2016-11-14kunstler.com

Mr. Trump might not know it yet, but his chief task will be managing contraction. It would appear to be problematic, since his chief promise -- "to make America great again" -- is based on restarting the epic expansions of the 19th and 20th centuries. Well, things have changed... He begins to look like a man in a tunnel staring down the harsh light of the onrushing gravy train.

... The financialization of the economy is already playing into its disastrous climax as I write, with bond markets tanking all over the planet. What this means is that the long-ignored chickens of risk associated with debt are coming home to roost. As they do, they are going to shit over everything on the financial landscape. Industrial societies have been borrowing from the future to a grotesque degree for decades, pretending that these debts were assets rather than liabilities. That perception is about to change, and with it an enormous amount of presumed notional wealth is going to disappear.

... My sense of things is that this meta-predicament alone could overwhelm the Trump government from the very start. We could have problems with money orders of magnitude worse than anything FDR faced in 1933, with bank closures, the seizing of accounts, and the paralysis of everyday business.



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