By Brian McKay
Saying this last week was depressing might be an understatement. Showing up to work at noon on Wednesday the 9th from a vodka and denial hangover made perfect sense. The KKK and David Duke had just proclaimed as having one of the greatest nights ever. This guy that always claims he can stand alone and be strong suddenly felt completely alone and sad as he watched the reports of racism escalate throughout the week. Maybe his sarcastic whit will return someday.
For fucks sake, my 12 year old cried and later wondered if her friend Santiago would have to move to Mexico (he won’t and his family is a huge benefit to this country). What kind of asshole makes little girls cry? Oh that’s right, the one that probably sees his next wife in each of them.
The right wingers were proclaiming “cry babies” and “sore losers” at the Trump protesters saying “not my president” with zero recognition that those protesters might actually see the toxicity of a man that inspired slogans like “Make America White Again” to be spray painted on walls while kids in grade school are told to go back to Mexico. They certainly weren’t protesting a George W. Bush. GW only mildly scared the shit out of people when they realized he wasn’t that bright, but otherwise a fairly decent guy.
Many of us were used to being called names like libtard and being told we are effeminate losers because we don’t engage in such “locker room banter”. This all from an electorate that proclaimed the evils of educated, bleeding heart liberals that felt they were better than everyone else. They wanted their vision of America back from the communist evil of Obama and the hidden global elite their media convinced them of at every opportunity. They thought the constitution could be protected by the biggest threat to it in the last century because they had skipped high school history class to try out cigarettes and get lucky with Mary Sue Jones, who somehow got pregnant right after Homecoming. Of course that was in a county that teaches abstinence. Well they got what they wanted in this election. At least they think they do if hats made in China that say, "Make America Great Again" qualify.
It’s done. The DNC fucked up by picking Hilary Clinton. She was competent but not approachable and had too much hanging over her. The House, Senate and Executive are now firmly Republican and owned by people that like both tea and parties.
Like the Brexit and ascendancy of Marine Le Pen in France, we are now going full on populist and protectionist in the world. Fear rules. Stupid people act while the intelligentsia have become non-existent and often accused of being a threat to good government, as they have always been by authoritarians. The Marvel superhero of this age and electorate may as well be called Mr. Tariff and have a picture of Herbert Hoover on his breast plate. He fights alongside a shirtless Judo expert on a horse named KGB P and a blob called the Annoying Orange.
So, I’ll sit here and drink some more vodka while suppressing the sadness I feel for our future and attempt to describe what it looks like based on proposals and financial markets.
It’s often hard to say what will happen with President Elect Trump. His supporters typically didn’t know what his proposals were beyond a bit of racism, some wall thingy and some fucking crazy thing about making America great again, like we already aren’t. Oh well… they bought it.
Starting off we have cabinet appointments that are truly scary and contrary to President Elect Trump’s statement of “stirring up the swamp that is Washington”. Most are political insiders. Every damn one of them is opposed to science and downright fucking moronic.
The scariest outsider would be Stephen K. Bannon, an underground white supremacist and former executive chairman of Breitbart News. It is questionable whether being executive chairman of a news source that uses 4th grade logic and fifth grade vocabulary to publish conspiracy theories and blame minorities, is a title many would want. Regardless, this asshole is now a chief strategist. Fuck.
Other notable potentials would be; Heinrich Himmler, sorry I mean, Rudy Giuliani as Attorney General. Mrs. Meany Pants Goebbels Laura Ingraham as Press Secretary. Forrest Lucas, co-founder of Lucas Oil, as Head Oil Nazi and Secretary of the Interior (drill baby drill). And let’s not forget the horror of Sarah Palin’s name being floated for any position outside of watching her daughter get pregnant again while Dancing with the Stars.
Who will head the Department of Education? There just might no longer be one.
So, what happens right after the inauguration of the 45th President and the swearing in of the new Congress?
Obamacare has been slated to be immediately reversed. While some other random proposals (normal Trump style) have been floated, the immediate repeal leaves 20 million people without health care. It is unknown what, if any components may be retained. The oft cited, but never tested opening of state lines to insurance competition has been cited as the new plan to reduce costs. Unfortunately, we again move as far away as possible from realizing that health isn’t a for profit industry and no amount of competition can fix that. We all love when multiple burger joints compete to make the most bad-ass burger you have ever had but we don’t really love it when insurers compete to tell your doctor they just can’t do that procedure you need. Yeah dying? It can cut costs.
NAFTA and the TPP are under immediate threat. While the Trans Pacific Partnership is new enough to have minimal impact, withdrawal from NAFTA would have massive impacts on the North American continent. The U.S. hasn’t withdrawn from a trade agreement since 1866. Why? Because bad shit happens when you do. Imagine a trade war from countries with which we both export to and import from on a large scale. Want to pay 30 percent more for that VW? Sure, tariffs and a trade war with Mexico will make sure that a vehicle built there will be one fucking cost prohibitive Jetta. Plan on the same for Ford vehicles as well (you though they were US made didn’t you? Tee hee). Well shit, add in GM, IBM and Coca Cola as other Mexican manufacturers.
Withdrawal from NAFTA could destroy $40 billion of the Canadian economy and take 4 million US jobs with it. As a participant of the TPP, Canada could make up some ground, but most likely their economy would be seriously impacted. This policy decision will not return US jobs and will cost jobs.
