Shitehawks At The Diner

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Trump throws the markets into freefall, just as his fangirl Truss did a while back, and still doubles down on how clever a strategy it is he's employed. The big difference here is the one between our two political systems: Truss was defenestrated by her own party almost immediately; Trump can't so easily be gotten rid of: he's survived impeachment, felony convictions and election defeat, so just who is this guy? Don Corleone or Al Capone weren't as Teflon as this egregious excuse for a human being. But gangster he is, and extortion and protection is his game. The last time tariffs of this scale were imposed by the US on the many other countries it trades with, was in 1930, and that didn't pan out so well, did it?

All we have now is a nascent trade war, after seventy years of the closest approximation to a stable world market as there has ever been; even during the wind-up years to our current parlous position - the 1980s - when Neoliberalism took centre stage and pushed the common sense consensus that the need for a balanced, mixed economy was paramount, out into the furthest desert margins of economic thinking and effectively killing the debate as if forever. We now, as one hundred years ago, are collectively in the thrall of the rich as a result. The class war is still an issue. Money still buys votes. But as with the bookmaker or the casino, whatever their promises of a return on your buck they make, the odds still favour the bookie or the house: the trick is not to heed the siren's call: these people want to own you, not help you... 

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