Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Why Does Trump Want To Destroy America?

Credit: Berkeley Political Review, Curtis Wang, 01/25/2019
We had warned in June & Sept of 2018, that the US economy will get severely damaged if President Trump does not back off from his wrong position on tariffs and trade wars.

Here are our warnings of a US economic collapse dated Sept 2018 as well June 2018.

We were among the very first to warn of the damage caused due to tariffs that shall be felt around the world but mostly on the US economy, US businesses, US employees etc unless Trump backs off.

Trump has backed off both on the Mexico border wall funding as well as keeps delaying his own timelines for a China trade deal. Because he eventually always turns out to be wrong in his assessments and then needs to back off.


Now he wants to extend his own deadline of 1 March 2019 for the China trade deal because China will never succumb to pressure.


Aside from backing off on both the wall and the China deadline, Trump humiliated his own top trade official in front of cameras and the Chinese on Fri, 22 Feb 2019.

You have to watch it to believe how he humiliated the highest official of the US Govt whose main job is to secure a trade deal with China while the Chinese were listening to Trump and laughing (at America and Americans).


As we have warned, America will suffer the greatest damage in any economic or trade war with China.

Tariffs are essentially a tax on the US buyers and consumers. All states are struggling because they need to pay billions more in tariffs and therefore, their imports are plunging because of lack of sales except for essential goods.

All states are making reports on how much extra tariff tax is being paid to the Federal Govt and in the case of Texas, for example, they are paying 12 times more to the Federal Govt than they did a year ago.

25 Jan 2019: At Texas Town Hall, New Data Reveals Massive Tariff Costs for Lone Star State

Reports from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana are here: State Impact Reports

More data is now coming out to prove our projections as being correct from last year.

Since Chinese are now buying their imported farm products from their closest allies and pretty much any country in the world except USA, these sales contracts with new sellers will be hard to return to America inspite of what any Govt may agree in trade agreements.

Everyone knows, if a customer goes and buys from another seller for an extended period of time, then that buyer is not coming back.

This is what the Illinois Farm Bureau President had said a few weeks ago, exactly as we had warned when the tariffs were initially imposed in early 2018.

"Right now we are paying the price for retaliatory tariffs imposed on imported goods produced by some of our best trading partners," Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr. said in a statement earlier this month responding to Trump's State of the Union address.


Thanks to all the job cuts, the car sales in USA are dropping by about 800,000 cars from 2016 to 2019, chances are that it will be even more, because GM, Ford and others are closing plants (and firing tens of thousands of employees) and these are just estimates for 2019. 

Sales of new vehicles are expected to continue their downward slide since they hit record levels of 17.6 million units in 2016, AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson told CNBC's "Squawk Box." He is expecting 2019 sales to be around 16.8 million units.


All the declines began once Trump entered office in end 2016.



25 Oct 2018: U.S. Car Exports To China Drop 56%    

Additionally, Trump has not only put soybean and other farmers exporting produce but also the dairy farmers in major trouble.

Wisconsin lost almost 700 dairy farms in 2018, an unprecedented rate of nearly two bankruptcies a day. Most were small operations unable to survive farm milk prices that, adjusted for inflation, were among the lowest in a half-century.

As of Feb. 1, Wisconsin had 8,046 dairy herds, down 40 percent from 10 years earlier, according to state Department of Agriculture data. 

And although consumption of cheese, yogurt and butter have all increased, they've not always kept pace with runaway production. Today, for instance, U.S. commercial and government cheese stockpiles are at about 1 billion pounds — the highest level in a century. 

At the same time, foreign markets for American dairy products have shrunk in response to tariffs that President Donald Trump placed on foreign steel and aluminum. Cheese shipments to China have fallen almost 65 percent, according to industry figures, and exports to Mexico are down more than 10 percent. 

Mexico and Canada have targeted rural America as a way to punish Trump, and the economic harm could be felt for years to come, said Laurie Fischer, CEO of the American Dairy Coalition.


As we have warned, all countries will work together to hurt America, we can see that Mexico, Canada, China etc all are buying less American goods than ever before which is causing stockpiles that are sky high and are the highest in a century and many farm goods will need to be thrown away since storage place is limited.

