Transcripts
Peak Trump:
Speaker:The Undrainable Swamp And The Fantasy Of MAGA By David A. Stockman, narrated by russell newton.
Speaker:Prologue.
Speaker:Peak Trump happened on September 20,
Speaker:2018,
Speaker:when the S&P 500's giant bubble topped out at 2941.
Speaker:It has been downhill for the market ever since then;
Speaker:and with much more meltdown to go,
Speaker:it means that the Donald,
Speaker:too,
Speaker:is heading for a great big fall.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:we think the odds that he will be accorded the Dick Nixon Memorial Helicopter
Speaker:ride to Gonesville before the end of his term are,
Speaker:once again,
Speaker:not inconsiderable and are rising ineluctably.
Speaker:That's because at the end of the day the Donald is not,
Speaker:remotely the force of nature he's been made to seem by the Trump-obsessed media.
Speaker:To the contrary,
Speaker:he's actually a political flyweight,
Speaker:megalomaniacal incompetent and bileridden bully who stumbled into the Oval
Speaker:Office against all odds;
Speaker:and then lucked-out a second time by riding high on the final two-year crest of
Speaker:a deeply impaired and unsustainable economic recovery cycle and monumental
Speaker:stock market bubble.
Speaker:So doing,
Speaker:however,
Speaker:the Donald committed the most,
Speaker:egregious rookie mistake in the history of the American presidency.
Speaker:That is,
Speaker:he insouciantly embraced a financial bubble that was destined to crash and took
Speaker:ownership of a struggling,
Speaker:geriatric business cycle expansion that had "recession ahead" written all over
Speaker:its forehead.
Speaker:Even on purely mechanical calendarized basis,
Speaker:Trump's,
Speaker:embrace of the current economy was sheer folly.
Speaker:By January 2017,
Speaker:the weakest and most artificial business expansion in American history was
Speaker:already 90 months old.
Speaker:It thereby stood barely a year shy of the legendary 1960's "guns and butter"
Speaker:expansion (105 months),
Speaker:and it was also just 29 months from the all-time record expansion of the 1990s
Speaker:tech boom (119 months).
Speaker:But unlike today,
Speaker:the late stages of the 1990s cycle had,
Speaker:benefited from immense tailwinds which implied there was plenty of juice to
Speaker:keep the expansion going.
Speaker:For instance,
Speaker:Uncle Sam was running a 2% of G. D. P. budget surplus by the year 2000,
Speaker:which obviated any upward pressure on interest rates or tendency for U. S.
Speaker:Treasury borrowing to squeeze-out private investment.
Speaker:Likewise,
Speaker:the Fed's,
Speaker:balance sheet stood at only $500 billion versus $4.5 trillion at the recent
Speaker:peak.
Speaker:Accordingly,
Speaker:there was no urgent need back then to throw-on the monetary brakes,
Speaker:and,
Speaker:in fact,
Speaker:there still existed immense headroom to "stimulate" demand if needs be.
Speaker:Overseas,
Speaker:the,
Speaker:tailwinds were equally,
Speaker:strong.
Speaker:The Red Ponzi was just then bursting out of the starting blocks and had not yet
Speaker:buried itself in debt,
Speaker:malinvestment and fevered speculation.
Speaker:Also at the turn of the century a newly energized single-currency Europe was
Speaker:fixing to (temporarily)
Speaker:borrow and spend like there was no tomorrow.
Speaker:Notwithstanding these powerful tailwinds,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:the,
Speaker:hideously inflated dotcom and tech bubbles splattered during the course of 2000
Speaker:and after,
Speaker:eventually sending the main street economy into recession in the spring of 2001.
Speaker:Nor was that abrupt end to the longest business cycle,
Speaker:expansion in history a one-off aberration.
Speaker:As we elaborate below,
Speaker:the 83% crash of the Nasdaq 100 during 2000-2002 (and lesser but still severe
Speaker:declines in the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 small cap index)
Speaker:marked a wholly new trigger sequence for recessions in the age of Fed-driven
Speaker:Bubble Finance.
Speaker:To wit,
Speaker:recessions now originate in crashing Wall Street,
Speaker:bubbles-not in the retrenchment of household and business credit on main
Speaker:street,
Speaker:as was historically the case.
Speaker:Needless to say,
Speaker:by the lights of his own (correct)
Speaker:campaign,
Speaker:rhetoric,
Speaker:Trump inherited a dotcom-scale financial bubble,
Speaker:but no macroeconomic tailwinds whatsoever.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:the main street economy was struggling in the midst of an aging,
Speaker:artificial recovery that had been kept alive after the September 2008 financial
Speaker:meltdown only by means of $10 trillion of public borrowing and a spree of Fed
Speaker:money printing and negative real interest rates that had no parallel in prior
Speaker:history or even a reference in any known economic textbook.
Speaker:In that context,
Speaker:nobody with an ounce of economic,
Speaker:comprehension or even in possession of a well-crafted "shovelready" economic
Speaker:recovery program would have dreamed that the wheezing,
Speaker:structurally incapacitated American economy of January 2017 could be
Speaker:successfully repaired on the short remaining cyclical runway available.
Speaker:The apt metaphor about the great distance required to reverse the direction of
Speaker:an aircraft carrier on the open seas hardly captured the extent of the
Speaker:challenge.
