Non-benevolent Dictators & A Global Economic Civil War

Non-benevolent Dictators & A Global Economic Civil War

See if you can put it all together from the resumes of those in President-elect Donald Trump’s closest political circle so far:

Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin: Goldman Sachs.

Chief strategist Steve Bannon: Goldman Sachs.

Transition adviser Anthony Scaramucci (& Treasury Sec nominee): Goldman Sachs.

Commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross: Rothschild & Co.

Possible budget director Gary Cohn (& White House economist candidate): Goldman Sachs.

Potential secretary of state Mitt Romney: Bain Capital.

Trump is just getting started. Check out that “swamp draining.” The whole thing is just draining before our eyes! Take that, Wall Street! Take that, “international financial cabal!”

- Brett Arends – Market Watch

By J.M. Hamilton  (12-10-2016)

President – elect Trump is not even in the White House yet, and he’s already managed to upset nearly every constituency:  the left, the right, neocons, foreign policy experts, the plutocracy, CEOs, foreign heads of state, economist (fresh & salt water schools), neoliberals, establishment GOP types, free trade supporters, liberals, libertarians, his own base of support…. Well, you get the picture.

Which to me anyway, means he must be doing some things right. 

Seems that Mr. Trump aims to shake things up.  That is to say, shake things up for everyone, excepting possibly Government $achs. 

Setting off liberals and the left have been Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees, many of whom hold points of view directly counter to Trump’s positions on the campaign trail.  For instance, Trump railed against Goldman Sachs, and Wall Street executives, during the campaign and ran ads against same.  And yet, his proposed cabinet and advisors are chock-a-block full of Goldman $achs & banking alums.  Is it a coincidence that Wall Street bank stocks have soared, since the election?  Many of the cabinet nominees, also, are billionaires and multi-millionaires, and no few of these in number contributed significantly to Mr. Trump's campaign.

Drain the swamp? 

Looks like 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue may very well become swamp - central. 

Quite possibly the most egregious nominee is Senator Sessions for attorney general.  Mr. Sessions, from Alabama, has a racist past, but even more concerning are the Senator’s positions, and voting record, on civil, gay, and voting rights.   The Republican Party, impresarios at planting false news, will almost assuredly paint Mr. Sessions as a champion of civil rights & voting rights.  Left unsaid is that Sessions is, indeed, a champion of civil rights & voting rights…  for wealthy white men.

The Left has every reason to be concerned, and the Dems & Liberals in the Senate will need to do their job and grill the plutocracy that makes up the Trumpian cabinet.  Where appropriate & possible, unite with Senate Republicans to bork a nominee or two.  Many of Trump’s cabinet picks are alarming.  However, if he runs the White House like he does his business empire, most decision making will roll back up to Mr. Trump.  If Trump truly is a micromanager, then his cabinet nominees may amount to little more than window dressing.  Let’s hope that’s the case, and Mr. Trump keeps a firm decision making grip.

The MSM has been going over the top on nearly all things Trump, some of it warranted.  But surprisingly, when Trump has done the right thing – like standing up for ordinary Americans, democracy, the taxpayer, and jobs – the MSM has tended to look for an ulterior motive, or a theory, to further denigrate Trump.  A word to the wise offered to journalist & the MSM, your going to loose credibility pretty quick, if you trash every thing this man does.  Given that the MSM, pollsters, and many journalist were already entrenched in the Clinton camp during the election, it won’t take much before the MSM is written off altogether by the general public, as little more than a propaganda arm for the liberal establishment.

Trust me, POTUS Trump will give the MSM plenty to talk & write about, over the next four years, and there will be many issues where “the pragmatist” entering the White House will need a push from the public and the fourth estate (no less so then had there been a POTUS Clinton).  But to trash him on everything….?

So what has Mr. Trump done that is positive, that perhaps the MSM should have been more upbeat about?

JMH thought the outreach to Taiwan was beautiful for many reasons.  One, Taiwan is a democracy.  America – rarely, if ever - pays lip service anymore to democracy and human rights.  In fact, quite to the contrary, seems that are closest “allies & friends” are terrorist thug regimes, like the Royal House of Saud.  (Kudos to the NY Times this week for running a terrific piece on how the Saudis have been playing two U.S. administrations for willing fools, in the War on Terror) Two, the outreach/phone call upset the largest totalitarian regime on the planet, China.  It’s okay for China to communicate with its proxy – rabid pit bull – North Korea, but the U.S. cannot speak to an ally and a democracy?  Three, Trump’s outreach greatly upset a U.S. foreign policy (FP) establishment that has completely reached the end of its rope, in credibility & morality terms.  (I’m still looking for the tectonic rift the FP eminentos said was going to open up, and swallow the U.S. whole.) 

If the U.S. can reach out to Cuba, which JMH applauded, then surely America can reach out to, and promote, a democratic regime like Taiwan.

In August, Reuters presented a news item on trillion(s) dollar accounting errors in the DOD’s budget.  This week, the Washington Post presented a news piece on how the Pentagon attempted to suppress a study demonstrating $125 billion in Pentagon waste and fraud.  All this at a time, when the U.S. has gone broke engaged in endless nation building exercises around the globe, to the detriment of the women & men who serve - and our budgetary & domestic affairs.  That’s why it was completely surprising & refreshing to hear of Trump’s demand that the U.S. cancel a new Air Force One project w/ Boeing, citing run away costs & expense.  Said Mr. Trump: “It’s going to be over $4 billion for the Air Force One program, and I think it’s ridiculous.  I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.”

