The Inauguration Speech That Wasn’t Given

Bill summons the ghost of common sense...

Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Poitou, France...

The Washington Post brings dreary news this morning:

….the engines of the global economic recovery — which revved into high gear in 2021 after the world ground to a halt in 2020 — are slowing down.

And here comes The Week with another gloomy report:

US supermarket shelves really are half-empty, and Omicron isn’t the only culprit

… the barren shelves… have arrived in U.S. grocery stores.

Did it have to be this way, we wonder? What if we had not gone to war with ‘terrorists,’ and saved $8 trillion instead? What if, in 2008, we had let Wall Street sort out its own problems, and not gotten the economy hooked on artificially low interest rates and trillions in freshly printed dollars? What if, in the face of the COVID, Donald Trump had acted prudently and patiently… rather than panicking into a State of Emergency?

What if things had gone on as usual? No $29 trillion in debt. No 6% inflation. No empty shelves at the supermarkets. No lockdowns. No vaxx vs. anti-vaxx.  

Our theme this week has been how the mainstream press stopped asking questions of the ruling class and instead joined it. This deprived ordinary citizens of access to a common source of honest information, leaving them prey to wackos on the left and the right… and at the mercy of the elite.

But the dereliction of the press was more than matched by the haplessness of America’s 21st century presidents – Bush, Obama and Trump – each of whom made his own big contribution to the nation’s decline.

By 2016, the situation was probably already hopeless, but imagine how Donald J. Trump could have gladdened hearts… and sent his enemies scurrying for cover!

In wistful moments we think of how it might have turned out so differently, if only Donald J. Trump weren’t such a dope.

Big Lies

In the election of November 2016, the Establishment bet heavily on Hillary Clinton. The press had given her its full support. The universities, Wall Street, the Pentagon, the DC elite – all were on her side. The great and the good knew which side its bread was buttered on. What a blow when the votes were counted.  

This week, an opinion piece in CNN noted that “Republicans in particular have embraced a big lie: that American elections are filled with fraud.”  

But that is a lie too. The big lie didn’t begin with the Republicans in 2020; it began in 2016 when the elite press decided to use “Russian interference” as a way to undermine the vote for Trump.  

The press was hot on the story… and belabored it over the next two years. But the charge was always delusional. Everyone tried to influence the US election; it was simply unbelievable that some Russian oligarch – rather than any of the other millions of influencers, lobbyists, donors, media outlets who were on the case – could have swayed the outcome one way or another.  

But the elite were hysterical. Every possible argument was used against Trump. He was a womanizer. He was a failed developer. He was a phony. The press gnawed away on the charges like a dog with a bone.  

But not everything Mr. Trump proposed was as idiotic as the bulk of it. Of the Charlottesville riot, Mr. Trump said that there were “good people on both sides.” That was surely true; some were there just to protest the removal of their beloved monuments. And of the COVID, “don’t let it take over your life,” as the president put it, was good advice. Still, the press howled as though it was the most irresponsible move by a public official since Pontius Pilate turned Jesus Christ over to the mob.

Into the Breach

Mr. Trump, they believed, threatened their whole agenda… their fat military budget, their policing of the rest of the world and ersatz ‘nation building’… their dream of a New World Order led by their international institutions – the World Bank, the UN, the WHO etc – reshaping America along European social welfare lines…

…and most important of all, their continued use of the money system to transfer wealth and power to themselves. 

Specifically, the Fed lowered interest rates in the wake of 911 and the dot.com crash. This created a bigger crisis, a mortgage finance crisis, that debouched in September 2008. Again, the feds came to Wall Street’s rescue with lower interest rates and trillions in new ‘printing-press’ money. Adjusted for inflation, the Fed’s key lending rate has been below zero practically ever since. 

This left the rich immensely better off. It paid for their boondoggle programs, boosted asset prices and gave them at least $10 trillion more in stock and bond wealth in 2016 than they had in 2009. But it distorted and soured the economy.  Those who had no significant financial assets (90% of the population) actually lost ground – with stagnant wages and the rate of GDP growth per capita down by half since the 20th century.  

When Donald J. Trump stepped into this breach, we doubted that even a smart, determined leader could make any real difference. With the whole Establishment lined up against him, it would be a tough slog.

But even we – as cynical as we are – weren’t prepared for the total incompetence, fecklessness, and imbecility of the Trump team.  

And Mr. Trump himself, while portrayed as the enemy of the Establishment, was actually the best gift it ever received. When he left office, the rich were richer than ever. And opposition to the elite agenda had been almost completely discredited.

But let us imagine – in a whimsical moment – an alternative history. Let us picture a resolute, intelligent leader with a serious mind and a charming touch. He might have given an Inauguration Speech that we would still be quoting today:

My fellow Americans, I have some hard news that we need to discuss.

Like any society, we rely on our elites to help with our public policies and to guide us through complex subjects. What should be our position in the Ukraine? Should we switch from fossil fuels to nuclear power? We have neither the time nor the expertise to figure these things out ourselves.

But sometimes, an elite gets corrupted. It begins looking out for itself and not for the public it is meant to serve. That is why I believe the press has been so hard on me. Instead of asking tough questions on your behalf, the mainstream press offers fake news designed to promote its own agenda. And now, it’s afraid I might upset the apple cart.

And that’s exactly what I hope to do. Here’s the situation in a nutshell: the top 10% of the country owns most of our wealth and controls most of our institutions and public policies. It has figured out how to use our money system to reward itself at your expense.

The Fed creates money. And with this money it pumps up prices on stocks and bonds. The rich get richer. But the economy sinks under the debt… and then your consumer prices go up.

Over the last 15 years, [speaking in 2016] the US debt has increased by $12 trillion. This was the bill for two very bad investments. First, George W. Bush’s wars in the middle East. And then, Mr. Obama’s gifts to Wall Street. Those and other boondoggles have brought US Debt to $18 trillion. That is money that you will have to pay, one way or another, either through higher taxes… or higher consumer prices. There is no other way.

They’ll tell you that we’re going to ‘grow’ our way out of this debt. But you can’t grow by making non-performing investments. And you can’t borrow your way to prosperity.  

So, here goes the apple cart.

I’m not signing any budget that isn’t balanced. I’m calling for a $300 billion cut to the Pentagon budget. I’m bringing the troops home; we’ve had enough of these unwinnable wars. And I’m replacing that quack Janet Yellen [then, Fed chairman] with someone who will let buyers and sellers determine interest rates, rather than have them bent out of shape by the Fed’s apparatchiks.

So, here’s the deal. We have to turn this thing around. And the only way to do it is to buckle down and get to work.

Could The Donald have pulled it off? Would he have been impeached for having a mental breakdown… or assassinated by the war mongers?

We don’t know. But it would have been a hoot to watch.

Regards,

Bill Bonner