It was a raucous, attention-grabbing year in American politics. The Bush-Clinton faction that had so successfully engineered the financial coup lost control of the Executive branch to a faction that wanted to insource the defense industrial establishment back to North America and reduce global military risk. This was described in Catherine’s article The Productivity Backlash after the election.
The year began with the Trump transition team getting over their surprise at winning and engaged in trench warfare, trying to get candidates vetted by the FBI and approved by Congress. The Trump administration has had a challenging time getting their team in place. The Solari Report covered the transition and the first few months of the administration in our 1st Quarter 2017 Wrap Up.
1st Quarter 2017 Wrap Up – The Clash of Civilizations – can a new administration preserve a prosperous economy without more debt, crime and war?
There were plenty of turnovers, as the White House staff experienced infighting or were replaced by people with more experience at governance and managing complex bureaucracies.
Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Judge Scalia’s death. It was the first step in an unprecedented opportunity to appoint Supreme Court justices and federal judges.
The 1st Quarter Wrap Up started our practice of preparing a report card for the Trump administration with Dr. Joseph Farrell. To see our updated grades, check out the Trump Report Card.
The election came as a surprise to a corporate media that had assumed a Clinton victory. It was also a surprise to the Clinton faction as well as members of the Congress and Washington establishment who enjoyed the rich fruits of the Clinton pay-to-play network and the financial coup d’état. The establishment could not understand and adjust to a post-financial coup world. The result was a war of words between the corporate media and President Trump and an effort by disappointed Democrats to both reverse the election and start a war with Russia (or at least get approval for a $1.2 trillion upgrade of the nuclear arsenal) by alleging Russian collusion in the election. This included the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Russia collusion allegations after Attorney General Sessions recused himself in what was a major disappointment for the President.
The primary question asked in the Productivity Backlash and the 1st Quarter Wrap Up was whether or not the United States could migrate to an economic model that was not deeply dependent on war. The answer was a resounding “no!” as the Trump administration reversed course on disengaging from foreign wars, proposed a new $700 million defense budget (including the creation of a new Space Corp under the Air Force) and the President became a global arm salesmen, encouraging members of his Cabinet and administration to do the same.
President Trump worked hard to implement campaign promises in the trade area. First, he withdrew America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
He also withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.
He was persuaded not to terminate NAFTA, but to renegotiate.
Along with trade relations, he moved ahead with enforcement of US immigration laws and his promise to build a wall on the Mexican border.
One of the President’s highest priorities was tax reform – a critical component of insourcing the defense industrial complex to North America. For budget reasons, the President was persuaded to try to repeal Obamacare first. Repeal efforts were time consuming and ultimately not successful.
Despite the health care experience and complex budget negotiations throughout the year, the administration and Republican Congress were able to pass a tax reform bill before year end, achieving a dramatic drop in the corporate tax rate and paving the way for significant corporate repatriation of cash. The S&P closed the year with a return slightly above 20%.
The United States has long been a food exporter, with far greater food production capacity than it needs for the American population. US leadership has worked hard to engineer oil and gas self-sufficiency over the last two decades, becoming a net energy exporter in 2017. Following a wave of advancements in robotics and automation and the success of globalization at reducing union size and power, tax reform was an important step to facilitate the return of trillions in profits and operations from abroad.
This anticipated shift of capital and operations and the publication of a new National Security Strategy contributed to the ongoing unwinding of economic interdependences with Russia, China and some of the G-20 nations as described in our Story #4.
The first year of the Trump administration was marked by the constant question of who and what is really in charge.
Netflix’s House of Cards implied the Bohemian Grove was in charge.
Concerns grew throughout the year that the Neocons and the Israeli Lobby had entirely too much influence. Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was particularly persuasive that dual citizenship with Israel was a serious problem in both Congress and the Executive Branch.
Another serious flaw in the Trump administration’s performance was addressing the budget. Dr. Mark Skidmore’s survey of HUD and DOD documentation from fiscal 1998 to 2015 found $21 trillion in undocumentable adjustments – a trillion more than the outstanding official debt of the US government.
The administration’s response was to announce an audit that has been in planning for two years and claimed that they had found 800 missing helicopters. There was no mention of making the 1200 auditors working on the audit available to investigate the 170 transactions that made up $6.5 trillion in undocumentable adjustments at the Army in fiscal 2015. While a clean audit report would be nice, you cannot pay pension funds with audit reports for years after fiscal 1998-2015. There is $21 trillion missing – getting it back is what is needed to meet pension and other obligations. If the administration is planning serious purges, will lawful recapture of taxpayer’s funds be a primary goal?
Several other questions remain regarding Trump administration performance in 2017.
The first relates to fires in California and hurricanes in Puerto Rico and Houston. Were these natural events or was arson or weather warfare involved? If arson or “thermal warfare” was involved in California, the US military implemented or allowed it to happen. Ditto with hurricanes. The US military controls US air space. This means we must also ask why the US military is implementing or permitting geoengineering and the spraying of heavy metals over North America.
President Trump has certainly created a crack in the “official reality” that is encouraging a more open discussion of what is going on. However, there appear to be significant topics that are still suppressed.
That includes the answer to the question, “What is actually happening in Chicago?” The city recorded 650 murders in 2017, a drop from 771 murders in 2016. However, there is a long-standing ethnic cleansing of the African-American population underway and continuing questions about organized crime and organ harvesting.
Trump’s temper and Washington establishment and corporate media childish and corrupt behavior have created significant domestic and global drama since the inauguration. That drama has certainly not helped the US brand abroad. However, it has created a more open environment to discuss and address our real problems. The unanswered question is whether the faction now in control is committed to doing it’s best to enforce the Constitution and insist on a human future. Or, is using the US budget and military to legislate corporate monopolies and profits which engineer higher stock market returns still a more important goal? Are we simply going to purge the financial coup leadership and move on to the next phase of the shift to Global 3.0?
We will be watching as a new year of political change unfolds.