The Trump presidency.

[kenneal - lagger]

They might not ditch oil but the US tight oil companies are going to make more losses which can only be a good thing. They won't be pushing for more new wells for a while which will ramp up the price quickly when consumption rises.

[BritDownUnder]

They might not ditch oil but the US tight oil companies are going to make more losses which can only be a good thing. They won't be pushing for more new wells for a while which will ramp up the price quickly when consumption rises.

For me maybe the losses that the tight oil companies are making could be offset against profits elsewhere and the depressive effect on world oil prices as a whole could benefit the US economy and weaken their enemies (Russia and Iran).

[vtsnowedin]

They might not ditch oil but the US tight oil companies are going to make more losses which can only be a good thing. They won't be pushing for more new wells for a while which will ramp up the price quickly when consumption rises.

For me maybe the losses that the tight oil companies are making could be offset against profits elsewhere and the depressive effect on world oil prices as a whole could benefit the US economy and weaken their enemies (Russia and Iran).

You are getting very sophisticated there.

[emordnilap]

The United States looses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount), that I would consider closing the Southern Border a “profit making operation.�

Discuss.

[raspberry-blower]

USA share prices have declined markedly, said to be one of the worst declines for a great many years.

Trump blames this on the federal reserve !

The DJIA and S&P 500 in particular are not a good barometer of the actual state of the US economy. There is still an awful lot of froth there - if many of the tech stocks declined by 80% they would still be overvalued! QE went into supporting asset prices and Wall Street - at the expense of Main Street. This cannot be blamed on Trump as it was well before his tenure began.

The key thing to keep an eye out for here is what Trump plans to do with the Fed. Does he actually plan to shut down the Fed and its duties revert to the US Treasury?

[Little John]

Money creation and management, as a matter of principle, should be taken back out of the private sector, which central banks like the Fed ultimately are since its decisions do not have to be presidentially approved.

[fuzzy]

The problem is that fractional reserve banking was never meant as a brake on lending, it was just a form of protection against unstable balance sheets. The brake was human calculation of transactions. Once we had automated accounting, gov's should have invented a brake control. Interest rates are not ideal as a brake since they upset the lagging payback of profits on loans. After WWII when the UK was skint, we had controls on international money flows which was the last golden age of UK employment [also helped by the loss of workforce after WWII, although the UK lost fewer pop than most of Europe].

You could have a 99% reserve requirement and lending will still grow out of control with electronic accounting and multinational flows.

[kenneal - lagger]

Part of the problem is the parcelling up of loans into financial instruments and their sale to other companies to enable even more lending by banks selling the instruments. When these parcelled loans are sub prime loans which are then given good credit ratings by the rating agencies the whole system is corrupted. Why the ratings agencies have never been sued or taken to court I do not know.

[raspberry-blower]

Part of the problem is the parcelling up of loans into financial instruments and their sale to other companies to enable even more lending by banks selling the instruments. When these parcelled loans are sub prime loans which are then given good credit ratings by the rating agencies the whole system is corrupted. Why the ratings agencies have never been sued or taken to court I do not know.

What? Bankers being held to account? We can't let that happen, Ken

If Trump DOES decide to close down the Fed and bring its operations back to the US Treasury the possibility of prosecution vis-à-vis financial malfeasance by the TBTF banks will remain somewhere in the region of zero.

[raspberry-blower]

On Foreign Policy (Middle East Levant edition):

Regarding the withdrawal of US troops from their illegal under International Law occupation of Syria. Trump has been calling a lot of bluffs. He has called the bluff of US Generals:

Gareth Porter:
Trump Scores, Breaks General's 50 year war record

Mattis and Dunford were consciously exploiting Trump’s defensiveness about a timeline to press ahead with their own strategy unless and until Trump publicly called them on it. That is what finally happened some weeks after Trump’s six month deadline had passed. The claim by Trump advisors that they were taken by surprise was indeed disingenuous. What happened last week was that Trump followed up on the clear policy he had laid down in April.

The Syria withdrawal affair is a dramatic illustration of the fundamental quandary of the Trump presidency in regard to ending the state of permanent war that previous administrations created. Although a solid majority of Americans want to rein in U.S. military deployments in the Middle East and Africa, Trump’s national security team is committed to doing the opposite.

