remember who founded Israel, who 100% supports, endorses and funds Israel.
Who started the shitshow in Ukraine and why. Who has insidiously staged colour revolutions, funded civil wars, terrorist groups, fomented wars between countries, deposed legitimate governments and monarchies across the globe for well over 200 years.
Strange how Americans are so gung-ho about free speech, except when free speech is against : Israel, Zionism, AIPAC, the holy number of six million etc...
It's called free speech, that's why people are here instead of X, Youtube or any of the other censored forums, if you have a problem, ignore it or refute it, the later is a better option than just whining.
I agree that the use of racial slurs is not seemly. We can talk about the global goals of the Zionists without a resort to slurs. There is simply no way to make sense of world affairs, especially the development of digital currency, the obvious genocide of Palestinians, and the war in Ukraine, without reference to the machinations of this group of international tribalists.
I don't agree with the use of "Kike", but this is a question that is staring us in the face which the ADL uses incessantly to pursue their interests by owning Congress. Massie wasn't kidding when he said every member of Congress has an AIPAC minder.
Norman Finkelstein affirms that the American Oligarchy is overrepresented by Jews. The persecution of anyone with a pro-Palestinian perspective isn't being orchestrated by the "Boston Brahmins".
Many of these Jewish Oligarchs may have once been represented by Meyer Lansky, the founder of Murder Incorporated, powerful enough that Harry Truman gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom award in a secret White House ceremony.
A couple of years ago i heard someone boasting on the radio (BBC R3) that just before Putin's rise to power, just 20 people controlled 40% of the Russian economy.
Yes, but that's now down to just a few and even they are being more tightly controlled. You have to remember that when the USSR dissolved, the Russian economy was restructured to a capitalist economy with no history so they didn't know how to control it and then the US sabotaged the process by not providing the economic supports to have it function properly.
Jeffrey Sachs was the one in charge of that and tells how the process was sabotaged by the US
When Putin came to power, he straightened their economy out as well as cleaning up much of the corruption and getting rid of the oligarch class, the sanctioning and theft of the oligarchs yachts and properties by the West fixed much of the rest of that.
The greater game: The Tr-bal-sts want two things simultaneously, and they think they can get them. 1) They want the Temple Mount and the West Bank. 2) They want to control the entire world. To them, everyone, Russians, Americans, Europeans, etc, are all just g-y-m, cattle. The great #2 goal is a global, interoperable digital currency that they control. They started the war in Ukraine, and they did so to punish Russia for Russia's interference in Syria with Goal #1. When they saw that Russia was going to win in Ukraine, they changed their strategy, realizing that with a Z-on-ist stooge in the White House, they could accomplish both goals more easily. A Russian victory in Ukraine will make BRICS an economic superpower, but what currency will BRICS use? Hello, duh, an international (interoperable) digital currency! The US will have no choice, with its current trade policy, but to come on board. The planned destruction of the economic power of Europe is a sub-goal of these two plans. Daniel 11:45 tells us that Goal #1 will almost, but not quite be realized, and that the attempt to gain control of the Temple Mount will bring about WW3. Nice try, but no banana. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
You rape the world as the greatest terrorist state to ever exist, but you act like the USA was hard done by the rest of the world? You are a gaslighting narcissist
What's this "we" stuff? Who are you, one of the clowns whispering into the ear of that dingbat Trump? I'm guesiing you ain't no well-fed financier, or an arms merchant, or a Wall Street tycoon, or hedge-fund manager. You no more are included in the "we" than me.
Well, he was doing fine until he started talking about lowering taxes again. The only people who get their taxed lowered are the only ones who can afford to pay taxes.
Long live BRICS+, may it grow bigger, better and stronger every day.
It is past time the lying, thieving, warmongering Yankland brings all its troops home, shuts the door, shuts down and just dies quietly so as to once let the rest of the world live in peace and prosperity.
Perhaps, but even Putin and Xi admit that there are huge structural issues to overcome in moving away from the dollar and that this will take many years to accomplish.
Well considering all the incentives the US is creating to "encourage" that "move away" don't be surprised if that many years is reduced rather quickly. The danger is not a new currency but rather trade in local currencies. The two leaders you mentioned already have the pilot program as 95% of China Russia trade is done in Ruble/Renminbi. Soon this will probably expand to the Riyal, Ruppee, Rand etc. See the trend? Trillions of trade have moved outside the dollar as this expands, the US may lose the ability to export it's inflation and borrow to support the deficits. Do you see the danger?
Again, perhaps. However, the international monetary system of today is deeply ingrained in trade agreements, organisations, contractual arrangements and imperial economic power that will make the transition slower than you might hope. I agree though that the trend is definitely there and will persist.
I am not hoping for anything. I made an assessment nothing else. I have no emotions in this. The irony is the belief that a nation that is "agreement incapable"will impose upon other nations the honouring of treaties, agreements, contractual arrangements and imperial obligations to the empire. I think you are going to need a much bigger army and a death star.
You failed in your assessment before you got started the United States as a nation is not agreement incapable your generalization does not take into account that the US government is currently very agreement capable.
It would not be pretty for the world if the sentiment of this blog was fulfilled. If the United States collapses as many you hope this void how would be filled. Would it be better or worse, many of you right here sound similar to that hate filled crowd in the US cheering for Trump and his administration’s failure.
And what most people (BTC people, Gold people, BRICS fans people, America hating people, etc) fail to realize is that you MUST have a stable currency in order to transact business.
Allow me to explain to the Trump hating geniuses. Say you make pens. And there are all kinds of little moving parts and pieces. These parts and pieces come from everywhere. However let’s just say you are the ultimate producer of the product.
You must have an expectation of a reliable currency in order for biz to get done. If it’s all a bunch of turbulent shit you will NOT take the risk of producing these pens. Now imagine with automobiles, etc. Gets wildly mote complicated does it not?
This is why the USD is king boys and girls. It’s also why it is unlikely to change anytime soon. Hope that helps. Btw I am by NO MEANS an economic whiz. I don’t pretend to be. Just common sense, which I understand can sometimes be hard to see.
First you must explain what is meant by a stable currency. As almost all sovereign currency is stable within the sovereign border of the issuing country. Majority of currencies are related to the value of the dollar internationally, but everyone knows that the FX market is based on manipulation and nothing else. So question, the middle eastern currencies that have pegged exchange rates to the dollar, are they stable currencies? Also to stabilise any currency all that needs to be done is anchor the currency to gold which has been accepted as value for all of human history. Though, keep on reassuring yourself. As how logorithmic decay works is that things collapse little by little then all at once.
I think you are making it too complicated. For example BTC may start out today at $80k. By the end of the day it could be worth $83k. That’s just an example but not too far fetched. You can’t forecast your biz with that kind of volatility. Not only will you be betting on acquiring all aspects of your product but you will also now have to gamble on the currency situation…..Hence you don’t make your product
Luke, don't worry, no one is ever going to mistake you for an economic whizz.
You have explained why ' money' is needed, but not why Saudi Arabia and China need to use Dollars. The Dollar will go the way of Sterling and for the same reason - you aren't the World's economic powerhouse any more.
Interoperable digital currency is the answer. It's already designed and ready for a rollout. You will need a digital ID to use the currency. Without the digital ID you won't be able to buy or sell. WHERE HAVE YOU HEARD THIS BEFORE???
Yes of course, investment purposes means in the form of debt? As investment means creating a debt obligation and the dirivitives market is estimated to be between seven hundred trillion to 1.2 quadrillion dollars.. The reality is all federal reserve notes are a form of debt so even the dollars in trade are for investment purpose as they are debt as the dollar is a debt based currency. Just a classic Ponzi scheme on a global scale where money is borrowed from Peter to pay Paul on and on it goes until it can't.
FWIW: Wamsley suggests that the dollar isn't going away. It is just too convenient for every nation to use. What is going to go away though is the cut US banks take when trades are run through SWIFT. Tether is a crypto currency that is 1:1 to the dollar. Those trades are made practically instantly without any worry about US sanctions.
There are a number of systems, including Tether that are much less expensive, 98% less, take literally seconds instead of days to complete and are completely opaque to the US, all pluses for most countries including US vassals.
I respectfully disagree. It may have those elements now, but it will be a forum for defining and organizing interstate relations in a more comprehensive way in the near future.
You keep repeating this mantra without anything to back it up.
BRICS is very real and the New Development Bank is very real. They are connected to China's BRI and even to Russia's Wagner Group campaigns in Africa. The BRICS have a larger GDP than the G7 (Of course, with China the anchor having the largest GDP in the world anyway.)
The American Empire is in decline, even the Oligarchy admits it.
"BRICS is very real and the New Development Bank is very real. They are connected to China's BRI and even to Russia's Wagner Group campaigns in Africa."
This statement is so vague as to be unfalsifiable.
BRICS is mostly a gathering of highly corrupt and incompetent Banana countries.
India is a complete shithole only good for call centers and agriculture.
Brazil, led by commie traitor, Lulabell is fully corrupted, forced the vax on its population and wants Brazil's rightful leader, Bolsonaro in Jail.
South Africa has nothing left since its reverse apartheid against the whites. There's a radical party there that slogans, "Kill the Whites". Those who took over the country just recently came down from the banana trees not exceptionally equipped for the modern world.
China is a large and powerful nation, but it often offers Russia unfair prices for its resources, expecting to pay deep discounts that prevent Russia from earning a fair profit. With friends like that who needs an enemy? No wonder the Russians want to play ball with the US. Commie China sucks. They built poorly constructed ghost cities costing citizens 30-40 years pay to buy a shack in the middle of nowhere. China's economy suffers from stupid policies.
Only Russia is solid. The rest of BRICS is Bics, man.
I'm not anti-China but I certainly wouldn't want to live under the Commies. Chinese citizens are generally likeable but I have no use for commie dictators and how they control everything of what you can do or say. I was born free to speak my mind and do what I can afford and no commie can change that yet. lol
Bullshit, Victor. I know very well about China's advancements which are significant. But its economic downfall has been epic. Chinese citizens have paid a dear price losing a lifetime of investments through corrupt real estate deals. But the rich Chinese hide their money in places like Canada because even they don't trust their commie government. The Chinese economy is at a standstill with the commie government spending billions to try and prevent a full economic collapse. Socially, have you heard about social credit score to control every aspect of your life and if you don't comply, you starve. Cameras everywhere and I mean everywhere. Comply and survive, speak out and die. Politically, China sneaks and infiltrates to gain power into countries like Canada to force its doctrines upon an unsuspecting population like they got caught doing here red-handed. Economic, look at real estate evergrand fiasco and the disasters of a whole bunch of other companies due to grifting and poor management. There's only a select group of commies who get to keep their ill-gotten fortunes at the expense of its population. Technology, for the longest time its technology was copy and paste from the US and other countries. Sure they've made advances but there are some advantages to having a command economy. That's how they build a whole city in a few years.
Make sure you know what you talk about next time you address me, Victor and not waste my time.
What about you? A communist country owns EVERYTHING. There are no individual or private businesses. People can't have wealth. You probably think Russia is a communist country too.
Ignore Denis' vitriol. His spewing of the the usual anti-china tropes is telling in its own way... thus making his other comments also quite suspect in retrospect. Him using the word 'trumptard' also is another clue. Heck, he may even be AI-driven.. Simplicius is getting that much attention, I bet.
As a friend related to me years ago, his mother had imparted simple words of wisdom to him - why do you persist in arguing with a fool? You either end up educating him but he will never give you credit (aka you lose), or you don't get anywhere with the fool (you lose again). Disengage. That's the only way to win.
I disagree with much of what Denis said. But not all. China is a super oppressive surveillance state, where any dissent is crushed. There are no critical voices permitted. And it really pisses me off when otherwise sensible folks like Brian Berletic and Danny Haiphong completely ignore this glaringly obvious fact.
Of course there's much to admire about China , but don't kid yourself. There's a cruel and dark side to that country too.
You have no idea what it is like to live in China. The news media has all kinds of conflicting reports on what the Chinese public think of their government. Most of the reports of Chinese dissidents are provided by US think tanks with an ax to grind.
Thanks for the input, Grr. Neither Chinese communists nor Zionist systems serve the people. Maybe one-day things will change. The world's citizenship is under attack. Bad things are unfolding for humanity. I feel most fortunate to have lived during the best of times.
I have done: lived and worked there. The place is an ongoing disaster and BAR exports this unhinged industrial criminality.
The building that famously, completely (the only one) collapsed in the Thai/Myanmar earthquake was built by China as was the train station covering in Serbia that collapsed. The fake "investment" in Africa etc is just as morally and effectively shoddy as is the environmental damage they cause everywhere: eg Tara river desecration crime etc etc etc
Nope. Another fool who don't separate state from private. The Thai building was a joint project with Chinese construction holding 49% stake. Lots of background Not investigated.
There are more than 200 Chinese build buildngs in Bangkok that didn't collapse. But you don't care.
No man, regarding rail station covering in Serbia problem is related to domestic corrupted politicians and construction companies not Chinese (I think supervision were done by company in France ownership). Other thing Chinese have build here super quality High Ways for many years now and they invested in several mines etc. production is growing and salaries are 2-3 times above average. There are no problems whatsoever. I would be happy Serbia to reach Chinese level in development and state organisation. They have been always good friend to Serbian people. Regarding liberties someone mentioned above, do not fool yourselves, in western world you can not say man is man and girl is girl or you could be responsible, go to jail or they could even took your kids away...if you speak positively about Russia on line you could be punished like it happens in England etc. European politicians do whatever they want without any democratic capacity, they push Europeans in war with Russia which nobody wants etc etc....China is not perfect for sure but it is now Atlantis for corrupted west...
The Thais ordered the winning bid (for the Bkk building that collapsed) to lower it by billions of Baht. The result cut corners in construction; a usual Thai outcome.
Are you consuming too much MSM? There are no ghost cities in China. These are massive construction areas (something which the western countries cannot afford to do and have little reasons to) which after finishing are populated in a few years. It's easy to verify by using Baidu Maps (street view). One of such "ghost" towns is Ordos city. See, the towns are built completely with the necessary infrastructure like schools, hospitals, shops, fitness centers, etc. You just cannot comprehend the scale of China construction (which produces more concrete in 5 years than the US did in a century) and the scale of western decline. China needs to provide new comfortable apartments for millions and millions of people.
Why are you posting the same link again? The 1st city it mentions is Ordos. So let's discuss that one and go through each city one at a time. Do you acknowledge that the population of Ordos is 2,153,638? Wikipedia confirms this and Wikipedia isn't exactly pro-China. If you acknowledge the population is 2,153638 then Ordos is NOT a ghost city. Correct? Let's acknowledge this fact and then we can move on to the rest of the cities claimed to be "Ghost cities." How does that sound?
"India is a complete shithole only good for call centers" - not really. IT call centers/help desks call @ 10 pm to the US customers to fix an issue due to huge time difference, plus quality is poor.
Many Westerners really struggle to acknowledge changes in the Global South. First it was the Japanese who were derided, then the Koreans and now the Chinese. The Russians get treated that way too.
But if you look at the infrastructure and cities going up in much of the South and compare it to the decay in lots of the UK and US, then it's like we're wilfully blind to the fundamental changes taking place.
You are extremely misguided... but interesting that you end up spewing US MSM talking points about China, which really goes to show that people in general can be 'programmed' if the bias is pushed long and hard enough. Surprised you didn't throw in the social credit score thing (totally bogus, just fyi).
TBH, whatever happens in China - good or bad - isn't our problem. Same can be said for Russia, Iran, Niger, Yemen, Taiwan, Ukraine, etc.
I'm more worried about how entire Federal agencies, the courts and just about every public and private institution had been weaponized to suppress, cancel or incarcerate those who all dissented against the Establishment during the past 4 years.
From the Scamdemic lockdowns and mandatory jab to sending the feds after any individual or group who questioned the 2020 [s]election to parent groups who were protesting the degenerate shit being forced on school children.
It's the same about the lies about the slave camps of the Uyghurs.
"The claims of genocide are another example of Deep State propaganda intended to gaslight the Western public into viewing China and the Chinese as global badguys in league with Russia and Putin and who must be put in their place."
I think China and Russia are quite happy with their dealings, they're just quiet about it. China is pretty sorted 1000 million metric tons of steel vs the USA's 79,5mmt.
As for South Africa - it's a complete disaster with infrastructure, transport, mining and electricity generation all crumbling.
You an argue about India's capabilities but then it has recently settled it's border disputes with China and Modi has even stated that it's path is with China, when they start closely collaborating you will be fighting a tide of 2.5 billion people.
Brazil isn't the most spectacular democracy in the world but considering Bolsonaros position, it's not significantly different than where the Democrats wanted Trump, Trump literally and figuratively dodged a bullet.
It is true that Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa did use that chant but everyone has stated that it should not be taken literally, and no, it's not their slogan, that's a huge exaggeration.
