Apart from the creation of chaos from which he hopes his oligarch friends might prosper, and the chance that he might avoid prison, it is very hard to work out what Donald Trump wanted from his second term in office as President of the USA.
It would take too long to record yesterday's dysfunctional, erratic, inconsistent and frequently incomprehensible decision making by his administration. Suffice to say, the mayhem continues.
But the USA is noticing.
It now knows that prices will be rising.
Employment is not.
Growth is threatened: even Trump is talking of a recession, directly due to his decision-making.
And the S&P Index of major shares, which is the barometer of the perceived (but not actual) well-being of the well-off in the States, is down:
I deliberately highlight the fact that the index is now below where it was when Trump was elected, with a decided downward trajectory seemingly built in at present.
I suggested last November that Trump was going to Make America Poor Again. It seems I was right, and they have now woken up to the fact.
Chaos is not a recognised management technique for a good reason.
Confusion does not inspire confidence for a reason.
And trade wars, ultra-aggression and the alienation of allies all create costly isolation, for good reasons.
Trump is at present an example of how extreme dogmatic belief, coupled with a heavy dose of narcissism, is extremely destructive of well-being, and things can only get worse.
I hate to say "I told you so" to my American readers, but I did.
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While opining on the US stock market my son quipped… “but Dad, you have predicted 10 of the last 3 bear markets”. Having said that, I do agree with you.
Better to be your way inclined than not
Creating chaos has, however, been a technique employed by many past fascists in their rise to absolute power.
Rachel Maddow on this issue, as usual. Richard. To avoid challenging Trump Congress – the Republican part – quietly changed the rules of Congress yesterday and gave away the power they had to challenge Trump ’emergency’ (under which he can bring in tariffs using an executive order). This was to head off the Democrats who planned to hold a vote next week on the issue, thus putting many Republican’s on the spot as the are anti-tariff. In fact that situation is even worse than that, as the Republicans in congress also passed a law stating that between now and the end of the year no 24 hour day in Congress actually counts as a day – thus the new rule/law cannot fall as it would have done under another Congressional rule. I kid you not. Rachel explains it much better than I can, but my take away from this is it shows how far Congress under the Republican’s will go to enable Trump to become a totalitarian leader, and hints at how they may handle the mid terms next year.
Here’s the Maddow link (all three clips from yesterday are worth watching)
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
The world is going crazy….
Woah There! Rather than ‘told you so’ let’s try this instead if I may……………
An Open Letter to Americans Everywhere
Look, no one in America needs to feel ashamed about being misled by Trump, OK? He’s very good at deceiving decent people and has lots of money and tech Bro’s to help him.
All that is required is that you come to terms with the fact that you have been misled and you start from there with new eyes.
America and it’s people are very patriotic OK, you are encouraged to take part in national events to support your country and voting and being able to vote is one of those things you are taught is important and to be proud about from an early age. So, like all good Americans you go out and vote based on the choices and info available to you. The act of voting is therefore as important – may be even more important -than who you vote for. Good for you, admirable even. But that has its problems.
Consider that you have to come to terms with the fact that you have been misled at scale and that there is something fundamentally wrong with your democracy and the ‘American dream’. Many of you Americans are admirably hard working, get up and go type people who are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet. This is not because of immigrants or Canada or who owns the Panama canal.
It’s because the freedom you are sold, the American Dream even, is actually now a very rich persons’s version of America – I’m talking about the already rich who have got richer since President Reagan. And this American dreamworld is theirs – not yours. I’m sorry but that is the truth. America is THEIR country – not yours, ordinary working Americans.
So, don’t get mad; don’t deny that you’ve been had like Englishman deny they’ve been had over BREXIT right – get even; don’t double down on Mexico or Canada. Look up to who rules. The rich Americans above you are now are even worse than the corrupt and ignorant Kings and rulers you left behind in old Europe and England all those years ago to make a new world.
