Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Statistically speaking, given how long the economy has been growing, a recession is overdue — and the eventual collapse may bear Trump’s fingerprints. After all, his new trade barriers have lifted manufacturing costs, closed off markets and clouded the future for American firms with global supply chains. Economists say Trump’s trade war is the biggest threat to the U.S. economy in 2019. In loonier moments, the president has also threatened to default on our debt, ramp up the money-printing press, reinstate the gold standard or deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Some of those policies would ignite not just a recession but an immediate, global financial crisis.

Or perhaps the contraction will follow some non-Trump-related catastrophe, like an oil shock or a wave of defaults in the growingleveraged loan market. It’s often impossible to ascribe blame accurately.

Yet there’s one thing we can expect with reasonable conviction: Even if Trump isn’t the direct cause of the next recession, he’s likely to make it so, so much worse.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, had been planning to exit his post in February 2019. But sources tell CBS News that he informed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he will accelerate his departure due to a strong disagreement with President Trump's snap decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, effectively abandoning U.S. allies in the region.

McGurk submitted his resignation on Friday, just one day after Defense Secretary James Mattis quit his post citing fundamental disagreements with the commander-in-chief -- including one over the importance of honoring U.S. alliances.

The special envoy was publicly left in the lurch by the president's sudden declaration on Wednesday that he was pulling U.S. forces out of Syria, against the advice of his top national security advisers and without consulting U.S. allies.

As leader of the counter ISIS mission, McGurk had been in the region to meet with coalition partners including Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani last week when Mr. Trump made his sudden decision to pull U.S. support. According to Barzani's office, he had raised concern about the fate of Kurds in Syria including the Kurdish-led group of fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). They have been the ground troops in the fight against ISIS and receive help from U.S. advisers, weapons and air strikes.

It is now unclear what will happen to those fighters after the U.S. troops withdraw, and whether the U.S. will continue to carry out air strikes in support of them.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — When President Trump grows frustrated with advisers during meetings, which is not an uncommon occurrence, he sits back in his chair, crosses his arms and scowls. Often he erupts. “Freaking idiots!” he calls his aides. Except he uses a more pungent word than “freaking.”

For two years, Mr. Trump has waged war against his own government, convinced that people around him are fools. Angry that they resist his wishes, uninterested in the details of their briefings, he becomes especially agitated when they tell him he does not have the power to do what he wants, which makes him suspicious that they are secretly undermining him.

Now, the president who once declared that “I alone can fix” the system increasingly stands alone in a system that seems as broken as ever. The swirl of recent days — a government shutdown, spiraling scandals, tumbling stock markets, abrupt troop withdrawals and the resignation of his alienated defense secretary — has left the impression of a presidency at risk of spinning out of control.

At the midpoint of his term, Mr. Trump has grown more sure of his own judgment and more cut off from anyone else’s than at any point since taking office. He spends ever more time in front of a television, often retreating to his residence out of concern that he is being watched too closely. As he sheds advisers at a head-spinning rate, he reaches out to old associates, complaining that few of the people around him were there at the beginning.

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment. But as the president struggles to find a way forward, the path is about to become much more hazardous. As tumultuous as events have been so far, Mr. Trump’s first two years may ultimately look calm compared to what lies ahead.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

I have a confession to make: I have been insufficiently cynical about modern conservative economics.

Longtime readers may find this hard to believe. After all, I declared Paul Ryan a “flimflam man” back when all the cool kids were gushing about his courage and honesty, giving him awards for fiscal responsibility. (Events have settled the issue: Yes, he was and is a flimflam man.) I predicted early and often that Republican cries about the evils of debt would vanish as soon as they held the White House; sure enough, after forcing the U.S. into job-destroying austerity when the economy was weak, once in power they blew up the budget deficitwith a tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, despite low unemployment.

But while I yield to nobody in my appreciation of the right’s fiscal fraudulence, I took its monetary hawkishness seriously. I thought that all those dire warnings about the inflationary consequences of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight high unemployment, the constant harping on the evils of printing money, were grounded in genuine — stupid, but genuine — concern.

Silly me.

It’s no surprise that Individual-1, who lambasted the Fed for keeping interest rates low while Barack Obama was president, is demanding that it keep rates low now that he’s in the White House. After all, nobody has ever accused Donald Trump of having consistent, principled views about monetary policy (or anything else).

But it is a shock to see so many conservative voices — including, incredibly, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal — echoing Trump’s demands.

It’s hard to overstate just how consistent and intense The Journal and others of like mind used to be in their attacks on easy money. Many commentators have noted that three years ago The Journal declared that low interest rates are bad for the economy.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]