Speaker:The Reagan Formula Ignored.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:under the far less daunting circumstances of January 1981,
Speaker:Ronald Reagan had long ago set the proper template - He never stopped blaming
Speaker:Jimmy Carter and the Democrats for the colossal mess he had inherited until
Speaker:after the ship of state had finally turned-with no inconsiderable help from
Speaker:Paul Volcker-in a sustainably positive direction and he had been reelected by a
Speaker:landslide in 1984.
Speaker:Needless to say,
Speaker:unlike the Gipper,
Speaker:the Donald had no time,
Speaker:left,
Speaker:no plan,
Speaker:no economic comprehension and no humility whatsoever.
Speaker:Within months of the inauguration,
Speaker:he pivoted from running against Obama's failed economy to celebrating an
Speaker:ostensible Trumpian boom that was nothing of the kind,
Speaker:and still isn't as we document below.
Speaker:And that's why the Donald's fabulous two-year ride on the,
Speaker:cresting phase of the greatest financial bubble ever inflated by rogue central
Speaker:bankers and reckless Wall Street momo chasers is coming to an abrupt end.
Speaker:The fact is,
Speaker:now that the support levels and safety ledges of the stock market's chart
Speaker:monkeys have all been taken out,
Speaker:its vulnerability to the next crash and the main street economy's exposure to
Speaker:the next recession is coming into sharp relief.
Speaker:As to the latter,
Speaker:the history books will record that,
Speaker:the Donald never saw it coming.
Speaker:Owing to his impulsive,
Speaker:immense and incorrigible ego,
Speaker:he,
Speaker:has remained utterly blind to the fact that the unemployment rate always falls
Speaker:below 4% during the final months of a long economic expansion cycle.
Speaker:So those monthly prints from the B. L. S. weren't any kind of vindication at
Speaker:all of his Tax Cut/Fiscal Debauch or his Trade and Border Wars-or even his
Speaker:ballyhooed regulatory reforms,
Speaker:which mainly amounted to cancelling prospective Obama regulatory schemes in the
Speaker:energy and environment areas that had not yet even taken effect.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:taking credit for the falling headline U-3 rate at,
Speaker:the tail-end of a business cycle is equivalent to claiming credit for the daily
Speaker:sunset.
Speaker:Likewise,
Speaker:a few random quarters of 3%+ economic growth had exactly nothing to do with M.
Speaker:A. G. A. .
Speaker:No Trumpian Boom.
Speaker:Thus,
Speaker:the unemployment rate at month #90 of the,
Speaker:aforementioned business expansions-the two longest ones in modern history- was
Speaker:3.7% and 4.5%,
Speaker:respectively,
Speaker:compared to 4.8% when Trump took office.
Speaker:Moreover,
Speaker:during the remaining months of the 1960s and 1990s expansions,
Speaker:the headline unemployment rate dipped slightly lower to 3.5% and 3.9%,
Speaker:respectively,
Speaker:but that's all she wrote.
Speaker:Both times the U. S. economy succumbed to recession within months of hitting
Speaker:the U-3 lows.
Speaker:Historically,
Speaker:therefore,
Speaker:sub-4% unemployment rates have,
Speaker:actually been flashing red warnings signs of trouble just around the bend.
Speaker:And this time there was absolutely no reason to think otherwise and every
Speaker:reason to expect the worst.
Speaker:Nevertheless,
Speaker:the Donald heedlessly and incessantly,
Speaker:embraced the transient 3.7% unemployment rate as if it were all his doing-when
Speaker:it was actually a clanging warning bell to pull out the stops blaming the swamp
Speaker:creatures of the Imperial City for a Fake Boom that couldn't last.
Speaker:As we indicated,
Speaker:nowadays under the Fed's baleful regime,
Speaker:of deep financial repression and cowardly coddling of the stock market,
Speaker:recessions are triggered by imploding financial bubbles,
Speaker:not the traditional catalyst of main street credit and economic retrenchment.
Speaker:For example,
Speaker:on the eve of the 2001 recession the,
Speaker:annualized real G. D. P. growth rate had exceeded 4.0% for 16 successive
Speaker:quarters.
Speaker:Yet that didn't preclude an end to the business expansion shortly thereafter
Speaker:owing to the thundering collapse of the dotcom and tech bubbles.
Speaker:Likewise,
Speaker:in the new world of central bank driven,
Speaker:financialization,
Speaker:a few random quarters of 3.0%+ real G. D. P. growth is nothing to write home
Speaker:about,
Speaker:either.
Speaker:The failed Obama economy,
Speaker:in fact,
Speaker:had posted 11 quarters,
Speaker:of greater than 3.0% annualized real G. D. P. growth.
Speaker:But they didn't last and owing to periodic reversals and stall-outs,
Speaker:they averaged into the weakest recovery cycle growth rate by far in prior
Speaker:history.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:by month #90 of the present so-called recovery,
Speaker:the evidence of fundamental economic impairment was palpable.
Speaker:Donald Trump was inheriting an anemic U. S. economy where real G. D. P. was
Speaker:still only 13% above its prior peak way back in Q4 2007.
Speaker:By contrast,
Speaker:at the same point in the 1990s recovery cycle real G. D. P. was up by 37% and
Speaker:had risen by 48% by the like point of the 1960s cycle.
Speaker:Beyond that,
Speaker:all the other post-war business cycles had,
Speaker:already ended much earlier than month #90.
