Globalisation vs. Empire: can Trump contain the growing split?

[Zibago]

Globalisation vs. Empire: can Trump contain the growing split?

By:
By David Rosen

22-Jan-17
1313


Top News

Today, Donald Trump will be inaugurated the nation's 45th president. Looking back, former Pres. Barack Obama may be remembered as America's postmodern version of the Little Dutch Boy, the kid who plugged his finger in a dike to stop a flood. With Hillary Clinton's defeat, he might be the last president to contain the 21st century allegorical "flood," the deepening - and ultimately unmanageable - split between US-anchored globalizing capitalism and America-the-nation's quest for imperial hegemony.

Pres. Trump and his administration, dominated by militarists and investment bankers, seem incapable of containing the flood, the mounting crisis dividing globalization and empire. Trump's campaign promise to "make America great again" signifies the next - and most desperate - phase in the evolution of neoliberal internationalism.

Trump and his team are not "big thinkers." Based on the presidential debates, Senate testimony and press reports, his team seem to be an ad-hoc gang of smart and capable opportunists. They reveal remarkably little historical or well-thought-out, "big picture," insight into how the US - let alone the global world-order - is being restructured. With the notable exception of Dr. Ben Carson, who's saved people's lives, none of the civilians in the Cabinets has made an original - and meaningful - contribution to society other than making money, least of all Trump; worst still, the military appointees have collectively overseen the longest war in US history - a war that (like every major conflict since the Korean War) will likely result in a standoff or a US defeat.

America began building its national "empire" before it became a nation. Its earliest expansionist campaigns were fought against the Native peoples first along the Atlantic Coast, pushing steadily westward across the Appalachians, culminating in the Trail of Tears (1836) and the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876). Simultaneously, the US moved to secure western territories through Pres. Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase (1803); acquisition of Florida from Spain (1821); the Battle of the Alamo (1836) and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848, territories that became California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Utah); the purchase of Alaska (1867, Secretary of State William Seward's "folly"); Dole's seizure of Hawaii (1893); and, following victory in the Spanish-American War (1898), the acquisition of Puerto Rico and Guantanamo. In 1823, amidst the first round of expansionism, Pres. James Monroe proclaimed the "Monroe Doctrine" in which the US asserted unofficial hegemony over the Western Hemisphere, warning European nations to halt any further efforts to colonize or install puppet regimes in the Americas.

Protected by oceans on each coast, the US consolidated into the world's mightiest nation-state during the half-century between the Civil War and World War I. It was a period that saw European and Asian powers - notably England, France, German, Russia and Japan - carve up, colonize, the globe. Their battles for imperial hegemony, for old-world empire, culminated in WW-I (and the Russian Revolution), followed by the Great Depression (and the union movement), and WW-II (and the Chinese Revolution). This three-decade era of instability broke-up the old world-order.

With both allied and enemy countries devastated, the US emerged as the center of the new world-order. The postwar recovery drove both the domestic consumer revolution and America's international reach, fueling what Pres. Dwight Eisenhower famously dubbed the "military-industrial complex." Henry Luce's famous 1941 call - "the 20th century is the American Century" - signified the coming superpower. Anchored on New York's Wall Street, the postwar US became the capital of global economic development. For all the saber rattling and threats of atomic wars with mutual destruction, the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union - along with their various proxies - permitted relative global stability. Instability - insurgency - was kept at the periphery of both superpowers.

During this era, the US fashioned a new form of imperialism. It launching key institutions (e.g., the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and NATO) that simultaneously - and under the guise of international harmony and social development - furthered its geo-political and military ambitions. Its efforts led to failed campaigns to contain China (e.g., Korean War, Vietnam War); numerous coup d'états in Latin America (e.g., Guatemala, Chile), Middle East (e.g., Iran) and Africa (e.g., Congo); and the break-up of the Soviet Union. All served to ensure the globalization of the capitalist world-order.

The US promoted two-fold imperial strategy - the "outsourcing" labor costs and ( the plundering natural resources in "underdeveloped" countries - paid off big time. John Bellamy Foster, in an essential study, "The New Imperialism of Globalized Monopoly-Finance Capital," reviews the evolution of leading Marxist analyses of capitalist development. Amidst this overall analysis, he notes that today's "Low-Cost Country Strategy" provides the profits for many major 1st-world corporations. His following examples illuminate the structure of 21st century geo-political relations - Apple's 2010 iPhone 4 retailed at $549 with Chinese components and labor costs assembly at about $10; Nike's late-1990s basketball shoes retailed for $149.50 with direct labor cost at only 1 percent, or $1.50; and the labor costs for embroidered logo sweatshirt produced in the Dominican Republic were about 1.3 percent of the US retail price and for a knit shirt produced in the Philippines about 1.6 percent of final price. Non-US 1st-world corporations adopted this strategy, including the international Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) that purchased T-shirts made by Bangladesh subcontractors at .02-.05 cents (euro) per shirt and sold them for as much as it could get.