Wisconsin lost 2 dairy farms a DAY in 2018! That's astonishing but not enough to make Trump agree that he is wrong.

The entire farm belt of America has been destroyed just due to one man's thinking that he can do no wrong and because he does not believe in diplomacy.


31 Jan 2019: Washington farmers need tariff relief as exports plunge nationwide


Farmers are getting decimated.

"“We are seeing producers who are running out of options,” Tim Koch, senior vice president at Farm Credit Services of America, told The Journal."


19 Feb 2019: Trump claims tariffs brought China to its knees. His trade war is hurting Midwest farmers instead.


Solar sector is also getting destroyed where USA was the world leader until 2016.

24 Feb 2019: Under Trump's Tariffs, The US Lost 20,000 Solar Energy Jobs

7 Jun 2018: Billions in U.S. solar projects shelved after Trump panel tariff


12 Feb 2019: Solar Jobs Fall for Second Year, Census Finds, Citing Tariff Impacts    

Famous lobster industry of Maine is also getting destroyed. Chinese are not buying American lobsters as well. This has come as a boon for the Canadian lobster farmers.

5 Feb 2019: Maine lobster orders tank as Chinese turn to tariff-free Canada

US exports have plunged 41.1% so far for 8 months in a row which is the worst performance since 1999, 20 years ago.

"According to Chinese customs data, China’s imports from the US has now fallen for eight consecutive months, month-on-month, the longest period of continuous decline since monthly bilateral trade data was first made available in 1999.

In January alone, China’s imports from the US were smaller than its imports from Australia, South Korea, Taiwan or Germany."


Iconic Harley which is more famous than BMW or Yamaha bikes, is also hurting as a result of the tariffs leading to higher cost of production.

29 Jan 2019: Harley-Davidson shares plunge as tariffs kill profits, riders dwindle



It's shocking but now Trump is targeting the 4th of July celebrations. There are rumors that he may turn it into a military parade.


24 Feb 2019: Trump Ruins Everything, Next Up: Fourth of July

This is what China has to report based on facts


12 Feb 2019: All U.S. states will see net job loss due to announced tariffs: study

This article describes how the West is falling apart. However, the author is wrong in describing that the combined GDP of US and EU together is comparable to combined GDP China plus Russia.


That's not correct.


The situation today is that all 203 countries stand against USA. so the erstwhile "super power" stands alone against all the other nations in the world and should be compared to the GDP of all nations versus that of USA. 


However, the thrust of the article towards decline of USA and the entire West is spot on.


22 Feb 2019: The Sources of the West’s Decline


Since Trump is going against the entire world, hence EU is also ready to attack American corporations.

EU has fined Facebook, Qualcomm and Google in 2018 in billions, now they are planning to go after Xerox and Caterpillar.


22 Feb 2019: EU Ready to Target Caterpillar, Xerox If Trump Hits Cars


China has already taken action and sales of primary product of Apple in China are plunging. 


11 Feb 2019: Apple's iPhone shipments plunge in China as Huawei tightens grip


Impact of decline in sales for Apple is being felt even in China as well as Japan where 50,000 employees were fired by Foxconn in China and  3,000 were fired in just 1 company in Dec 2018 in Japan. 


18 Jan 2019: Foxconn axes 50,000 seasonal jobs as Apple slowdown bites    


4 Dec 2018: Sharp contractors axe 3,000 staff as iPhone sensor output shifts: union    


Don't know if we can thank Trump for thousands of job cuts all across Silicon Valley but surely the environment that he has created hurts them as well.


As a result of silly tariff tantrums and the overall decline of the West, the jobs cuts across America and loss of earnings are coming at a fast and furious pace which is unprecedented.

Here is a sample of job cuts over the past few months, most of which have been kept very low key.