Speaker:As the blue line in the chart dramatically underscores,
Speaker:the U. S. business cycle was living on borrowed time and faltering momentum
Speaker:the very hour that the Donald was sworn to office.
Speaker:In the context of that astonishing shortfall from,
Speaker:all prior cycles,
Speaker:the Donald had no silver bullet at all;
Speaker:just an overweening ego that could not resist taking credit for the residual
Speaker:momentum of what was actually an unsustainably imbalanced economy.
Speaker:Even then,
Speaker:he embraced a great big economic nothingburger,
Speaker:without a hint of awareness.
Speaker:The ballyhooed Trumpian boom,
Speaker:in fact,
Speaker:was never comprised of much more than talking point spin and statistical
Speaker:cherry-picking.
Speaker:During the first seven quarters on the Donald's watch,
Speaker:real,
Speaker:final sales (G. D. P. less inventory swings)
Speaker:have actually grown at just 2.69% per annum,
Speaker:and that's no material acceleration at all from Obama's final 11 quarters when
Speaker:the growth rate had been 2.53%.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:if there was ever a measure of the Trumpian,
Speaker:delusion,
Speaker:the above referenced 0.16% of statisticaly meaningless incremental growth is
Speaker:surely it.
Speaker:So loudly taking ownership of what candidate Trump,
Speaker:had correctly called a "big,
Speaker:fat,
Speaker:ugly bubble" was not merely short-sighted and outright dumb;
Speaker:it was actually profoundly insulting to the left-behind voters of Flyover
Speaker:America who elected him.
Speaker:Flyover America Betrayed.
Speaker:After all,
Speaker:they were the victims of today's rotten regime,
Speaker:of mountainous public and private debt,
Speaker:relentless Fed money pumping,
Speaker:hideous Wall Street windfalls to the 1% and the job and growth-destroying
Speaker:plunder of cash flows by the stockoption obsessed C-suites of corporate America.
Speaker:The Donald wouldn't have gotten within a country mile of,
Speaker:the Oval Office had it not been for the desperation of those leftbehind voters
Speaker:in the rust belt precincts of western Pennsylvania,
Speaker:Ohio,
Speaker:Michigan,
Speaker:Wisconsin and Iowa where he squeaked through in the Electoral College.
Speaker:To redeem his M. A. G. A. promises,
Speaker:therefore,
Speaker:Trump needed,
Speaker:to attack the fundamental causes of a failed Main Street economy,
Speaker:and failed was the word for it.
Speaker:Despite Wall Street's endless ballyhoo about tiny and often,
Speaker:revised or reversible gains in the monthly in-coming data,
Speaker:the big picture trends told the true,
Speaker:dismal story.
Speaker:To wit - there has been zero growth in real median household income since the
Speaker:year 2000;
Speaker:the U. S. economy has generated virtually no new full-pay,
Speaker:full-time Breadwinner jobs for 18 years;
Speaker:the so-called "recovery" from the Great Recession which was so anemic that
Speaker:there still has been no net gain in manufacturing output since November 2007;
Speaker:and,
Speaker:most crucially,
Speaker:a gargantuan $800 billion trade deficit has consigned vast stretches of Flyover
Speaker:America to be off-shored,
Speaker:hollowed-out and left to flounder.
Speaker:Needless to say,
Speaker:the common cause of main street's,
Speaker:economic malaise wasn't a sudden failing of capitalism at home or an onslaught
Speaker:of imports,
Speaker:immigrants and nefarious trade machinations by governments aboard.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:it was the handiwork of Imperial Washington,
Speaker:and the self-serving consensus of its bipartisan ruling class in favor of
Speaker:permanent war,
Speaker:unchained welfare entitlements,
Speaker:fiscal incontinence,
Speaker:unsustainable debt-fueled household spending,
Speaker:rampant corporate financial engineering and Keynesian monetary repression and
Speaker:"wealth effects" central planning at the Fed.
Speaker:So with the markets now retreating from the final,,
Speaker:spasmodic swelling of the giant bubble he inherited,
Speaker:the question recurs as to whether the Donald has begun to fix anything at all
Speaker:or has even laid a glove on any of the fundamental causes of America's baleful
Speaker:economic predicament?
Speaker:Trump's Mission Accomplished.- Disruption,
Speaker:Not Remediation.
Speaker:As we shall demonstrate in the chapters which follow,,
Speaker:the answer is not even a close call.
Speaker:He has done neither-and,
Speaker:in accordance with his real mission as the Great Disrupter,
Speaker:has actually made matters inestimably worse with his misbegotten Trade Wars,
Speaker:Border Wars,
Speaker:Fed-bashing and Fiscal Debauch.
Speaker:Even his much welcome but furtive tilt toward a primitive version of "America
Speaker:First" foreign policy has mostly been been stymied,
Speaker:smothered and sabotaged by the Deep State incumbents who continue to run the
Speaker:government.
Speaker:And that's been abetted in no small measure by the phalanx of failed generals
Speaker:and neocon interventionists that Trump has unaccountably installed in key
Speaker:offices.
Speaker:On that score,
Speaker:in fact,
Speaker:the Donald has essentially deep- sixed his own parade.
Speaker:His promise to march from the far-flung follies of Empire First to a more
Speaker:modest and inward looking notion of America First has already been largely
Speaker:derailed at his own hand.