The second part of this "imperialist" strategy involved the expropriation of local natural resources from 3rd world countries to sustain manufacturing and domestic life in the US and other 1st world countries. This policy is most notably in the century-long wars waged by European and US powers to control Middle East petrochemicals, but also extends to minerals, lumber, food and (illegal) drugs throughout the globe, especially Latin and South American.

The profits garnered by 1st world companies provided enormous wealth for the 1 percent and propelled the shift from 20th century manufacturing to 21st century's financialized capitalism. This has led to the parking of trillions of dollars of corporate profits outside the US to avoid paying taxes; estimates as to the amount stashed offshore range from $2.4 (Fortune) to $21 trillion (Foster).

In 1999, the New York Times Magazine published Thomas Friedman's "Manifesto for a Fast World," a call for the US to become the super-cop of the global capitalist world-order. The article recounts his trip with Madeleine Albright, then-UN Ambassador, to "the war zones of Africa." Fueled with all the moral outrage of an upstanding establishment apologist, the neoliberal pundit argued that "... the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist"... The hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

In 2015, the US military budget was nearly $600 billion and accounted for 57 percent of federal discretionary spending or 16 percent of the total (including mandatory) federal budget of $3.8 trillion. The US maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories around the world. These bases vary from huge instillations in Europe and Japan to bases in war zones (e.g., Iraq) and outposts supporting fewer than 200 personnel (e.g., Burkina Faso). In contrast, Britain, France and Russia have about 30 foreign bases combined.

Andrew Bacevich argues in a provocative piece for Tom's Dispatch, "The Age of Great Expectations and the Great Void," that the "post-Cold War era" - the quarter-century following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the SU in '91 - ended with Trump's election. This former military officer and professor points out, "the national security establishment became conditioned to the idea of permanent war, high-ranking officials taking it for granted that ordinary citizens would simply accommodate themselves to this new reality." He adds, "instead of giving ordinary Americans a sense of security, this new paradigm induced an acute sense of vulnerability, which left many susceptible to demagogic fear mongering." For him, this partially explains Trump's electoral victory.

As Bacevich and others have acknowledged, the post-WW-II era of American "greatness" began to falter in the mid-1970s with consequences for both capitalism and the US empire. The period saw Pres. Nixon end the US's long alignment of the dollar to the gold standard and a global oil crisis that reverberated through all sectors of the economy. It also witnessed the beginning of an era of long-term wage stagnation and a decline in the standard-of-living for ordinary Americans that continues to today.

The Institute for Policy Studies' Inequality website notes, "between 1983 and 2009, over 40 percent of all wealth gains flowed to the 1 percent and 82 percent of wealth gains went to the top 5 percent." Between 1976 and 2010, the nation's collective wealth of the bottom 99 percent shrank to 79 percent from 91 percent; between 1962 and 2009, the wealth of the bottom 90 percent of the US population declined to 12.8 from 19.1 percent.

During this half-century, the US military played a critical role policing the empire, especially at its unstable periphery. However, its scorecard is disappointing: Korea remains a standoff; Vietnam was a failure; the Cuba Revolution was not defeated; the installation of numerous Latin and South American dictators failed to fully contain mass democratic insurgency; and CIA support for Afghan mujahideen insurgency against the SU culminated in the rise of Osama bin Laden, the September 11, 2001, attacks and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that ignited the current firestorm of sectarian nationalism and fundamentalist religion spreading through the Middle East and other regions. America's misadventure over the last half-century recall the Homeric tale in which Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, the one-eyed cyclopes. Trump is poised to play out the mythical role of the blind one-eyed cyclopes.

And what comes next? For Bacevich, "the Age of Great Expectations has ended, leaving behind an ominous void." Looking critically at the coming Trump presidency, he warns, "Trump's own inability to explain what should fill that great void provides neither excuse for inaction nor cause for despair. Instead, Trump himself makes manifest the need to reflect on the nation's recent past and to think deeply about its future." Bacevich concludes, "Trumpism" is a dog's breakfast."
http://dailytimes.com.pk/business/2...vs-empire-can-trump-contain-the-growing-split
@django @The Sandman @Moonlight @Hell hound @Mugwop

 

[Hell hound]

Globalisation vs. Empire: can Trump contain the growing split?