That might be your wet dream but it doesn't reflect reality in many aspects and no, the Russians aren't trying to play ball with the US, Trump is kissing some serious ass to get a peace deal, he has NO cards to play when negotiating with Russia.
As for Russia being abused by China, consider that China has place NO sanctions or tariffs on Russia and they have mutually agreed that they are allies. Considering your insight, you might ask who they'd be allied against, so think about who has sanctioned/tariffed both countries, who has continually meddled in their internal affairs, who has military bases surrounding their countries, who has been continually involved in wars of aggression and who is constantly involved in color revolutions and regime change coups. If you can figure that out, you'll be getting a grasp of the situation.
Your comments about China are pure ideological bullshit, the 'ghost cities' is a myth, they build cities to move about 8 million people a year into cities so the idea is to build the city before you need it and then the people move in. Even your myths are outdated.
If the US steps down, another Empire will rise up.
Look at the Chinese. They're all over Australia, Africa, Canada, and Russia. They and most political experts say "they're not interested in being an empire", aehm well, why do they own ports, mines, lumber mills, and critical infrastructure all over the world then?
Isn't half of Australia and half of Canada already Chinese?
If the Russians get careless, the Chinaman will take those borderlands that he now 'develops'. In 20 years or so, there'll only be Chinamen living in that area, and what'll stop them from voting for incorporation into the PRC?
Half of Australia is not Chinese yet, but China owns >60% of Australia including the PM and many influential government leaders. We are up the sh#t unless more people wake up soon.
I agree that The International zionist yankee occupation force must die. But the boots that the funders of that crime syndicate wear were made for stomping. So Barry, Man Land Barry, you can forget all about us rolling over and dying.
Peace? Well looking at the European continental history that is not in the cards. Europe has been at war with itself since the fall of the Roman Empire.
There is a metaphor that is very apt for the global economy. It is like an airplane. There are those in 1st class, others in coach. But when the economy spirals in for the crash, it won't matter what seat assignment you are in, everyone dies together.
It is so far gone at this point, why not try it. Even if there is a notably positive effect, my personal opinion is that the improvement will take a long time. I have zero trust in something holistic happening quickly. At least it has been now confronted, especially the military decline, that the party is over.
Merely halting our decline will be a full time preoccupation. Especially, with the entrenched interests battling every one of Trump's domestic reforms.
Any marked improvement will require decades and who knows if any of us will be alive to see that.
Between the escalating conflict on the domestic front and a bellicose foreign policy due to the ruling class that's beholden to the Bankers, MIC and AIPAC.......any one of those endeavors portend disaster and could easily sabotage any positive outcomes.
As for the U.S. military, assuming we were to close down all ~900 foreign bases and restructure it for border and maritime defense - .mil's historical responsibility prior to WW1 - it will take many years for it to reshape itself for that task.
^ That will likely result in a coup against Trump since reducing the size, scope and mission of the military will cut off the MIC's gravy train.
Another thing. With Trump suggesting that the Mexican Cartels be labeled terrorist orgs and beating his chest about invading Mexico and bringing the war to the Cartels........well, there are some ret. military folks who believe it will result in a bloody, sustained armed conflict that will effect us on this side of the border, as well.
Irregular Warfare analyst Bill Buppert lists some of the daunting problems we'll be facing with if a hot war breaks out with the Cartels which is essentially war with our southern neighbor.
I am inline with much you have written. Decades of attempt to change more likely than years and nothing guaranteed.
The military ............. this military could not fight it´s way out of a paper bag. Tanks and aircraft with 40 and 50 year old designs, that have had weapons specifically designed to defeat them. F-18s for example, were new in my last year of active duty. The MIC has completely screwed the pooch. The thing that drives me craziest, is that they pretend that they can take raw recruits in Ukraine and have them up to speed faster than the time it took us to send somebody through boot and then AIT. I worked on Sea Stallions and it took about 12 months of working and flying on them until I was really comfortable comfortable. A friend of mine in 2nd Mar Div at the time agreed, saying it took almost two years to produce a really effective infantry marine. War speeds up that process but, some things still take a very long time to learn and become effective. So good luck going against cartels with the current generation.
The Cartels already have plenty of assets, human or otherwise, north of the Rio. Not only dope and human traffickers. They also have a shit ton of politicians, lawyers and possibly LEO and military folks on their payroll. That's not including plenty of otherwise legit businesses from agriculture to real estate and everything in between
And in any sort of hot conflict, they have the means to obtain intel and a kill list of the family members of every high ranking cop, politician or even military SpecOps shooters who are deployed against them.
Moving the conflict across the border would necessitate seizing all Cartel assets, rooting out those on their payroll, and neutralizing their ability to carry out kinetic actions here. That means more than just the Cartels' soldados.
They're already acquainted with both the jihadist cells, they helped to smuggle across the border, and they have a working partnership with just about every active transnational organized crime group here. That's not counting all the hired guns - many with prior military experience - they can enlist.
If you have the time and inclination, check out the links to the Chasing Ghosts podcast to get an idea of the scale of the problem.
Can't have it both ways. Either we export an excess of dollars, or we export more goods. No matter what explanation any economist or politician gives to explain it otherwise, that is the way it is.
Only if Yankland insists on its Dollar being the only global currency.
BRICS+ with its multipolar agreements and encouragement of free trade if taken up by most of the world would negate the need for a global currency and allow all countries to prosper based on supply and demand.
The economic terrorism is now known of by more Americans, but it started long ago. Read Smefly Butler's War is a Racket. Or Antony Sutton's Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. Even those won't show you the start, but will open your eyes. The haves, have been stealing from the have nots for as long as we have existed.
The example given by that economist that nothing will change for the american consumer is based on the assumption that the when your currency is 10% stronger, 10% tarifs won't budge anything.
Thing is, there are already too many dollars out there for them to value higher against anything else if even a modest amount of dedollarisation is done.
The dollar weakens and tarifs will make it extra expensive for the americans.
Most American economists work for the Federal Reserve. That is not because they need that many economists, it is because they need them to push the narrative. Economists of the Austrian School don't use nearly as many models or equations as those of other schools, because they know that very detailed predictions are not useful. Other schools see them as primitive because they don't make these detailed predictions. However these other schools are nearly always wrong in their predictions, and when they are right it is usually just by chance.
Several countries have already changed their terrifs on US goods. This is within just one day of the imposition of new US terrifs. Obviously long term projections are not worth making if many countries will change their rules so readily.
Any economist working for a central bank probably doesn't know what they are talking about, and if they do, they will almost certainly lie.
And now think different. The article tells us, you must export dollars not goods, then you have the reserve currency. History tells us, that it does not matter if you import or export your currency or goods, important is the size of your economy. If you export a lot, then your currency is extremly valuable, everyone needs this currency to buy and you can easily store your savings in this currency. Because people are doing this, the value goes up and up. Because the value goes up, local enterprises can produce cheaper compared to the price of the imports. This will balance itself, as it always did, except the government goes for short term goals and hinders the normal developement.
In no way is our manufacturing base or our moral fiber or skills so far gone to not recover, our industries have been coming back (reshoring) in a tremendous wave for 3 -4 years, and Reshoring is now in job terms running 66%-34% over FDI (Foreign Direct Investment- foreign companies building here).
Source below.
W/respect to Mr Mirian and his paper- The Tariffs and building of industry and Infrastructure (rebuilding in this case) is the American system of Henry Clay (1820) which was put into great effect by President Abraham Lincoln (in fact was a leading cause of the Civil War).
This American system was continued all the way through FDR and only fell away during the Cold War, in part due to the need for the Global Reserve Currency, loss of the Gold Standard and the resort to the petrodollar. After 1991 this is all just Boomer looting and neocon / neoliberal madness.
… not unlike the 2022-present war.
Good point that Putin’s chief economist is in DC and Russia and America forge the ties they can, cutting out the sick men of Europe.
As to The Global Reserve Currency- if you’re living under a bridge on Food Stamps, you don’t care about the exchange rate or FX vs The Euro, etc. By all means a trade of multiple currencies in the world in exchange for manufacturing returns is fine.
Sure you may be correct, but the only purchasers for your manufacturing will have to be Americans themselves, don't rely on any other nation being the least bit interested in what you have to trade!
I believe you are correct on tariffs being a cause of the Civil War, at least in part if not a leading cause. Congress, in order to help the struggling clothing manufacturers of New England, put a tariff in English produced clothes. England, having ready access to Indian cotton, put a reciprocal.tarriff on American cotton. The tariffs helped northern textile mills at the expense to southern cotton growers, helping to set up a geographical and industrial/ agricultural split and animosity.
This is an example that where things go from now may well be completely unknown, with unforseen consequences.
As an Easter European not familiar with the origins of the Civil War in America: northern mills were not buying cotton from southern growers without tarrif? Were was the expense? To me sounds like the cotton growers lost the British cotton market and gained the Northern American mills one, a win-win economically for the new nation.
Northern mills were buying southern cotton without tariffs. The tariffs were put on English clothing. When England put retaliatory tariffs on Southern cotton, the South lost that market. This loss of the English market for Southern cotton was an expense that the Southern growers had acquired while the Northern mills were able to grow having eliminated English products. Eventually it may have nationally been a win- win situation but in the meantime, one sector of the economy had to pay a price, it helped start the war in which I believe 3/4 of a million men died ( in a country of a much smaller population at the time - 1861.
You might want to read a summary of “The impending crisis of the south and what to do about it” by Hiram Helper (racist, southerner) from that time.
In general the South wanted Feudalism and Slavery sea to sea, the North wanted Industry, the Republican Party was absolutely a working man’s and farmers party hence Free Labor and Free Soil.
No - wage earners aren’t slaves. <
The Free soil and Homestead Act are quite tied in this way.
Lincoln wanted to improve the lot of the common man, again Slavery comes as an issue the last decade of his 4 decades in public life. The lands to the West were going to be Free or Slave plantations, the Republicans wanted free , the South wanted plantations.
Do you believe there would have been war absent the slavery issue? Do you believe the abolitionist movement could have been defeated? The issue was not going to settle itself, at least not in time.
Lincoln was interested in economics infrastructure, tariffs building up of the country for three of his four decades in public life . He only began to be interested in slavery and then containing it when it became clear that slavery was going to spread to the western states.
It was also very obvious to everyone at the time that five out of the six whites in the south were land poor or landless, and cash poor , dirt poor and this system of either near serf labor or slave labor was going to spread over the country.
1860 was a working class election. The original Republicans were whigs who were all behind tariffs (basically what you see Trump doing now with tariffs and infrastructure) along with free labor and free soil. So in many ways, it was the first white working class party. The Democrats wanted free trade and of course they want slavery to spread. They needed and wanted the western soil to keep growing cotton. So when Lincoln says all slave or all free and then he warns, it’s going all slave he’s getting interested in the last 10 years of his life. The Republicans only wanted to contain slavery. Lincoln more or less fell into the Civil War backwards. Lincoln was expecting it to blow over, as was very clear with a meeting of than Colonel Sherman and his brother Senator Sherman in early 1861.
So you have the desire to build up the country, the desire to build up the working man by improving infrastructure by loans by any funds through tariffs with a desire to have free labor as opposed to slave. The other wrinkle in it was the beginning of unions of the Free but very poor, white southern workers and the fact that the Democrats were afraid they were going to vote Republican. Secession was driven by multiple issues. Slavery was the issue that set it all off. The Homestead act which opened up all the Western lands for a filing fee with the greatest land distribution and greatest boost to the common man that ever happened didn’t get passed until 1862. It was sitting in Congress for a decade and the Democrats wouldn’t let it pass. There were great many things that couldn’t happen that were good for the country and the common man that couldn’t happen until the south Seceded and then was defeated in the Civil War.
All of those issues, save slavery, are the common grist of politics to this day, but don't ignite bloody civil wars. Lincoln was a man of his time and can rightly be understood as such. Until slavery became the isaue of the day and would clearly be a divisive issue, it would not be on anyone's front burner except for the Abolitionists who were getting more noisy.
Lincoln had reason to believe, and hope, that the issue could be resolved peacefully. Afterall, war had been avoided only a dozen or twenty years earlier during the Jackson administration. If no one did anything stupid it could be kept at a low simmer until the institution died under its own increasing weight, as the Founders anticipated. As Lincoln noted, payment was first demanded.
Agreed. I’m simply saying it wasn’t just Black and White or Free vs Slave. Sherman’s motive for instance was keeping the Union together so we didn’t suffer “the fate of Mexico which is eternal civil war.”
He also said “what we have here is a people with 6 million Constitutions” meaning the 6 million whites in the South.
I answered below, but if you’ve never come across the issue of free trade versus tariffs in southern apology for the Civil War, then you haven’t checked.
What they want it was either slave labor, or poor dirt whites who by the way did most of the fighting. There were great many things going on slavery was one of them.
So, nobody in any of these seccession committees could bring themselves to say "tariffs" (even though Southern politicians had no problems doing so in the past) but instead had to invent an excuse? Not only that, but an excuse that made them look like the bad guys?
I don't recall "Uncle Tom's Cabin" mentioning tariff schedules or "John Brown's Body" referencing exemptions.
Manufacturing can return all it wants but at the 3 to 10 times the price of imports from China and the lower quality from the US, I'm not buying because I can't afford to. We are already being ripped off at an astronomical level by US companies that import PVC pipe and copper from overseas then mark it up 1000 percent. Until the price gouging stops our only defense is to buy Chinese products and don't even begin to tell me about inferior quality. Mini splits, Air curtains, Refrigeration units, Ventilation fans, etc. are far better quality coming from China, not to even mention that the aforementioned products aren't even manufactured in the US in the first place. I have been purchasing these products from China for the past 5 years and their quality far surpasses what I used to buy from US companies. The only US companies currently making high quality items are the small to medium manufacturers that use CNC machinery like their Chinese counterparts do. It would be great if we could return to being independent to a large degree but I don't see it happening because our raw materials have been largely outsourced to other countries. Products that were made in China 10 years ago were absolutely of inferior quality, but if you think that they haven't upped their game, then you're delusional. American exceptionalism is gone and the sooner we realize that fact and work to improve our game the sooner we can at least be respectable. As long as the MIC has all politicians on their kick back list then the only sector of the US economy that will prosper is the "defense" industry, which is always used for offensive reasons.
"There is nothing that money can do to remedy the four-to-one ratio except with a lot of investment in production over a long time. Thanks to offshoring manufacturing, the Western industrial base mostly has to be built from the ground up. Is that even possible? If you think about it, an apprentice machinist on an assembly line fifty years ago was being taught how to do it by a master machinist who had been taught by a previous master and so on back to the middle of the 1700s when industrial production was invented. Each in the series advanced the technique, of course, but it’s still a chain you could trace back, machinist by machinist, for all that time. If that sequence of teacher-learner-teacher is broken, if the teacher has retired or died leaving no apprentices, how long will it take to get it back? Putting a pallet of engraved paper in the floor of an empty building and hoping it will turn into a pallet of artillery rounds (or any manufactured item) is magic thinking."
Bottom line:
Deindustrialisation threw out the baby with the bathwater by removing not only skills but also expertise, knowledge and, most importantly, EXPERIENCE. Favouring instead the notion that the only legitimate skill is Management.
A culture which not only simplistically still thinks that reindustrialisation can occur by dragging people from the bus queue, giving them a half day of CBT and a week with someone with zero experience who has only been doing the job a few months themselves; but also that precludes importing that expertise and experience from outside because there are "too many immigrants."
This reindustrialisation, built, as Pepe Escobar.....
.....implies, on a begger my neighbour approach in a context in which other countries are already outpacing the US and the West in a win-win way will take a lot longer than twenty years. More like two or three generations if you are lucky.
"“Sanctions and threats are the only thing that the United States has left. It no longer can offer other countries a win-win situation, and Trump has said that America has to be the net gainer in any international deal it’s made, whether it’s a financial deal or a trade deal. And if America is saying, any deal we make, you lose, I win”, that Mafia extorsion gambit does not exactly reflect the Art of the Deal."
Moreover, the assumptions that [checks notes] people" living under a bridge on Food Stamps" and similar are going to benefit from these policies has no evidential basis in reality.
Consider, as simply one example from this Simplicius article which is applicable across the economy:
"In 1973 the US produced 111.4 million tons of steel. It employed 650,000 people. The industry now employs 142,000 and the US produces 79.5 million tons....."
In 1973 steel productivity was 176 tons per employee (111.4 million tons divided by 650,000 employees/workers.
Half a century later, that productivity has increased to just under 560 tons per employee (79.5 million tons divided by 142,000 employees/workers).
A) That has more to do with technological innovation than trade imbalances.
B) That increase in productivity has largely been appropriated by the employers rather than those living under a bridge on food stamps and is in fact partly responsible for all those people living under bridges on food stamps rather than imbalances on trade.
