The Beginning of the End for the Trump Regime

The 2018 midterm election results were a mixed bag overall, and while the Republicans kept control of the Senate and even gained a few seats, the Democrats got the biggest prize of all:  control of the House of Representatives, something they haven't had since 2010.  The House, as you may know, has the power to initiate impeachment against Trump, and launch all sorts of investigations of him.  And Mueller, who has been awfully quiet lately, will be dropping a major bombshell in his investigation of Trump within a matter of days.  You know, the Trump-Russia investigation?

No wonder Trump essentially forced Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign today, and replaced him with a Trump loyalist, Matthew Whittaker.  He didn't waste any time, and also removed Rod Rosenstein from the investigation as well.  But this will likely backfire, as Nixon's infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" comes to mind.  Spoiler alert:  it didn't end well for him.

No matter how Trump tries to paint it as a victory for himself, the midtern election results overall favored the Democrats, who now have a majority in the House, while the Republicans are barely hanging onto the Senate with a slim majority that can still be filibustered and is no more than a handful of defectors away from failure.  And with a few exceptions, most state and local elections also tended to favor the Democrats this time as well, further making it harder for Trump to advance his vile and regressive agenda on the ground.

Trump's days are numbered.  Will the Democrats have the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done to thwart his agenda and eventually remove him or force him to resign in disgrace?  Or will they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as they have time and again in the past?  We don't know, but given all of the newer Democrats in office, they are more likely to prevail now than any other time in recent history--at least the past eight years.

Vote Blue, Like Your Life Depends On It!

We cannot emphasize this enough.  This one is for all the marbles, folks.  If we win, we will see the very first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that is America's long dark night of the soul.  If we lose, well, it's safe to say that all bets are off at that point.

The TSAP is of course neither Republican nor Democrat, and is clearly not a big fan of either corporate duopoly party in fact.  But we saw what happened in 2016 when too many people made the perfect the enemy of the good:  they ultimately ended up with neither.  And now Trump and the GOP are hell-bent on destroying for fun and profit what is left of everything that's still good about America.  So much damage is already done, but if the anticipated Blue Tsunami washes away the Red Tide that is currently drowning this country, there will at least be some hope of reversing it.  If not, the damage will most likely be irreversible at that point.

Thus, either the GOP suffers irreversible damage and essentially does seppuku, or America does.  The choice is ours, and we only get ONE SHOT this time.  This is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity to take our country back.  Republicans most likely will cheat as usual, but remember that cheating only works in close elections, not in landslides.

So get out there and VOTE BLUE like your life depends on it.  Because in many ways, it really does.

What Will Really Cause The Next Big Crash?

There is a recent article by Matt Taibbi in both Rolling Stone and Common Dreams that predicts a looming economic disaster due to three colliding problems.  And those three problems are as follows:  1) FERAL Reserve monetary tightening, both in terms of raising interest rates as well as the more subtle but significant Quantitative Tightening  (QT), 2) Trump's tax cuts depending on unrealistically high economic growth to "pay for themselves", and 3) Trump's tariffs and the resulting trade war.  And the collision of all three together will not end well, according to Taibbi, and he is probably right for the most part.

But even these are mere sideshows compared to the very biggest underlying root cause of the next looming crash, even if one or more of these problems are in fact the proverbial spark that sets off the financial powder keg.   So what is this underlying powder keg, exactly?  Well, it is the mother of all stock market bubbles, artificially inflated by corporations buying back their own stock to manipulate share prices.  And famous economist Ted Bauman predicts that when it finally bursts, any day now in fact, the market will quickly plummet by 70% or more, causing a crisis that makes 2008 and perhaps even 1929 look like a walk in the park by comparison.

So how did we get here in the first place?  The story begins in the 1920s, when corporate stock buybacks were all the rage, and in fact caused the 1929 Wall Street crash.  The Great Depression soon followed.  In 1934, this highly manipulative practice was rightly outlawed, and the ban remained in effect for nearly half a century until the Reagan administration lifted this ban in 1982 as part of Reagan's deregulation platform.  And since 2010, stock buybacks have accelerated dramatically, artificially inflating the stock market numbers and lulling hapless investors into a false sense of security.  And the recent Republican tax cuts have only accelerated this trend even further (since corporations now have even more money with which to buy back their stocks).