By:
By David Rosen

22-Jan-17
1313


Top News

Today, Donald Trump will be inaugurated the nation's 45th president. Looking back, former Pres. Barack Obama may be remembered as America's postmodern version of the Little Dutch Boy, the kid who plugged his finger in a dike to stop a flood. With Hillary Clinton's defeat, he might be the last president to contain the 21st century allegorical "flood," the deepening - and ultimately unmanageable - split between US-anchored globalizing capitalism and America-the-nation's quest for imperial hegemony.

Pres. Trump and his administration, dominated by militarists and investment bankers, seem incapable of containing the flood, the mounting crisis dividing globalization and empire. Trump's campaign promise to "make America great again" signifies the next - and most desperate - phase in the evolution of neoliberal internationalism.

Trump and his team are not "big thinkers." Based on the presidential debates, Senate testimony and press reports, his team seem to be an ad-hoc gang of smart and capable opportunists. They reveal remarkably little historical or well-thought-out, "big picture," insight into how the US - let alone the global world-order - is being restructured. With the notable exception of Dr. Ben Carson, who's saved people's lives, none of the civilians in the Cabinets has made an original - and meaningful - contribution to society other than making money, least of all Trump; worst still, the military appointees have collectively overseen the longest war in US history - a war that (like every major conflict since the Korean War) will likely result in a standoff or a US defeat.

America began building its national "empire" before it became a nation. Its earliest expansionist campaigns were fought against the Native peoples first along the Atlantic Coast, pushing steadily westward across the Appalachians, culminating in the Trail of Tears (1836) and the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876). Simultaneously, the US moved to secure western territories through Pres. Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase (1803); acquisition of Florida from Spain (1821); the Battle of the Alamo (1836) and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848, territories that became California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Utah); the purchase of Alaska (1867, Secretary of State William Seward's "folly"); Dole's seizure of Hawaii (1893); and, following victory in the Spanish-American War (1898), the acquisition of Puerto Rico and Guantanamo. In 1823, amidst the first round of expansionism, Pres. James Monroe proclaimed the "Monroe Doctrine" in which the US asserted unofficial hegemony over the Western Hemisphere, warning European nations to halt any further efforts to colonize or install puppet regimes in the Americas.

Protected by oceans on each coast, the US consolidated into the world's mightiest nation-state during the half-century between the Civil War and World War I. It was a period that saw European and Asian powers - notably England, France, German, Russia and Japan - carve up, colonize, the globe. Their battles for imperial hegemony, for old-world empire, culminated in WW-I (and the Russian Revolution), followed by the Great Depression (and the union movement), and WW-II (and the Chinese Revolution). This three-decade era of instability broke-up the old world-order.

With both allied and enemy countries devastated, the US emerged as the center of the new world-order. The postwar recovery drove both the domestic consumer revolution and America's international reach, fueling what Pres. Dwight Eisenhower famously dubbed the "military-industrial complex." Henry Luce's famous 1941 call - "the 20th century is the American Century" - signified the coming superpower. Anchored on New York's Wall Street, the postwar US became the capital of global economic development. For all the saber rattling and threats of atomic wars with mutual destruction, the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union - along with their various proxies - permitted relative global stability. Instability - insurgency - was kept at the periphery of both superpowers.

During this era, the US fashioned a new form of imperialism. It launching key institutions (e.g., the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and NATO) that simultaneously - and under the guise of international harmony and social development - furthered its geo-political and military ambitions. Its efforts led to failed campaigns to contain China (e.g., Korean War, Vietnam War); numerous coup d'états in Latin America (e.g., Guatemala, Chile), Middle East (e.g., Iran) and Africa (e.g., Congo); and the break-up of the Soviet Union. All served to ensure the globalization of the capitalist world-order.

The US promoted two-fold imperial strategy - the "outsourcing" labor costs and ( the plundering natural resources in "underdeveloped" countries - paid off big time. John Bellamy Foster, in an essential study, "The New Imperialism of Globalized Monopoly-Finance Capital," reviews the evolution of leading Marxist analyses of capitalist development. Amidst this overall analysis, he notes that today's "Low-Cost Country Strategy" provides the profits for many major 1st-world corporations. His following examples illuminate the structure of 21st century geo-political relations - Apple's 2010 iPhone 4 retailed at $549 with Chinese components and labor costs assembly at about $10; Nike's late-1990s basketball shoes retailed for $149.50 with direct labor cost at only 1 percent, or $1.50; and the labor costs for embroidered logo sweatshirt produced in the Dominican Republic were about 1.3 percent of the US retail price and for a knit shirt produced in the Philippines about 1.6 percent of final price. Non-US 1st-world corporations adopted this strategy, including the international Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) that purchased T-shirts made by Bangladesh subcontractors at .02-.05 cents (euro) per shirt and sold them for as much as it could get.