The reality is the military industrial complex – basically a cartel, like nearly every other American industry – has had its hand in the government till for decades.   Boeing and others, like Lockheed Martin, define diseconomies of scale, waste, abuse, and fraud, and are the antithesis of capitalism.  So to hear our new POTUS pipe up about the abuse, is both to be encouraged & welcomed…. Hopefully, there will be even more cancellations, audits, and actions taken to insure the American taxpayer is no longer abused, and the brave women & men who serve enjoy the best equipment & services available.

Mr. Trump recently lived up – to some degree – to a campaign promise to save Carrier jobs in Indiana.  The actual number of jobs saved is in dispute, particularly when the CEO indicates many of the saved jobs will later be lost to automation.  What’s not in dispute is that Mr. Trump used a combination of carrot (tax incentives) and stick (the threat of losing federal contracts) to compel Carrier to stay in Indiana.  Given that we live in a period of untrammelled crony-capitalism, when’s the last time the Cult of the Imperial CEO bowed down to a President and his demand that jobs stay in America?  The backroom deal, the means, and the method by which Trump compelled Carrier to maintain Indiana jobs, it’s all worthy of debate.  (JMH, and others of greater stature, have argued for less carrot, and far more stick.)  Regardless, the end result should be celebrated… saving U.S. jobs.

The confrontational Trump didn’t stop w/ Carrier, however.  A week ago last Sunday, Trump placed corporate & multinational America on notice that they faced 35% tariffs for goods manufactured overseas and dumped on U.S. shores.  Trump, citing planned tax cuts for business and reduced regulatory burdens by his administration, appears to plan on creating a virtual corporate Xanadu for American business.  The price of admission to the pleasure-dome appears to be a return of U.S. jobs to American soil.  Not w/out coincidence, Apple’s iPhone manufacturer in China  - Foxconn – said it was presently studying bringing some of its manufacturing operations to the United States.  Trump also tagged Big Pharma w/ a threat.

Rattling CEO cages is one thing.  It was equally gratifying to see congressional republicans – many of whom are establishment types owned and operated by the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber & the Billionaire class – show their true colors: rejecting Trump’s tariff proposal and rejecting the American workers Trump is attempting to help.  House Republicans, in particular, quickly announced that they would not be following Trump’s lead on tariffs.  Academics and a former Treasury Secretary, namely Lawrence Summers (one of the key architects of the 2008 financial crisis), quickly denounced Mr. Trump's tariff proposal as a threat to capitalism. 

The sheer hypocrisy of GOP, and Mr. Summers, arguments surrounding the tariffs being a threat to capitalism is galling.  Apparently, it’s perfectly acceptable when corporations & multinationals rig the economy in their favor, by owning the government, & via the same crony- government’s authorization/sanction of monopolies & cartels.  But when Americans elect a populist politician to roll back crony capitalism and globalism…. Government intervention is suddenly unacceptable and a threat to the free market. 

Do we live in a ruinous neoliberal economy?  Yes. 

But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that an economy - dominated by government sanctioned cartels & monopolies - has anything to do w/ the free market.

This same crew will be whining about diminished returns next, due to higher U.S. labor costs; but the fact remains: unsustainable monopolistic & predatory returns of recent years were inflated by a crony government – a government that should have been doing its job by protecting labor, the consumer, and the free market.  In short, today’s profits/returns have been inflated by crony capitalism, concentration, cartel, globalism, tax avoidance, and corporate welfare wearing the mask of free trade & the free market.  These exceptionally high profits are due for a reset, albeit some of the higher American labor costs maybe offset by lower taxes and the lower costs of complying w/ a less rigorous regulatory regime.

Let’s see, Mr. Trump, in roughly a week’s time, has upset multinationals, House Republicans, sent paroxysms of fear through the MIC/DOD, and angered a very oppressive totalitarian regime.  Would Dems, liberals, or progressives hope for anything less from say a POTUS Sanders?  Trump is not even in the White House yet, but if he is successful in bringing jobs back to America, shouldn’t both sides of the political spectrum celebrate?  And could have Hillary or Sanders achieved these things?  Just as it took an ardent anti-communist, Richard Nixon, to reach out to China, and it took a faux-liberal, like POTUS Clinton, to cut back the welfare state, it will likely take a Republican administration to do a reset on our highly toxic crony economy, and remind U.S. CEOs of their duty to America, first, and their shareholders, second.

Who knows, Mr. Trump just might save American capitalism from itself?  Then again, maybe these recent events are little more then a head fake – an audible for a misdirection play at the line of scrimmage…  and the cabinet appointees, and the hiring of Government $achs, foreshadow Trump’s true direction?

To be sure JMH is not drinking the Trumpian Kool-Aid just yet.   Trumps populist movement in the U.S. is part of a larger global phenomenon, best described as an economic Civil War.  Fed up w/ the Davos elite and so-called experts, a populist movement sent the Italian PM packing this week in a referendum that ultimately became about his administration.  South Korea told its crony & corrupt head of state her time was up as well, and Europe elected its first Green Party head of state within Austria.  This latter event was heralded by the MSM as blowback against populism, but if the MSM thinks the Green Party is anything but populism from the Left, then they have a great deal to learn.  And who can forget another U.K. led revolt earlier this year, nicknamed Brexit.

A global economic Civil War is being fought by the 99% against the non-benevolent dictatorships of the billionaire class, who have co-opted and purchased democracies around the globe.  Citizens  - from advanced economies - around the world are tired of suffering austerity, backroom double-dealing w/in their governements, in some cases high unemployment, and declining living standards, so that an elite few can become wealthier than the Vatican.  The billionaire class – and their minions, the political class - will not surrender willingly; they will likely fight the blowback against their greed to the bitter end, and in particular, they plan on holding onto government power as long as possible.

If the non-benevolent dictatorships of the billionaire class, wearing the mask of democracy, do not reform then they only have themselves to blame for continued global change, instability, and volatility…

… And the darkness that will likely follow.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2016