In regard to both points A and B, the Holy Grail of AI - as Simplicius in his Dark Futura posts reminds us - is to run entire organisations with no employees.
The only thing being "liberated" here with this beggar-my-neighbour and everyone else approach is the Oligarchy.
What am I missing here? Aren't tariffs a tax on Americans?
I don't understand how is that exporters end up paying?
What I can see is that consumption levels will likely drop in the US, which is a good thing in itself. However, certain areas that are not related with consumerism, will also be afected, like pharmaceuticals, foodstuff (of which now the US is a net importer), crude derivatives (including diesel). Thus certain things will become rearer and more dear.
What nobody is talking about is the hammering of the workforce and reduction of rights and regulations (i.e. NIOSH) which will leave the American workforce in a very precarious position. Three years of this shit and the MAGA moement will actually die.
The SNAP program is potentially going to be axed and over 40 million Americans will loose support that effectively helps them to get food on the table.
I don't understand how Miran's paper and explanations address these issues?
Actually the Chinese government is taking steps against that. The ones "screwing" the American consumers are in fact Americans, those that moved industries abroad, those that accept low quality stuff, those that add huge markups, etc. Just think of the faith of farmers in the US and how little they receive from their products! Same with other producers, including the Chinese ones.
You are saying that Walmart somehow will force the Chinese to a 55% discount (the previous 20% + the 34% introduced on Liberation Day)? Just overnight? When there are likely orders in place for many months ahead and on route...? And when already the prices as as cutthroat as possible? As such, it will be the American consumer that will have to pay the tariff, or forego the purchase. And rest assured that the potential American producer will not have a lower price or better quality product...
Correct but your probably responding to a MAGA Commenter that must in all circumstances rationalize how their Trump can’t be wrong. This is how we end up with bad presidents on both sides people not using rational thinking but rather just following their cult leaders off the cliff.
Walmart will pay the exporter the same as before but then have to pay a tax to Trump’s government and then Walmart will increase their price by the amount of the tax (Tariff same thing) to the consumer, really baffling how Americans let their emotions run their thinking processes rather than the other way around.
The idea that foreign companies like Chinese exporters will absorb the tariffs to keep selling in America is partially true—but only up to a point. Here’s why:
Price Sensitivity: If Walmart demands lower prices, some foreign companies might reduce their profit margins to stay competitive. But they can’t absorb all the costs indefinitely—especially if tariffs are high (e.g., 25–50%). Over time, exporters may raise prices or stop selling certain goods altogether if it becomes unprofitable. (NB. this might give US manufacturers breathing space to provide alternatives, at least in some sectors).
Supply Chain Complexity: Many imported goods rely on global supply chains, where costs are spread across multiple countries and businesses. For example, a fridge might have components from China, South Korea, and Mexico. Tariffs on one country’s exports ripple through the entire chain, making it harder for any single company to absorb the cost.
Limited Alternatives: Walmart and other retailers often rely on imports because U.S.-made alternatives are either unavailable or significantly more expensive. If foreign suppliers pull back, Walmart may have no choice but to pass higher costs onto consumers. (but see above re time)
To say that America "cannot lose" in the long run because tariffs will reverse policies that have "devalued the dollar for over 100 years" risks misunderstanding a couple of key points:
The Dollar’s Strength: The dollar hasn’t been "devalued" in the way implied here. In fact, its status as the global reserve currency keeps it strong compared to other currencies. Tariffs don’t strengthen the dollar—they can actually weaken it by reducing trade flows and economic growth.
Trade Deficits Are Structural: America runs trade deficits not because it’s "losing," but because other countries need dollars for international trade and investment. Tariffs don’t fix this—they just make imports more expensive for Americans while potentially reducing exports due to retaliation from other countries.
America benefits from being a net importer because it keeps the dollar dominant globally. Trying to eliminate trade deficits through tariffs risks undermining this advantage.
Also, while it would be great to encourage American companies to step in and produce goods domestically, there are major challenges:
Higher Costs: Manufacturing in the U.S. is more expensive due to higher wages, stricter regulations, and higher energy costs compared to countries like China or Vietnam. Even with tariffs, American-made goods often remain pricier than imports.
Time Lag: Building factories, training workers, and establishing supply chains takes years—not months. In the short term, businesses can’t simply switch from importing to domestic production without major disruptions. So, yes, I agree it will "pinch now" and perhaps for quite some time.
Global Competition: Even if some manufacturing returns to America, U.S. companies still face global competition. For example, American manufacturers might struggle to compete with countries like Germany or Japan that specialize in high-quality production.
Tariffs sound tough and patriotic, but their real-world effects are complicated:
- Foreign companies might absorb some costs but not all—prices will rise for Americans.
- Domestic manufacturing won’t rebound quickly due to higher costs and logistical challenges.
- The dollar’s strength depends on trade deficits and global demand—not protectionist policies.
Finally, the crux of the dilemma for Trump is this:
1. He wants America to stop importing so much stuff from other countries (to reduce the trade deficit), but also
2. He wants America to stay powerful with the dollar as the global reserve currency.
But these two things don’t work together. For America to stay powerful with the dollar as king, it has to import more than it exports. Cut imports too much and other countries might stop using dollars altogether and switch to something else, thus accelerating a trend that is already on the rise.
Your understanding of how global trade works needs more study, did you even read the entire article or are you just doing a MAGA drive by? This very Article explains at least some of what you seem not to comprehend.
The only way the exporters pay is by not selling as much. The importers pay, but ultimately the end consumers pay. If the end consumers don't pay, the importers make less, or no profit. If they make no profit, they go out of business.The only way it helps us, is that eventually we produce more. In the meantime, we can't afford as much.
Exporters will be pressured to lower their prices and profit margins since there are limits to what consumers can pay.
But the biggest squeeze will be on the insane markups by wholesalers and retailers on foreign imported items like clothing from Vietnam and Bangladesh.
We will have more inflation, in other words, the dollar will go down. Many will not be able to cut that much, and thus sell less or none. The volume seller with the biggest markups is Nike. They deserve to be out of business anyway. Many, probably most of these tariffs will go down, in response to other countries dropping theirs. Some already have. We'll see how it goes.
You're on 100% solid economic ground when you say that inflation reduces the value of whatever currency is in use. However it's not clear how quickly or deeply Trump's tariffs will affect the US economy. Inflation could be spread out over years. And in the meantime there will be offsetting benefits. Is the pain worth the gain? That will be up to Americans to decide.
The Chinese comanies does not have real profit margins, they can not reduce prices! Either the US consumer pays the higher price or the goods will not be sold.
All goods are sold... eventually... even if the price is almost zero before they are liquidated, shredded or scrapped.
The uncertain impact of tariffs on retail demand means inventory credit risk is higher, more so for smaller businesses. The 1-2 punch of Covid and tariffs will finish them off.
"Eventually we produce more." With factories that don't currently exist, with a workforce that is greatly diminished with critical skills lost or in short supply, and with certain imports that simply do not exist in the US costing considerably more than before? I'd say the corollary to your optimistic view can be found in Keynes: "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
Yes eventually can mean a very long time. I'm not advocating the terrifs. We've been screwing ourselves for so long that a depression is almost certain. I'm preparing to leave the country, probably never to return. Snark isn't useful.
Plenty of factory space available in the Rust Belt. Give an entrepreneur a reason to make money and he will find a way to make it on the margins until he can scale up.
The empty factory space is there, but so much else required to get manufacturing up and running is not. Read this, from someone who has real knowledge of the process.
Americans are going to be poorer because their prosperity has been built on an unsustainable economic system. Unfortunately, people in countries that relied on trade with that American system will likewise feel the pain.
The problem is that many Americans are poorer, especially since covid, unless of course they are the ones with money in the stock market. Everyone else is feeling the pain.
Americans are getting poorer because the US has what I call a "wedge economy" - there are tons of parasitic structures here wanting their cut. One can't even buy health insurance without using the so-called "Healthplanfinders." And the first question you're asked is "what is your income" - what income has to do with health? Health is health. Technically, you can buy directly from an insurance company but you won't be able to deduct expenses against taxes. And of course, you can't make a deal with the preferred hospital to cut all the middle men. The whole system in the US is set up on someone (many) "getting a cut," pretty much on absolutely everything. The US oncology patients are using Canadian online pharmacies - drug that cost in the US $600 it's just $60 from Canadian online pharmacy. Of course, Americans are getting poorer, they're ripped off daily.
Yes - a healthy person paying $1000+/month for health insurance, plus any co-pays and $5,000-6,000/year deductible. And people who have chemo, their insurances cover 80% of the costs, and chemo is $100K, so 20% is felt by patients. Oncology patients working in the US literally till the dying day!
I lived in E. Europe, W. Europe, Canada, & US, and I can tell you nobody got such a screwed up/corrupt system as the US.
Or the perfect definition of "rent seeking" and "casino economy". The best way to make some money is to take a slice off someone who is making some money.
To your point Angelina, this Tucker interview (B. Buhler) gets down in the weeds on what you've posted--the US HC system is theft, in plain sight. I think this piece is not "pay-walled".
Thanks - excellent piece. I subscribe to TCN but missed this one. Toxic - through and through, the whole system, whatever you touch is ridden with rot.
Yes, assuming the USD remains the same value, prices rise, and standard of living drops. Bloomberg stated Trump expects the tariffs to raise $700b which would help with the $1t budget deficit. It's like austerity measures for a country with too much debt, where the poor pay, the rich keep their tax cuts, and military spending continues to rise.
just as Chinese steel manufacturers àvoided tariffs by exporting to Canada/Mexico which exported to the US, I wonder whether clothes manufactured in Cambodia might go through a low tariff country.
Tariffs bring back jobs like manufacturing. Is that not a good thing? Do you like to support sweatshops and child labor in yellow countries and help them build suicide nets and bars on their high rise windows?
I am not rallying here against tariffs or denting Americans to do what they want in their country, far from it. My point is ultimately that the world is sooo much different now than in 1970s, when US went off the gold standard.
Now, except North Korea, pretty much everyone else is integrated in the world economy and the technical genie is out of the bottle, and the US has proven time and time again of its fickle and boorish and bullyish nature and the US is no longer a manufacturing giant and slowly not even a consumer of last resort.
We already have overcapacity for most things (except better healthcare, better education, better public transportation, and afordable housing).
The consumer only pays when they buy foreign goods. That's the point. More american built cars will be sold, and fewer from Germany. Certain sectors don't have such easy replacements, but there has to be some pain points during the transition / bargaining stage.
No, the consumer will also pay when buying US-made goods, because the foreign-made goods will have a higher price. US corporations will take advantage of that to price their own products higher as well. There's also no guarantee that the US "consumer" (who is in most cases a working person) will have the higher income needed to purchase those higher priced goods, because what work does get re-shored is likely to be done in highly automated factories employing little labor.
Nothing really surprising here. The known School Bully replaced the retardet Dementia Leader, both on the eternal War path. The tariffs should speed up things so i actually look forward to the near future. Trump wants to pull out Troops (35000 on average) out of Germany. Great, pethaps we'll get our Sovereignity back. Americans will pay more for almost eberything USD loses value, Euro goes up do does Gold.
I also think that a lot of americans now learned something and my want to cut the new Dictator a head shorter. He just has to piss off Satanyahu and Moss Ad will take care.
Euro goes up! Short term; but when printing this enormous amounts of money, without having the production capacity behind, the Euro will head to the intrinsic value = Zero.
Love the Colonel. Can't but help fantasising that one day he'll get into Washington with some force, clear out the layers of dung and redeem the Republic.
1. It should have been obvious a long time ago. There is no plan, or at least, no consideration of second or higher order effects. In fact, it appears that the tariffed countries list apoears generated with AI and probably not checked. Hence, the critically important work of putting tariffs on goods originating from Antarctic islands.
I can't attest to whether there's a plan or not, much less on its efficacy. But as I'm sure you're aware, there is a significant risk that the entire US economy will collapse, simply because their current national debt is unsustainable. I don't think any rational party is hoping for that outcome on an economic basis. However some people's political beliefs may differ on that point.
Trump may have a bad plan, I honestly don't know. But say what you will, he has a plan. He recognizes the seriousness of America's financial problem, and he's trying to do something about it. That will inevitably create economic uncertainty with any country that trades with them. It's also going to give his countrymen/women an economic haircut. But look at it as would an accountant. Even after the current stock market rout, the DJIA is presently trading at 400% of its value 20 years ago. That's 100% return on initial investment every five years. Trimming a little off that return, or even cutting it in half for that matter, isn't a punitive outcome for any savvy investor.
Look at it from Trump's perspective: he sees the economic uncertainty in his own country's future. It's only logical that he will try to spread that uncertainty out to others, rather than see the US absorb it all. Just as Canada, Mexico and others prospered by selling into the US, the US is now telling them that they will have to accept greater risk and lower returns.
Important point: that doesn't mean that selling into the US under Trump's tariffs will now be unprofitable. Foreign suppliers will tighten their belts, seek lower cost inputs, etc. And then they will decide if it's still worth it to sell to Mr. Trump's America. And the choice is entirely in the hands of those foreign countries. If they don't like Trump's tariffs, then don't sell to America. Totally fair!
>But look at it as would an accountant. Even after the current stock market rout, the DJIA is presently trading at 400% of its value 20 years ago. That's 100% return on initial investment every five years. Trimming a little off that return, or even cutting it in half for that matter, isn't a punitive outcome for any savvy investor.
All of that gain is going to the 1% and prehaps some retirement investements, and represents a real wealth transfer from everyone else towards those elements. And the pensions funds will eventually be looted and dissolved, i.e. those are only temporarily transfers to people other than the 1%. But most of the wage earning class in the US doesn't have such investments anyway.
Whenever you see the stock market indexes going up, that is a bad thing for the average person, not something to cheer. When the relative proportions of ownership of paper wealth change, which is what happens when the stock market goes up by 400% in a period when wages have been largely frozen, then the distribution of claims on real wealth changes proportionally accordingly; it is ultimately a fixed sum game and the rich getting richer automatically means the poor getting poorer. And the stock market is a fanstastic way for the rich to get fabulously richer without doing any real work.
If at t1 you have $80 and I have 20$, and there are $100 worth of goods and services to consume, and at t2 you have $320 and I have $40, that doesn't mean that I am now 2x richer and you being 4x richer does not concern me. Because we don't magically have 3.6x more goods, we have the same goods, maybe something like 20% more, but they are now worth $360, and where previously I had a claim on 20% of that, now I have a claim on only 11%, i.e. I am 2x poorer.
The US will only be "fixed" as a country when the stock market is shut down and everyone who ever owned stocks in substantial quantities is lined up against some wall and shot in the head, then buried in unmarked mass graves. And that is a necessary, not a sufficient condition.
It is surprising to me how many just refuse to understand the criminal nature of the American Oligarchy. They manipulate the economy for their own benefit. They are well on their way to becoming a new aristocracy with their own fiefdoms and the rest of us reduced to being neoserfs.
This may be a bit over the top, but the goal is clear to me.
"All of that gain is going to the 1% and prehaps some retirement investements, and represents a real wealth transfer from everyone else towards those elements."
That is not the case, not even by a country mile. A full 60% of the savings of the American people are invested in the stock market. That's very broad exposure.
>full 60% of the savings of the American people are invested in the stock market
Which is a very misleading number.
1) How many Americans have savings? Most don’t have any, you only start to get people with savings as you enter the top 25% and we’re talking real money for the top 10%.
2) How much of the stock market is owned by which percentile of society?
Sorry to break this to you, especially from Australia, but Trump 's plan is to crush US. You will be paying double for most products including cars and pharmaceuticals. Medical insurance will increase and so on. And, Trump has nominated your Reserve bank to collect the tariff money. Do you think the Jewish rothschild mafia might get richer? Who do you think is pulling Trumps strings?
Bernard at MoA made a good point in discussing this topic yesterday. He used the African nation of Lesotho as his example of a poor Country being tarriffed at 42% (iirc). Average earnings in Lesotho are $3.45 per day or around $ 1500 a year. As was said: they aint going to be buying a Tesla or an Apple i-phone any time soon.
It is worth pointing out that there are no walruses in Antarctica, none, nome of those American walruses like we have in Alaska, American walruses, the best, I tell you, nothing like them.
The wife and I are having Walrus tonight, in fact...ordered on the Trump "MAGA-American Provisions" website. They are a bit gamy but vastly exceed the taste of venison.
There is a plan, it's just goofy. Shock the system, hold the other big central banks hostage, and get them to cooperate with the FED to help simultaneously neutralize inflation, interest rate, and forex impact for wealth firms within the US.
I.e. other countries "take one for the team" (typ austerity and capital outflow) to help the US. They're betting enough central bankers do it, because they and their elite circles still park their wealth in the US. And perhaps more mundane methods of compulsion.