The second part of this "imperialist" strategy involved the expropriation of local natural resources from 3rd world countries to sustain manufacturing and domestic life in the US and other 1st world countries. This policy is most notably in the century-long wars waged by European and US powers to control Middle East petrochemicals, but also extends to minerals, lumber, food and (illegal) drugs throughout the globe, especially Latin and South American.

The profits garnered by 1st world companies provided enormous wealth for the 1 percent and propelled the shift from 20th century manufacturing to 21st century's financialized capitalism. This has led to the parking of trillions of dollars of corporate profits outside the US to avoid paying taxes; estimates as to the amount stashed offshore range from $2.4 (Fortune) to $21 trillion (Foster).

In 1999, the New York Times Magazine published Thomas Friedman's "Manifesto for a Fast World," a call for the US to become the super-cop of the global capitalist world-order. The article recounts his trip with Madeleine Albright, then-UN Ambassador, to "the war zones of Africa." Fueled with all the moral outrage of an upstanding establishment apologist, the neoliberal pundit argued that "... the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist"... The hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

In 2015, the US military budget was nearly $600 billion and accounted for 57 percent of federal discretionary spending or 16 percent of the total (including mandatory) federal budget of $3.8 trillion. The US maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories around the world. These bases vary from huge instillations in Europe and Japan to bases in war zones (e.g., Iraq) and outposts supporting fewer than 200 personnel (e.g., Burkina Faso). In contrast, Britain, France and Russia have about 30 foreign bases combined.

Andrew Bacevich argues in a provocative piece for Tom's Dispatch, "The Age of Great Expectations and the Great Void," that the "post-Cold War era" - the quarter-century following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the SU in '91 - ended with Trump's election. This former military officer and professor points out, "the national security establishment became conditioned to the idea of permanent war, high-ranking officials taking it for granted that ordinary citizens would simply accommodate themselves to this new reality." He adds, "instead of giving ordinary Americans a sense of security, this new paradigm induced an acute sense of vulnerability, which left many susceptible to demagogic fear mongering." For him, this partially explains Trump's electoral victory.

As Bacevich and others have acknowledged, the post-WW-II era of American "greatness" began to falter in the mid-1970s with consequences for both capitalism and the US empire. The period saw Pres. Nixon end the US's long alignment of the dollar to the gold standard and a global oil crisis that reverberated through all sectors of the economy. It also witnessed the beginning of an era of long-term wage stagnation and a decline in the standard-of-living for ordinary Americans that continues to today.

The Institute for Policy Studies' Inequality website notes, "between 1983 and 2009, over 40 percent of all wealth gains flowed to the 1 percent and 82 percent of wealth gains went to the top 5 percent." Between 1976 and 2010, the nation's collective wealth of the bottom 99 percent shrank to 79 percent from 91 percent; between 1962 and 2009, the wealth of the bottom 90 percent of the US population declined to 12.8 from 19.1 percent.

During this half-century, the US military played a critical role policing the empire, especially at its unstable periphery. However, its scorecard is disappointing: Korea remains a standoff; Vietnam was a failure; the Cuba Revolution was not defeated; the installation of numerous Latin and South American dictators failed to fully contain mass democratic insurgency; and CIA support for Afghan mujahideen insurgency against the SU culminated in the rise of Osama bin Laden, the September 11, 2001, attacks and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that ignited the current firestorm of sectarian nationalism and fundamentalist religion spreading through the Middle East and other regions. America's misadventure over the last half-century recall the Homeric tale in which Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, the one-eyed cyclopes. Trump is poised to play out the mythical role of the blind one-eyed cyclopes.

