Trouble with a capital T

One of the most memorable songs from the 1957 Broadway hit “The Music Man” was Ya Got Trouble. As performed by huckster “Professor” Harold Hill, he sings to the townspeople in Iowa “…well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City…”

Fast-forward 60 years. Take out River City and put in America.

And we have a new huckster. Instead of a con artist salesman named Hill, we have one named Trump. He’s not here to sing about a problem…he IS the problem.

We are in deep, deep, trouble.

We are facing an economic downturn in the coming months, maybe even just a few weeks. It would have happened no matter who won the election. Our capital-based economic system goes through high and low cycles on an average of every five to seven years. Our last low cycle was 2008-2010 when Wall Street financial institutions brought our economy to its knees. (Look up Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Bear Stearns for greater understanding.) The economy slowly recovered and has been on an up cycle since then, but no one learned any lessons. The corporations that brought the economy down did not make any changes, nor were virtually any CEOs or officials punished in any way. The next drop is coming soon; as sure as the sun will rise from the east. When it comes, our president-elect is going to be way out of his depth, as he is on many other issues. Yes, he is successful. Of that, there is no doubt. He is a successful marketer of himself…that’s it. That’s all. He cannot cure financial woes. He cannot stimulate the economy. He cannot generate wealth. He cannot guide or command the military-industrial-legislative complex of the shadow government that holds the real reins of power in this nation. He made dozens, if not hundreds, of economic promises while campaigning, even claiming at one point that regarding taxes and our economy, only he“…alone can fix it.” No, he can’t. He said those things for only one reason...to get elected. And he got elected simply to enrich himself and his billionaire cabinet member friends and donors. He was good at hiding that from his supporters. They would never have thought that possible beforehand.

His economic plan goes something like this: get all his uber-wealthy friends into high cabinet positions, and then let them do whatever they want to bring more money into their personal accounts…only now use the federal system to clear an even bigger path from all the financial opportunities around straight into their piggy banks. Then, jobs will just magically appear. At least Trump pitched a simplistic version of that to his voters. The people he is putting in his cabinet are almost all donors who gave him millions of dollars in campaign contributions…even though he claimed he didn’t want anyone else’s money because that way no one would own him. And to top it all off, remember that name Goldman Sachs from the paragraph above? Trump put at least three Goldman Sachs executives…the same guys who helped torpedo and sink the U.S. economy in 2008…on the federal payroll as cabinet members.

     Gary Cohn   -  Steve Mnuchin  - Steve Bannon  - All Goldman Sachs privateers (As of 01-18-17 Trump has now put six people from Goldman Sachs on the payroll.)

Our economy will suffer and then crumble...after being gutted.

Then, when Donald Trump can’t fix the economy, he will look for a distraction or someone to blame…an enemy…possibly Iran, maybe an African nation, but most likely China…and we will be in a war. Wars always help the economy because someone has to build the weapons. But they are disastrous for people.

First question: how stupid do you have to be to start a war with the country that provides the U.S. with 60% of its goods? 

Question Two: What kind of sense does it make to close the U.S. to Chinese exports, and what impact will that have on the Chinese economy? What will be the Chinese reaction? One thing is for certain, it will NOT bring them to the negotiating table.

Question three: Can the U.S. in any way make up the 60% loss from doing that? How?

Our military and CIA have been taunting and provoking the Chinese for more than a decade; sending Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft to fly near disputed air space along China’s coast, where one was struck by a Chinese jet fighter on April 1, 2001, and the EP-3 had to crash-land on China’s Hainan Island. In August 2014 and again in May of 2015 Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft deliberately overflew the newly-constructed Chinese developments in the Spratly Islands and our military has sent U.S. warships to patrol the area around them forcing a Chinese response. The Chinese reaction has been to send their J-8 and J-11 jet fighters buzzing around the reconnaissance aircraft sometimes approaching to within 20 feet, risking another collision. The Chinese have upped the ante by introducing their very first carrier Liaoning in the area which can launch the versatile Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark interceptors..

The U.S. Navy has released underwater drones around the South China Sea, supposedly for innocent oceanic research, without asking China if they would care to help in the exploration. Earlier in December, a Chinese warship stopped and grabbed one out of the water right in front of the U.S. ship and took off with it. They offered to give the drone back three days later...but Trump, who missed the security briefing on it, tweeted for the Chinese to keep it.
However, here is the real issue. Imagine if the Chinese navy released an underwater drone between Key West and Pensacola somewhere off the Florida coast? Might our military not see that as a hostile act or a provocation to war?

China will have to weigh just how much to make of these provocative acts, but the U.S. defense industry, the military, and the CIA will be hoping and even praying for a hostile response. Because then the demonization of China will begin. We in the U.S. and around the world will be sold a fake bill of goods contrived to make the Chinese (or whoever Trump and his handlers of the shadow government decides the enemy-du-jour is) look really evil and deserving of whatever military response is conjured up. But in this coming war, we’re not going to get a coalition to help us in that fight...you can bet Mexico will not help, nor will the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Iraq, Vietnam, Australia, or even Tuvalu. We'll be on our own.

Trump will push for war because he will be told it is a boon to the economy. People won’t matter to Trump in the numbers-crunching equation except as worker bees in the defense industries, or as cannon-fodder. Plus, a war will mask just how badly the economy has done under his plunder, I mean leadership. Only this time, that war will escalate and involve weapons that are going to cause immeasurable damage to our planet. Remember Trump asking why, if we have nuclear weapons, don’t we use them, and how he wouldn’t take the nuclear option off the table? This is why. Our enemies know that Donald Trump is extraordinarily thin-skinned and can easily be provoked on Twitter. How simple will it be for an unfriendly government to initiate some kind of a nuclear response from Trump by baiting him with a fake news story or insulting tweet that appears to come from a country the American public has been told is the enemy? Any nuclear-armed countries Trump orders attacked are going to retaliate tenfold. 
Trump is okay with that because as long as he, his family, and a few friends are safely hidden away somewhere from the nuclear exchange he initiates, the rest of us can go to hell.

And speaking of hell, don’t be surprised when evangelicals encourage the war. They desperately want Jesus to come roaring out of the sky and launch Armageddon. It doesn't even matter to the evangelicals that most of them will be incinerated in a nuclear war.They truly believe Jesus will whisk them off the planet moments before Trump brings on what they have long interpreted in the Bible's Revelations. This is why they supported electing him, not because he showed any Christian qualities but because he would force God’s hand and initiate the End Times ™

We got trouble with a capital T and it stands for Trump.

IF WE SURVIVE...