ECB, BOJ, and some LatAm captives will go along for sure. PBOC and most ASEAN will not, or only a little bit to stop global systemic crisis. But threatening a systemic crisis is part of the calculation. So is the impact in the context of political fragility across the developed world.
It's a slimy move overall and the side effects are also not trivial. If it actually does work, and US firms attempt to increase domestic mfgr orgers by even as little as 20%, the US domestic supply chains are not even remotely ready for it -- a sudden increase in demand would train-wreck the supply chain just like during Covid (talking time-scale of 3-4 months or so), amplifying the financial panic. That's just one immediate issue. Keeping the zigzagging alternations to cross border money flows in balance is also very not trivial. And I have a hard time believing they'll not use the chaos to justify all kinds of frauds and sham privatizations.
There are a lot of smart people who think Trump has a plan. For example, that he’s deliberately reducing America to a regional power to avoid full Imperial collapse. Or that he’s using tariffs to rebuild American industry.
No.
Trump isn’t the type, he doesn’t have a master plan. Trump is driven by the idea that other countries are taking advantage of America: by a sense of grievance. He wants good deals, by which he always means that the US gets more than it gives, and he’s willing to end a deal if he thinks it isn’t good.
Trump has virtues (not all virtues are moral virtues.) … But he’s not a deep thinker. He doesn’t know much about the political economy, and he doesn’t make and execute policy plans. His purge of the “deep state” is driven by grievance: they went after him during Biden’s reign, so he’s going after them.
His tariffs are driven by looking at trade balances and feeling they’re unfair: Europe has about a 235 billion trade surplus with America, for example. That, to Trump is unfair. … Canada has a trade surplus, so that’s Canada taking advantage of the US to Trump, never mind that the US actually sells more goods to Canada than vice-versa and the surplus is essentially all energy trade.
If his tariffs were part of a master plan to re-industrialize he wouldn’t have gutted Biden’s industrial policy, which was actually working, and he wouldn’t be waffling back and forth on them. He’d institute them."
My understanding is that Trump will lower the tariffs if other nations invest in the U.S. Doesn't this occur now; doesn't the trade deficit bring the dollars back to our shores as investment so that the balance of payments are equalized? Most of the repatriation finances our debt or purchases assets; what's the difference? We can invest it in industry and we obviously don't because we don't feel it's worth it. Why would foreign investors feel differently?
And when other countries invest in the US they are "buying up the country" or it's a " security threat" (the Chinese investing in US ports for example). There is no pleasing these people.
Foreign investors will invest for rent in the USA and not for manufacturing which can be done cheaper and more effectively elsewhere. Paying rent to foreign landlords won't fix America.
When factories are made of nearly 100% robots, the cost of manufacturing won't amount to much. On the other hand, if America can't build this kind of Chinese factory, well, the result is obvious.
But equally, if factories don't employ people, they won't be "putting Americans back to work" either, so it's hard to see fully automated factories solving that issue, mate.
>Doesn't this occur now; doesn't the trade deficit bring the dollars back to our shores as investment so that the balance of payments are equalized
Yes, it does.
But Trump wants to reshore manufacturing.
The problem is that manufacturing is a real physical thing, it is not financial games played in the virtual world.
So you need to invest massively over many decades into technical education so that you have the necessary workforce and into infrastructure, machine tooling and equipment, automation, etc. Active investment. This is how China did it.
But what did Trump do? He abolished the Department of Education. So how is he going to build the large highly educated workforce to run all that manufacturing?
How many such engineers does the US have and how is it going to train more when it is actively divesting from education?
In several other Wamsley YouTubes he explains China's investment in education and how cheap it is. China is even offering classes at its most prestigious universities in English.
The end of the Ivy League as a profit center and indoctrination gulag is near.
Indeed. The West has spent the last 40 years or so destroying centuries of interwoven layers of skill and culture. It is easier to destroy than to build. That's the layered poison they've woven into their insidious global dark work.
It has to start somewhere as it cannot carry on like this.
As posters have also mentioned on this thread, being able to get enough force together to get this minority of parasitic ghouls up against the wall and put them out of our misery is a good dream to work on. It will speed up what will be a hard and laborious process of building again.
The Ukraine war has demonstrated a real game changer in human history -- the state-controlled military forces no longer have a monopoly on indirect fire.
What is lacking is the will and organization, which is where things are much much worse now than they were the last time there was serious opposition to the elites, which was in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Investing is not always a good thing. As John Osman points out, the "Chinese will buy the country". If investing means, creating new production facilities, then this is good for the economy, if this means buying existing facilities, then this form of trade should be limited to locals. The very moment you limit this trades, you are not this big money market and you will loos the reserve currency status - there is no easy way.
wow - that is a fantastic article. Thanks so much for this information. This should be taught in schools. I didn't fill out the questionnaire. I guess the bottom answer would be my guess Seems Paul Craig Roberts agrees with you too, https://youtu.be/MeMyrG6u8-4
As for replacing income tax with tariffs. what is the difference? The consumer pays income taxes and the consumer pays the duty taxes. In the aggregate, the same people will pay the same amount of taxes. In the former arrangement, the government can regulate so that taxes are graduated and fairer. In the latter, the public is subject to foreign influences and their buying habits for determining their taxes. Seems like a shift from income tax to value added tax.
The big difference is who controls the revenue stream. Tariff revenue is at the discretion of the executive. Tax revenue goes through the Treasury. See the game plan?
The civil war started, because the South had to export/import a lot and pay high tariffs, securing the federal budget, the North could build up its industry, protected by the same tariffs. Therefore the first shots were fired at a point, where tariffs were collected. Anyway, the industry might recover under the Trump administration, but there is a lot of social and political risk involved.
>As for replacing income tax with tariffs. what is the difference?
It's a huge difference, and mostly much for the worse for the average person.
Trump (Musk, Thiel and the rest behind him) taking power was a transition from corporatocracy to open naked oligarchy. With that comes an acceleration of upwards wealth redistribution, and a transition from income taxation towards consumption taxation fits that more general trend very well.
When did average people in the US live better? In the 1890s or in the 1950s? And I am not talking about technology-derived comforts that didn't exist in the 1890s, I am talking about the difference in relative terms between the elite and the masses.
Remember that there was a low-intensity civil war between labor and oligarchs in the US in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century. A lot of blood was spilled, and the balance of forces was grossly uneven, so it was mostly protesting workers getting killed. Yet they persisted. Why? People generally don't risk their life if they have it good.
Because this blog is mostly about the war with Russia, here is something people don't understand -- Russia was, and by economic policy still is, though it is moving in the right direction because of the war, albeit nowhere near as fast as it should be, an even worse neoliberal shithole than the US. Because they had a flat and very low (10-12%) income tax, and it was the same tax on profits, etc. That was the libertarian wet dream but still unthinkable in reality even in the US until now.
Government revenue in Russia comes from commodity exports and from having a 20% VAT and various addictional excise taxes.
That means that taxes are primarily paid by the poor, because the poor spend all of their income on consumption, so if you have a flat tax on income and a flat tax on consumption, you are taxing the poor effectively at 30-40%. But the oligarchs are only taxed on income at the same rate and they spend a much smaller fraction of their incone on consumption. Worse, much of their consumption, especially the big ticket items (private jets, yachts, mansions in the West, etc.) occurs outside Russia and is taxed there (if at all), not in Russia. So they are probably paying effectively something like 15% at most.
Now what happens in the US? It is already a deeply unfair tax systems after all the top marginal rate decreases and tax loopholes since the 1950s. But now if you remove income tax altogether, it will be all taxation on consumption, and the same logic applies, even more extremely.
Also, the government did do redistribution in the form of at least some funding for education, food stamps, various other benefit and investment programs, etc. Nowhere near as much as it should have, but still. Take that away, and what is left for the average person? It's back to the Gilded Age. Which was gilded for the Vanderbilts and Carnegies, but not exactly a pleasant experience for most others.
The math doesn't work either without slashing the defense budget. But the military is the only reason Trump (thinks he) can use such mafia tactics on the rest of the world. And it is not as if the people profiting from it don't have the influence to block any reductions. So that $1T stays and will even grow. What does that leave for the rest of the government if it is to be funded on tariffs? A federal VAT being introduced in the US further down the line once the population has been beaten into submission even more is not out of the question at all.
Lol
That's how I felt. Hell, I'm an electrician I don't have time to dick around in that world.
Well done, Simplicius.
I have no confidence in Trump to lead the US towards any more supremacy than what it has now. The man is a con, a cheater, a liar, a scripted actor, a phony, and a crooked businessman bankrupted 5 times and bailed out by nefarious characters. He is pompous, not trustworthy, and egotistical. But, he is also a funny, charming, genius and charismatic speaker who can sway people's minds into believing whatever he says. No doubt, Trump has the magic touch. There are millions of Trumptards to prove it.
But Trump is no Ross Perot. Perot lost a self-funded election. Perot showed the American people with on-screen graphs the tragedy of allowing its industries to relocate to China under a free-trade setup. Perot was a self-made billionaire who could have kept the US great with sound policies but Americans shot themselves in the head by voting for a clown and idiot. I knew where the US was heading back then to where things now stand. Voter stupidity combined with an equally matched leadership destroyed manufacturing in the US.
Ross Perot had the smarts to keep the US on a good footing, unlike Trump who lacks the right stuff. Now the only way the US stays ahead is by bullying and having the best crappy currency among crappy currencies and that won't change anytime soon.
https://youtu.be/0fi8OOAKuGQ?t=17
This comment is incorrect. Ross Perot ran against Clinton and lost twice. Al Gore also never won so Perot couldn’t have been defeated by him.
Perot stood a good chance to win in 1992 until he mysteriously dropped out only to return too late to the race. This is an interesting story.
Lol, sometimes time changes what I remember. But here's the Perot, Al Gore debate.
https://youtu.be/0fi8OOAKuGQ
The story I heard at the time is that GHW Bush's people (spooks) had a chat with Perot about how tragic it would be if there were a terrorist attack at his daughter's wedding. Perot dropped out, got to dance at his daughter's wedding. After having established himself as a flake, Perot could fulfil his contract with his donors and resume his candidacy.
Assassination squads to win the hearts and minds of the unwilling. This shit goes on all the time. Tow the line or the line will tow you. I wonder how many congressmen have been blackmailed into compliance.
Don’t you mean: “TOE the line or the line will toe you.” (?)
You can have gold or lead. Few choose lead.
Some people follow recipes, others invent them.
Thomas Massie understands.
It's likely one of the treasonous crime families such as the Bush, Clinton or any of the others of the demonic parasite caste that may well have threaten him or his family subtly or not, it's the nature of such creatures. The rule of righteous law means nothing to those that operate from the reptilian mind, like rattle snakes, they will always be a threat until decapitated.
Such throw backs of evolution will remain a tool of evil until they are unbred out of existence, if ever.
Rattlesnakes only strike defensively, those people are a far different animal, maybe hyena.
Thanks, Farloticus. I fixed the error.
It's not a mystery, think dirty, you'll figure it out. He was made an offer he couldn't refuse.
He dropped out in '96?
92
Sounds like Trump cut off your USAID ration.
What about the nice things I said about him? lol
Ross Perot was a NWO stooge who "entered"(was strategically placed in) the 1992 race precisely to ensure that Bill Clinton was elected. The three men were close friends. The whole election, and every one since, was rigged and scripted.
It occurs to me that Trump and many other analysts are all wrong. It is Apple that offshored their manufacturing and it is Apple, NOT CHINA, that pays the tariff. Then they pass as much of the tariff to the customer. It is a tax on Apple and their customers (US), not CHINA.
I voted for Ross Perot.
I am pretty sure Trump's last 3 elections were against Kamala, a Potato and Hilz. Ross, a true patriot, died years before.
Nice objective and balanced piece (I have been critical of you on these points lately so I want to explicitly 'call you out' when you do something great as well). You wrote : 'Jumping to conclusions has become second nature in our modern information field, with instant gratification culture requiring immediate results at all times" -- so true. And you staying balanced and objective today was the antidote to such an instant gratification culture. Well done.
The 'You' mentioned above is Simplicious (not Denis --- Denis, I liked what your wrote too -- but my comment was for the piece's author).
Convinced US wants Russia to win, at least Trumps side.
2nd edit; Tossed off comment. Not talking Elite win. Talking people. US has not "won" a war ever. Nor has Israel. They may have made a lot of money, but ever more enemies.
The corruption is the biggest cost of business. They need a big war to kill off all the "free" loaders. Thus the on going double down on, "we are gonna kick your ass".
3rd edit; Winning, Romans won tons of battles, but ultimately, lost the war. Long view, you win a peace, war creates too many vendettas.
Sure you got a dirty tricks plan to kill all your enemies, what's left, a bunch of inbred psychopathic lunatics buried deep underground for how long till it's safe to come up?
Here's where some smart ass science guy fires in with a little safe and effective slogan. Make bombs not families.
Three times since 2014 Russia had agreements on paper that the Ukrainians would die to have now. As Putin promised! He seems ready to fight for peace. You know, when we all win!
Just a suggestion. Watching old Rambo movies is not gonna inspire a settlement we ALL can live with!
Just how indoctrinated are you? Yanklands entire global communist Uniparty government wants only the kike owners of Yankland to win.
Do try and remember who founded Israel, who 100% supports, endorses and funds Israel.
Who started the shitshow in Ukraine and why. Who has insidiously staged colour revolutions, funded civil wars, terrorist groups, fomented wars between countries, deposed legitimate governments and monarchies across the globe for well over 200 years.
Kike owned and operated American Mexicana.
Simp loves enabling antisemitism for some reason
Freedom of speech bro, ever heard of it ?
Strange how Americans are so gung-ho about free speech, except when free speech is against : Israel, Zionism, AIPAC, the holy number of six million etc...
Bill, it'd be nice, but on the other hand it's quite helpful when the hard of thinking self-identify.
Does your mom still work behind the laundry mat sucking dicks?
Henry, I'm quite immune to insults, being that I have been around the internet from the late 1980's.
Back then we had a staggering fast 1200 bps modem (yes, whopping 0.0012 Megabits/Second)
But I have to correct you, for future reference the building you are referring to is actually spelled laundromat.
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/Laundromat
It's called free speech, that's why people are here instead of X, Youtube or any of the other censored forums, if you have a problem, ignore it or refute it, the later is a better option than just whining.
Ignore them.
I agree that the use of racial slurs is not seemly. We can talk about the global goals of the Zionists without a resort to slurs. There is simply no way to make sense of world affairs, especially the development of digital currency, the obvious genocide of Palestinians, and the war in Ukraine, without reference to the machinations of this group of international tribalists.
I don't agree with the use of "Kike", but this is a question that is staring us in the face which the ADL uses incessantly to pursue their interests by owning Congress. Massie wasn't kidding when he said every member of Congress has an AIPAC minder.
Norman Finkelstein affirms that the American Oligarchy is overrepresented by Jews. The persecution of anyone with a pro-Palestinian perspective isn't being orchestrated by the "Boston Brahmins".
Many of these Jewish Oligarchs may have once been represented by Meyer Lansky, the founder of Murder Incorporated, powerful enough that Harry Truman gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom award in a secret White House ceremony.
So, how do you want to deal with this?
Being anti Zionism is not racism. Zionism is not a race, either is Judaism.
Please do try to keep up, then you won; appear to be an ignorant twat.
What about all the Russian Kike big businessmen. Even Putin went to the Wailing Wall whatever it's called.
A couple of years ago i heard someone boasting on the radio (BBC R3) that just before Putin's rise to power, just 20 people controlled 40% of the Russian economy.
Yes, but that's now down to just a few and even they are being more tightly controlled. You have to remember that when the USSR dissolved, the Russian economy was restructured to a capitalist economy with no history so they didn't know how to control it and then the US sabotaged the process by not providing the economic supports to have it function properly.
Jeffrey Sachs was the one in charge of that and tells how the process was sabotaged by the US
When Putin came to power, he straightened their economy out as well as cleaning up much of the corruption and getting rid of the oligarch class, the sanctioning and theft of the oligarchs yachts and properties by the West fixed much of the rest of that.
Yep, one of the things Russia and the US have in common is an extraordinary number of dual citizens with Israel.
No other country is so blessed. I dare say it keeps Chairman Xi and PM Modi up at night in paroxysms of jealousy.
The greater game: The Tr-bal-sts want two things simultaneously, and they think they can get them. 1) They want the Temple Mount and the West Bank. 2) They want to control the entire world. To them, everyone, Russians, Americans, Europeans, etc, are all just g-y-m, cattle. The great #2 goal is a global, interoperable digital currency that they control. They started the war in Ukraine, and they did so to punish Russia for Russia's interference in Syria with Goal #1. When they saw that Russia was going to win in Ukraine, they changed their strategy, realizing that with a Z-on-ist stooge in the White House, they could accomplish both goals more easily. A Russian victory in Ukraine will make BRICS an economic superpower, but what currency will BRICS use? Hello, duh, an international (interoperable) digital currency! The US will have no choice, with its current trade policy, but to come on board. The planned destruction of the economic power of Europe is a sub-goal of these two plans. Daniel 11:45 tells us that Goal #1 will almost, but not quite be realized, and that the attempt to gain control of the Temple Mount will bring about WW3. Nice try, but no banana. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
We want to return American policy and priorities to America.
