“We have a gentleman that likes a very strong dollar at the Fed. I want a strong dollar, but I want a dollar that’s great for our country, not a dollar that is so strong that it is prohibitive for us to be dealing with other nations.” — Donald Trump
Donald Trump has no idea what a “strong dollar” means. Trump has always been a privileged bully, who gets to borrow money for nothing and then default, so what does he know about economics?
The US dollar has been diluted by a decade of money printing (QE) for speculators, which has now been made permanent. The Fed & big banks have injected over $500 billion into the stock markets since their swoon in December 2018, which happened as soon as the Fed tried to end QE & raise interest rates.
“Quantitative tightening” has been abandoned, and it’s back to money printing, with sustained near-zero interest rates for the banks. That doesn’t help anyone who works for a living, but it keeps this financial house of cards from collapsing– for a little longer.
The US dollar has been inflated (ie- weakened) by financial parasites, which is why foreign governments are now buying gold, to hedge against the collapse of the greenback. If you are the average person with a few thousand dollars (or less) in the bank, you take comfort in knowing that it isn’t much to lose, when the banks collapse. The US dollar’s purchasing power, in real terms, is less than ever as housing, education, and even food cost more– in term of percentage of wages spent on these essentials.
Things forever changed economically in the early 1970’s for many reasons. US President Richard Nixon & his most-trusted advisor Henry Kissinger took the US off the gold standard in August of 1971. The reason was that the US could no longer afford to be the world bank, reimbursing gold at $35 an ounce. From there the US dollar was floated, and fiat speculation was born. This unbalanced the foundations of the post-war order under Bretton-Woods.
The rise of computers & globalization, along with a loss of economic preeminence by the US, which was reeling from the costs of the Vietnam War, led to the US ruling class launching an offensive against the working class, which has only been escalated up to today. In other countries it’s called “austerity.”
The lessons for working people are that they need to organize for themselves, as government & union “leaders” have sold them out. Governments are committees of the ruling class, which are the bourgeoisie under capitalism. Political independence of organized workers is the only way to redistribute wealth against this fascist current of late-stage capitalism. Liberal reformism is dead, as it died with the hopes & dreams of Barrack Obama.
In America there is now a sociopathic President of the United States, who openly speaks against socialism with lies & threats of violence, and no voice of opposition from the Democrats or the mass media. This only proves that the Democrats, along with MSNBC & CNN, are as much fascist as Trump & his core supporters.
The Democrat version of fascism is identity politics domestically, and anti-Russia (anti-socialism) in foreign policy. Trump is a racist, so he prefers China & Latin America as the main targets of US foreign aggression– diplomatically, covertly, and/or militarily. That’s the actual difference in politics between Republicans & Democrats, which is a fake debate.
There are many financial elites who support Trump on foreign policy, because they see China, with it’s rise as a technological superpower, as the primary threat to US economic hegemony. Russia doesn’t have that technology edge, but is still seen as a threat because of its history.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was the most defining event of the 20th century, with enduring lessons for the workers of the world. It was led by Lenin & Trotsky, whose Bolshevik party captured the trust of the masses, and organized an insurrection that toppled the hated tsar & it’s feudalist regime.
Instead of moving into capitalism, Lenin & Trotsky galvanized the workers of Russia, who organized a socialist government of workers’ councils. These workers’ councils were called “soviets.” After the October (November) Revolution, Russia became a “government of soviets,” with the Bolsheviks as the majority among the workers.
The imperialists who started the “Great War” (1914-1918) recoiled at these events & reacted with horror. By 1918, “the war to end all wars” was over, but every country turned its military might onto the incipient Soviet government. Trotsky organized & led the Red Army, which ultimately defeated the traitorous “Whites,” and their imperialist backers. By 1923, all foreign troops had been defeated and the revolution was saved, but Russia had been bled white.
When Lenin finally succumbed to a series of strokes in January 1924, a factional political battle raged between Leon Trotsky, the recognized leader (along with Lenin) of the Russian Revolution, and Joseph Stalin. Stalin was better at laying traps, and making ever-shifting alliances behind-the-scenes. This talent at intrigue led Stalin’s bureaucracy to take power, and become the fascist version of socialized property relations.