Trump is now well aware that it is virtually impossible to carry out the foreign policy that he wants without advisors who are committed to the same objective. That means that he must find people who have remained outside the system during the permanent war years while being highly critical of its whole ideology and culture. If he can fill key positions with truly dissident figures, the last two years of this term in office could decisively clip the wings of the bureaucrats and generals who have created the permanent war state we find ourselves in today.

On NATO - in particular Turkey vis-à-vis their role in the Syrian conflict:

Strategic Culture: Trump pulls troops out of Syria in a desperate attempt to save his Presidency: Geopolitical Earthquake ensues

Trump has perhaps understood that in order to be re-elected, he must pursue a simple media strategy that will have a direct impact on his base. Withdrawing US troops from Syria, and partly from Afghanistan, serves this purpose. It is an easy way to win with his constituents, while it is a heavy blow to his fiercest critics in Washington who are against this decision. Given that 70% of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan was a mistake, the more that the mainstream media attacks Trump for his decision to withdraw, the more they direct votes to Trump. In this sense, Trump's move seems to be directed at a domestic rather than an international audience.

The decision to get out of Syria is timed to coincide with another move that will also very much please Trump’s base. The government shutdown is a result of the Democrats refusing to fund Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall on the Mexican border. It is not difficult to understand that the average citizen is fed up with the useless wars in the Middle East, and Trump's words on immigration resonate with his voters. The more the media, the Democrats and the deep state criticize Trump on the wall, on the Syria pull out and on shutting down the government, the more they are campaigning for him.

This is why in order to understand the withdrawal of the United States from Syria it is necessary to see things from Trump's perspective, even as frustrating, confusing and incomprehensible that may seem at times

See also:
Strategic Culture Editorial: Trump's troop pullout is not a peace move, more Imperialist reconfiguration

There seems to be a lot of American politicking behind Trump’s abrupt decision-making. His call for “our boys to come home� caught the Pentagon and many hawkish Republicans and Democrats by surprise. The word was they were “blind-sided� by the president’s order. What could be going on, in part, is Trump looking toward the 2020 presidential election, and posing as the “peace candidate� making good, superficially, on his past electoral promises to end overseas American wars.

However, Trump posing as a peace candidate is a bit hard to take. A few days after his order to recall troops from Syria and Afghanistan, he made an unexpected visit to Iraq this week where he met US troops stationed there – nearly 16 years after his predecessor GW Bush illegally invaded that country in 2003 with all the destruction and ongoing mayhem that that invasion unleashed.

To the US troops in Iraq, Trump sounded jingoistic and warrior-like, claiming that they had defeated terrorists. “We like winning, right,� he said, as if he riling up the crowd at a football match at halftime.

Meanwhile, on Trump's recent visit to Iraq, Elijah Magnier reports:

In preparation for Trump’s visit, Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi was asked to meet the US president. He agreed to meet Trump either in Baghdad, on Iraqi soil, or at the Ayn al-Assad military base, on the Iraqi side of the base; Iraqi national security forces and army units are present at the same base where US forces are deployed, in a separate part of the base. To have met on the US-controlled part of the Iraqi-US base would have made Abdel Mahdi appear as an invited guest in his own country.

A few hours before Trump’s arrival, US Ambassador Douglas Silliman told Abdel Mahdi that Trump would receive him in the US part of the base. Trump refused to visit Baghdad for a quick reception; neither would he even cross over to the Iraqi side of Ayn al-Assad, for security reasons. Abdel Mahdi refused the US invitation, as did the Iraqi president and speaker. All three politicians have risen in public esteem for having refused the US invitation.


Trump’s disregard for protocol when landing in a sovereign foreign country has infuriated local politicians, heads of organisations and members of parliament. They felt insulted and have called for the withdrawal of US forces from the country. Others threatened to force US troops out of the country.

Qais al-Khaz’ali, the head of a parliamentary coalition and leader of “Asaeb Ahl al-haq� (responsible for killing US soldiers during their occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2011), said “Iraq will respond (to the Trump insult) through a parliamentary demand that you pull out your troops and if you don’t leave, we have the (warfare) experience to force you out�.

Elijah Magnier: SAA enters Manbij as Trump follows through on withdrawal: Iraq is next

[raspberry-blower]

Foreign Policy - China edition:

A couple of interesting articles at Strategic Culture on the Trade War spat with China and its fallout:

Tom Luongo: Trump, China and the Tariff Conundrum

Alastair Crooke: The dire consequences of Trump's MAGA war on China