Speaker:That's because the desperately needed pivot to fiscal,
Speaker:and national security sanity was stopped cold by the Donald's mindless $100
Speaker:billion per year boost of an already vastly excessive and waste-ridden national
Speaker:defense budget.
Speaker:And now that crucial pivot has been further blocked by a reckless economic and
Speaker:political war against Iran that will do exactly nothing to further the security
Speaker:and safety of the American homeland.
Speaker:Moreover,
Speaker:by feeding the massive Warfare State budget,,
Speaker:which already totals over $1 trillion per year when you addin the cost of
Speaker:foreign operations,
Speaker:military and economic aid,
Speaker:homeland security and the due bills for past wars represented by interest on
Speaker:war bonds and Veterans benefits ($200 billion year year),
Speaker:Trump has precluded any possibility of fiscal discipline.
Speaker:Here we are referring to the twin fiscal menace of the Warfare State and the
Speaker:Welfare State,
Speaker:and the iron law of their expansion.
Speaker:To wit,
Speaker:whenever the former is being ramped upwards at full tilt,
Speaker:the war hawk and neocon dominated G. O. P. is put out of business on the
Speaker:fiscal retrenchment front,
Speaker:meaning there is no legislative coalition that can possibly arrest the drift of
Speaker:what amounts to a fiscal doomsday machine.
Speaker:Moreover,
Speaker:in the current instance that iron law of fiscal,
Speaker:expansion was never in doubt because the Donald himself took entitlements off
Speaker:the table by foolishly pledging to never touch the $2 trillion per year Social
Speaker:Security/Medicare monster that lies at the heart of the Federal budget.
Speaker:Trump then added insult to injury via his unfunded $1.7,
Speaker:trillion tax cut and massive defense and domestic spending increases.
Speaker:All told,
Speaker:the result was a guaranteed $20 trillion explosion of the Federal debt over he
Speaker:coming decade.
Speaker:Moreover,
Speaker:this Trumpian Fiscal Debauch could not have,
Speaker:occurred at a worse time - To wit,
Speaker:it came at the tail end of the business cycle when fiscal retrenchment is
Speaker:supposed to occur and also at the point when the Fed had belatedly begun to
Speaker:extract itself from the impossible corner into which it had painted itself.
Speaker:Notwithstanding the barbs from the Oval Office and the,
Speaker:lame pleadings of the Wall Street brats who believe they are entitled to an
Speaker:endlessly rising stock market,
Speaker:the Fed has actually reached a point of desperation where replenishing its dry
Speaker:powder has become a matter of institutional self-preservation.
Speaker:What we mean is that the Keynesian apparatchiks who,
Speaker:inhabit the Eccles Building recognize their untrammeled power to dominate the
Speaker:entire financial system directly and the U. S. economy indirectly is now at
Speaker:stake.
Speaker:That's because its open-ended remit depends upon the Fed's ability to function
Speaker:as a recession-fighting savior after economic downturns- even when such main
Speaker:street setbacks are invariably caused by its own misbegotten policies.
Speaker:Accordingly,
Speaker:having dithered and delayed the process of,
Speaker:normalization for years,
Speaker:it now must restore interest rates to a level which affords the F. O. M. C.
Speaker:something to "cut" in the next crisis;
Speaker:and it must likewise shrink its balance sheet substantially in order to recoup
Speaker:head room to "expand" once the next recession inevitably hits.
Speaker:So regardless of whether the Fed "pauses" on the,
Speaker:previously scheduled 2 or 3 interest rate increases in 2019,
Speaker:we believe it will continue to shrink its balance sheet at an unprecedented
Speaker:$600 billion annual rate.
Speaker:And that's where the Trumpian fantasy of M. A. G. A. will come a cropper.
Speaker:Why The M. A. G. A. Fantasy Will Come A Cropper.
Speaker:The bond pits will need to absorb $1.2 trillion of new Federal borrowing and
Speaker:$600 billion of existing bonds being dumped by the Fed during the current
Speaker:fiscal year,
Speaker:and far,
Speaker:far larger amounts in the years thereafter and as far as the eye can see.
Speaker:But that's not going to happen at a sub-3.00% yield on the,
Speaker:ten-year Treasury.
Speaker:Not in a million years.
Speaker:Stated differently,
Speaker:crunch time is coming to the casino and,
Speaker:that's what is sure to bring the Donald down.
Speaker:The stock market is heading not only for another 50% correction (1500 on the
Speaker:S&P),
Speaker:but also toward a long L-shaped bottom rather than the quick V-shaped rebound
Speaker:which occurred after 2009.
Speaker:That's because the Fed and other central banks are so far,
Speaker:behind the curve that they have virtually no possibility of truly normalizing
Speaker:monetary conditions before the third and most unstable and unwarranted
Speaker:financial bubble of this century finally splatters all over the casino.
Speaker:And that will surely transpire because the Fed foolishly,
Speaker:pegged the money market rate to the zero bound for seven straight years (from
Speaker:December 2008 to December 2015).
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:with only a handful of monthly exceptions,
Speaker:the Federal funds rate (blue bars)
Speaker:has been well below the annual inflation rate (red bars)
Speaker:for 108 months running.
Speaker:That means money market rates have been negative in,
Speaker:real terms for nearly a decade,
Speaker:yet negative carry costs are the mother's milk of speculation on Wall Street,
Speaker:and this time the Fed has fueled a full decade of exactly that.