Socialism never existed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), because workers never had control over production, and allocation of resources. A Stalinist bureaucracy attached itself to the Revolution, and consumed it from within. Trotsky was defeated politically by an ever-expanding bureaucracy led by Stalin. Trotsky was isolated, exiled, and ultimately murdered by a GPU agent in Mexico City in 1940.
In 1991, the USSR suddenly collapsed, and bourgeois intellectuals of the world were all speechless as to what happened. Trotsky wrote (above) in 1936, that the Soviet Union would either have a workers’ revolution and overthrow the bureaucracy, or it would fall back into capitalism. Trotsky was proven right in the negative. Today, Russians have a much lower standard of living than they did as citizens of the USSR. Bourgeois historians & economists never mention any of these historical facts or lessons.
Stalin advocated for “Socialism in one country,” as opposed to Trotsky’s “Theory of Permanent Revolution.” Trotsky was an internationalist, in the tradition of Karl Marx, who understood at this point of capitalist development (20th century), there could be only global socialism. Any genuine socialist revolution would be permanent in nature. National Socialist is what the Nazi’s called themselves, and Stalin was the communist equivalent to Adolf Hitler under capitalism.
Donald Trump is the US version of Hitler/Stalin, but notice there is no resistance coming from the so-called “left.” Bernie Sanders & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have staked out the furthest left position under two-party US capitalism. It consists of unattainable reforms, green rhetoric, and a blind eye to militarism, the expanding police state, and a criminal detention policy for refugees & their children, etc.
The main “progressive” plank of the Democrats today is identity politics, which is #MeToo feminism, Black Lives Matter racialism, and LGBT rights. These identities are used as ideological weapons, to attack artists, socialists & workers who question this system of economic inequality.
The most foul of these has been the #MeToo campaign, which has a Hollywood face, but deep state roots. It’s ideology is to attack those who expose these political & economic terrorists for their crimes. Julian Assange was among the first victims of this internationally-coordinated campaign of sexual intimidation, in the name of imperialism.
Democrats, the deep state, and their supports will only continue to double down on the #MeToo campaign & racialism– as it’s all they’ve got. Each week the New York Times published another expose’ meant to take down an artist in entertainment, etc. Pretty soon there won’t be any good performers left, which means all the movies, television & music will be fake. We’re almost there already.
The Fed will print more fake money, while Trump and his fascist crowd will continue to provoke confrontations globally, exerting “maximum pressure,” in order to create flashpoints for war & crisis. This is the only way they can stay in power, which is what it’s all about.
None of this is in the interest of the workers who earn wages to live. A nuclear winter from a war between India & Pakistan is all it takes to wipe human civilization, and we’ve gotten far too close to that. The recklessness of our “leaders” must be checked with a mass intervention to avoid catastrophe for our planet.
There is no faction among the ruling elites which prefers socialism over world war, therefore they all must go. Revolutions happen in history, and we as a civilization are long overdue. The faster we learn these lessons & organize ourselves, the faster it will happen.
Fri 08 Mar 2019 09:50 AM EST : Keiser Report Update:
Max is correct in that the dollar is being inflated, not burned, by QE & 0% interest rates for big banks & financial speculators. His analogy of a Tomahawk missile for the US government burning money is more correct than Stacy’s. The US economy is war-based, as the military is now considered its primary strength, with the decline of the greenback. The Afghanistan War is now the longest running US war in history, and imperialism has lost again. But there is too much invested in the ideology of war for US elites to admit defeat, therefore the charade goes on for a bit longer…
War & police-state measures with mass censorship are seen as the only option for the ruling class in this late stage of capitalism. A Tomahawk missile built by Raytheon costs $1.4 million each. When it blows up, all its “value” is instantly exploded. By any reasonable measure, the cost of a Tomahawk missile exploding in a home, neighborhood, or business district would be recorded as a net loss for any nation’s economy.
No one ever discusses these actual costs in the “authorized” media. In America, elite Republicans & Democrats manipulate the numbers & facts through the corporate media, to turn reality on its head. Every “issue” & “debate” is fake because of how it’s framed, which is always in the interest of the richest class.
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