Well this time, you can’t really leave The States and find another place to live – they’re all used up! Unless of course you want to live in Gaza when it is redeveloped? This time you are going to have to stand and fight on your own ground in the U.S.
And you can do that by not voting for people like Trump; by insisting that there is real change and that can come from realising that whoever you vote for at the moment is funded by the same people who are making your lives miserable – your rich who are as powerful as any of those sons of bitches you left behind in Europe and England.
And you have to understand my dear Americans that the political funding of the Republicans and Democrat parties by your rich people and corporations is by definition totally un-American and against your declaration of independence. Because the people who rule you ARE dependent on the unaccountable rich who are fleecing you even now as I write. You have kings and queens and you don’t even know it because they hide behind and fund your democratically elected government and pretend that they listen to you – and they should listen to you because you’re all basically decent folks.
President George Bush once said that ‘Freedom is not free’. I don’t think Bush Jnr realised just how close he came to actually diagnosing the fundamental problem with American democracy – but he did albeit somewhat unconsciously . Freedom in America is owned by your rich.
America was never meant to be like that. But it is. And only the American people can sort that out.
But first, you have to come to terms with the fact that you have been had. And that is painful when your ideals are shattered.
Maybe if you can shatter this dream, this myth and push through it, you can lead yourselves – even the world – into a better future? I actually have faith that the American people can do that – I really do – much more faith than in my own class-riddled people over here in England.
I hope that you do.
God Bless you all,
PSR – a concerned Englishman who lives in an even older, rigid and corrupt political system.
Amused, and thanks
Excellent! This deserves to be widely published. It has exactly the right tone to break through to some of the MAGA faithful.
Off thread, I am afraid an on Ukraine (I find Aurelian on this, and the commenters on his Blog profoundly depressing), I claim no expertise on Ukraine, but where does the new US-Ukraine rapprochement on the US cease fire proposal take us? Ukraine, short term only I surmise, the crucial US military/intelligence support is renewed. It signs the minerals deal and accepts a cease-fire. The US has what it wants 100%. Ukraine has nothing at all on a security guarantee.
What does Russia do?
1) Russia agrees a cease fire. Russia will probably be relieved, because it is losing too many men, and too much equipment. It is less clear there is a major downside. It uses the ceasefire to conduct peace negotiations. It can do this endlessly (months? years?); perhaps turning it into a 49th parallel reprise, but not to agree anything beyond. Why would it? The US has invested in nothing more than a cease-fire, so loses nothing important to it by Russian prevarication on a final Treaty. Ukraine may think the mineral deal gives it some protection, with US civilians then working in Ukraine. The downside seems more likely. Russia uses the ceasefire, at leisure to re-arm and rebuild and reconstruct the army and tactics. It then attacks again (one, two years out, or even post-Trump?). The US responds by sending military transports and elite troops to extract the US civilians just as Russia strikes (the US can see the Russian forces massing, from space); and a smart US journalist has a bestseller with a book titled ‘Last Flight from Kyiv’. The US can respond several ways, but under Trump, weakly blames both sides, but particularly Ukraine for being too difficult to accept a peace deal, and leaves both sides to resolve the problem in the field, with reduced or no US support to Ukraine.
That is one scenario, but why would Putin ever negotiate a final Treaty that gives Ukraine independent security? Putin clearly considers Ukraine existentially Russian territory, which Russia will never give up, and that the Ukrainians are effectively traitors. I just don’t see Russian acceptance of any independent Ukrainian territory, or free Ukrainians in anything we can see; or whatever they say now or in future.
2) Russia rejects a cease-fire; because it thinks it is stronger than Ukraine, and can prevail in the field (for whatever reason we know, or don’t know – known or unknown knowns, or unknown unknowns). One possibility is that the US simply says it tried, but the parties do not want peace. The same solution as 1) above still applies; Trump, weakly blames both sides, but particularly Ukraine for being too difficult to accept a peace deal, and leaves both sides to resolve the problem in the field, with reduced or no US support to Ukraine.