And what comes next? For Bacevich, "the Age of Great Expectations has ended, leaving behind an ominous void." Looking critically at the coming Trump presidency, he warns, "Trump's own inability to explain what should fill that great void provides neither excuse for inaction nor cause for despair. Instead, Trump himself makes manifest the need to reflect on the nation's recent past and to think deeply about its future." Bacevich concludes, "Trumpism" is a dog's breakfast."
http://dailytimes.com.pk/business/2...vs-empire-can-trump-contain-the-growing-split
@django @The Sandman @Moonlight @Hell hound @Mugwop

can't predict anything right now every thing is too foggy at the moment

 

[Zibago]

@WAJsal @Nilgiri @The Eagle @ahojunk @EgyptianAmerican

can't predict anything right now every thing is too foggy at the moment

He is lashing out against a system his country created itself now that others have learned how to play he wants to change the rules

 

[Nilgiri]

@WAJsal @Nilgiri @The Eagle @ahojunk @EgyptianAmerican


He is lashing out against a system his country created itself now that others have learned how to play he wants to change the rules

Its about time someone did what hes doing. I have driven through the rust belt where he got his votes and seen how decrepit it is. Funding for the wars and world policing have literally been extracted from these giant factories, and now only skeletons remain.

US definitely did not need another globalist, establishment president that just does the same thing till they reach the edge of the cliff of debt and over-leveraged printing press that were used to cover up the hollowness....and then fall over.

It is prudent to give Trump a chance here. Ignore the rhetoric you didn't like or the fact he has changed the rule book for the time being. All of it basically reflects how long the problem has been ignored and allowed to rot. When such things rebound in history, it normally happens with the rhetoric as well....that is how human nature plays out. What really matters is the actions taken by anti-political establishment like Trump while negotiating the very real political edifices surrounding him now. He will have allies and enemies....but more than any before him, I feel he guides his compass and relies on his intuition rather than prepared establishment script (i.e being a puppet for the usual puppetmasters like banking clans and such)...so there is a chance now more than ever before for the change that Obama was promising but never delivered in any conclusive fashion (to the inner cities, rural poor and desindustrialised heartland).

So it is a subject that will have to be revisited in 100 days of tenure at the minimum. That is May 1st. Mark it on calendar and tag me then and I can give you more details of what I think and what the trend is regarding Trump administration. Right now its way too early...they have just got off the start line in a long marathon.

 

[frequency]

a lot of you are starting to talk about Donald Trump. Two years ago, no body cares about him but I did. Most of you think he's a joker. hahahah I guess the joker is now the ACE.

@WAJsal @Nilgiri @The Eagle @ahojunk @EgyptianAmerican


He is lashing out against a system his country created itself now that others have learned how to play he wants to change the rules

You don't know what you are talking about.

Its about time someone did what hes doing. I have driven through the rust belt where he got his votes and seen how decrepit it is. Funding for the wars and world policing have literally been extracted from these giant factories, and now only skeletons remain.

US definitely did not need another globalist, establishment president that just does the same thing till they reach the edge of the cliff of debt and over-leveraged printing press that were used to cover up the hollowness....and then fall over.

It is prudent to give Trump a chance here. Ignore the rhetoric you didn't like or the fact he has changed the rule book for the time being. All of it basically reflects how long the problem has been ignored and allowed to rot. When such things rebound in history, it normally happens with the rhetoric as well....that is how human nature plays out. What really matters is the actions taken by anti-political establishment like Trump while negotiating the very real political edifices surrounding him now. He will have allies and enemies....but more than any before him, I feel he guides his compass and relies on his intuition rather than prepared establishment script (i.e being a puppet for the usual puppetmasters like banking clans and such)...so there is a chance now more than ever before for the change that Obama was promising but never delivered in any conclusive fashion (to the inner cities, rural poor and desindustrialised heartland).

So it is a subject that will have to be revisited in 100 days of tenure at the minimum. That is May 1st. Mark it on calendar and tag me then and I can give you more details of what I think and what the trend is regarding Trump administration. Right now its way too early...they have just got off the start line in a long marathon.

thank you!

 

[Zibago]

a lot of you are starting to talk about Donald Trump. Two years ago, no body cares about him but I did. Most of you think he's a joker. hahahah I guess the joker is now the ACE.



You don't know what you are talking about.



thank you!

America was the biggest supporter of free trade and zero protectionism now they are lashing out against it because its hurting them

 

[frequency]

America was the biggest supporter of free trade and zero protectionism now they are lashing out against it because its hurting them

Nothing last forever man. Free lunch is now proven to be a failure.

 

[Zibago]

Its about time someone did what hes doing. I have driven through the rust belt where he got his votes and seen how decrepit it is. Funding for the wars and world policing have literally been extracted from these giant factories, and now only skeletons remain.

US definitely did not need another globalist, establishment president that just does the same thing till they reach the edge of the cliff of debt and over-leveraged printing press that were used to cover up the hollowness....and then fall over.

