Bill Bonner

While the catastrophe of US finances grows closer

Win-win deals make us richer and better off. But win-lose deals (in which you win by making the other fellow lose) never go away. And occasionally, the win-losers take over.

Since 1999, the US empire has been doing the things that empires do when they get long in the tooth and short in the purse — with unnecessary military spending and unnecessary wars.

The Dutch Republic flourished from trade. It bought and sold. Did it get ‘ripped off’ by its trading partners? The question seems absurd.

‘Reciprocal’ tariffs have been put on hold by the courts. But they had already been stopped by the markets. The reciprocal tariff plan was called off soon after the markets began to collapse.

In politics, the ‘fat’ is the juiciest part. It’s what the politicians most want. If you take money from taxpayers to conduct a war, for example, and you spend the money efficiently, what do you get?

The only honest role for government is to protect people from danger. But it quickly becomes a protection racket. The more fearful people become the more they are willing to pay for protection.

Donald Trump seemed unaware of it, but he had only a few days to accomplish something too. And he faced one critical objective: to stop the federal government’s perennial deficits.

Ambitious empires always decline. They do so with a combination of over-spending… and overextending themselves militarily. Those risks, and their consequences, have been well known.

Ambitious empires always decline. They do so with a combination of over-spending… and overextending themselves militarily. Those risks, and their consequences, have been well known.