So far, we’re only a couple weeks into Donald Trump’s second try at governing the USA… it’s everything we expected – and more!.
Getting rid of DEI… abandoning the Energy Transition… closing departments and firing federal workers… pardoning Ross Ulbricht — yes, there are bright spots.
‘It’s time for it to die’, said Elon Musk of the USAID. The agency ‘promotes democracy’ by undermining elections, engineering regime changes, spreading propaganda…and funnelling billions of dollars to its chummy crony contractors. It should have been put to death a long time ago. And there are many other agencies that should be terminated along with it.
But there are some dark spots too — trade wars… drug wars…Panama, Greenland, and now Gaza! banning, prohibiting, sanctioning, tariffing…ignoring the Constitution… flights of fancy, doomed to crash…and lose-lose deals that make no real sense.
Here’s the latest:
‘Trump orders creation of a U.S. sovereign wealth fund
‘President Trump on Monday took the first steps toward his administration creating a government-owned investment fund, tasking the heads of the Treasury Department and Commerce Department with beginning the process to create an American sovereign wealth fund.’
Uh…
Don’t you need some ‘wealth’ to create a ‘wealth fund?’ Norway did it with the money it got from North Sea oil. China’s trillion-dollar wealth fund comes from its trade surpluses.
Where will the US wealth come from? The government runs deficits… America’s trade balance is negative. And it has nearly $37 trillion in anti-wealth… aka debt.
Whatever ball Mr. Trump has his eye on, it ain’t the one that matters. In all the sound and fury of Trump’s executive orders and confrontations, there is scarcely any mention of the real challenge: avoiding a fiscal crisis.
But the nice thing about Donald Trump… the fresh air of his administration…is that he is so transparently rapacious. Almost everything he says is a lie, or a mistake, or plain nonsense. But it is not gussied up with taffeta talk of the ‘rule of law’…the Constitution…or the ‘dignity of the Oval Office’. All the claptrap and cupidity of an aging empire…like the painting of Dorian Gray…is finally on display. Pearls and Irritations opines:
‘What Trump is announcing to Americans and the world contains more than elements of a new security, economic, political and human rights order. He is essentially proclaiming a new Pax Americana charter to replace the United Nations charter which he, and it should be noted, together with other US presidents have consistently violated since the charter was established in 1945 but which none until Trump has explicitly repudiated.’
Until now, America’s violence was cloaked in the hypocrisy of the 20th century. We were ‘making the world safe for democracy’. We were promoting the globalised ‘liberal’ order…and protecting the world from fascism… and then, from communism…and later from terrorists. Donald Trump ‘tells it like it really is’. We’re in it for what we can get out of it. And now, the whole world knows it. The Guardian:
‘Trump demands rare earths from Kyiv in exchange for aid
‘US reportedly briefly paused weapon shipments into Ukraine…
‘“We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said on Monday. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.” Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said Ukraine was willing, adding that he wants “equalisation” from Ukraine for Washington’s “close to $300bn” in support.’
Trump is bad. Trump is good. He is ‘destroying our democracy’. Or, he is a genius, given to us (by God!) to make us great again.
Our own guess — an admittedly grandiose sweep of historical dot connecting — is that Mr. Trump is simply Mr. Trump…neither bad nor good…but just another one of history’s useful dupes. His real mission, of which he is entirely unaware, is not to save the empire, but to sink it.
God does not permit trees to grow to the sky… nor does He allow empires — no matter what their pretensions — to rule forever. All things made by man have a beginning…and an end. The Roman Empire needed its Augustus…and its Caligula.
And now, Donald J. Trump… Time’s ‘man of the year’…seems to be doing God’s work, hastening the end of American hegemonic power by turning much of the world against the USA.
This view is so out-of-step with the bulk of popular opinion…it must be either very wrong…or very right. Whichever. We’ll accept the verdict of history, when it is finally rendered.
Unless it goes against us.
Regards,
 |
Bill Bonner,
For Fat Tail Daily