It is prudent to give Trump a chance here. Ignore the rhetoric you didn't like or the fact he has changed the rule book for the time being. All of it basically reflects how long the problem has been ignored and allowed to rot. When such things rebound in history, it normally happens with the rhetoric as well....that is how human nature plays out. What really matters is the actions taken by anti-political establishment like Trump while negotiating the very real political edifices surrounding him now. He will have allies and enemies....but more than any before him, I feel he guides his compass and relies on his intuition rather than prepared establishment script (i.e being a puppet for the usual puppetmasters like banking clans and such)...so there is a chance now more than ever before for the change that Obama was promising but never delivered in any conclusive fashion (to the inner cities, rural poor and desindustrialised heartland).

So it is a subject that will have to be revisited in 100 days of tenure at the minimum. That is May 1st. Mark it on calendar and tag me then and I can give you more details of what I think and what the trend is regarding Trump administration. Right now its way too early...they have just got off the start line in a long marathon.

It wasnt immigration or foreign companies that took jobs away it was greed of top 1%companies which did that they were biggest supporter of mass offshoring of small jobs all they saw in the 80,s and 90,s was mass profits America benefitted hugely from this globalization and still does but all the new globalized wealth goes to the top 1% Trump is lashing out at Mexico and China for mistakes America made

Globalization goes both ways no?
US companies benefit the most its not fault of other countries if the system in US is so faulty that excuses are made for health and education while media beats war drums that result in pointless wars that cost trillions

He said he FEELS like torture works all his policies will be based on alternative facts and FEELINGS is this a joke?

He is about to trigger a global trade war and economic crisis and on him not being a puppet of the elite Rex Tillerson of exon mobil is his secretary of state

How do we take a man seriously who calls Global Warming a Chinese conspiracy this claim is based on FEELINGS and alternative facts i mean come on
But overall i think this will be good for the world the American block will shrink and no more will America make flase claims of being global responsible power that fights for human rights,democracy,altruism and all that goofy shit

 

[Nilgiri]

It wasnt immigration or foreign companies that took jobs away it was greed of top 1%companies which did that they were biggest supporter of mass offshoring of small jobs all they saw in the 80,s and 90,s was mass profits America benefitted hugely from this globalization and still does but all the new globalized wealth goes to the top 1% Trump is lashing out at Mexico and China for mistakes America made

Globalization goes both ways no?
US companies benefit the most its not fault of other countries if the system in US is so faulty that excuses are made for health and education while media beats war drums that result in pointless wars that cost trillions

He said he FEELS like torture works all his policies will be based on alternative facts and FEELINGS is this a joke?

He is about to trigger a global trade war and economic crisis and on him not being a puppet of the elite Rex Tillerson of exon mobil is his secretary of state

How do we take a man seriously who calls Global Warming a Chinese conspiracy this claim is based on FEELINGS and alternative facts i mean come on
But overall i think this will be good for the world the American block will shrink and no more will America make flase claims of being global responsible power that fights for human rights,democracy,altruism and all that goofy shit

I am saying both parties (dem and GOP) establishment answered to their major donors and masters (banks and elite rich) before their own people...not for 5 or 10 or 20 years but pretty much ever since JFK got a bullet to the head and LBJ and then Nixon made pacts with the bankers who had begun to hold US govt hostage (very long topic I don't want to get into now)

Thats why the globalist outsourcing (of both goods production and services) benefited US on paper (labour costs go down, profit margins go up)....but it did not benefit the US public (who lost jobs and did not have sudden transferable skills to new economic sectors).

That alone would not have started sinking the ship, it was the Bush wars that really punched a massive hole fiscally right at the base. 6 trillion USD, thats like 3 years of total India GDP spent on middle east ears. You can see this in how over-taxed and over-burdened US small and medium companies are overall.

That's why I dont suddenly isolate and blame Obama only like many. He inherited a bad situation from Bush, but he did not do much to make it better (but at least the ramp of debt/GDP has somewhat levelled off in recent years at least compared to the early years)...as we see with the Obamacare failure and continued bureaucratic nightmare in the US.

Why are we so concerned about personal feelings of Trump so much on every single issue? He has appointed advisors and a team that will guide most major policy decisions. I mean why weren't we all concerned that Obama attended a racist (equivalent of KKK) black church for majority of his adult life? Its fine in his case because he is black?

And yeah he is about to spark a "global trade war" and "economic crisis" just as much as he was supposed to not win this election in the first place. Its a classic media over-reaction to the stark fact that they have been exposed after clamouring with each other over who had the best romance with Hillary. If you rely on the corrupt, colluding media for all your "facts" and call everything else as "alternate"....without doing neutral investigation....then of course you are going to believe Trump is going to start some apocalypse. It is what has been fed to you 24/7, I dont blame you personally.