And what goes up, must come down, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Don't say you weren't warned.  On the bright side though, if the crash occurs before the November 6 election, it will essentially guarantee that the predicted Blue Wave will be a Blue Tsunami, washing away the current vile Red Tide of Trump and his sycophantic Republican lackeys, no matter how much GOP cheating occurs (and surely there will be plenty).

How to Prepare for the Next Big Crash

As we have noted in the previous article, the risk of the next big economic crash continues to loom larger than ever before, and it is most likely too late to actually prevent it from occurring entirely.  That's not to say that there aren't things that should be done to prepare for it to make it less catastrophic, though.  Back in 2014, the TSAP had predicted that a crash would occur within a few short years, and we had written an article then discussing how to prevent it before it occurs or at least take the edge off of it, while ending the previous economic "stagpression" for good.  We also reiterated such ideas in 2016 as well, the year for which the insightful Thom Hartmann predicted the epic crash that was his book's namesake.  (Being off by two years or so is still fairly accurate in our book.)  And we should note that these things would indeed help take the edge off of the next looming financial crisis as well.

Two things come to mind right away:  1) a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all, an idea that is LONG overdue, and 2) Quantitiative Easing for We the People in general (as opposed to the banks, which only benefits the ultra-rich) by injecting newly-created money directly into everyone's bank accounts and/or via debit card.  Additionally, we need to better regulate the Wall Street casino so such a crisis could never, EVER happen again, and also JAIL the banksters who caused the crisis (instead of bailing them out) like Iceland did.  A complete debt jubilee would be even better still (in general, but especially for student loans), but even the things we just mentioned are a fairly tall order for a government who is bought and paid for by the banksters/oligarchs.  While other things need to be done as well in the long run, such as critical investments in infrastructure and education, the aforementioned measures would go a long way towards fixing our soon-to-be-ailing economy.

Those are the things that should be done at the government level, of course.  At the individual level, there is really not much one can do except get OUT of the stock market while you still can, and take at least most of your money OUT of the big banks (before the "bail-ins" begin) and put it into smaller banks, credit unions, or even under your mattress.  Or even in a big, brown bag inside a zoo (what a thing to do!)

The Crash of 2018?

Despite the fairly rosy economic reports, the next financial crisis, recession, or perhaps even depression is most likely already baked into the cake at this point.  It is not a matter of if, but WHEN, and just how bad it will be.   In fact, we are overdue for one.  And the beginning of the slump will be one of those things that will only be noticed in hindsight, as was the case last time ten years ago.  And this one may very well make 2008 or even 1929 look like a walk in the park.

The positive economic numbers mask a rather dismal underlying reality just beneath the surface:  wages lagging behind the true cost of living, and (not coincidentally) unsustainable record-high levels of consumer debt.  This time the debt increase is not primarily mortgages (though there is plenty of that too) but is now mostly student loans, along with that perennial, decades-old papering-over-declining-wages tool: credit cards.  In fact both are a result of a problem decades in the making:  reverse Robin Hood economics has robbed from the poor, gave to the rich, and torpedoed the middle class as the real economy has been systematically hollowed out since Reagan.  And the debt has become a way to artifically and temporarily sustain ever-increasing consumer spending (and thus economic growth) despite stagnant or declining wages for the bottom 80% of Americans--and eventually even that becomes insufficient, and the house of cards collapses.  That is the powder keg, just waiting for a spark to set it off.  And practically any sort of "black swan" event could serve as the spark at this point.  Here be dragons.

The stock market is a bubble.  Scratch that, it is a big, festering BOIL just waiting to be lanced.  The recent "correction" in early February is a warning, followed by a return to "normal" before the Big One happens sooner or later.  If Trump goes through with his plan to start a trade war, that will likely trigger the crash, as will any further increases in FERAL Reserve interest rates.  But it looks like a crash is coming, one way or another.   So don't say we didn't warn you.