Here is the lesson from history, to conclude:
” At the time of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, including an estimated 1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and 44 strategic bombers. By 1996, Ukraine had returned all of its nuclear warheads to Russia in exchange for economic aid and security assurances, and in December 1994, Ukraine became a non-nuclear weapon state-party to the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The last strategic nuclear delivery vehicle in Ukraine was eliminated in 2001 under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). It took years of political maneuvering and diplomatic work, starting with the Lisbon Protocol in 1992, to remove the weapons and nuclear infrastructure from Ukraine.
1994 Trilateral Statement*
The Massandra Accords set the stage for the ultimately successful trilateral talks. As the United States mediated between Russia and Ukraine, the three countries signed the Trilateral Statement on January 14, 1994. Ukraine committed to full disarmament, including strategic weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia. Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia and accepted U.S. assistance in dismantling missiles, bombers, and nuclear infrastructure. Ukraine’s warheads would be dismantled in Russia, and Ukraine would receive compensation for the commercial value of the highly enriched uranium. Ukraine ratified START on February 3, 1994, repealing its earlier preconditions, but it would not accede to the NPT without further security assurances.” (Arms Control Association website).
* I think the UK was involved somewhere in these security guarantees; like the way of all flesh, they have all vanished.
Thanks, John
3rd scenario: Europe gest its act together (it has no shortage of weapon systems as good if not better than US systems & quite often cheaper) – supplies Ukraine and “finishes the job”. Aurelian is far too filled with doom & gloom.
On a related note: in the far east China has just taken some land off Russia – on the Amur river. expect a few more land grabs (although in fairness, Russia in the mid-19th century broke some treaties with China to garb large lumps of territory around the Amur – in the medium term these will go back to China. (I can recommend Colin Thuberons “Amur” excellent book).
Lastly, a big thank you to those that voted for Mango – some judicious (euro) stock picks by me have done extremely well – so from the bottom of my heart to US readers – a big thank you for electing a moron.
I agree, Aurelian is too gloomy right now. I share his pessimism about our leadership, but not his prognosis.
My essential point is a simple one. This negotiation is costing very little in strategic terms for either Russia or the US; but Ukraine has given quite a lot; in effect a hostage to fortune, having traded mineral rights to the US for nothing concrete they really want that they can bank; and potentially trading time and space for Russia to regroup; all for what may yet prove nothing at all. I do not criticise Ukraine – i see their problem; but these are the bald facts we are dancing around.
That is how I see it; but what do I know?
Regarding Aurelian – he suffers from TINA-itis……..this from his latest “we are all doomed” missive –
“There is no way out of the mess that European leaders have got themselves into”
That’s funny, cos I can think of half a dozen. Obvs, there needs to be political will & a willingness to cooperate.
But there is no shortage of examples where things can be achieved in very very short times frames.
e.g. next time you use a mobile phone, the (what is now a global) standard was written in 2 years flat & the equipment to implement the 1st pan-European network was designed, built, installed and operational in … 2 years – oh & that included the handsets.
I can give plenty of other example of pan-European cooperation that delivered stuff fast.
I can also give examples where massive bureaucracies implemented products that changed the planet – fast.
Thanks
European leaders and the EU/ECB ARE getting their act together.
a bit more information.
