President Trump turns on a dime and bombs Syria: deep state regains control

Lemme see ... in the week when Steve Bannon is finally ousted from the National Security Council (NSC) with nary a murmer from Trump who suddenly does a dramatic reverse on Syria in the very moments when Chinese President Xi Jinping is at Mar-a-Lago ... Phew! All the behind-the-scenes action finally manifesting in the public sphere with the first direct U.S. airstrike on a Syrian airbase.

Let's unpack this with what little info we have. Assad is winning the civil war but, just at the moment the rebels and their backers want the US smashing them into regime change, he handily provides the event most likely to bring it on and uses the banned chemical weapon sarin on his citizens leaving some 80 dead and many more horribly injured. And only weeks after 30 Yemeni civilians including "beautiful babies" and an American Navy Seal were killed in allied airstrikes in concert with those noble defenders of democracy, Saudi Arabia, and closely following over a hundred killed in Mosul.

Out of 59 U.S. Tomahawk Cruise missiles aimed at the Syrian airforce in a "precision strike", 24 hit their target resulting in around seven deaths but with many more lined up if events escalate.

No evidence has been presented so far to justify this unholy rush to military conflict. Check out Trump's efforts to keep Syrian refugees out of the US (and ours to keep them out of the UK). What of the depleted uranium and cluster bombs used by the US and Brits which continue to do their damage in Iraq? Will the US allow the Syrian rebels to continue using chemical warfare? Guess who sold Syria the chemical components for sarin only last year? BRITAIN! Commiting, facilitating and using atrocities to further your political agenda is WRONG no matter who is doing it.

We are run by monsters who care nothing about the general population — not you, not me, not "beautiful babies" — only the retention of power.

Still, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Reuters report that shares of Raytheon, the makers of the Tomahawk Cruise missile, soared 2.1 per cent immediately after the attack while you'll be relieved to know that US stock futures recovered from a drop after the airstrike on Syria.

This is doing the rounds on Twitter:

What was Trump's reverse-ferret REALLY about? Why is Tillerson now pivoting towards dislodging Assad when all Trump's election rhetoric expressly rejected that particular neo-liberal policy? Is this a diversion from his myriad domestic problems? Had Trump just seen the figures showing U.S. job growth screeching to a halt, and the unemployment rate up at 4.5 per cent signalling the end of the Trump reflation rally? Or has Deep State been digging into the murky oubliettes of Trump and his team, applied the thumbscrews and now produced something solid on him? 'Ey, wanna be impeached? Your businesses trashed? Or would you like us to present you as the best. Pres. Evah? Gotta sell your mate Putin down the river. Gotta let Bannon sink. But you are our President now.

What did they tell Xi at Mar-a-Lago? (Apart from, here's a nice bit of fugu fish that President Abe left for you the other week.) Don't interfere in our plans for Syria if you don't want an unpleasant trade war or worse? It must have been like the Godfather at the southern White House with Don Corleone letting everyone know who's boss, but we don't yet know if the actual Don is the Donald or Deep State, the US political and economic establishment. ('Dis is wha' happen when a guy don't do what a guy is told, capeesh?')

There are parallels with Iraq and look how well that turned out. Let's hope they don't turn Syria into radioactive rubble as well. Meanwhile, we continue to suck up to Saudi, Duterte, the Stans ...

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Many of us are wondering what could possibly go wrong?

Estimates that the Trump chicken comes home to roost (in the Chinese year of the Fire Rooster, note) are set somewhere around the autumn. Trump can't possibly achieve the 3-4 per cent growth he's promised due to the unvavourable demographics. Baby boomers are retiring and not being replaced. US unemployment is low so wages will rise (a good thing), leading to inflation (bad if this is due to rising costs, not greater demand or consumption).

My understanding is that the underlying pattern is deflation after the stagflation period (inflation with stagnant growth). So the Fed will have to tighten monetary control by raising interest rates to control rising inflation after years of trying to kick start it, and the US will be at, or heading back to, negative rates by next year.

However, rather than lower rates stimulating growth and investment (it didn't work before, it created bubbles), expect an exodus of money from overpriced US stock markets which may trigger the inevitable crash everyone's been waiting for as they play pass the parcel with a live grenade.

Trump can only disappoint.

Wealth fleeing the stock markets will chase bonds for a fixed income — even if Treasury bond yields hit 2.5-3%, this will be higher than plummeting or negative interest rates by then. Then the yields drop as everyone dives back in and when these fail, it's down to cash and digital currencies.

Depending on who you listen to, gold will either soar to 10,000 bucks an ounce or it will drop to $700 as it's not a currency and you can't buy a loaf of bread with a flake of gold if things actually get that bad. There's a saying: "Buy gold for protection but hope it doesn't go up." 'Cause then you know something seriously ba-a-a-ad is happpening and the price of gold is probably the least of your problems by then.

In the meantime emerging markets (EM) such as Brazil, India and Asia in general — the one area of meaningful growth — will have been damaged by Trump's protectionist policies. The dollar will keep heading north as there will be fewer of them and global trade is carried out in dollars. This will make US manufacturing hellishly expensive for overseas buyers. So I think there will be disaster within Trump's first two or three years. He may even have the inevitable crash later this year.

And who will get the blame?

Round up the usual suspects: immigrants and China.

If things look particularly dire, central banks may return to the bankrupt policy of Quantitive Easing whereby the government floods the economy by buying its own debt bonds and keeps everything artificially buoyed up, creating asset bubbles. Capitalism allows the market's survival of the fittest rules to decide everything except when it comes to a crisis that hits the wealthy. Then the markets must be rigged — which is what QE and bailing out failing banks amounts to. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else.

I don't see how we can't be pulled into the US maelstrom especially if our post EU trade depends on the US. Britain has landed between Scylla and Charybdis, the whirlpool of an imploding EU and the crashing rocks of the Trump toddler on the protectionist smash-up. The best we can do is win a role as a vassal state of the US. Well done Cameron for triggering a global domino collapse with that unnecessary referendum which MPs voted for because they were assured IT WASN'T LEGALLY BINDING ...

Asia might pull something positive out of a hat, especially if China fills the gap left by a protectionist USA. But then the stubby-fingered one will most likely try to bomb them back to the stone age. You can see the boys gagging to play with the toys with a blockade of the South China Sea's Malacca Straits as the opener.

Maybe this is the one area where he gets to please his mates after all.

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