Speaker:It's why the casino is chock-a-block with financial explosive devices (FEDs)
Speaker:from stem to stern.
Speaker:Nine Years Of Negative Real Interest Rates.
Speaker:So as these reckless and interconnected bets continue to,
Speaker:unwind-sometimes violently so-the Fed and other central banks will be impotent
Speaker:to arrest the carnage.
Speaker:In part,
Speaker:that's because the magnitude of bottled-up,
Speaker:speculation in the financial system after seven years on the zero-bound and
Speaker:nearly nine years of negative real interest rates simply dwarfs the build-ups
Speaker:which previously occurred during the dotcom/tech bubble and the Greenspan
Speaker:housing and credit bubble.
Speaker:During those bubble expansions,
Speaker:the Fed had pegged the funds rate at a far higher bottom and then for only a
Speaker:few quarters,
Speaker:not nine years,
Speaker:as is evident in the chart below.
Speaker:Worse still,
Speaker:before each of the two prior stock crash- triggered recessions,
Speaker:the Fed got the money market rate up and re-loaded for "cuts" well before the
Speaker:crash incepted.
Speaker:Thus,
Speaker:the Eccles Building ratcheted the funds rate to 6.50% more than a year before
Speaker:the dotcom recession incepted in March 2001;
Speaker:and had ratcheted it up to 5.25 % nearly two-years before the Lehman meltdown
Speaker:of September 2008.
Speaker:Accordingly,
Speaker:it was able to goose Wall Street with a 550,
Speaker:basis point reduction in the cost of carry trade speculation after the 2001
Speaker:recession and cyclical bottom;
Speaker:and,
Speaker:likewise,
Speaker:to slash the Fed funds rate by 525 basis points (down to zero)
Speaker:after the 2008 meltdown and recession.
Speaker:To be sure,
Speaker:slashing the overnight money rates on Wall Street did exactly nothing for
Speaker:Flyover America's deeply indebted households,
Speaker:but it was a godsend to Wall Street speculators.
Speaker:It enabled the latter to fund their positions directly with nearly zero-cost
Speaker:repo or unsecured credit or indirectly through the implicit carry-trades
Speaker:available on the options market or at the bespoke trading desks of the Wall
Speaker:Street prime dealers.
Speaker:What this meant,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:is that the Fed deployed massive firepower on both occasions to artificially
Speaker:and hyper-aggressively force a robust reflation of asset prices in the casino.
Speaker:When combined with massive Q. E. in 2008-2009,
Speaker:especially,
Speaker:the result was a drastic V-shaped rebound of the stock averages that erased
Speaker:entirely all of the losses and lessons imposed on speculators and
Speaker:leverage-based momentum traders by the Great Financial Crisis (G. F. C. ).
Speaker:The G. F. C. ,
Speaker:in fact,
Speaker:was the most terribly "wasted" crisis in,
Speaker:modern financial history - The capital and money markets were not disciplined
Speaker:or repaired,
Speaker:but quickly reverted to a full-on casino-style modus operandi.
Speaker:And the fatally debt-encumbered main street economy,
Speaker:was not really deleveraged one bit.
Speaker:Combined household and nonfinancial business debt today stands at $30.5
Speaker:trillion compared to $24.3 trillion at the 2007 pre-crisis peak.
Speaker:Self-evidently,
Speaker:with the Federal funds rate still encapsulated,
Speaker:in the red circled "normalcy" range shown below,
Speaker:there will be no 525 basis points of rate slashing available to goose Wall
Speaker:Street into a pell mell reflation of financial asset prices this time around
Speaker:the barn.
Speaker:Instead,
Speaker:the casino will twist and turn at the bottom.
Speaker:That's especially true because this time there is also,
Speaker:drastically more bottled up inflation in financial asset prices than there was
Speaker:at the 2000 and 2007 tops.
Speaker:So the impending unwind of nearly a decade of rampant carry trade speculation
Speaker:will be unusually violent and deep;
Speaker:and,
Speaker:in the absence of Fed money market rate slashing capacity,
Speaker:also unusually long-lasting.
Speaker:This stock market shock,
Speaker:in turn,
Speaker:will trigger another Wall Street-style recession in which desperate C-suites
Speaker:toss jobs,
Speaker:inventories and restructuring charges overboard with reckless abandon in a
Speaker:futile effort to appease the trading gods and rescue their evaporating stock
Speaker:options.
Speaker:Once again,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:Flyover America will bear the brunt,
Speaker:of recession and that will elicit a renewed wave of dislocation,
Speaker:demoralization and sense of betrayal among the Trumpian base.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:if the Donald had even remotely grasped the financial time-bombs he was
Speaker:inheriting,
Speaker:he would have attacked the Wall Street speculators from day #1,
Speaker:and aggressively house-cleaned the Fed as their culpable handmaid and enabler.
Speaker:Needless to say,
Speaker:the Donald choose to puff-up his chest and,
Speaker:thrust it directly into harms' way,
Speaker:instead.
Speaker:So when the heavy,
Speaker:Fed Funds Rate shoe of a collapsing stock market and recessionary economy hits
Speaker:the pavement,
Speaker:it will be all over for his two year joy-ride.
Speaker:Trump's 2016 electoral base was always fragile and,
Speaker:reflective of a what amounted to a political Hail Mary by the disenfranchised
Speaker:millions who voted for him in the burned-out and left-behind counties and
Speaker:precincts of Flyover America.
