Donald Trump has made many claims about himself, but when a person reaches his age, it is the facts that tend to matter more than the claims that they might make about themselves, and the fact is that he is a business person who has failed on many occasions, as well as a convicted felon, and a person who has been found guilty of sexual abuse in a civil case. Despite that, Americans desperate to end the neoliberal era, rejected the perpetuation of the power of Wall Street and wealth that the Democrats represented, and chose to put Trump in the White House instead.
Trump promised change, saying he would make America great again, and at the same time that he would deliver prosperity for the benefit of ordinary Americans.
So far, he has done nothing of the sort. The indications are that he will not. Whilst I would not pretend for a moment that the value of a stock exchange is an indication of the economic well-being of a country, because it definitely is not, if it is a barometer for economic sentiment within it – which it might be – then the value of the S&P 500 index at the close of trade yesterday should have worried Trump. This is the relevant chart:
That index has now fallen by more than ten per cent since its peak, which happened as recently as 19 February. The belief that Trump might deliver for the USA has very clearly already evaporated. A policy of economic mayhem, associated with trade war and significant tax increases that will be paid by ordinary Americans most of all, has made it very apparent to those who invest in stock markets that the USA is not looking forward to a new age of prosperity. There might be an era of chaos, mismanagement, military aggression, sanctions, declining American markets, rapidly rising ill health, increasing poverty, and despair awaiting the country, but very few now think that prosperity looks to be within the reach of the Trump administration.
The world should take note. Neoliberalism is dead. People wish to consign it to history, and rightly so. Neo-fascism of the type now seen in so many countries is, however, no alternative. In fact, it may well be very much worse, not least because the Age of Aggression, which Trump, alongside Putin, is trying to herald only offers an increased risk of conflict from which absolutely no one will gain.
The times, they are a changin', to quote Bob Dylan, but none of the potential outcomes are looking good.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
In de nile.
Neoliberalism might well be dead from our point of view, and dead buried and with garlic in its mouth, head detached and a stake in its heart – given “Late Soviet Britain”. But neolibtard zombies roam the land – e.g. Reeves & the assorted morons in the BoE and the UK Treasury (FFS why can’t they call it the Finance Ministry – there is no bloody treasure left if the UK). The banks are happy to keep the neolibtard zombie show going – because? well because, for them it is a nice little earner and UK serfs (or indeed any other serfs) don’t count – because we don’t have angency of any sort. Whatsoever.
If, when(?) there is loss of control it is quite possible that there will be retribution against those responsible & by retribution I mean France 1791 style retribution. The problem is that if you have “a nice little earner” human nature means you will want to keep it rolling for as long as possible. This is not just the top bananas – the PMC (professional managerial class) facilitate all the nonesense committed by the neolibtards top bananas – the PMC are very much part of the problem.
Nasty situation & primed to get out of control.
I think there is more to your suggestion of a name change than appears at first glance. Calling it the Treasury creates a false sense that it is somehow special, and different from other ministries. Likewise, the ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ is no mere minister. This mythology is what allows Reeves to rule the roost and dictate budgets to every other department. If instead she was simply “Finance Minister”, head of the Finance Ministry, she would be much more equal in the eyes of both the public and her colleagues.
Agreed
Funnily enough Mike, I think that any revolution is more likely to take place in the U.S. than anywhere else – a country where bearing arms is allowed for its citizens. It makes perfect sense to me.
“..there is no bloody treasure left if(in) the UK”
Yes, there is. It’s in that country north of England. You know the one. It has supplied gas, oil and wealth, almost solely, to London whilst many in our country – Scotland – lived in deprivation. I remember well our cities after oil was discovered in Scottish waters in the 70s. I wondered then where all that wealth was going since there was no sign of it in Scotland – with the possible exception of Aberdeen. You know what, I’m still wondering!
Scotland now supplies many cables of electricity to England – there are maps showing them all – whilst our people live in poverty in the freezing cold – paying the highest prices for electricity in the whole of the UK (and Europe).
Why is England uniquely incapable of standing on its own two feet? Why is it such a bloody parasite?
Answers on the back of a £20 note please…..
AC Bruce, thank you for your view on where true wealth lies in the “UK”. If only more Scots would take time to understand this.
Richard, thank you for taking the time to understand and for being one of the few to publicise your views on this subject.
Thanks
The performance of the S&P 500 would have had society screaming for their heads if that was Bernie Sanders as president and we all know it.
I don’t think Neo-liberalism is dead because it is really just an idea and ideas persist even when facts are to the contrary. Really, I see the neo-fascism that comes with it as a sort of home-coming – Neo-liberalism has always had an authoritarianism about it because it was created by rich people’s money-power anyway to create an intellectual justification for greed. It is the credo of the already powerful’s intent at retaining and growing their economic pre-eminence.
What we are seeing in my view now is the rich’s response to global warming. It is nothing other than a scramble for the life boats with not even a hint of women and children first. They’re going to grab as much as they can in the hope that the profits will help them to survive.
Or as they said in This is Bob Roberts, The Times they are a Changing Back
That film scared me, satire/comedy or not!
Just a short comment to spread the word that two Federal judges yesterday overturned EVERY firing across EVERY department of the Federal government that took place on February 14th and 15th (the two worst days), as will happen with all other firings. Everyone has to be rehired.
As usual, Rachel Maddow has all the details, reporting on them as news broke yesterday evening. Worth watching for the scathing dressing down of Trump’s lawyer by one of the judges. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
I saw it
The ‘plan’ is fallimng apart
The trouble is not that neoliberalism is dead, but that it isn’t. We know it SHOULD be dead; the whole ideology is certainly lifeless, in every sense of the word. Mike Parr is quite right when he says that neolibtard zombies still roam the land; they can do that because, as the living dead, they have the power to turn the rest of us truly living souls into other zombies. Their deadly bite is evident in the large number of semi-zombies who repeat the neoliberal propaganda of “benefit cheats” and “balancing the books” and “more money into the NHS than ever” and “£22 billion black hole”. I HATE IT.
As an aside, I’m now at the point where I am gagging for revolution. As an ex-RAF Officer, that’s a hard statement to rationalise to myself. Similarly, as the descendant of the Governor of the Bastille when it was stormed in 1793, it would seen more natural for me to resist resistance. However, Governor René deLaunay had his head sawn off and stuck on a pike, which was then paraded through Paris before being chucked into the Seine. (My neck is full of metal plates, so I’m unlikely to be a good candidate for such a fate).
I therefore choose revolution in preference to more of the same shit.
Revolution is the usual end point for societies that end up at these levels of inequality, according to many writers and historians, Walter Scheidel, Peter Turchin, to name a few. And violent revolution never ends well. It tends to replace bad with bad, or worse. America avoided it once, with the New Deal, and post war reforms in the UK prevented a revolution here. Perhaps we are due another set of sweeping reforms, to prevent the risk of revolution. Or maybe the establishment are unaware of history and are not done trying to force down the boot on our necks. Trump doesn’t seem to acknowledge the risk of guillotines he is running, and Starmers’ beige dictatorship is devoid of ideas, let alone reform of any kind.
Noted
Neoliberalism may be dead, but it’s cultists don’t seem to realise. Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow has delivered another article outlining his theory of tech ‘enshitification’ and what it means for our future. Electronic whipping, you’re next.
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/13/electronic-whipping/#youre-next