A little to rosy considering who is in the White House. It could happen that Trump fears the trade war at some point. But he is not posturing. He wants to beat China and damage to the USA is already happening.

McClatchy reported that Wikileaks showed that the high oil of 2007 was a function of manipulation by investment banks. Wikileaks revealed that the Saudis warned the US government that they were not responsible for $147 oil. We can thank investment banks like maybe Goldman Sachs for the final push towards the Great Recession.

I think the US is making a huge mistake in seeing China as a threat. China bailed the US out of the Great Recession. China wants prosperity. The USA wants control of nations. Nations, including Israel and Japan are rallying around China. We stand to be left out.

The article is interesting. There are three issues. First, no one knows how deep the recession could go. All bets are off because of tariffs. Secondly, capacity utilization is still running below 80, so we have spare capacity unless measurements are wrong. And there are stii chronically unemployed from the Great Recession. Thirdly, we have exotic structures in finance like leveraged loans and other new vehicles that could tighten up the supply of credit like what happened in the Great Recession.

Making the Fed subject to the will of the people is risky. If the Fed knows business investment, or lack of it causes recessions, it is acting to escape the zero bound before it all hits the fan. The Fed is likely late in doing this. How much damage could result? With Trump's recklessness added on, quite a lot.

Great article. Truth is, #Trump does live in the past. He wants three models of cars on the road, #Ford, #GM, and #Dodge. He wants the world weakened while the USA is strong, like after ww2. He wants cheap oil prices to spur Americans to buy holiday gifts, like before #OPEC. He wants men to be superior to women. He toys with Fascism like it somehow worked when it didn't. He wants China and Europe to submit like in the old days. Many older people live in the past, in their glory days. But it isn't healthy, mentally, nor is it good for the nation.

Interesting article. Less regulation cannot mean more stability over time, but smaller banks are given a boost for now.

I wonder if America's allies even believe the USA anymore. It appears there may not even be that much worthy of belief. Our multinationals denied the lame story found, unfortunately, at Bloomberg as I recall.

One thing this article shows is just how fragile supply chains could be. That Trump would try to disrupt world supply chains shows that he is a buffoon, and yet, not a funny one at all.

I sympathize with your moral sensibility. But the US has supported dictators because of pragmatic concerns and does so today. Since the USA seems to be making the most war these days, for selfish reasons, we cannot very well reason that moral sanctions are better for world peace than is patient pragmatism.