We don’t care about the world.
Sorry.
That’s over.
But at least we would leave you alone.
That would be a wonderful thing, leaving the rest of the world alone.
For our own reasons.
Enjoy the Antipodes.
In particular when our replacements arrive.
You won’t be alone 😉
Didn't the US just impose blanket tariffs on the entire global economy? How is this leaving others alone?
WTF . 1) it’s our country
2) reciprocity
3) barely touches it⬇️
4) leaving others alone works both ways, sell it elsewhere
5) Door slams ⬇️
You rape the world as the greatest terrorist state to ever exist, but you act like the USA was hard done by the rest of the world? You are a gaslighting narcissist
Go back to Reddit
What's this "we" stuff? Who are you, one of the clowns whispering into the ear of that dingbat Trump? I'm guesiing you ain't no well-fed financier, or an arms merchant, or a Wall Street tycoon, or hedge-fund manager. You no more are included in the "we" than me.
Reddit is down the Hall to the Left. We means Americans.!
How did Israel not win in 1948 and 1967?
I recommend Rand Paul's speech on this topic: https://www.randpaulreview.com/p/rand-paul-the-founding-fathers-so?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1627785&post_id=160468143&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=18ngxp&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwY2xjawJcJntleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVRz4q6cCISdcExC_FyBvpEZL6ErgOOXtawajdphsLdqexhmyK6JXvcH8w_aem_4Vdr_4RwFr_vdTOo4xBr5g
Well, he was doing fine until he started talking about lowering taxes again. The only people who get their taxed lowered are the only ones who can afford to pay taxes.
Long live BRICS+, may it grow bigger, better and stronger every day.
It is past time the lying, thieving, warmongering Yankland brings all its troops home, shuts the door, shuts down and just dies quietly so as to once let the rest of the world live in peace and prosperity.
I see the BRICS+ nations not only winning, but the rest of the world beating down its doors to join.
Perhaps, but even Putin and Xi admit that there are huge structural issues to overcome in moving away from the dollar and that this will take many years to accomplish.
Well considering all the incentives the US is creating to "encourage" that "move away" don't be surprised if that many years is reduced rather quickly. The danger is not a new currency but rather trade in local currencies. The two leaders you mentioned already have the pilot program as 95% of China Russia trade is done in Ruble/Renminbi. Soon this will probably expand to the Riyal, Ruppee, Rand etc. See the trend? Trillions of trade have moved outside the dollar as this expands, the US may lose the ability to export it's inflation and borrow to support the deficits. Do you see the danger?
Again, perhaps. However, the international monetary system of today is deeply ingrained in trade agreements, organisations, contractual arrangements and imperial economic power that will make the transition slower than you might hope. I agree though that the trend is definitely there and will persist.
I am not hoping for anything. I made an assessment nothing else. I have no emotions in this. The irony is the belief that a nation that is "agreement incapable"will impose upon other nations the honouring of treaties, agreements, contractual arrangements and imperial obligations to the empire. I think you are going to need a much bigger army and a death star.
You failed in your assessment before you got started the United States as a nation is not agreement incapable your generalization does not take into account that the US government is currently very agreement capable.
It would not be pretty for the world if the sentiment of this blog was fulfilled. If the United States collapses as many you hope this void how would be filled. Would it be better or worse, many of you right here sound similar to that hate filled crowd in the US cheering for Trump and his administration’s failure.
And what most people (BTC people, Gold people, BRICS fans people, America hating people, etc) fail to realize is that you MUST have a stable currency in order to transact business.
Allow me to explain to the Trump hating geniuses. Say you make pens. And there are all kinds of little moving parts and pieces. These parts and pieces come from everywhere. However let’s just say you are the ultimate producer of the product.
You must have an expectation of a reliable currency in order for biz to get done. If it’s all a bunch of turbulent shit you will NOT take the risk of producing these pens. Now imagine with automobiles, etc. Gets wildly mote complicated does it not?
This is why the USD is king boys and girls. It’s also why it is unlikely to change anytime soon. Hope that helps. Btw I am by NO MEANS an economic whiz. I don’t pretend to be. Just common sense, which I understand can sometimes be hard to see.
First you must explain what is meant by a stable currency. As almost all sovereign currency is stable within the sovereign border of the issuing country. Majority of currencies are related to the value of the dollar internationally, but everyone knows that the FX market is based on manipulation and nothing else. So question, the middle eastern currencies that have pegged exchange rates to the dollar, are they stable currencies? Also to stabilise any currency all that needs to be done is anchor the currency to gold which has been accepted as value for all of human history. Though, keep on reassuring yourself. As how logorithmic decay works is that things collapse little by little then all at once.
I think you are making it too complicated. For example BTC may start out today at $80k. By the end of the day it could be worth $83k. That’s just an example but not too far fetched. You can’t forecast your biz with that kind of volatility. Not only will you be betting on acquiring all aspects of your product but you will also now have to gamble on the currency situation…..Hence you don’t make your product
INTEROPERABLE Digital Currency is the answer to the problems you mention above. Everything is moving smoothly according to plan.
Tether.
XRP
Go large while it's cheap.
Luke, don't worry, no one is ever going to mistake you for an economic whizz.
You have explained why ' money' is needed, but not why Saudi Arabia and China need to use Dollars. The Dollar will go the way of Sterling and for the same reason - you aren't the World's economic powerhouse any more.
Why don’t you explain it to us then John. Why is it China & Saudi need to use the dollar?
The US dollar is king cuz we have a hyuuge and bigly reserve pool. That pool is emptying due to decades of mismanagement.
Interoperable digital currency is the answer. It's already designed and ready for a rollout. You will need a digital ID to use the currency. Without the digital ID you won't be able to buy or sell. WHERE HAVE YOU HEARD THIS BEFORE???
Yes, but do you realize that the majority of the USD out there floating around the globe is for INVESTMENT purposes, NOT trade.
Yes of course, investment purposes means in the form of debt? As investment means creating a debt obligation and the dirivitives market is estimated to be between seven hundred trillion to 1.2 quadrillion dollars.. The reality is all federal reserve notes are a form of debt so even the dollars in trade are for investment purpose as they are debt as the dollar is a debt based currency. Just a classic Ponzi scheme on a global scale where money is borrowed from Peter to pay Paul on and on it goes until it can't.
Exactly!
FWIW: Wamsley suggests that the dollar isn't going away. It is just too convenient for every nation to use. What is going to go away though is the cut US banks take when trades are run through SWIFT. Tether is a crypto currency that is 1:1 to the dollar. Those trades are made practically instantly without any worry about US sanctions.
There are a number of systems, including Tether that are much less expensive, 98% less, take literally seconds instead of days to complete and are completely opaque to the US, all pluses for most countries including US vassals.
Dream on, Ikester.
Well, I'm not the only one. 😊
This would never occur to Europe. We are stuck with these people in the EU who have NO foresight.
BRICS is basically a glorified dorm room bull session.
I respectfully disagree. It may have those elements now, but it will be a forum for defining and organizing interstate relations in a more comprehensive way in the near future.
Sounds like wishful thinking.
What progress exists in this world that is not the result of wishful thinking, inspiration, and action?
BRICS might try some inspiration and action. But one could apply your comment to any dorm room bull session.
You keep repeating this mantra without anything to back it up.
BRICS is very real and the New Development Bank is very real. They are connected to China's BRI and even to Russia's Wagner Group campaigns in Africa. The BRICS have a larger GDP than the G7 (Of course, with China the anchor having the largest GDP in the world anyway.)
The American Empire is in decline, even the Oligarchy admits it.
"BRICS is very real and the New Development Bank is very real. They are connected to China's BRI and even to Russia's Wagner Group campaigns in Africa."
This statement is so vague as to be unfalsifiable.
BRICS is mostly a gathering of highly corrupt and incompetent Banana countries.
India is a complete shithole only good for call centers and agriculture.
Brazil, led by commie traitor, Lulabell is fully corrupted, forced the vax on its population and wants Brazil's rightful leader, Bolsonaro in Jail.
South Africa has nothing left since its reverse apartheid against the whites. There's a radical party there that slogans, "Kill the Whites". Those who took over the country just recently came down from the banana trees not exceptionally equipped for the modern world.
China is a large and powerful nation, but it often offers Russia unfair prices for its resources, expecting to pay deep discounts that prevent Russia from earning a fair profit. With friends like that who needs an enemy? No wonder the Russians want to play ball with the US. Commie China sucks. They built poorly constructed ghost cities costing citizens 30-40 years pay to buy a shack in the middle of nowhere. China's economy suffers from stupid policies.
Only Russia is solid. The rest of BRICS is Bics, man.
Why don't you go China and see for yourself instead of saying stupid Anti China shit?
I'm not anti-China but I certainly wouldn't want to live under the Commies. Chinese citizens are generally likeable but I have no use for commie dictators and how they control everything of what you can do or say. I was born free to speak my mind and do what I can afford and no commie can change that yet. lol
I'm afraid you have a very out-dated view of China, its politics and its economic/social/technology advances over the years.
Bullshit, Victor. I know very well about China's advancements which are significant. But its economic downfall has been epic. Chinese citizens have paid a dear price losing a lifetime of investments through corrupt real estate deals. But the rich Chinese hide their money in places like Canada because even they don't trust their commie government. The Chinese economy is at a standstill with the commie government spending billions to try and prevent a full economic collapse. Socially, have you heard about social credit score to control every aspect of your life and if you don't comply, you starve. Cameras everywhere and I mean everywhere. Comply and survive, speak out and die. Politically, China sneaks and infiltrates to gain power into countries like Canada to force its doctrines upon an unsuspecting population like they got caught doing here red-handed. Economic, look at real estate evergrand fiasco and the disasters of a whole bunch of other companies due to grifting and poor management. There's only a select group of commies who get to keep their ill-gotten fortunes at the expense of its population. Technology, for the longest time its technology was copy and paste from the US and other countries. Sure they've made advances but there are some advantages to having a command economy. That's how they build a whole city in a few years.
Make sure you know what you talk about next time you address me, Victor and not waste my time.
You don't know jack shit about China. Your ignorance shows in your stupid examples.
Oh the irony. But what else to expect from a white supremacist?
Read and weep Apartheid lover, read and sob.
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/chinas-economic-model-revisited
What about you? A communist country owns EVERYTHING. There are no individual or private businesses. People can't have wealth. You probably think Russia is a communist country too.
Ignore Denis' vitriol. His spewing of the the usual anti-china tropes is telling in its own way... thus making his other comments also quite suspect in retrospect. Him using the word 'trumptard' also is another clue. Heck, he may even be AI-driven.. Simplicius is getting that much attention, I bet.
As a friend related to me years ago, his mother had imparted simple words of wisdom to him - why do you persist in arguing with a fool? You either end up educating him but he will never give you credit (aka you lose), or you don't get anywhere with the fool (you lose again). Disengage. That's the only way to win.
I disagree with much of what Denis said. But not all. China is a super oppressive surveillance state, where any dissent is crushed. There are no critical voices permitted. And it really pisses me off when otherwise sensible folks like Brian Berletic and Danny Haiphong completely ignore this glaringly obvious fact.
Of course there's much to admire about China , but don't kid yourself. There's a cruel and dark side to that country too.
I mean no offence, SG. My comment is not personal, it's factual.
Do some research and see for yourself, man.
I respect and wish well to all good Asian citizens like you.
Disengage did sound a bit like you just stopped a nuclear bomb from hitting me. lol
Peace out, bro.
Go learn from this young American currently in China.
https://www.facebook.com/Ishowspeed?mibextid=ZbWKwL
Been to China many times and they are not 'commies.' Have you been hiding under a rock.
Lol, Jenny.
You have no idea what it is like to live in China. The news media has all kinds of conflicting reports on what the Chinese public think of their government. Most of the reports of Chinese dissidents are provided by US think tanks with an ax to grind.
Hello? China is not communist. What are you talking about?
Xi is not a dictator Denis. May I suggest some in depth research on the Chinese political system?
And free speech? Try talking about ashkeNAZI's genocide of Palestinians in the US and do the same in China. See where you will fare best.
Thanks for the input, Grr. Neither Chinese communists nor Zionist systems serve the people. Maybe one-day things will change. The world's citizenship is under attack. Bad things are unfolding for humanity. I feel most fortunate to have lived during the best of times.
" I feel most fortunate to have lived during the best of times. "
It was good until it went bad.....
"I was born free to speak my mind" what a shame then that your mind doesn't produce anything worth listening to.
I have done: lived and worked there. The place is an ongoing disaster and BAR exports this unhinged industrial criminality.
The building that famously, completely (the only one) collapsed in the Thai/Myanmar earthquake was built by China as was the train station covering in Serbia that collapsed. The fake "investment" in Africa etc is just as morally and effectively shoddy as is the environmental damage they cause everywhere: eg Tara river desecration crime etc etc etc
Nope. Another fool who don't separate state from private. The Thai building was a joint project with Chinese construction holding 49% stake. Lots of background Not investigated.
There are more than 200 Chinese build buildngs in Bangkok that didn't collapse. But you don't care.
No man, regarding rail station covering in Serbia problem is related to domestic corrupted politicians and construction companies not Chinese (I think supervision were done by company in France ownership). Other thing Chinese have build here super quality High Ways for many years now and they invested in several mines etc. production is growing and salaries are 2-3 times above average. There are no problems whatsoever. I would be happy Serbia to reach Chinese level in development and state organisation. They have been always good friend to Serbian people. Regarding liberties someone mentioned above, do not fool yourselves, in western world you can not say man is man and girl is girl or you could be responsible, go to jail or they could even took your kids away...if you speak positively about Russia on line you could be punished like it happens in England etc. European politicians do whatever they want without any democratic capacity, they push Europeans in war with Russia which nobody wants etc etc....China is not perfect for sure but it is now Atlantis for corrupted west...
China shills; I guess it's easy money.
The Thais ordered the winning bid (for the Bkk building that collapsed) to lower it by billions of Baht. The result cut corners in construction; a usual Thai outcome.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-FNafQ15SKc
Are you consuming too much MSM? There are no ghost cities in China. These are massive construction areas (something which the western countries cannot afford to do and have little reasons to) which after finishing are populated in a few years. It's easy to verify by using Baidu Maps (street view). One of such "ghost" towns is Ordos city. See, the towns are built completely with the necessary infrastructure like schools, hospitals, shops, fitness centers, etc. You just cannot comprehend the scale of China construction (which produces more concrete in 5 years than the US did in a century) and the scale of western decline. China needs to provide new comfortable apartments for millions and millions of people.
This video confirms ghost cities in China. You made me work for it, huh.
https://youtu.be/mt-Pa5s5zZI
He already explained. You and your US govt Paid anti China bullshit.
You so angwy. Chill super shill!
Ordos is a ghost city? In 2009 it had a population of 30K. Today it has a population of 2,153,638. This is the exaxt opposite of ghost city.
What about these ghost cities in China?
https://youtu.be/mt-Pa5s5zZI?t=1
Why are you posting the same link again? The 1st city it mentions is Ordos. So let's discuss that one and go through each city one at a time. Do you acknowledge that the population of Ordos is 2,153,638? Wikipedia confirms this and Wikipedia isn't exactly pro-China. If you acknowledge the population is 2,153638 then Ordos is NOT a ghost city. Correct? Let's acknowledge this fact and then we can move on to the rest of the cities claimed to be "Ghost cities." How does that sound?
Westerners cannot understand a govt that prioritize People over Profits.
The building craze was because greedy speculators pushed up housing prices in expectation of big profits.
What's happening now is just reality in pricing settling in. Housing is getting affordable to those who need.
"India is a complete shithole only good for call centers" - not really. IT call centers/help desks call @ 10 pm to the US customers to fix an issue due to huge time difference, plus quality is poor.
Well, I didn't mean it to sound so blunt. lol
I got triple billed for a laptop I bought from Dell through its Indian centers.
They fixed it.
Doesn't Indian GDP account for 8% of global GDP? That's a big shithole.
Many Westerners really struggle to acknowledge changes in the Global South. First it was the Japanese who were derided, then the Koreans and now the Chinese. The Russians get treated that way too.
But if you look at the infrastructure and cities going up in much of the South and compare it to the decay in lots of the UK and US, then it's like we're wilfully blind to the fundamental changes taking place.
