01-04-2017, 11:52 AM
(01-03-2017, 04:57 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:Quote:We are in the same page.
I still don't see the outright dismissal of the Republican's/Trump's present position as being a potential regeneracy. Happened at about the right time, leaders are mostly the right generational group, etc. If they end up running US hegemony into a ditch, that could constitute a crisis conclusion of sorts. The authors said there was no guarantee that the turning had to turn out well.
Actually, I'm not contradicting my previous post when I say that I agree with you. Trump's economic policies--as neoliberal as they may be--could indeed ignite a regeneracy of sorts. His proposed tax cuts and infrastructure investment can't help but stimulate the economy in the short run. But if his combination of tax cuts and infrastructure spending accrues largely to the benefit of crony capitalists and/or the top 1 percent of earners, then that stimulus may prove fleeting, especially if it does little to lift the incomes of the working-and middle class. In that case, the class resentment that Trump exploited to perfection in his campaign may reach a flashpoint.
Not that I'm comparing Trump to Hitler (I'll let others try to make that weak case), but the Fuhrer was perceived as a Gray Champion, at home and abroad...at first. (Even made the cover of Time magazine, as did Trump last year). Through large-scale rearmament and infrastructure spending, Hitler succeeded in stimulating a very depressed German economy. But then he launched a world war, as we all know, and brought his Third Reich to utter ruin.
The key questions for me, and there are so many imponderables where Trump is concerned, is this: Will he be any more successful than was Obama--and the Fed--in achieving "escape velocity" for the US economy, one that not only generates self-sustaining growth, but a widely shared prosperity as well? If America remains mired in "secular stagnation" after four years in office, how will our deeply divided country look then? Throw in another financial crisis--which I fully expect at the back end of Trump's term in office--and I have to wonder if he and his team of billionaires and generals will be able to resolve it without repression. I simply don't know, and neither does anyone else. That's why one expert labeled his potential presidency as the "terror of the unknown."