"No Safety, No Surprise"
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - “And so it begins...” said Donald Trump. What begins? It is the end that begins. The US empire has been in decline for a quarter of a century. Almost everything Mr. Trump has done appears intended to hasten the descent. That is as it should be. He’s fulfilling his historic role.
He’s made friendly countries wary of us...encouraged them to find dollar substitutes...and given them cause to ‘gun up’ to protect themselves. He’s stifled global trade with capricious tariff announcements...invaded US cities with ‘warfighters’ and masked ICE enforcers...set the nation on course for $185 trillion of debt...killed civilians (without trial) who were allegedly running drugs...and enriched his own family by billions of dollars, while most Americans have made little or no financial progress.
What seawall of strength and rectitude stands against this frothy tsunami of bad policy choices? None at all. No serious contender proposes to lower spending and eliminate deficits. None wishes to bring home the troops to defend the Homeland...they prefer making war on hapless countries like Nigeria, Yemen or Venezuela. Neither party dares make substantive cuts to Social Security or Medicare..
Take a careful look through the binoculars. Because here is where ‘the end’ comes into focus. Instead of bracing against the storm, and putting in place the breakwater reforms that might actually avoid the financial flood ahead, the voters turn to Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is ready to open up the dikes: “There is no problem too big for government to solve. And no matter too small for government to care about...” What is he talking about? The last big problem the US government solved was WWII. Since then, from the war in Vietnam to the war on drugs, it’s been one failure after another.
But Democrats all over the country are getting the message. Want to win an election? Trying to claim the center doesn’t work. What works is bold activism...and more old-fashioned ‘something for nothing.’ It works for Republicans too. It used to be that you could count on the GOP to counter the Democrats’ natural drive for more spending. But Trump has snuffed out ‘conservatism’ in the House and the Senate. Like embers in a dying fire, only Tom Massie and (maybe…sometimes) Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) still flicker and glow.
MTG: "The government has failed all of us and it purely disgusts me. It really does. And I represent a district that is rural, manufacturing district, blue-collar, and people have been crushed by decades of failure in Washington, D.C. Both parties now accept deficits. Both approve of more debt...and of diddling interest rates to make it easier to borrow. Both now offer the voters ‘something for nothing.’ They merely aim to get it from different places. Mamdani proposes to tax rich Americans. Trump claims he can tax foreigners (with tariffs)."
Both promises are frauds. In New York, the top 10% of earners already pay 75% of the city’s budget, more per person than any other major city in America. Squeeze them harder? Every one of them knows how to get on to I-95...turn left and drive all the way down to Florida.
As for taxing foreigners, the idea was silly from the get-go. Any real businessman tries to sell as much product as he can, reducing his margin to an allowable minimum. If his costs are increased, he has no choice; either he raises his sales prices or gives up the market. Whichever way the next election goes - to the rascal Republicans or the scalawag Democrats - the empire is going down.
Says Ray Dalio: "The US is “at the end of its long-term debt cycle, near the end of its empire cycle, deeply divided and entering a period of internal and external conflict.” No safety. No surprise."
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