You are extremely misguided... but interesting that you end up spewing US MSM talking points about China, which really goes to show that people in general can be 'programmed' if the bias is pushed long and hard enough. Surprised you didn't throw in the social credit score thing (totally bogus, just fyi).
They think they come across as a China expert by repeating US govt lies about China.
TBH, whatever happens in China - good or bad - isn't our problem. Same can be said for Russia, Iran, Niger, Yemen, Taiwan, Ukraine, etc.
I'm more worried about how entire Federal agencies, the courts and just about every public and private institution had been weaponized to suppress, cancel or incarcerate those who all dissented against the Establishment during the past 4 years.
From the Scamdemic lockdowns and mandatory jab to sending the feds after any individual or group who questioned the 2020 [s]election to parent groups who were protesting the degenerate shit being forced on school children.
---------------------------------------------------------------
https://americandigest.org/who-is-my-enemy/
Who is my enemy? He is the one who:
1. Taxes me into poverty
2. Inflates my dollars until they are worthless
3. Murders children in the womb
4. Vows to seize my guns
5. Allows crime to run rampant
6. Forces me to get the vaxx
7. Threatens to use the US Military against me
8. Forces pedophilia, sodomy and sexual degeneracy onto school kids
9. Uses government agencies to break into my house in the early morning and haul me to jail
10. Punishes opponents of the ruling class
11. Calls me an extremist and an enemy of the state
12. Conducts a coup d’état against a sitting American president
13. Rewards traitors but punishes and kills patriots
14. Hands out medals to those who perpetrated Ruby Ridge and Waco
15. Corrupts all elections and so makes my vote worthless
16. Opens the borders of my homeland to the most violent and depraved criminals ever conceived
17. Appoints Satanists, pedophiles and the sexually depraved to positions of authority and power
Neither Russia nor China nor Iran does any of these things to me. The US government does all of them to me.
So who is my enemy?
It's the same about the lies about the slave camps of the Uyghurs.
"The claims of genocide are another example of Deep State propaganda intended to gaslight the Western public into viewing China and the Chinese as global badguys in league with Russia and Putin and who must be put in their place."
https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/re-uyghurs-and-the-west?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=473679&post_id=147163579&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2i7lr4&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Go fuck yourself🤡
Way to win an argument, Jasmine! That’s some real Wildean wit you’ve got going there.
This is for those who say the Chinese have no freedom. Stupid People say Stupid Things and claim to be experts.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1D9brQdqJG/
Sounds just like da Yookay and EUSSR, then.
I think China and Russia are quite happy with their dealings, they're just quiet about it. China is pretty sorted 1000 million metric tons of steel vs the USA's 79,5mmt.
As for South Africa - it's a complete disaster with infrastructure, transport, mining and electricity generation all crumbling.
You an argue about India's capabilities but then it has recently settled it's border disputes with China and Modi has even stated that it's path is with China, when they start closely collaborating you will be fighting a tide of 2.5 billion people.
Brazil isn't the most spectacular democracy in the world but considering Bolsonaros position, it's not significantly different than where the Democrats wanted Trump, Trump literally and figuratively dodged a bullet.
It is true that Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa did use that chant but everyone has stated that it should not be taken literally, and no, it's not their slogan, that's a huge exaggeration.
That might be your wet dream but it doesn't reflect reality in many aspects and no, the Russians aren't trying to play ball with the US, Trump is kissing some serious ass to get a peace deal, he has NO cards to play when negotiating with Russia.
As for Russia being abused by China, consider that China has place NO sanctions or tariffs on Russia and they have mutually agreed that they are allies. Considering your insight, you might ask who they'd be allied against, so think about who has sanctioned/tariffed both countries, who has continually meddled in their internal affairs, who has military bases surrounding their countries, who has been continually involved in wars of aggression and who is constantly involved in color revolutions and regime change coups. If you can figure that out, you'll be getting a grasp of the situation.
Your comments about China are pure ideological bullshit, the 'ghost cities' is a myth, they build cities to move about 8 million people a year into cities so the idea is to build the city before you need it and then the people move in. Even your myths are outdated.
Ghost cities of China.
https://youtu.be/mt-Pa5s5zZI?t=1
If the US steps down, another Empire will rise up.
Look at the Chinese. They're all over Australia, Africa, Canada, and Russia. They and most political experts say "they're not interested in being an empire", aehm well, why do they own ports, mines, lumber mills, and critical infrastructure all over the world then?
Isn't half of Australia and half of Canada already Chinese?
If the Russians get careless, the Chinaman will take those borderlands that he now 'develops'. In 20 years or so, there'll only be Chinamen living in that area, and what'll stop them from voting for incorporation into the PRC?
Half of Australia is not Chinese yet, but China owns >60% of Australia including the PM and many influential government leaders. We are up the sh#t unless more people wake up soon.
US/UK (Zionists capital) owns more of Australia than any other foreign capital and always has.
Chyna, Chyna, Chyna. FFS.
To answer your question, nukes.
I agree that The International zionist yankee occupation force must die. But the boots that the funders of that crime syndicate wear were made for stomping. So Barry, Man Land Barry, you can forget all about us rolling over and dying.
So there were no wars before 1776?
This dude is funny. He likes the other evil better than this evil!
Peace? Well looking at the European continental history that is not in the cards. Europe has been at war with itself since the fall of the Roman Empire.
There is a metaphor that is very apt for the global economy. It is like an airplane. There are those in 1st class, others in coach. But when the economy spirals in for the crash, it won't matter what seat assignment you are in, everyone dies together.
" to once let the rest of the world live in peace and prosperity."
That's hilarious.
It is so far gone at this point, why not try it. Even if there is a notably positive effect, my personal opinion is that the improvement will take a long time. I have zero trust in something holistic happening quickly. At least it has been now confronted, especially the military decline, that the party is over.
Thank you Simplicius.
Merely halting our decline will be a full time preoccupation. Especially, with the entrenched interests battling every one of Trump's domestic reforms.
Any marked improvement will require decades and who knows if any of us will be alive to see that.
Between the escalating conflict on the domestic front and a bellicose foreign policy due to the ruling class that's beholden to the Bankers, MIC and AIPAC.......any one of those endeavors portend disaster and could easily sabotage any positive outcomes.
As for the U.S. military, assuming we were to close down all ~900 foreign bases and restructure it for border and maritime defense - .mil's historical responsibility prior to WW1 - it will take many years for it to reshape itself for that task.
^ That will likely result in a coup against Trump since reducing the size, scope and mission of the military will cut off the MIC's gravy train.
Another thing. With Trump suggesting that the Mexican Cartels be labeled terrorist orgs and beating his chest about invading Mexico and bringing the war to the Cartels........well, there are some ret. military folks who believe it will result in a bloody, sustained armed conflict that will effect us on this side of the border, as well.
Irregular Warfare analyst Bill Buppert lists some of the daunting problems we'll be facing with if a hot war breaks out with the Cartels which is essentially war with our southern neighbor.
https://cgpodcast.substack.com/p/ep-058-the-mexican-cartel-conundrum
https://cgpodcast.substack.com/p/ep-059-the-mexican-cartel-conundrum
Hello Altai.
I am inline with much you have written. Decades of attempt to change more likely than years and nothing guaranteed.
The military ............. this military could not fight it´s way out of a paper bag. Tanks and aircraft with 40 and 50 year old designs, that have had weapons specifically designed to defeat them. F-18s for example, were new in my last year of active duty. The MIC has completely screwed the pooch. The thing that drives me craziest, is that they pretend that they can take raw recruits in Ukraine and have them up to speed faster than the time it took us to send somebody through boot and then AIT. I worked on Sea Stallions and it took about 12 months of working and flying on them until I was really comfortable comfortable. A friend of mine in 2nd Mar Div at the time agreed, saying it took almost two years to produce a really effective infantry marine. War speeds up that process but, some things still take a very long time to learn and become effective. So good luck going against cartels with the current generation.
My best to you.
We already have war on our side of the border. Moving it across the border seems a good strategy.
The Cartels already have plenty of assets, human or otherwise, north of the Rio. Not only dope and human traffickers. They also have a shit ton of politicians, lawyers and possibly LEO and military folks on their payroll. That's not including plenty of otherwise legit businesses from agriculture to real estate and everything in between
And in any sort of hot conflict, they have the means to obtain intel and a kill list of the family members of every high ranking cop, politician or even military SpecOps shooters who are deployed against them.
Moving the conflict across the border would necessitate seizing all Cartel assets, rooting out those on their payroll, and neutralizing their ability to carry out kinetic actions here. That means more than just the Cartels' soldados.
They're already acquainted with both the jihadist cells, they helped to smuggle across the border, and they have a working partnership with just about every active transnational organized crime group here. That's not counting all the hired guns - many with prior military experience - they can enlist.
If you have the time and inclination, check out the links to the Chasing Ghosts podcast to get an idea of the scale of the problem.
The sooner started, the better finished.
As long as there is demand, there will be supply.
Raise the cost of supply, the demand will eventually respond, it isn't completely elastic.
Can't have it both ways. Either we export an excess of dollars, or we export more goods. No matter what explanation any economist or politician gives to explain it otherwise, that is the way it is.
Only if Yankland insists on its Dollar being the only global currency.
BRICS+ with its multipolar agreements and encouragement of free trade if taken up by most of the world would negate the need for a global currency and allow all countries to prosper based on supply and demand.
That would mean that we're not exporting excess dollars. Just like I said.
Right now you're long time exporter of military terrorism and just started on economic terrorism. 😜
The economic terrorism is now known of by more Americans, but it started long ago. Read Smefly Butler's War is a Racket. Or Antony Sutton's Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. Even those won't show you the start, but will open your eyes. The haves, have been stealing from the have nots for as long as we have existed.
The example given by that economist that nothing will change for the american consumer is based on the assumption that the when your currency is 10% stronger, 10% tarifs won't budge anything.
Thing is, there are already too many dollars out there for them to value higher against anything else if even a modest amount of dedollarisation is done.
The dollar weakens and tarifs will make it extra expensive for the americans.
Most American economists work for the Federal Reserve. That is not because they need that many economists, it is because they need them to push the narrative. Economists of the Austrian School don't use nearly as many models or equations as those of other schools, because they know that very detailed predictions are not useful. Other schools see them as primitive because they don't make these detailed predictions. However these other schools are nearly always wrong in their predictions, and when they are right it is usually just by chance.
Several countries have already changed their terrifs on US goods. This is within just one day of the imposition of new US terrifs. Obviously long term projections are not worth making if many countries will change their rules so readily.
Any economist working for a central bank probably doesn't know what they are talking about, and if they do, they will almost certainly lie.
And now think different. The article tells us, you must export dollars not goods, then you have the reserve currency. History tells us, that it does not matter if you import or export your currency or goods, important is the size of your economy. If you export a lot, then your currency is extremly valuable, everyone needs this currency to buy and you can easily store your savings in this currency. Because people are doing this, the value goes up and up. Because the value goes up, local enterprises can produce cheaper compared to the price of the imports. This will balance itself, as it always did, except the government goes for short term goals and hinders the normal developement.
Thank you, very fair.
In no way is our manufacturing base or our moral fiber or skills so far gone to not recover, our industries have been coming back (reshoring) in a tremendous wave for 3 -4 years, and Reshoring is now in job terms running 66%-34% over FDI (Foreign Direct Investment- foreign companies building here).
Source below.
W/respect to Mr Mirian and his paper- The Tariffs and building of industry and Infrastructure (rebuilding in this case) is the American system of Henry Clay (1820) which was put into great effect by President Abraham Lincoln (in fact was a leading cause of the Civil War).
This American system was continued all the way through FDR and only fell away during the Cold War, in part due to the need for the Global Reserve Currency, loss of the Gold Standard and the resort to the petrodollar. After 1991 this is all just Boomer looting and neocon / neoliberal madness.
… not unlike the 2022-present war.
Good point that Putin’s chief economist is in DC and Russia and America forge the ties they can, cutting out the sick men of Europe.
As to The Global Reserve Currency- if you’re living under a bridge on Food Stamps, you don’t care about the exchange rate or FX vs The Euro, etc. By all means a trade of multiple currencies in the world in exchange for manufacturing returns is fine.
Speaking of manufacturing returning-
https://reshorenow.org/april-3-2025/
Sure you may be correct, but the only purchasers for your manufacturing will have to be Americans themselves, don't rely on any other nation being the least bit interested in what you have to trade!
Our largest markets are internal, hence the shrieks.
We’re not interested in you either bye.👋🏻
I believe you are correct on tariffs being a cause of the Civil War, at least in part if not a leading cause. Congress, in order to help the struggling clothing manufacturers of New England, put a tariff in English produced clothes. England, having ready access to Indian cotton, put a reciprocal.tarriff on American cotton. The tariffs helped northern textile mills at the expense to southern cotton growers, helping to set up a geographical and industrial/ agricultural split and animosity.
This is an example that where things go from now may well be completely unknown, with unforseen consequences.
As an Easter European not familiar with the origins of the Civil War in America: northern mills were not buying cotton from southern growers without tarrif? Were was the expense? To me sounds like the cotton growers lost the British cotton market and gained the Northern American mills one, a win-win economically for the new nation.
Northern mills were buying southern cotton without tariffs. The tariffs were put on English clothing. When England put retaliatory tariffs on Southern cotton, the South lost that market. This loss of the English market for Southern cotton was an expense that the Southern growers had acquired while the Northern mills were able to grow having eliminated English products. Eventually it may have nationally been a win- win situation but in the meantime, one sector of the economy had to pay a price, it helped start the war in which I believe 3/4 of a million men died ( in a country of a much smaller population at the time - 1861.
You might want to read a summary of “The impending crisis of the south and what to do about it” by Hiram Helper (racist, southerner) from that time.
In general the South wanted Feudalism and Slavery sea to sea, the North wanted Industry, the Republican Party was absolutely a working man’s and farmers party hence Free Labor and Free Soil.
No - wage earners aren’t slaves. <
The Free soil and Homestead Act are quite tied in this way.
Lincoln wanted to improve the lot of the common man, again Slavery comes as an issue the last decade of his 4 decades in public life. The lands to the West were going to be Free or Slave plantations, the Republicans wanted free , the South wanted plantations.
I don't recall tariffs being mentioned in the Lincoln Douglas debates. Nor in the Cooper Union address for that matter.
Gee and yet it happened
See Lincolnomics or google it
Do you believe there would have been war absent the slavery issue? Do you believe the abolitionist movement could have been defeated? The issue was not going to settle itself, at least not in time.
Intertwined and complex.
Lincoln was interested in economics infrastructure, tariffs building up of the country for three of his four decades in public life . He only began to be interested in slavery and then containing it when it became clear that slavery was going to spread to the western states.
It was also very obvious to everyone at the time that five out of the six whites in the south were land poor or landless, and cash poor , dirt poor and this system of either near serf labor or slave labor was going to spread over the country.
1860 was a working class election. The original Republicans were whigs who were all behind tariffs (basically what you see Trump doing now with tariffs and infrastructure) along with free labor and free soil. So in many ways, it was the first white working class party. The Democrats wanted free trade and of course they want slavery to spread. They needed and wanted the western soil to keep growing cotton. So when Lincoln says all slave or all free and then he warns, it’s going all slave he’s getting interested in the last 10 years of his life. The Republicans only wanted to contain slavery. Lincoln more or less fell into the Civil War backwards. Lincoln was expecting it to blow over, as was very clear with a meeting of than Colonel Sherman and his brother Senator Sherman in early 1861.
So you have the desire to build up the country, the desire to build up the working man by improving infrastructure by loans by any funds through tariffs with a desire to have free labor as opposed to slave. The other wrinkle in it was the beginning of unions of the Free but very poor, white southern workers and the fact that the Democrats were afraid they were going to vote Republican. Secession was driven by multiple issues. Slavery was the issue that set it all off. The Homestead act which opened up all the Western lands for a filing fee with the greatest land distribution and greatest boost to the common man that ever happened didn’t get passed until 1862. It was sitting in Congress for a decade and the Democrats wouldn’t let it pass. There were great many things that couldn’t happen that were good for the country and the common man that couldn’t happen until the south Seceded and then was defeated in the Civil War.
All of those issues, save slavery, are the common grist of politics to this day, but don't ignite bloody civil wars. Lincoln was a man of his time and can rightly be understood as such. Until slavery became the isaue of the day and would clearly be a divisive issue, it would not be on anyone's front burner except for the Abolitionists who were getting more noisy.
Lincoln had reason to believe, and hope, that the issue could be resolved peacefully. Afterall, war had been avoided only a dozen or twenty years earlier during the Jackson administration. If no one did anything stupid it could be kept at a low simmer until the institution died under its own increasing weight, as the Founders anticipated. As Lincoln noted, payment was first demanded.
Agreed. I’m simply saying it wasn’t just Black and White or Free vs Slave. Sherman’s motive for instance was keeping the Union together so we didn’t suffer “the fate of Mexico which is eternal civil war.”
