Trade wars historically have been symptomatic of more profound underlying problems. Primarily economic in nature. Any big war in history can be tied to economic roots. The degree to which the U.S. financial and economic system is self-destructing varies inversely with the amplitude of the propaganda promoting the opposite.
Yet, in 2016 based on the latest annual W-2 numbers available (SSA.Gov), 55% of worker earn less that $34k per year; 80% of all Americans earn less than $63k per year. Based on the BLS’ labor force participation rate, 37% of all working-age Americans were not considered part of the labor force. But wait, you’re not considered part of the “labor force” if you have not actively looked for a job in the past four weeks.
Just based on these attributes, how is it all possible that the U.S. economy is “healthy and growing?” I’ve left out the fact that household debt hits a new record every month. The average car loan outstanding is $31k. How does that compare to the income numbers? This means that, on average, 80% with a car loan have an outstanding balance that is about 50% of their annual salary. What would happen to the economy if the Government were unable to issue more Treasury to fund the accelerating spending deficit? Sorry to break the news but the economy is collapsing…
Trump’s solution to this is to give us the three-headed neo-con monster called Bolton, Pompeo and Haspel. All three are drooling to drop nukes, spy on U.S. citizens and torture anyone who disagrees with U.S. imperialism.
Paul Craig Roberts posted a must-read article by Stephen M. Walt:
[T]he departures of Tillerson and McMaster and the arrivals of Bolton, Pompeo, and Haspel herald the ascendance of a hawkish contingent that will tear up the Iran deal, reinstate the torture regime, and eventually start a war with North Korea that goes way beyond a simple “bloody nose.” And with Bolton in the White House, Trump is going to be advised by a guy who never saw a war he didn’t like (when observed from a safe distance, of course)…Let me be clear: Bolton’s appointment is on par with most of Trump’s personnel choices, which is to say that it’s likely to be a disaster
You can read the rest of this here: Welcome To The Dick Cheney Administration
Upon reading that commmentary, you’ll understand why it’s not the trade wars that keep up at night…
Dave, I agree we are very close to a confrontation with both
Russia and China. I actually read Joel Sousken’s white paper
on the how and why of a nuclear attack on the U.S. very well
written and available online. Please note the date of this video
and realize that we are entering the sweet spot for this prediction
to come to fruition. A special shout out to Hillary Clinton, thanks
for selling the urainium to Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0IiCrs58RY
Dear Dave,
Thank you for raising this issue. A war with a member of the Russo-Sino alliance like Iran would be very difficult to win. It would make it extremely difficult to sell enough Treasuries to finance the ever growing US deficits and debts. It would in all likelihood trigger massive money printing by the Fed and a drastic fall in value for the Federal reserve Notes.
United States of Zimbabwe
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
How many times does Lucy have to pull away the football before Charlie stops believing the bullshit?
It maybe time to relocate. I like Thailand.
U.S. dead last on list. USA,USA USA !
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html
and if we get into a hot war, exactly how welcome will be the denizens of an abusive, arrogant, dying empire?
One of the root causes of the present crisis is the belief in infinite compounding or infinite growth. We will be all infinitely rich if we only invest and wait patiently for compounding to produce that miracle. However, since 70% of the economy is consumption, that is, the conversion of resources into garbage, there comes a point in time where it is necessery to secure fresh resources from other parts of the planet in order to continue the growth of consumption. That is the reason why we are in the middle east and that is also the reason why we are at war with Russia. Why should the small population of Russia (less than 40% of the US population) own the resources of the largest country in the world by landmass ? Is that the reason why Russians had to meddle in our elections ?