President Elect Trump wants to spend $500 million to $1 trillion on infrastructure. This would be the one and only injection of government money into the economy under Trump beyond increased military spending. The claim is that it will be paid through tolls and other revenue generators that impact the poor and middle class disproportionately. The result will be a flood of money and temporary jobs into the economy for some short period. Combined with trade protectionism and expected Fed rate increases, inflation is expected to become dramatic. Fixed income individuals will see large increases in the cost of goods relative to their income while the usual cronies will walk away lining their pockets on the government infrastructure spending spree. The market has confirmed this in the last week with dramatic shifts in bond pricing. 35 percent price increases on tariffs coupled with higher inflation could equal disaster. What? The dollar toy bin at Wal Mart is now a $4 toy bin?
Deportation of illegal immigrants was promised to be over 11 million. Donald Trump might have walked this back on 60 minutes this prior Sunday to 2 – 3 million. Regardless, the cost is extreme and a substantial part of the labor force is lost. While the new administration claims these would all be criminals, actual stats show only 880,000 criminal aliens, with the majority having only a minor immigration charge. Yes, their crime rate is far below we white citizens. How do you feel about that fact that an amazing summer watermelon might cost $40 and your hotel room will only be cleaned once every 4 days?
Taxes are set to drop under a Donald Trump Presidency. The wealthy and corporations will be the biggest benefactors by far, in what is essentially some seriously amped up trickle down. This publication has frequently covered the absolute failure of trickle down and the tricks used to justify it economically as revenue neutral. Yeah it’s all bullshit. Destructive bullshit that has never worked. I don’t create jobs. People that buy my stuff create jobs.
Corporate tax rates will fall from 35 percent to 15 percent. The personal tax brackets will be collapsed to 10, 20 and 25 percent. The highest earners (the 0.1 percent with incomes over $3.7 million in 2015) would see an average $1.3 million cut in 2017 (19 percent average) while middle income earners would see a savings on average of $2,700. Estate taxes, which only affect the most affluent, will be gone. It is regressive taxation at its finest and will provide tremendous benefits to the wealthy, further widening wealth inequality in America.
Scariest would be the estimates that this tax plan would deprive the United States of at least $10 trillion in revenue over a decade. Rapidly growing deficits will impact overall economic growth. Worse yet, the large deficits will surely mean dramatic cuts to benefits to the poor and an inability to respond in a Keynesian economic strategy in the event of a major economic event. Clearly President Elect Trump has never read Capital in the 21st Century, and I might highly recommend it, as depriving lower classes of spending ability constrains financial velocity and hurts the economy. Never mind that having 1 in 5 children food insecure in our country is already a national tragedy.
WTF? Over 3 pages so far? You don’t have that much time and it would be easy to go on forever describing the threats to women’s health, gay rights, press freedom, the environment, vaccinations, NATO, South Korea, Japan and the absolute complete future of our children at the hands of the greatest imbecile ever elected to the office.
Instead, allow me to leave you with just a few trends from the stock market over the last week. Why? If you really want to know what will happen, follow the billions.
Oil and Gas stocks have surged. Every pipeline project in the US is looking positive for the developers and government lands will be open everywhere for drilling. The protests at Standing Rock are truly now in vain under the new administration. Obviously renewable energy stocks have been slammed.
Pharmaceutical stocks are way up. Yep. Get ready to pay even more and keep providing 90 percent of their income from our country. Can you say “Fuck you Martin Shkreli and your private Wu Tang Clan album”? Oh and you Epi Pen bitch too.
Private prison stocks have done extremely well. Prison reform has no chance and we will continue to see massive systemic disparity inflicted upon African Americans while the Grope My Pussy Trumper faction continues to scream “All Lives Matter”.
Banks have exploded. This author that once penned his resignation letter to Wells Fargo accusing them of fraud one month before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau revealed such fraud, has seen that bank’s stock recover to above where it was when that scandal began. Why? All financial regulation will be gone. The CFPB is expected to go with it. Remember those predatory lending laws created after banks fucked everyone in 2007 – 2008? Yeah those will all be gone too. HELLO profits!
Military stocks have shot up. There is nothing more American under a Republican Regime than funding $1.5 trillion war plane projects that don’t work while starving poor people by cutting $20 billion off SNAP benefits on the farm bill and calling it an even deal. Republicans have seriously never seen an HP-12C financial calculator in the wild.
It might be most scary to say that 370 economists signed a letter recently detailing the massive damage that would come under a Trump presidency. Of major concern was a massive worldwide recession along with dramatically increased chances of war and global instability. This of course was probably never even read by the Trump supporters worried about the story they read on Alex Jones’ Info Wars about the government turning kids gay through juice boxes.
It has been stated that the problem with democracy is that we each consider our one vote unworthy of educating ourselves because a large plurality of votes elect the candidate. Never has the distance between a vote and education been more apparent than this election.
America, you got lazy. You fucked up. Many of you were disaffected and hurting and as such elected the guy that makes it much worse in the end. I only hope you become humble enough to apologize to your kids in 15 years, if we make it there. Maybe we just got what we deserved after spending more time concerned about a Kardashian than actual facts. Maybe.
Oh… and fuck you 2016.
Brian Mckay is the co-founder of zenruption. He has flaked bad and not written for some time. For a short period he even thought he would leave the country, become an ex-pat, chase girls and drink beer in some exotic country with a beach. Nope. Its time to fight for people here in this country. Please consider doing the same before you flee. We need the few smart people still here.
Oh and Leonard Cohen died last week too. Fuck you 2016.