The election cannot change the fundamental economic facts facing America. From Jeff Thomas at internationalman.com:
I rarely comment on specific news items, as I tend to focus on the long view. However, I’ve been repeatedly asked to comment on the recent American presidential election and what a win by Donald Trump will mean.
Of course, those who read this publication are rarely liberals in the modern sense. Many are conservative, but the majority are likely to be libertarians. Those from the latter two groups may well be singing, “Ding-dong, the witch is dead” at present, but this will not be the case. Mrs. Clinton and her fellow globalists are not about to shrink back into the night.
Already the mighty hand of George Soros is visible on the East and West coasts of the US, in the form of massive demonstrations and, in some cases, riots from the “Not my president” crowd. This is a setback for them, not an endgame.
At the same time, of course, a quieter group – those who supported Mister Trump – are hoping that all will be right with the world in future. They will be anticipating a stemming of the migration tide from Mexico and the Middle East. They’ll be hoping to see companies located in the US to increase hiring and those that have left the US due to excessive corporate tax returning. They may also be anticipating a diminished national debt and an overall return to prosperity.
They will be disappointed.
Mister Trump has never been a conservative of the traditional school. He’s more of the modern school, which translates roughly to “collectivism lite.” His solution for exiting businesses is not diminished taxation, but trade embargos (check the Hawley–Smoot Tariff of 1930 to see how well that will turn out). He doesn’t wish to do away with socialized medicine, only to scrap Obamacare and replace it with “Obamacare lite.” (Government will still be the driver of the system, not the private sector.)
He supports mandatory social programmes like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc., that gobble up 67 percent of government expenditure, even though they have reached the point that they are not only unfunded but unfundable.
In addition, he has promised to rebuild the country’s aging infrastructure, expand the military, ramp up aggression against ISIS and bomb oilfields controlled by the Islamic State.
Mister Trump has, however, stated that he will diminish direct taxation. The highest earners would pay 33 percent and the corporate tax rate would drop to 15 percent. Yet, he offers no explanation as to how he will make up for the shortfall. Nor does he explain how he will deal with the mushrooming national debt.
What this tells us is that, despite the euphoria that is presently being felt by Mister Trump’s supporters, the fundamentals that plague the US economy remain present and not only is it impossible for him to reverse the pre-existent slide toward economic collapse, it’s not really even a part of the agenda.
Under Mister Trump, the US will still see inflation for the US dollar and larger deficits.
To continue reading: The Scenic Route to Hell