7 Sept 2018: Farmington Bank to shed 27% of workforce after $544M People's United deal


25 Oct 2018: Keurig Dr Pepper to Lay Off 118 Vermont Employees




16 Jan 2019: Amid worldwide cutbacks, Bayer to shutter Pennsylvania site, cut loose 600-plus workers

23 Jan 2019: BuzzFeed Laying Off 15% Of Its Staff; Cuts Hit 200 Workers Including News Division


24 Jan 2019: Media industry loses about 1,000 jobs as layoffs hit news organizations

"Electrolux was the fifth-largest employer in St. Cloud 2018 with nearly 900 employees. The impact of the closure is estimated to effect 1,800 jobs"



6 Feb 2019: Ford to lay off over 1,000 workers in Flat Rock; jobs offered at other plants


Although some are international companies, but Blackrock, Goldman, Legg Mason, Morgan Stanley etc are all US firms cutting hundreds of employees.


6 Feb 2019: Here Are the Finance Firms Cutting Jobs After Turmoil in Markets    

7 Feb 2019: Renown lays off 61 employees in restructuring

13 Feb 2019: Union Pacific cuts 250 employees, most in Omaha; another 450 employees are furloughed


Dozens of Staples stores are closing but news is not coming out. This is just 1 of them in North Dakota which is closing after 20 odd years.

13 Feb 2019: Bismarck Staples to close on Feb. 22


A Farmers Produce market shut after 70 years in North Dakota as well.


14 Feb 2019: XPO Logistics to close Memphis facility, laying off 400 employees


This is the 6th brewery closing down in 6 months just in Oregon:


18 Feb 2019: BridgePort shutting down in latest Portland brewery closure




GM had fired thousands in Nov 2018 and now more are being fired under the same cost cutting plan in Feb 2019.

26 Nov 2018: GM to cut as many as 15,000 US, Canadian jobs, may close 5 plants


4 Feb 2019: GM Layoffs Start Today, Cuts 4,000 Jobs Ahead Of Q4 Earnings Report

Although this article says that hundreds are being fired due to closure of plants and decline in sales at GM, however, we believe that thousands will be fired in courier companies, restaurants, suppliers, truckers, plastic part markers, electronic part makers, tire makers etc as their sales will decline as well.


7 Feb 2019: 200 Americans are being fired now and 200 health care workers were fired a few months back.


Kaiser Permanente lays off 200 Colorado employees     


As a consequence of job cuts impacted by tariffs and rapidly declining consumer sales, home sales and new construction is also plunging rapidly.

16 Jan 2019: Home sales plunge as price growth hits 6-year low      

Meanwhile, the lay offs in the Retail sector are being termed as "apocalypse" and a "public execution" across USA.

24 Jan 2019: 'It was like a public execution': American retail workers face mass layoffs    

"But last week, Foster and dozens of other seasonal and contracted employees at the Amazon clothing plant were laid off along with thousands of other workers at retailers across the US. Retailers have just had their best holiday season in six years but for retail workers the post-holiday come down has been brutal."
"Last year, companies announced 98,563 retail job cuts, the highest total since 2009, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Vice President Andy Challenger thinks the pain isn't over."


5 Feb 2019: Charlotte Russe Plans to Close 94 Stores; 3 in Conn., 2 in Mass.


27 Dec 2018: Retailers You Won't Be Seeing In New Jersey In 2019
22 Aug 2018: Lowe’s closing all Orchard Supply Hardware stores

After hundreds of Gap owned stores in the last few years, Gap is again looking to close hundreds of more stores .


Although we cannot blame Trump or tariffs for closures of colleges, but here are the facts of several closures across USA.

This one was shut down due to fraud by ICE.

11 Oct 2018: Tri-Valley University Shuts Down After the Raid. Students Affected


Operating since 1999, all their campuses have been shut down due to lack of accreditation impacting more than 20,000 students.

5 Dec 2018: National for-profit college chain abruptly closes, stunning thousands of students


Operating since 1969, Vanderott closed the last of the 16 campuses on 18 Dec 2018.

18 Dec 2018: For-profit Vanderott College shuts down all its campuses


Operating since 1834, with more than 700 students and 46 academic staff and other employees, this college will shut down. They cannot even cover their expenses.

8 Feb 2019: Green Mountain College Begins Layoffs Ahead of Closure

Operating since 1965, with 1,300 students and over 280 staff, this college is shutting down in Massachusetts.