Speaker:But when the U. S. economy lapses into another downturn,
Speaker:and the M. A. G. A. myth is visibly rebuked and eviscerated,
Speaker:the Donald's patented immigrant bashing and Border and Trade War rhetoric won't
Speaker:cut it.
Speaker:Donald Trump,
Speaker:like Richard Nixon before him,
Speaker:will find,
Speaker:himself home alone in the Oval Office-with the hinterlands betrayed,
Speaker:the G. O. P. defenders silenced and the Imperial City thirsting for the kill.
Speaker:No Cigar For C. N. N. .
Speaker:Nevertheless,
Speaker:let us be clear .- It is the impending hammer of financial collapse and
Speaker:economic retreat that will be the Donald's undoing,
Speaker:not the long-running C. N. N. /M. S. M. political indictment.
Speaker:And it is the pending assault on the paychecks of the voters and the bank
Speaker:accounts of the Republican donors which will awaken the G. O. P. pols from
Speaker:their one eye-open slumber and mobilize them to defenestrate the Donald.
Speaker:That is not to say,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:that the endless antiTrump bloviation of the mainstream media's talking heads
Speaker:and their collaborators among the Washington establishment and the Dem pols has
Speaker:been for naught.
Speaker:They were right,
Speaker:for instance,
Speaker:about Trump's temperamental,
Speaker:unsuitability for the office,
Speaker:but that's a national blessing in disguise.
Speaker:The Donald has single-handedly discredited the Imperial Presidency like never
Speaker:before,
Speaker:and that's the sine qua non of wresting democratic governance from the clutches
Speaker:of the Deep State and its permanent Washington nomenklatura.
Speaker:The same is true with respect to the charge that the Donald,
Speaker:has alienated most of the outside world-friend and foe alike- and has thereby
Speaker:badly diminished America's global "leadership."
Speaker:But,
Speaker:ironically,
Speaker:that will surely remain his lasting (and likely,
Speaker:only)
Speaker:accomplishment.
Speaker:What we mean is that the ruination of prosperity and liberty,
Speaker:in America by Imperial Washington has no hope of surcease until the latter
Speaker:declares a war,
Speaker:occupation or intervention and no one shows up for the party.
Speaker:That outcome,
Speaker:at least,
Speaker:the Donald has pretty much,
Speaker:guaranteed.
Speaker:Still,
Speaker:more than anything else,
Speaker:the Donald's fluke elevation,
Speaker:to the Oval Office has finally caused the Deep State to come out of hiding and
Speaker:bare its fangs against American democracy itself.
Speaker:So doing,
Speaker:it has awakened the sleepwalkers of the Foxified Right about the immense
Speaker:dangers of the Warfare State and the sweeping surveillance and police state
Speaker:apparatus that has been created in the service of the neocon's misbegotten war
Speaker:on terrorism and quest for Empire.
Speaker:In a word,
Speaker:the terrifying capabilities,
Speaker:resources and (purported)
Speaker:credibility of the nation's $75 billion per year intelligence community were
Speaker:hijacked by top Obama officials led by then C. I. A. Director,
Speaker:John Brennan,
Speaker:in furtherance of a plot to first forestall Trump's election,
Speaker:and then to re-litigate the outcome and eviscerate his Presidency after the
Speaker:voters had spoken.
Speaker:No greater threat has ever been mounted against America's,
Speaker:constitutional democracy than the plain as day collusion of Brennan,
Speaker:Rice,
Speaker:Comey,
Speaker:Clapper,
Speaker:Yates,
Speaker:McCabe,
Speaker:Rosenstein,
Speaker:Strzok,
Speaker:Page et. al. to thwart the will of the electorate.
Speaker:That Deep State assault incepted in the utterly unjustified,
Speaker:investigation of Russian influences on the Trump campaign during July 2016;
Speaker:became blatantly overt in the crude Comey/ Yates entrapment ploy against
Speaker:General Flynn on the eve of Trump's inauguration;
Speaker:and then went full-on public,
Speaker:seizing the Justice Department's investigative and law enforcement machinery
Speaker:via the Mueller Special Counsel appointment in order to conduct an abusive,
Speaker:bare-knuckled witch-hunt against the president and any and all bystanders who
Speaker:could be used to discredit his incumbency.
Speaker:Needless to say,
Speaker:the mainstream media is so caught up,
Speaker:in the anti-Trump mania fomented by the Imperial City's ruling classes and
Speaker:partisan shills that the plain fact of the attempted coup by the Deep State has
Speaker:been completely muffled.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:this very real homegrown case of election meddling by the intelligence and law
Speaker:enforcement agencies of the American state has been virtually covered in
Speaker:spray-paint by C. N. N. and the rest of the M. S. M. via the Russia/Trump
Speaker:collusion counternarrative.
Speaker:Yet the latter is so preposterous and threadbare as to,
Speaker:virtually force the ultimate question.
Speaker:Namely,
Speaker:given the fact that Russia's G. D. P. is just 7% of that of the U. S. and
Speaker:that Washington's defense spending is 12X greater than the Kremlin's,
Speaker:how in the world can rationally-thinking adults view Russia as any threat
Speaker:whatsoever to the security and safety of the American homeland--to say nothing
Speaker:of the implied existential threat embodied in the current anti-Kremlin
Speaker:fulminations?