After all, please tell me which previous president even bothered to invite major unions personally to the white house? The standard establishment script was to make them promises and then get their votes (if democrat) and then never bother to interact with them again (until the next election).

Why did Bernie Sanders completely support Trump cancelling TPP? Why are many democrats looking forward to the infrastructure plan and giving bi-partisan support to Trump on several initiatives...many being the same democrats that were fed up with Obama's typical status quo policies and cold shouldering of republicans by use of E.O? These are all signs of an economic crisis?

I really don't give a damn about the American "block" shrinking. If more are so weak they feel they need to be part of some block and totalitarian China is their model and inspiration, so be it. The countries in the world that matter are strong enough to engage as required with the US....and its time the US puts itself first and foremost.

You dont juggle millions of other's priorities when skating on thin ice. You put things down and focus on getting off the ice to terra firma so you dont break it and drown...thin ice you were on to being with all because you thought virtue signalling, political correctness and misguided uni-polar dominance were more important than your own immediate economic situation and predicament. There was a time when US could easily afford to do so (after WW2), that time has long since passed.

 

[Zibago]

I am saying both parties (dem and GOP) establishment answered to their major donors and masters (banks and elite rich) before their own people...not for 5 or 10 or 20 years but pretty much ever since JFK got a bullet to the head and LBJ and then Nixon made pacts with the bankers who had begun to hold US govt hostage (very long topic I don't want to get into now)

Thats why the globalist outsourcing (of both goods production and services) benefited US on paper (labour costs go down, profit margins go up)....but it did not benefit the US public (who lost jobs and did not have sudden transferable skills to new economic sectors).

That alone would not have started sinking the ship, it was the Bush wars that really punched a massive hole fiscally right at the base. 6 trillion USD, thats like 3 years of total India GDP spent on middle east ears. You can see this in how over-taxed and over-burdened US small and medium companies are overall.

That's why I dont suddenly isolate and blame Obama only like many. He inherited a bad situation from Bush, but he did not do much to make it better (but at least the ramp of debt/GDP has somewhat levelled off in recent years at least compared to the early years)...as we see with the Obamacare failure and continued bureaucratic nightmare in the US.

Why are we so concerned about personal feelings of Trump so much on every single issue? He has appointed advisors and a team that will guide most major policy decisions. I mean why weren't we all concerned that Obama attended a racist (equivalent of KKK) black church for majority of his adult life? Its fine in his case because he is black?

And yeah he is about to spark a "global trade war" and "economic crisis" just as much as he was supposed to not win this election in the first place. Its a classic media over-reaction to the stark fact that they have been exposed after clamouring with each other over who had the best romance with Hillary. If you rely on the corrupt, colluding media for all your "facts" and call everything else as "alternate"....without doing neutral investigation....then of course you are going to believe Trump is going to start some apocalypse. It is what has been fed to you 24/7, I dont blame you personally.

After all, please tell me which previous president even bothered to invite major unions personally to the white house? The standard establishment script was to make them promises and then get their votes (if democrat) and then never bother to interact with them again (until the next election).

Why did Bernie Sanders completely support Trump cancelling TPP? Why are many democrats looking forward to the infrastructure plan and giving bi-partisan support to Trump on several initiatives...many being the same democrats that were fed up with Obama's typical status quo policies and cold shouldering of republicans by use of E.O? These are all signs of an economic crisis?

I really don't give a damn about the American "block" shrinking. If more are so weak they feel they need to be part of some block and totalitarian China is their model and inspiration, so be it. The countries in the world that matter are strong enough to engage as required with the US....and its time the US puts itself first and foremost.

You dont juggle millions of other's priorities when skating on thin ice. You put things down and focus on getting off the ice to terra firma so you dont break it and drown...thin ice you were on to being with all because you thought virtue signalling, political correctness and misguided uni-polar dominance were more important than your own immediate economic situation and predicament. There was a time when US could easily afford to do so (after WW2), that time has long since passed.