19 Feb 2019: Hampshire College admissions office impacted by first round of layoffs


6 Feb 2019: 7 Catholic schools in the New York archdiocese will close at the end of the school year

We can also see how many job cuts are occurring across states that don't even get reported in the media.

Here are job cuts in Wisconsin state: 2019 List of Layoff Notices   

Govt data of job cuts from West Virginia: CURRENT WARN NOTICES


Texas is  a large state and hence the job cuts are also large, therefore Texas needs to keep a large updated excel sheet: 

Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Notices


Similarly you may search on Google for each of the states in the US whereby thousands of jobs are being cut all across America.


The crony billionaires like Amazon and AT&T of Trump continue to reap benefits while the entire world suffers.


They take the money of tax payers and all the tax benefits and in the case of Amazon won't even pay a penny as taxes on billions of dollars in profits.


3 Feb 2019: AT&T Continues Laying Off Americans After Profiting Billions from Tax Cut

Whatever may be the logic, the largest and most profitable company on the planet in 2018 which is at it's pinnacle, paid ZERO for taxes in 2018 while the owner, Jeff Bezos, has become the world's first trillionaire, yet he refuses to pay taxes.

Never before in history, has a large corporation paid zero while earning tens of billions and making it's owner the first trillionaire.


Quite rightly, Amazon executives were forced to exit from NY and this is what the NY city council members asked from the trillionaire company's greedy executives.

13 Dec 2018: "You're Worth $1 Trillion. Why Do You Need Our $3 Billion?" Angry New Yorkers Confront Amazon Execs at City Council Meeting    

The media has talked along with several activists and the perpetually suffering American public but no one at the top, especially billionaire Tump doesn't listen and doesn't care.

Why the US Govt is tone deaf to the plight of their own citizenry beggars belief.


76 million Americans as per estimates are living under severe financial stress and could go bankrupt if they have an illness or job loss or any distress in their financial situation. These are the lowest earners across all of USA.


"About 76 million U.S. households make up the bottom 60% of income earners, with take-home pay of $65,000 or less. Of that group, about a third were "stressed" in 2016, UBS says, near the highest level since the mid-1990s. UBS defines 'stressed' Americans as those whose financial obligations — such as mortgages, rent, auto loans and leases, and credit card bills — exceed 30% of their income and who don’t have enough cash and other assets to pay their bills for six months in the event of a layoff or other shock."


April 2018: Financial stress is rising for low- and middle-income U.S. households

As on date, 38.5 million American are on food stamps. Which means if they don't receive a few hundred dollars from the US Govt any month, they will need to sleep without food. 

You can see all the data here.

Although the numbers have improved from 45-50m at their peak several years ago and are officially down to 38.5m but that's more than 10% of the US population.


Trump's own Govt - CBO - is saying that tariffs will hurt everyone.


29 Jan 2019: Congressional Budget Office Sees Trade War Dragging on US Economy

Meanwhile, America keeps drowning and thousands of people (perhaps millions) live on the streets of America in despair and utter hopelessness while being homeless.


This is a brilliant essay that summarises the homelessness in in the infamous tent cities of America (in Florida, California and many other states) that no one wants to talk about and these American citizens living in tents have also been termed as the invisible people due to the apathy of the US Govt and the wealthy elites who run the Govt.:


This article was released just this week:

Managed Obsolescence: Homelessness in America’s Gilded Cities

We just hope and wish that Trump will remove the tariffs after reading the above analysis.

If he does not do so immediately (almost tonight), until then American citizens, American tax payers, American businesses and American workers will continue to pay the price until they go bankrupt.

And yeah, China will be just fine, they have some 3 trillion dollars in savings, have solid and now growing trade relationships with Russia, Asia, Latin America, Europe, Ex Soviet states, Africa, Pakistan and most of Middle East, plus have a parallel system whether in currency, banking, payment systems, search engines, internet, plane making, unparalleled manufacturing depth, educated, charged-up and a large workforce etc. 

Meanwhile, Trump has a stellar record and a close affinity with bankruptcies because 6 of his companies have gone bankrupt, let's hope that he does not bankrupt America, however, all the signs indicate that America is heading for destruction under him.


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