Speaker:The RussiaGate Hoax-A Form Of Washington Bereavement Ritual There is a simple
Speaker:answer,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:and it's not about the Kremlin's threat to national security or even the silly
Speaker:social media click-baiting efforts of a pint-sized St. Petersburg troll farm
Speaker:operated during the 2016 election by a second tier Russian oligarch and
Speaker:nationalist agitator.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:if Russia didn't exist,
Speaker:the Imperial City would have needed to revive Orwell's enemy states of Eurasia
Speaker:or Eastasia.
Speaker:That's because the Dem party and the Washington,
Speaker:establishment have been so traumatized and rebuked by losing to a buffoon like
Speaker:Donald Trump that they have embraced a virtually fictionalized Russian meddling
Speaker:story to explain the November 2016 outcome.
Speaker:For them,
Speaker:RussiaGate has apparently become a form of bereavement ritual.
Speaker:Indeed,
Speaker:without the implicit postulate that Trump could not,
Speaker:have won the presidency without massive and decisive external intervention,
Speaker:the bare facts of the Russian meddling story fall on their own face.
Speaker:In this context,
Speaker:there is also something slightly more- However he got there,
Speaker:candidate Trump-and to a lesser extent President Trump-never bought into the
Speaker:Imperial City's post2012 anti-Putin narrative for the utterly rational reason
Speaker:that it's unwarranted.
Speaker:The real Putin,
Speaker:as opposed to the Imperial City's cartoon,
Speaker:caricature,
Speaker:is a completely sober and rational nationalist leader of the semi-impoverished,
Speaker:rump-state of Russia.
Speaker:The notion that he's an expansionist aggressor and mini-Hitler in the making is
Speaker:just the latest invention of Imperial Washington,
Speaker:which desperately needs a foreign enemy to justify its $1 trillion annual
Speaker:fleecing of America's taxpayers,
Speaker:current and unborn.
Speaker:In this instance,
Speaker:the actual truth is more nearly the opposite.
Speaker:It was Washington's aggressive expansion of Nato to Russia's very borders and
Speaker:its financing and recognition of the Ukrainian nationalist/crypto-Nazi coup on
Speaker:the streets of Kiev in February 2014 which forced Putin to take defense actions.
Speaker:Even then,
Speaker:it was limited to accommodating the,
Speaker:overwhelming desire of the Russian-speaking population of Crimea to return to
Speaker:mother Russia,
Speaker:which it had been an integral part of for 171 years,
Speaker:rather than being ruled by the hostile political parties which seized power in
Speaker:Kiev.
Speaker:The War Party's Phony Case Against Alleged Russian Aggression.
Speaker:The same was true of Putin's limited support for the Russian,
Speaker:speaking populations of the Donbas (eastern Ukraine).
Speaker:It takes only a surface knowledge of the blood-soaked history of the region to
Speaker:understand why the Russian speakers there took up arms against Kiev after the
Speaker:2014 nationalist/Nazi coup.
Speaker:The 1930s Stalinization of the Donbas' iron,
Speaker:steel,,
Speaker:coal,
Speaker:chemical,
Speaker:engineering and armaments sectors essentially moved reliable Russians into the
Speaker:factories and towns;
Speaker:and in the process liquidated or sent to Siberia Ukrainian nationalists and
Speaker:other political dissidents who didn't cotton to Uncle Joe's form of socialist
Speaker:dystopia.
Speaker:Soon thereafter came the World War,
Speaker:Ii battles which pitted Ukrainian collaborators with Hitler's Wehrmacht against
Speaker:the Russified locals.
Speaker:In the first instance,
Speaker:the former conducted a scorched earth march through the Donbas on the way to
Speaker:Stalingrad.
Speaker:Then,
Speaker:when the battle of Stalingrad was won,
Speaker:the Red Army retaliated in kind against the Ukrainian collaborators during its
Speaker:equally destructive march back through Ukraine on its way to Germany.
Speaker:So exactly what dog did the American people have in that,
Speaker:hunt?
Speaker:Obviously,
Speaker:the safety and security of the homeland was,
Speaker:not impacted a whit by an unnecessary re-opening of the Ukraine's bloody modern
Speaker:history.
Speaker:That's especially true since the current fight between Kiev and the
Speaker:Russian-speaking eastern provinces was owing to Washington's after-the-fact
Speaker:meddling in the country's 2010 election,
Speaker:which resulted in the deposing of its dully elected President by a
Speaker:Washington-funded street mob.
Speaker:Besides,
Speaker:the Ukraine for centuries has been a Russian,
Speaker:vassal and set of meandering borders looking for a country.
Speaker:In that context,
Speaker:Washington's ridiculous demand that Crimea be "returned" to Ukraine is
Speaker:downright laughable.
Speaker:Crimea was never part of the Ukraine after it was purchased,
Speaker:for good money from the Ottoman's by Catherine the Great in 1783.
Speaker:The "return" in question amounts to Washington's insistence on enforcing the
Speaker:dead hand of the Soviet Presidium,
Speaker:which transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954 as part of
Speaker:Khrushchev's consolidation of power after Stalin's death.
Speaker:It may well be that the candidate Trump didn't know all,
Speaker:the ins-and-outs of this history and Washington's phony demonization of Putin
Speaker:and Russia.