He also said “what we have here is a people with 6 million Constitutions” meaning the 6 million whites in the South.
A lot of that still today 😉
Gracious! Fixed the voice typos.
Nor the various declarations of succession by the Confederate States.
I answered below, but if you’ve never come across the issue of free trade versus tariffs in southern apology for the Civil War, then you haven’t checked.
What they want it was either slave labor, or poor dirt whites who by the way did most of the fighting. There were great many things going on slavery was one of them.
So you know better than the people who drafted the declarations of succession themselves?
I’m more honest than them and another I could name.
So, nobody in any of these seccession committees could bring themselves to say "tariffs" (even though Southern politicians had no problems doing so in the past) but instead had to invent an excuse? Not only that, but an excuse that made them look like the bad guys?
I don't recall "Uncle Tom's Cabin" mentioning tariff schedules or "John Brown's Body" referencing exemptions.
Go on, pull the other one.
I don't recall the BRICS being mentioned in the Biden Trump debates. Is that because they don't exist or are irrelevant?
Manufacturing can return all it wants but at the 3 to 10 times the price of imports from China and the lower quality from the US, I'm not buying because I can't afford to. We are already being ripped off at an astronomical level by US companies that import PVC pipe and copper from overseas then mark it up 1000 percent. Until the price gouging stops our only defense is to buy Chinese products and don't even begin to tell me about inferior quality. Mini splits, Air curtains, Refrigeration units, Ventilation fans, etc. are far better quality coming from China, not to even mention that the aforementioned products aren't even manufactured in the US in the first place. I have been purchasing these products from China for the past 5 years and their quality far surpasses what I used to buy from US companies. The only US companies currently making high quality items are the small to medium manufacturers that use CNC machinery like their Chinese counterparts do. It would be great if we could return to being independent to a large degree but I don't see it happening because our raw materials have been largely outsourced to other countries. Products that were made in China 10 years ago were absolutely of inferior quality, but if you think that they haven't upped their game, then you're delusional. American exceptionalism is gone and the sooner we realize that fact and work to improve our game the sooner we can at least be respectable. As long as the MIC has all politicians on their kick back list then the only sector of the US economy that will prosper is the "defense" industry, which is always used for offensive reasons.
It's hard to improve your game if you're not in the game. Trump would like us back in the game, and yes there is a lot of lost ground to make up.
Don’t care.
As Patrick Armstrong observes......
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2025/03/03/an-idiots-guide-to-war/
....this is magical thinking.
"There is nothing that money can do to remedy the four-to-one ratio except with a lot of investment in production over a long time. Thanks to offshoring manufacturing, the Western industrial base mostly has to be built from the ground up. Is that even possible? If you think about it, an apprentice machinist on an assembly line fifty years ago was being taught how to do it by a master machinist who had been taught by a previous master and so on back to the middle of the 1700s when industrial production was invented. Each in the series advanced the technique, of course, but it’s still a chain you could trace back, machinist by machinist, for all that time. If that sequence of teacher-learner-teacher is broken, if the teacher has retired or died leaving no apprentices, how long will it take to get it back? Putting a pallet of engraved paper in the floor of an empty building and hoping it will turn into a pallet of artillery rounds (or any manufactured item) is magic thinking."
Bottom line:
Deindustrialisation threw out the baby with the bathwater by removing not only skills but also expertise, knowledge and, most importantly, EXPERIENCE. Favouring instead the notion that the only legitimate skill is Management.
A culture which not only simplistically still thinks that reindustrialisation can occur by dragging people from the bus queue, giving them a half day of CBT and a week with someone with zero experience who has only been doing the job a few months themselves; but also that precludes importing that expertise and experience from outside because there are "too many immigrants."
This reindustrialisation, built, as Pepe Escobar.....
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/04/03/how-trumps-tariff-tizzy-burning-down-house/
.....implies, on a begger my neighbour approach in a context in which other countries are already outpacing the US and the West in a win-win way will take a lot longer than twenty years. More like two or three generations if you are lucky.
"“Sanctions and threats are the only thing that the United States has left. It no longer can offer other countries a win-win situation, and Trump has said that America has to be the net gainer in any international deal it’s made, whether it’s a financial deal or a trade deal. And if America is saying, any deal we make, you lose, I win”, that Mafia extorsion gambit does not exactly reflect the Art of the Deal."
Moreover, the assumptions that [checks notes] people" living under a bridge on Food Stamps" and similar are going to benefit from these policies has no evidential basis in reality.
Consider, as simply one example from this Simplicius article which is applicable across the economy:
"In 1973 the US produced 111.4 million tons of steel. It employed 650,000 people. The industry now employs 142,000 and the US produces 79.5 million tons....."
In 1973 steel productivity was 176 tons per employee (111.4 million tons divided by 650,000 employees/workers.
Half a century later, that productivity has increased to just under 560 tons per employee (79.5 million tons divided by 142,000 employees/workers).
A) That has more to do with technological innovation than trade imbalances.
B) That increase in productivity has largely been appropriated by the employers rather than those living under a bridge on food stamps and is in fact partly responsible for all those people living under bridges on food stamps rather than imbalances on trade.
In regard to both points A and B, the Holy Grail of AI - as Simplicius in his Dark Futura posts reminds us - is to run entire organisations with no employees.
The only thing being "liberated" here with this beggar-my-neighbour and everyone else approach is the Oligarchy.
No, I’m in the Rust Belt. America’s industrial base is damaged, not destroyed. We’re rebuilding it but not from scratch.
What am I missing here? Aren't tariffs a tax on Americans?
I don't understand how is that exporters end up paying?
What I can see is that consumption levels will likely drop in the US, which is a good thing in itself. However, certain areas that are not related with consumerism, will also be afected, like pharmaceuticals, foodstuff (of which now the US is a net importer), crude derivatives (including diesel). Thus certain things will become rearer and more dear.
What nobody is talking about is the hammering of the workforce and reduction of rights and regulations (i.e. NIOSH) which will leave the American workforce in a very precarious position. Three years of this shit and the MAGA moement will actually die.
The SNAP program is potentially going to be axed and over 40 million Americans will loose support that effectively helps them to get food on the table.
I don't understand how Miran's paper and explanations address these issues?
Actually the Chinese government is taking steps against that. The ones "screwing" the American consumers are in fact Americans, those that moved industries abroad, those that accept low quality stuff, those that add huge markups, etc. Just think of the faith of farmers in the US and how little they receive from their products! Same with other producers, including the Chinese ones.
You are saying that Walmart somehow will force the Chinese to a 55% discount (the previous 20% + the 34% introduced on Liberation Day)? Just overnight? When there are likely orders in place for many months ahead and on route...? And when already the prices as as cutthroat as possible? As such, it will be the American consumer that will have to pay the tariff, or forego the purchase. And rest assured that the potential American producer will not have a lower price or better quality product...
Correct but your probably responding to a MAGA Commenter that must in all circumstances rationalize how their Trump can’t be wrong. This is how we end up with bad presidents on both sides people not using rational thinking but rather just following their cult leaders off the cliff.
Walmart will pay the exporter the same as before but then have to pay a tax to Trump’s government and then Walmart will increase their price by the amount of the tax (Tariff same thing) to the consumer, really baffling how Americans let their emotions run their thinking processes rather than the other way around.
The idea that foreign companies like Chinese exporters will absorb the tariffs to keep selling in America is partially true—but only up to a point. Here’s why:
Price Sensitivity: If Walmart demands lower prices, some foreign companies might reduce their profit margins to stay competitive. But they can’t absorb all the costs indefinitely—especially if tariffs are high (e.g., 25–50%). Over time, exporters may raise prices or stop selling certain goods altogether if it becomes unprofitable. (NB. this might give US manufacturers breathing space to provide alternatives, at least in some sectors).
Supply Chain Complexity: Many imported goods rely on global supply chains, where costs are spread across multiple countries and businesses. For example, a fridge might have components from China, South Korea, and Mexico. Tariffs on one country’s exports ripple through the entire chain, making it harder for any single company to absorb the cost.
Limited Alternatives: Walmart and other retailers often rely on imports because U.S.-made alternatives are either unavailable or significantly more expensive. If foreign suppliers pull back, Walmart may have no choice but to pass higher costs onto consumers. (but see above re time)
To say that America "cannot lose" in the long run because tariffs will reverse policies that have "devalued the dollar for over 100 years" risks misunderstanding a couple of key points:
The Dollar’s Strength: The dollar hasn’t been "devalued" in the way implied here. In fact, its status as the global reserve currency keeps it strong compared to other currencies. Tariffs don’t strengthen the dollar—they can actually weaken it by reducing trade flows and economic growth.
Trade Deficits Are Structural: America runs trade deficits not because it’s "losing," but because other countries need dollars for international trade and investment. Tariffs don’t fix this—they just make imports more expensive for Americans while potentially reducing exports due to retaliation from other countries.
America benefits from being a net importer because it keeps the dollar dominant globally. Trying to eliminate trade deficits through tariffs risks undermining this advantage.
Also, while it would be great to encourage American companies to step in and produce goods domestically, there are major challenges:
Higher Costs: Manufacturing in the U.S. is more expensive due to higher wages, stricter regulations, and higher energy costs compared to countries like China or Vietnam. Even with tariffs, American-made goods often remain pricier than imports.
Time Lag: Building factories, training workers, and establishing supply chains takes years—not months. In the short term, businesses can’t simply switch from importing to domestic production without major disruptions. So, yes, I agree it will "pinch now" and perhaps for quite some time.
Global Competition: Even if some manufacturing returns to America, U.S. companies still face global competition. For example, American manufacturers might struggle to compete with countries like Germany or Japan that specialize in high-quality production.
Tariffs sound tough and patriotic, but their real-world effects are complicated:
- Foreign companies might absorb some costs but not all—prices will rise for Americans.
- Domestic manufacturing won’t rebound quickly due to higher costs and logistical challenges.
- The dollar’s strength depends on trade deficits and global demand—not protectionist policies.
Finally, the crux of the dilemma for Trump is this:
1. He wants America to stop importing so much stuff from other countries (to reduce the trade deficit), but also
2. He wants America to stay powerful with the dollar as the global reserve currency.
But these two things don’t work together. For America to stay powerful with the dollar as king, it has to import more than it exports. Cut imports too much and other countries might stop using dollars altogether and switch to something else, thus accelerating a trend that is already on the rise.
Not really "my way" ;-) Just pointing out the current realities as I see them. I agree something has to give. Interesting times ahead.
Your understanding of how global trade works needs more study, did you even read the entire article or are you just doing a MAGA drive by? This very Article explains at least some of what you seem not to comprehend.
The only way the exporters pay is by not selling as much. The importers pay, but ultimately the end consumers pay. If the end consumers don't pay, the importers make less, or no profit. If they make no profit, they go out of business.The only way it helps us, is that eventually we produce more. In the meantime, we can't afford as much.
BDS comes to America - and well deserved.
Exporters will be pressured to lower their prices and profit margins since there are limits to what consumers can pay.
But the biggest squeeze will be on the insane markups by wholesalers and retailers on foreign imported items like clothing from Vietnam and Bangladesh.
We will have more inflation, in other words, the dollar will go down. Many will not be able to cut that much, and thus sell less or none. The volume seller with the biggest markups is Nike. They deserve to be out of business anyway. Many, probably most of these tariffs will go down, in response to other countries dropping theirs. Some already have. We'll see how it goes.
You're on 100% solid economic ground when you say that inflation reduces the value of whatever currency is in use. However it's not clear how quickly or deeply Trump's tariffs will affect the US economy. Inflation could be spread out over years. And in the meantime there will be offsetting benefits. Is the pain worth the gain? That will be up to Americans to decide.
The Chinese comanies does not have real profit margins, they can not reduce prices! Either the US consumer pays the higher price or the goods will not be sold.
All goods are sold... eventually... even if the price is almost zero before they are liquidated, shredded or scrapped.
The uncertain impact of tariffs on retail demand means inventory credit risk is higher, more so for smaller businesses. The 1-2 punch of Covid and tariffs will finish them off.
"Eventually we produce more." With factories that don't currently exist, with a workforce that is greatly diminished with critical skills lost or in short supply, and with certain imports that simply do not exist in the US costing considerably more than before? I'd say the corollary to your optimistic view can be found in Keynes: "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
Yes eventually can mean a very long time. I'm not advocating the terrifs. We've been screwing ourselves for so long that a depression is almost certain. I'm preparing to leave the country, probably never to return. Snark isn't useful.
Plenty of factory space available in the Rust Belt. Give an entrepreneur a reason to make money and he will find a way to make it on the margins until he can scale up.
The empty factory space is there, but so much else required to get manufacturing up and running is not. Read this, from someone who has real knowledge of the process.
https://herecomeschina.substack.com/p/america-underestimates-the-difficulty
Americans are going to be poorer because their prosperity has been built on an unsustainable economic system. Unfortunately, people in countries that relied on trade with that American system will likewise feel the pain.
The problem is that many Americans are poorer, especially since covid, unless of course they are the ones with money in the stock market. Everyone else is feeling the pain.
Americans are getting poorer because the US has what I call a "wedge economy" - there are tons of parasitic structures here wanting their cut. One can't even buy health insurance without using the so-called "Healthplanfinders." And the first question you're asked is "what is your income" - what income has to do with health? Health is health. Technically, you can buy directly from an insurance company but you won't be able to deduct expenses against taxes. And of course, you can't make a deal with the preferred hospital to cut all the middle men. The whole system in the US is set up on someone (many) "getting a cut," pretty much on absolutely everything. The US oncology patients are using Canadian online pharmacies - drug that cost in the US $600 it's just $60 from Canadian online pharmacy. Of course, Americans are getting poorer, they're ripped off daily.
Yes - a healthy person paying $1000+/month for health insurance, plus any co-pays and $5,000-6,000/year deductible. And people who have chemo, their insurances cover 80% of the costs, and chemo is $100K, so 20% is felt by patients. Oncology patients working in the US literally till the dying day!
I lived in E. Europe, W. Europe, Canada, & US, and I can tell you nobody got such a screwed up/corrupt system as the US.
Perfectly summarized! The Parasite system naked.
That's a perfect definition of a "service" economy.
Or the perfect definition of "rent seeking" and "casino economy". The best way to make some money is to take a slice off someone who is making some money.
To your point Angelina, this Tucker interview (B. Buhler) gets down in the weeds on what you've posted--the US HC system is theft, in plain sight. I think this piece is not "pay-walled".
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-brigham-buhler
Thanks - excellent piece. I subscribe to TCN but missed this one. Toxic - through and through, the whole system, whatever you touch is ridden with rot.
Well put. Mafia style parasites.
.
Hey....a brother gotta eat!
Can they eat somewhere else?:-)
Yes, assuming the USD remains the same value, prices rise, and standard of living drops. Bloomberg stated Trump expects the tariffs to raise $700b which would help with the $1t budget deficit. It's like austerity measures for a country with too much debt, where the poor pay, the rich keep their tax cuts, and military spending continues to rise.
just as Chinese steel manufacturers àvoided tariffs by exporting to Canada/Mexico which exported to the US, I wonder whether clothes manufactured in Cambodia might go through a low tariff country.
Exactly, this is an exercise in global austerity.
No.
Tariffs bring back jobs like manufacturing. Is that not a good thing? Do you like to support sweatshops and child labor in yellow countries and help them build suicide nets and bars on their high rise windows?
Maybe, but it is not baked in.
I am not rallying here against tariffs or denting Americans to do what they want in their country, far from it. My point is ultimately that the world is sooo much different now than in 1970s, when US went off the gold standard.
Now, except North Korea, pretty much everyone else is integrated in the world economy and the technical genie is out of the bottle, and the US has proven time and time again of its fickle and boorish and bullyish nature and the US is no longer a manufacturing giant and slowly not even a consumer of last resort.
We already have overcapacity for most things (except better healthcare, better education, better public transportation, and afordable housing).
The consumer only pays when they buy foreign goods. That's the point. More american built cars will be sold, and fewer from Germany. Certain sectors don't have such easy replacements, but there has to be some pain points during the transition / bargaining stage.
No, the consumer will also pay when buying US-made goods, because the foreign-made goods will have a higher price. US corporations will take advantage of that to price their own products higher as well. There's also no guarantee that the US "consumer" (who is in most cases a working person) will have the higher income needed to purchase those higher priced goods, because what work does get re-shored is likely to be done in highly automated factories employing little labor.
Miran doesn't know what he's talking about.
Watch this guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvKs_XWZQs
and these two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=594yN8rxIJo
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZewujVpx2E
Looks like we are going to need to start manufacturing drugs and petroleum products in the US again. And other items.
I suspect the RingDing and soft drink markets will be affected by SNAP cuts. Less diabetes is a good thing.