wikepedia on the Budapest Memorandum 2014
Russian president Vladimir Putin replied to a question on the violation of the Budapest Memorandum, describing the current Ukrainian situation as a revolution: “a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents.”[36] Russia stated that it had never been under obligation to “force any part of Ukraine’s civilian population to stay in Ukraine against its will.” Russia suggested that the US was in violation of the Budapest Memorandum and described the Euromaidan as a US-instigated coup.[37] AND
In February 2016, Sergey Lavrov claimed, “Russia never violated Budapest memorandum. It contained only one obligation, not to attack Ukraine with nukes.”[39] However, Canadian journalist Michael Colborne pointed out that “there are actually six obligations in the Budapest Memorandum, and the first of them is ‘to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine'”. Colborne also pointed out that a broadcast of Lavrov’s claim on the Twitter account of Russia’s embassy in the United Kingdom actually “provided a link to the text of the Budapest Memorandum itself with all six obligations, including the ones Russia has clearly violated – right there for everyone to see.” Steven Pifer, an American diplomat who was involved in drafting the Budapest Memorandum, later commented on “the mendacity of Russian diplomacy and its contempt for international opinion when the foreign minister says something that can be proven wrong with less than 30 seconds of Google fact-checking?”[40]
I suspect that the Ukrainians took the deal on the assumption that Putin will reject it and it at least gets the materiel taps switched back on for a while. Showing willing to negotiate is a sign to Trump that his wonderful negotiating skills are working so he is more likely to keep it going for a while. The Russian terms rumoured here and there seem to demand that they are given territory which they haven’t managed to occupy after more than 3 years of war, no re-arming, NATO/EU membership off the table, no peacekeepers on the ground and so forth.
I suppose a lot will depend on how aware of the truth of the war that Putin actually is. The Russians have always made almost comical claims of the levels of casualties inflicted on the Ukranian army and they’ve also claimed they have destroyed many more western tanks, rocket launchers (HIMARS), artillery pieces – than have actually been supplied, often by a huge amount! It’s the same way in which the refineries keep bursting into flames due to ‘falling debris’ from the attacking drones, all of which are shot down, of course.
This widespread lying extends to the military themselves, with many claims of successes which simply aren’t true – almost suicidal assaults sent into small settlements to raise a Russian flag for a photo op when they haven’t captured it and often haven’t even got close.
Does the truth of the situation, whether good or bad, actually filter up to Putin? Does he believe his subordinates? I’d say he’s more likely to negotiate a deal if he knows that the situation is nowhere near as rosy as they endlessly claim. Of course, Trump is too stupid (or corrupt) to push him into any sort of real concessions. I suspect that in the background, there is a lot of liaising between Ukraine and their European supporters, in the likelihood that they do indeed need to continue fighting for the foreseeable future.
I’d imagine that Putin won’t lavish praise on Trump in public which is what his fragile ego requires and that also may have an impact.
I’d personally guess a halt to hostilities is extremely unlikely in the next month, but who really knows?
The UK appears to have signed a 100 year agreement with Zelensky too. There’s a secret clause not mentioned here. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-ukraine-100-year-partnership-agreement/
Which says what?
Aurelien’s latest essay on Europe is spot on for me at least – totally realistic. I make no claims to the author’s levels of intellect, erudition or experience but he/she says it better than I could. It also has viewpoint that is remarkably free of the self delusion that addles the intelligence of certain classes of Englishmen which I find refreshing. It’s as if Aurelien is descended from those who are usually pressed into service to defend and sacrifice themselves for systems that actually oppress them:
‘The Europe we had is gone, the Europe we could have had never was. Why anyone would want to defend the Europe we have is beyond me’.
The big mistake our leaders have made is to think that history is ‘just history’ – something that exists in the past.
Actually history lives – we breath in its vapors all of the time.
History lives because it is created by people and peoples who are also consumed by, spat out and made to live in history’s wreckage.
Aurelien is also right to mention the crimes of Neo-liberalism – the same crimes that have been observed from Moscow and exploited.
Poor us.
Poor Europe.
Poor Ukraine.
Must it be?
Yes.
It must.
That is where we are. History takes where takes us. My eldest child is 21 years old. She was conceived at a time when things seemed more certain, life was kinder and the future seemed friendlier albeit uncertain as it always is of course.
If there is any cause we can rally to worth caring about now, then it must be Gaza for which Europe bears a lot responsibility for anyway.
Maybe what goes around does come around like the old saying?
But more than anything else folks, I have a growing feeling of profound disappointment in myself in that I did not think I was clever enough or capable enough to make a difference – that I sat back and left others to run things whom it turns out were not up to the job.