Speaker:Then again,
Speaker:he wasn't house-trained by the War Party,
Speaker:either;,
Speaker:and he had enough common sense to see that rapprochement with Russia was the #1
Speaker:priority-if his inchoate desire to reorient U. S. foreign policy to an America
Speaker:First standard was to gain any traction at all.
Speaker:Yet that is also the very reason why the whole groundless Russia-collusion
Speaker:narrative got traction in the first place.
Speaker:To wit,
Speaker:the Imperial Washington groupthink was so invested in demonization of Putin and
Speaker:in the risible exaggeration of the Russian threat that Trump's rejection of the
Speaker:War Party line was taken as proof that the Russians had something on him.
Speaker:Stated differently,
Speaker:the entire Mueller witch hunt rested,
Speaker:on the blind proposition that the Kremlin had blackmail because there was
Speaker:purportedly no other possible basis for Trump's Russia friendly position or for
Speaker:even such minor common sense steps as removing from the G. O. P. platform the
Speaker:neocon's idiotic proposal to supply the Kiev government with lethal arms.
Speaker:Needless to say,
Speaker:Mueller's legal thugs have not found a,
Speaker:sliver of evidence to support the collusion/blackmail predicate because Trump's
Speaker:pro-rapprochement position rested all along on common sense,
Speaker:not nefarious doings.
Speaker:But what the whole Deep State coup has accomplished is,
Speaker:something quite lethal for American democracy.
Speaker:To wit,
Speaker:it has opened-up a no-holds barred war between two dangerous statist factions
Speaker:in the Imperial City.
Speaker:On the one hand,
Speaker:the anti-Trumpers have already seized,
Speaker:the machinery of state to nullify the democratic process.
Speaker:Apart from the fact that candidate Trump defied the Imperial City's
Speaker:anti-Kremlin policy line,
Speaker:no honest custodian of the national intelligence machinery would have ever
Speaker:opened up the F. B. I. investigation of the Trump campaign in July 2016 based
Speaker:on the ultra thin gruel available.
Speaker:And that's to say nothing of obtaining a F. I. S. A. warrants to wiretap the
Speaker:campaign headquarters of the Republican candidate for president.
Speaker:Those actions were massively beyond the pale.
Speaker:After all,,
Speaker:the target of suspicion was Carter Page,
Speaker:a complete no count who was a mere campaign volunteer and had never even meet
Speaker:Donald Trump.
Speaker:Likewise,
Speaker:the F. I. S. A. warrant was based on the hideous,,
Speaker:Clinton-paid-for Dossier and the drunken musings of Baby George Papadopoulos,
Speaker:who was an even more peripheral figure in the campaign than Carter Page.
Speaker:In an honest democracy,
Speaker:Comey,
Speaker:Clapper or Brennan would,
Speaker:have gone to candidate Trump and shared their concerns about the purported
Speaker:Russian connections of Page and Papadopoulos,
Speaker:which didn't amount to a hill of beans anyway.
Speaker:And it is absolutely certain that both of these no counts would have been
Speaker:unceremoniously booted from the 26th floor of Trump Tower- without or without a
Speaker:parachute.
Speaker:The plain fact is,
Speaker:Trump didn't know them,
Speaker:didn't need them,
Speaker:and had not said a single word during his campaign based on whatever they were
Speaker:doing,
Speaker:which was actually above board,
Speaker:anyway.
Speaker:By the same token,
Speaker:from that screaming abuse of state,
Speaker:power there metastasized the entire RussiaGate narrative,
Speaker:the despicable prosecution of General Flynn for doing his job and the launch of
Speaker:the Mueller witch-hunt designed to remove from the nation's highest office the
Speaker:Trumpian threat to the Deep State's rule.
Speaker:Not surprisingly,
Speaker:the Donald has fought back in his,
Speaker:patented street brawling style.
Speaker:But so doing,
Speaker:he has defaulted to policy positions which are no less statist than those of
Speaker:the antiTrumpers.
Speaker:To wit,
Speaker:his massive defense build-up,
Speaker:unhinged Border Wars and all-out Trade War assault on China are designed to
Speaker:mobilize and incense his red state political base,
Speaker:not solve any notable national problem as we document in the pages which follow.
Speaker:At the end of the day,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:it will be American,
Speaker:capitalism,
Speaker:democratic governance and the prosperity and liberty of the people that will
Speaker:end up the worse for the wear.
Speaker:Still,
Speaker:the Deep State coup has visibly failed,
Speaker:and soon the,
Speaker:misguided Trumpian protectionist and statist economic agenda will be crushed by
Speaker:the collapse of the giant Wall Street financial bubble and the phony,
Speaker:debt-fueled recovery that was the source of the Donald's temporary sojourn in
Speaker:the Oval Office.
Speaker:We have chosen to label this baleful state of affairs as Peak Trump,
Speaker:and in the chapters to follow we attempt to explain why it happened and where
Speaker:it goes from here.
Speaker:On the latter score,
Speaker:we claim no clairvoyance about the,
Speaker:future whatsoever.
Speaker:But what we do know is that Washington's Empire abroad and phony prosperity at
Speaker:home is terminally failing;
Speaker:and that whatever comes next won't be M. A. G. A. .
Speaker:Not by a long shot.
Speaker:This has been
Speaker:Peak Trump:
Speaker:The Undrainable Swamp And The Fantasy Of MAGA By David A. Stockman, narrated by russell newton.