But not less food, which is also associated with cutting SNAP. Over 40 million Americans depend on SNAP, and I suspect not for their soft drinks...
Nothing really surprising here. The known School Bully replaced the retardet Dementia Leader, both on the eternal War path. The tariffs should speed up things so i actually look forward to the near future. Trump wants to pull out Troops (35000 on average) out of Germany. Great, pethaps we'll get our Sovereignity back. Americans will pay more for almost eberything USD loses value, Euro goes up do does Gold.
I also think that a lot of americans now learned something and my want to cut the new Dictator a head shorter. He just has to piss off Satanyahu and Moss Ad will take care.
Euro goes up! Short term; but when printing this enormous amounts of money, without having the production capacity behind, the Euro will head to the intrinsic value = Zero.
I would not want to be holding Euros as the EU tries to build its military forces to take on Russia.
As a French general told Col Douglas Macgregor: The French military is equipped to go on safari in Africa.
Love the Colonel. Can't but help fantasising that one day he'll get into Washington with some force, clear out the layers of dung and redeem the Republic.
1. It should have been obvious a long time ago. There is no plan, or at least, no consideration of second or higher order effects. In fact, it appears that the tariffed countries list apoears generated with AI and probably not checked. Hence, the critically important work of putting tariffs on goods originating from Antarctic islands.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/did-an-llm-help-write-trumps-trade
https://x.com/quendergeer/status/1907873192053772502
2. If Trump wanted to unite the whole world against the US for no gain, then he is putting on a master class.
I can't attest to whether there's a plan or not, much less on its efficacy. But as I'm sure you're aware, there is a significant risk that the entire US economy will collapse, simply because their current national debt is unsustainable. I don't think any rational party is hoping for that outcome on an economic basis. However some people's political beliefs may differ on that point.
Trump may have a bad plan, I honestly don't know. But say what you will, he has a plan. He recognizes the seriousness of America's financial problem, and he's trying to do something about it. That will inevitably create economic uncertainty with any country that trades with them. It's also going to give his countrymen/women an economic haircut. But look at it as would an accountant. Even after the current stock market rout, the DJIA is presently trading at 400% of its value 20 years ago. That's 100% return on initial investment every five years. Trimming a little off that return, or even cutting it in half for that matter, isn't a punitive outcome for any savvy investor.
Look at it from Trump's perspective: he sees the economic uncertainty in his own country's future. It's only logical that he will try to spread that uncertainty out to others, rather than see the US absorb it all. Just as Canada, Mexico and others prospered by selling into the US, the US is now telling them that they will have to accept greater risk and lower returns.
Important point: that doesn't mean that selling into the US under Trump's tariffs will now be unprofitable. Foreign suppliers will tighten their belts, seek lower cost inputs, etc. And then they will decide if it's still worth it to sell to Mr. Trump's America. And the choice is entirely in the hands of those foreign countries. If they don't like Trump's tariffs, then don't sell to America. Totally fair!
>But look at it as would an accountant. Even after the current stock market rout, the DJIA is presently trading at 400% of its value 20 years ago. That's 100% return on initial investment every five years. Trimming a little off that return, or even cutting it in half for that matter, isn't a punitive outcome for any savvy investor.
All of that gain is going to the 1% and prehaps some retirement investements, and represents a real wealth transfer from everyone else towards those elements. And the pensions funds will eventually be looted and dissolved, i.e. those are only temporarily transfers to people other than the 1%. But most of the wage earning class in the US doesn't have such investments anyway.
Whenever you see the stock market indexes going up, that is a bad thing for the average person, not something to cheer. When the relative proportions of ownership of paper wealth change, which is what happens when the stock market goes up by 400% in a period when wages have been largely frozen, then the distribution of claims on real wealth changes proportionally accordingly; it is ultimately a fixed sum game and the rich getting richer automatically means the poor getting poorer. And the stock market is a fanstastic way for the rich to get fabulously richer without doing any real work.
If at t1 you have $80 and I have 20$, and there are $100 worth of goods and services to consume, and at t2 you have $320 and I have $40, that doesn't mean that I am now 2x richer and you being 4x richer does not concern me. Because we don't magically have 3.6x more goods, we have the same goods, maybe something like 20% more, but they are now worth $360, and where previously I had a claim on 20% of that, now I have a claim on only 11%, i.e. I am 2x poorer.
The US will only be "fixed" as a country when the stock market is shut down and everyone who ever owned stocks in substantial quantities is lined up against some wall and shot in the head, then buried in unmarked mass graves. And that is a necessary, not a sufficient condition.
Now there's a formula that makes sense!
It is surprising to me how many just refuse to understand the criminal nature of the American Oligarchy. They manipulate the economy for their own benefit. They are well on their way to becoming a new aristocracy with their own fiefdoms and the rest of us reduced to being neoserfs.
This may be a bit over the top, but the goal is clear to me.
https://theplotagainstamerica.com
👏😂
"All of that gain is going to the 1% and prehaps some retirement investements, and represents a real wealth transfer from everyone else towards those elements."
That is not the case, not even by a country mile. A full 60% of the savings of the American people are invested in the stock market. That's very broad exposure.
>full 60% of the savings of the American people are invested in the stock market
Which is a very misleading number.
1) How many Americans have savings? Most don’t have any, you only start to get people with savings as you enter the top 25% and we’re talking real money for the top 10%.
2) How much of the stock market is owned by which percentile of society?
Sorry to break this to you, especially from Australia, but Trump 's plan is to crush US. You will be paying double for most products including cars and pharmaceuticals. Medical insurance will increase and so on. And, Trump has nominated your Reserve bank to collect the tariff money. Do you think the Jewish rothschild mafia might get richer? Who do you think is pulling Trumps strings?
The Federal reserve is like most of the center banks in every country owned and operated by the same gangs.
Nations should issue their own currency.
Haha..not allowed to comment on Trumps plan on this thread. Your AI censor is good.
Look at 10 year treasuries. Nothing is signaling anything remotely suggesting that the US economy will collapse.
Bernard at MoA made a good point in discussing this topic yesterday. He used the African nation of Lesotho as his example of a poor Country being tarriffed at 42% (iirc). Average earnings in Lesotho are $3.45 per day or around $ 1500 a year. As was said: they aint going to be buying a Tesla or an Apple i-phone any time soon.
"...tariffs on goods originating from Antarctic islands."
NOT AI, FF...I've aleady seen the price of Penguin Steaks double in price at my local
butcher shop. If you've not had grilled Penguin with Fava Beans...you're not really living.
It is worth pointing out that there are no walruses in Antarctica, none, nome of those American walruses like we have in Alaska, American walruses, the best, I tell you, nothing like them.
The wife and I are having Walrus tonight, in fact...ordered on the Trump "MAGA-American Provisions" website. They are a bit gamy but vastly exceed the taste of venison.
Not sure I could bring even a small one down. I'll have to make do with rodents and songbirds.
What about cat colony make some substantial pot luck contribution?:-)
Cats (other than lions) don't really hunt in packs. We occasionally protect one another or share food, but hunting is solitary.
There is a plan, it's just goofy. Shock the system, hold the other big central banks hostage, and get them to cooperate with the FED to help simultaneously neutralize inflation, interest rate, and forex impact for wealth firms within the US.
I.e. other countries "take one for the team" (typ austerity and capital outflow) to help the US. They're betting enough central bankers do it, because they and their elite circles still park their wealth in the US. And perhaps more mundane methods of compulsion.
ECB, BOJ, and some LatAm captives will go along for sure. PBOC and most ASEAN will not, or only a little bit to stop global systemic crisis. But threatening a systemic crisis is part of the calculation. So is the impact in the context of political fragility across the developed world.
It's a slimy move overall and the side effects are also not trivial. If it actually does work, and US firms attempt to increase domestic mfgr orgers by even as little as 20%, the US domestic supply chains are not even remotely ready for it -- a sudden increase in demand would train-wreck the supply chain just like during Covid (talking time-scale of 3-4 months or so), amplifying the financial panic. That's just one immediate issue. Keeping the zigzagging alternations to cross border money flows in balance is also very not trivial. And I have a hard time believing they'll not use the chaos to justify all kinds of frauds and sham privatizations.
Ian Welsh put it better than I could:
"Trump Doesn’t Have A Master Plan
There are a lot of smart people who think Trump has a plan. For example, that he’s deliberately reducing America to a regional power to avoid full Imperial collapse. Or that he’s using tariffs to rebuild American industry.
No.
Trump isn’t the type, he doesn’t have a master plan. Trump is driven by the idea that other countries are taking advantage of America: by a sense of grievance. He wants good deals, by which he always means that the US gets more than it gives, and he’s willing to end a deal if he thinks it isn’t good.
Trump has virtues (not all virtues are moral virtues.) … But he’s not a deep thinker. He doesn’t know much about the political economy, and he doesn’t make and execute policy plans. His purge of the “deep state” is driven by grievance: they went after him during Biden’s reign, so he’s going after them.
His tariffs are driven by looking at trade balances and feeling they’re unfair: Europe has about a 235 billion trade surplus with America, for example. That, to Trump is unfair. … Canada has a trade surplus, so that’s Canada taking advantage of the US to Trump, never mind that the US actually sells more goods to Canada than vice-versa and the surplus is essentially all energy trade.
If his tariffs were part of a master plan to re-industrialize he wouldn’t have gutted Biden’s industrial policy, which was actually working, and he wouldn’t be waffling back and forth on them. He’d institute them."
https://www.ianwelsh.net/trump-doesnt-have-a-master-plan/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
My understanding is that Trump will lower the tariffs if other nations invest in the U.S. Doesn't this occur now; doesn't the trade deficit bring the dollars back to our shores as investment so that the balance of payments are equalized? Most of the repatriation finances our debt or purchases assets; what's the difference? We can invest it in industry and we obviously don't because we don't feel it's worth it. Why would foreign investors feel differently?
And when other countries invest in the US they are "buying up the country" or it's a " security threat" (the Chinese investing in US ports for example). There is no pleasing these people.
Foreign investors will invest for rent in the USA and not for manufacturing which can be done cheaper and more effectively elsewhere. Paying rent to foreign landlords won't fix America.
When factories are made of nearly 100% robots, the cost of manufacturing won't amount to much. On the other hand, if America can't build this kind of Chinese factory, well, the result is obvious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YiaDXGQk7k
Hi John, fair point.
But equally, if factories don't employ people, they won't be "putting Americans back to work" either, so it's hard to see fully automated factories solving that issue, mate.
This is supposedly China’s problem. The high youth unemployment. Yet the Chinese have cheap schools and universal healthcare. They don’t need jobs.
>Doesn't this occur now; doesn't the trade deficit bring the dollars back to our shores as investment so that the balance of payments are equalized
Yes, it does.
But Trump wants to reshore manufacturing.
The problem is that manufacturing is a real physical thing, it is not financial games played in the virtual world.
So you need to invest massively over many decades into technical education so that you have the necessary workforce and into infrastructure, machine tooling and equipment, automation, etc. Active investment. This is how China did it.
But what did Trump do? He abolished the Department of Education. So how is he going to build the large highly educated workforce to run all that manufacturing?
How many such engineers does the US have and how is it going to train more when it is actively divesting from education?
Bingo.
In several other Wamsley YouTubes he explains China's investment in education and how cheap it is. China is even offering classes at its most prestigious universities in English.
The end of the Ivy League as a profit center and indoctrination gulag is near.
Indeed. The West has spent the last 40 years or so destroying centuries of interwoven layers of skill and culture. It is easier to destroy than to build. That's the layered poison they've woven into their insidious global dark work.
It has to start somewhere as it cannot carry on like this.
As posters have also mentioned on this thread, being able to get enough force together to get this minority of parasitic ghouls up against the wall and put them out of our misery is a good dream to work on. It will speed up what will be a hard and laborious process of building again.
The Ukraine war has demonstrated a real game changer in human history -- the state-controlled military forces no longer have a monopoly on indirect fire.
What is lacking is the will and organization, which is where things are much much worse now than they were the last time there was serious opposition to the elites, which was in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Good point
Are you really dumb enough to think that the US can’t produce engineers without the Department of Education? Please tell me you’re not that dumb
Are you really that dumb to think the US oligarchs will successfully produce them on their own without a governmental agency to organize it?
This is a multidecadal process and investment commitment.
Which the kind of people chasing stock market gains and doing all kinds of other short-term fraud tend not to be capable of.
I guess you ARE that dumb
Free market fundamentalism is a psychiatric disease.
Curable only through a burial in an unmarked grave after the VChK has done its job.
Investing is not always a good thing. As John Osman points out, the "Chinese will buy the country". If investing means, creating new production facilities, then this is good for the economy, if this means buying existing facilities, then this form of trade should be limited to locals. The very moment you limit this trades, you are not this big money market and you will loos the reserve currency status - there is no easy way.
Gee, you sound like that Marxist Wolff selling Co-ops. /s
How's that move of TSMC to Arizona going?
Wasn't the purpose of Biden's IRA to subsidize the movement of EU industry to the US? Funny how that story seems to have disappeared.
wow - that is a fantastic article. Thanks so much for this information. This should be taught in schools. I didn't fill out the questionnaire. I guess the bottom answer would be my guess Seems Paul Craig Roberts agrees with you too, https://youtu.be/MeMyrG6u8-4
He, the “76”, has a way with words, such a gift. Thankful.
I love how the World thinks 🇺🇸 leaving means peace and plenty 🤣 but so long 😉 👋🏻
As for replacing income tax with tariffs. what is the difference? The consumer pays income taxes and the consumer pays the duty taxes. In the aggregate, the same people will pay the same amount of taxes. In the former arrangement, the government can regulate so that taxes are graduated and fairer. In the latter, the public is subject to foreign influences and their buying habits for determining their taxes. Seems like a shift from income tax to value added tax.
The big difference is who controls the revenue stream. Tariff revenue is at the discretion of the executive. Tax revenue goes through the Treasury. See the game plan?
The civil war started, because the South had to export/import a lot and pay high tariffs, securing the federal budget, the North could build up its industry, protected by the same tariffs. Therefore the first shots were fired at a point, where tariffs were collected. Anyway, the industry might recover under the Trump administration, but there is a lot of social and political risk involved.
>As for replacing income tax with tariffs. what is the difference?
It's a huge difference, and mostly much for the worse for the average person.
Trump (Musk, Thiel and the rest behind him) taking power was a transition from corporatocracy to open naked oligarchy. With that comes an acceleration of upwards wealth redistribution, and a transition from income taxation towards consumption taxation fits that more general trend very well.
When did average people in the US live better? In the 1890s or in the 1950s? And I am not talking about technology-derived comforts that didn't exist in the 1890s, I am talking about the difference in relative terms between the elite and the masses.
Remember that there was a low-intensity civil war between labor and oligarchs in the US in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century. A lot of blood was spilled, and the balance of forces was grossly uneven, so it was mostly protesting workers getting killed. Yet they persisted. Why? People generally don't risk their life if they have it good.
What made the difference?
Deliberate progressive taxation restricting rent extraction.
Because this blog is mostly about the war with Russia, here is something people don't understand -- Russia was, and by economic policy still is, though it is moving in the right direction because of the war, albeit nowhere near as fast as it should be, an even worse neoliberal shithole than the US. Because they had a flat and very low (10-12%) income tax, and it was the same tax on profits, etc. That was the libertarian wet dream but still unthinkable in reality even in the US until now.
Government revenue in Russia comes from commodity exports and from having a 20% VAT and various addictional excise taxes.
That means that taxes are primarily paid by the poor, because the poor spend all of their income on consumption, so if you have a flat tax on income and a flat tax on consumption, you are taxing the poor effectively at 30-40%. But the oligarchs are only taxed on income at the same rate and they spend a much smaller fraction of their incone on consumption. Worse, much of their consumption, especially the big ticket items (private jets, yachts, mansions in the West, etc.) occurs outside Russia and is taxed there (if at all), not in Russia. So they are probably paying effectively something like 15% at most.
Now what happens in the US? It is already a deeply unfair tax systems after all the top marginal rate decreases and tax loopholes since the 1950s. But now if you remove income tax altogether, it will be all taxation on consumption, and the same logic applies, even more extremely.
Also, the government did do redistribution in the form of at least some funding for education, food stamps, various other benefit and investment programs, etc. Nowhere near as much as it should have, but still. Take that away, and what is left for the average person? It's back to the Gilded Age. Which was gilded for the Vanderbilts and Carnegies, but not exactly a pleasant experience for most others.
The math doesn't work either without slashing the defense budget. But the military is the only reason Trump (thinks he) can use such mafia tactics on the rest of the world. And it is not as if the people profiting from it don't have the influence to block any reductions. So that $1T stays and will even grow. What does that leave for the rest of the government if it is to be funded on tariffs? A federal VAT being introduced in the US further down the line once the population has been beaten into submission even more is not out of the question at all.