The Coming Reality Under the 57th President

[Walker88]

So here we are on the brink of having our first convicted felon as President. Here’s a few things I think we can expect as reality takes hold. (Your opinion may differ, and that is what a Forum is for. I say come back in 2 to 4 years and see who was right. Personally, I see the writing on the wall and am battening down the hatches, plus adopting whatever other cliches appropriate to the times. I did not reach my wealth status 'going with the flow', but rather seeing when the lemmings are running toward the cliff.)

 

Internationally, there are a couple of types of people one does not want to be. The first is Ukrainian. Aid will be cut off, and Putin will have a green light to slaughter as he pleases. The Pres-elect claims he can end the war “in an afternoon”. He cannot. Wars do not end like that, especially when the aggressor side is given the green light and the victim side is trying to protect their own freedom and liberty. Ukraine will become an abattoir. Poles and Estonians are likely to become increasingly worried, because they know they are next, and there will no longer be a NATO to discourage aggressors.

 

Neither would one want to be an innocent Palestinian, someone who had it tough enough under Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, but who are going to be just cannon fodder for an unleashed and unrestrained Netanyahu. From the frying pan under Hamas into the fire of the IDF. In some form we will hear---re Ukraine and Palestine---“Kill’em all and let god sort’em out”. Compassion is so ‘yesterday’.

 

Terrorists are ‘manufactured’ in two ways (I spent years directly interacting with fundamental and psychopathic terrorists, so allow me to believe my opinion has some merit). One is via a warped ideology, such as the literal interpretation of some supposedly deity-dictated text or story. The second way is out of revenge for something done to a person or to people like him or her. The former always requires unpleasant means to address, as religious fantasies and superstitions are almost impossible to erase; the latter becomes its own feedback system (“We killed some terrorists today, but how many more did we just create?”). Guaranteed there will be more terrorism and more violent terrorism on a scale that will dwarf 9-11. Having dealt with the more infamous fundamentalist groups, I know among them they have some brilliant but vicious folks who studied things like biochemistry or nuclear physics at the world’s top universities. Something like a dirty bomb will be the B-team act. Bioterror weapons are what has long scared me, and the fundamentalists learned a lot from Covid, plus they have studied how to alter the protein structure of viruses to make them more lethal and faster-spreading. (I remember years ago they were working on weaponizing smallpox, an existing virus readily obtainable, but now can be altered via structural manipulation, and small pox is a virus where the vaccine really only lasts a decade or two.)

 

The vast majority of terror attacks over the last 2 decades have been stopped because the entire free world cooperated in sharing information and intelligence from their own sources and terror group penetrations. Most of these thwarted terror attacks remain secret. That cooperation, at least with the US, will now stop, as no ally trusts that intel will be guarded under the new President. Perhaps readers will remember that an Israeli penetration of ISIS was outed and eliminated because of what then-President shared with Russian FM Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak in the Oval Office meeting just after the firing of DirFBI Comey. Also, all foreign intel services with whom the CIA has liaison relationships are well aware of the stolen documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, documents which included HCS (Human Clandestine Sources). No intel service wants to risk getting its sources compromised by someone incapable of keeping his mouth shut, and who does not take secrecy seriously. Liaison services already warned their US counterparts that a possible return of that guy to the Oval Office means sharing intel is dead. The US intel community now will have to go it alone.

 

A corollary to this is that even within the US intel community, attrition is going to explode, as men and women who have spent their careers addressing autocratic behavior, and who have seen the consequences firsthand of what loss of freedom means, will leave the intel services, leaving mostly the dregs behind. The intel community is like any other organization, operating under the Pareto Principle (20:80). The 20% who do most everything are going to leave. Their skills and brains have market value meaning they have places they can go, whereas the dregs have no choice but to stay and take their US Taxpayer salary.

 

Bottom line: the US homeland WILL experience a major terror attack in the next few years.

 

In matters of economics, the reality of the Pres-elect’s incompetence will also evidence itself sooner rather than later. He campaigned on things over which he has no control, and not even the ‘concept of a plan’. Exactly how is he going to bring down the price of bacon? If he’s 8 years into delivering the ‘best healthcare plan ever’, and it’s still only a concept of a plan, how exactly does he plan to tame worldwide inflation? Tariffs? That isn’t going to do anything but make it worse. Deport the undocumented workers that are part of what kept inflation down, because they tend to be paid less? Well, maybe his rallygoers want to pick strawberries for a living? Work in an abattoir making bacon?

 

As I have noted in a number of my posts, one of the seemingly intractable issues the entire world is facing today is the obviation of unskilled and/or replaceable labor. Those without marketable skills and talents are being left behind. AI will only play Pacman and move up the food chain into white collar professions. NOBODY has a solution. This isn’t like the introduction of the McCormick Combine, when displaced agricultural workers could move into the factories of the Industrial Revolution. Today, most all businesses---save for things like nail painting and eyelashes so championed by Thai women---are not human labor intensive. Displaced workers have nowhere to go. This has been happening for years, and so far it has resulted in the rise of autocrat wannabes, who make pie-in-the-sky promises they cannot deliver, but when false hope is all someone has, they still grasp it. There is no way the Pres-elect can change the reality of the modern technological world on the brink of a an even greater sea change with the advances in AI. I don’t know what happens when all those who voted for him because of false hopes come to realize he doesn’t even have a concept of a plan. Maybe we'll all just paint each other's nails.

 

I have no doubt he will destroy the growth that happened under Biden-Harris. Yes, that growth was uneven, as it required workers to have marketable skills, but the policies the guy has stated he plans are not a solution. The post-election euphoria is going to be short lived. It will be a great, and perhaps last opportunity to cash out and get lean. Whatever asset prices do over the next week, or maybe even early into his term, will not last. A good trader always cashes out into the ‘madness of crowds’.

 

All of the negative trends the world has been seeing over the last decade or two are going to accelerate. We’re going deeper into a dog-eat-dog world, where cross border aggression will be either accepted or ignored, where compassion will be in sparse supply, where labor continues to be obviated, and where massive debts will finally become unsustainable. The zibel (an Arabic word) is going to hit the fan.

 

The optimism some are feeling now will be short lived. I have no doubt the planet is moving into a major period of strife, of mayhem, of oppression, of declining personal freedom, and an even further shifting of wealth into the haves and have nots. Those just getting by now are in that position because they have already become largely redundant, but government money is still there to support them. It will only get worse for them, and bad for most everybody (unless you’ve packed your bug-out bag and have an isolated residence somewhere). Those who have enjoyed the growth and prosperity since 2020 cannot become complacent. Cash out now, diversify in smart ways, and prepare for what is likely to be the ugliest time generations from the Baby Boomers onward have ever experienced.

 

Terrorism, international strife, economic decline, social unrest and government-driven oppression are on everyone’s menu. Putting your head in the sand and thinking your messiah can save you are like the folks who screamed for their deity when the tsunami was approaching. Their screams did not fall on deaf ears, because there were no ears to hear their screams. The ears that are real, such as the new President, simply do not care, and even if he did, he has no clue how to save anyone.

 

No doubt some will disagree and think we're on the verge of great prosperity and peace. I'm taking the other side of that bet. Come back in 2026-2028 and make me eat crow, but I bet even crows are going to be scarce.

 

[novacova]

Such hysterics…

[novacova]

6 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

The Coming Reality Under the 57th President

…the 47th

[GammaGlobulin]

How many more years before we see ....

Number 57?

 

[EVENKEEL]

57th president of what country? 

[blaze master]

 

What stage of the grieving process is this rant ?

 

[Celsius]

are you ok sweetheart?