And all they needed it turns out was to know the difference between right and wrong. Ha!
What a way for a civilisation to bow out – no!… to CRAWL out of history on its hands and knees, seemingly no better than it was when we first crawled out of the primordial swamp.
Aurelian assumes there is no way out of poor leadership.
That is not true. New thinking is always possible.
New thinking. Agree.
The diversity of Europe is its strength. Neolibtardism (& its take over of the European project) has weakened this. But it does not have to be so.
As an engineer I constantly force myself to look at problems (opportunities) in new ways. We need to do the same wrt Europe. The neo-liberal century is over – we need new ways of thinking in terms of how Europe, its countries and regions organise themselves, politically, economically amd militarily. FFS there is 500 million of us – bigger than Ruzzia and the USM(ango) combined. We should be calling the shots – not them. Also, speaking as a European, I am tired of Europe being a play ground for the Americans (colonialist project) and the Ruzzians (colonialist project). They want to “play” – go play with China – they might find they have bitten off more than they can chew.
MMT would be a start.
That’s true and there would have been people in every collapsing empire or budding fascist state who thought the same. There are other dynamics at work otherwise we might have drastically cut fossil fuel emissions in the 1990s instead of seeing the French begin planning for a 4C rise by 2100, a quixotic enterprise if ever there was one.
If Aurelien has gone all ‘Nietzcheian’ on us, then its for a good reason I think.
He is looking into the abyss on our behalf. He’s not the first writer to do so and won’t be the last, and like us he is entitled to feel as let down in this age as we are.
The worry is that European leadership will not look into the abyss; it will prefer the sunny uplands and it will go for pathway dependency and opt for simply a European version of Neo-liberalism rather than a Yank one. This is a continent that has allowed the Far Right the fuel to re-ignite, yes?
There is a huge worry for me with the EU. The EU project – something I see the sense in and support and think the UK should be part of (except monetary union, which I think has been a disaster and should be revoked) is to me too focussed on its institutional functions and set up. We have a bunch of international politicians regularly cavorting with each other who I feel have not taken their populations along with them. My worry is that these major players are too divorced from the reality of everyday life for EU citizens. The UK government is just same, as is the U.S. – how often in polls are the voters much more to the Left of their rulers?
Governments tend to deal with governments – not voters. In a period we are in when governments have in my view anyway never been so separated from the people whom they supposedly represent, this is a disaster in the making. It’s being made now.
This is a time of concentrated power in Europe and other states that is so vulnerable to capture by vested self interests and where democracy is in potential peril. Neo-liberalism did not waste its time on the proletariat did it? It went for the jugular, went where the pivotal power is – at the top.
All I can hope is that when Europe talks to Russia – or any state – it remembers that it is not just dealing with a Russia’s government but its people. What effects will its proposals have on a nations people? Because people will fuel their governments response. Russia is a dangerous animal anyway, and putting its back against the wall is risky. It will need to be handled deftly and with a knowledge of history. Any solution must give Russia a way out and a way back into the international community that acknowledges its historical contribution and sacrifices and pain. This is not sentimentality. It is fact.
Do we have leaders in Europe who can do that? I’m sceptical. Deeply so.
And the final thing to say is this. I’m sure Aurelien wants to be wrong. I want to be wrong. I hope that you do understand that?
As John Warren says anyway, I say too ‘What do I know?’ These are unchartered waters.
I’m seriously wondering if Trump does not have dementia or some version of it but because his party was so aligned with him personally they had to hide it until he got the presidency and now he’s being guided behind the scenes by the likes of Musk et al. Watching him sitting at his desk he just looks …. vacant until he gets another little burst of negative energy and lashes out at someone new.
The US democracy was not so riddled with money until the Citizens United bill passed in 2010 that allowed unlimited funds to pour into elections “money is speech”. Americans have to get rid of that law and put limitations ans names to political donors. That would stop a lot of the current plutocracy.
He is not mentally ill
He is a narcissistic psychopath
Both can be true (and I suspect are).