Yes that what I was saying aggressive globalization was America,s policy which benefited American companies the most and still does but ut turned bad as soon as others learned how to play the game was It China,s fault if US had automation and outsourcing issues?
He is blaming others for his nation,s mistakes
He is Bush part 2 trust me he will do exactly what the crazy cowboy did just more undiplomatically
Obamacare in itself wasnt a failure it was greed of Insurance companies who started overcharging after dip in profits because more people were covered under it you can call greed of an unregulated industry that Is free to set Its price as failure of a govt program

I am less concerned about his racist type appointments more concerned about his climate change doubters cuz that affects the world whether we like it or not and from what we know so far US will no longer abide by its commitment to reversing climate change

Just months ago US gave huge letures to others lol

Trump will impose tarrifs right?
Tarrifs will result in increase In price of commodities, inflation goes up,import costs goes higher,value of currency is affected(unless US turns into a currency manipulator ) which will have global consequences and that will trigger the global crisis

Technically he didnt win he lost by 3 million and thats what the media said they said half truths they werent lying but they didnt cover state by state popularity of Trump


TPP was Obama,s policy of containing China its funny how America is criticizing its own trap for others it was actually giving US companies eqjal standing with govt of other countries its good that such a colonial minded organization was stopped in its track

Well US made those blocks to further American interests in those regions TPP was all about conquering China,s backyard
Yes but the scale of engagement of those countries would be different in post Trump world did you not see how China just took over TPP countries with Its own alternative?

And bullying others wont make other countries agree to his terms oh and just for the record I never liked Hillary she was responsible for fake Arab spring that gave birth to ISIS she and Obama harmed Muslims and Mid Eastners the most

 

[Nilgiri]

Yes that what I was saying aggressive globalization was America,s policy which benefited American companies the most and still does but ut turned bad as soon as others learned how to play the game was It China,s fault if US had automation and outsourcing issues?
He is blaming others for his nation,s mistakes
He is Bush part 2 trust me he will do exactly what the crazy cowboy did just more undiplomatically
Obamacare in itself wasnt a failure it was greed of Insurance companies who started overcharging after dip in profits because more people were covered under it you can call greed of an unregulated industry that Is free to set Its price as failure of a govt program

I am less concerned about his racist type appointments more concerned about his climate change doubters cuz that affects the world whether we like it or not and from what we know so far US will no longer abide by its commitment to reversing climate change

Just months ago US gave huge letures to others lol

Trump will impose tarrifs right?
Tarrifs will result in increase In price of commodities, inflation goes up,import costs goes higher,value of currency is affected(unless US turns into a currency manipulator ) which will have global consequences and that will trigger the global crisis

Technically he didnt win he lost by 3 million and thats what the media said they said half truths they werent lying but they didnt cover state by state popularity of Trump


TPP was Obama,s policy of containing China its funny how America is criticizing its own trap for others it was actually giving US companies eqjal standing with govt of other countries its good that such a colonial minded organization was stopped in its track

Well US made those blocks to further American interests in those regions TPP was all about conquering China,s backyard
Yes but the scale of engagement of those countries would be different in post Trump world did you not see how China just took over TPP countries with Its own alternative?

And bullying others wont make other countries agree to his terms oh and just for the record I never liked Hillary she was responsible for fake Arab spring that gave birth to ISIS she and Obama harmed Muslims and Mid Eastners the most

American companies success does not mean American regular people success....MNCs have very small footprint among employment in the US relative to their political influence in both govt and the banks.

When you fundamentally read the background of this and look at the context of stagnant median real wage since the mid 70s (after the first massive draining fiscally from vietnam)...you will better understand the root of the problem.

Tarrifs, trade deals etc are only a small part of this much larger strategic conundrum that NONE of the establishment even wanted to admit, much less confront...given all their rises were sponsored by the very same elite that control the banks, media, govt....everything. This same elite that want profit margins as the bottom line, not US population prosperity.

It is basically why they threw pretty much everything at stopping Trump, but there was enough left in the US people to see through this and vote Trump in anyway.

So continually financing other country's security, trade surplus and employment at the cost of your own overall (but very profitable to a few in the right places) is not a wise thing to do long term and is unsustainable. Trump is basically pre-empting what would have needed to happen down the road in much less pretty fashion.

So like I said, lets give him at least 100 days before coming to hasty "doomsday around the corner" predictions for world economy and trade.

Unions are happy at his plan, DJIA is responding well so far and there is a very welcome plan to cut tax rates, legislation and bureaucracy by huge amounts that is improving private company sentiment across the board.

Containing China through TPP or whatever (as though China is some country that can be contained like that in the first place) is really a useless and futile effort. The ratio of strength of US to any other major power no longer exists at the levels like it did in the 50s and 60s. Its best for the US to now pay attention to its own grievous domestic weaknesses and fix them while there is money, space and time to do so and on their own terms....rather than running out of options 10 years later of the same old story and then not having any luxury to sweeten the medicine and having others administer it to them out of their interest rather than US own.