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Posts Tagged ‘Trump’

Election 2020 Fallout: Political Disarray in United States Threatens Global Economy

September 21st, 2020 Comments off

A global economy already  in fragile condition  due to  the contraction in  GDP and exploding sovereign debt levels due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is now in  danger of being further weakened by political strife in the United States. With about six-weeks to go before the 2020 presidential election, there are already numerous indicators of looming political and social chaos looming in the USA.

Even before the death of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there were already claims by both the Democratic and Republican parties that their opponent was out to undermine presidential voting. The incumbent, President Donald Trump and his supporters allege that mail-in ballots, favored by Democratic-run states, will unleash massive voter fraud. Trump’s challenger, former vice-president Joe Biden, and his Democratic supporters, have allegations of their own; Russia is supposedly working in tandem with Trump to undermine the true results of the pending election. Either way, both sides have set up voting day, November 3, as not decision-day, but rather the beginning of a bitter fight by armies of lawyers for who will be the legitimate winner of the upcoming presidential election.

Added to the above, there is a ferocious fight looming over the prerogative of the current president to select a replacement for the now-vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The fact that Trump has the constitutional legality to do this is irrelevant; this all about massively polarizing fault lines within the American body politic, adding to severe social tension and propensity for violence linked to the upcoming election.

All the above factors, occurring in what is still the world’s largest economy (though China is on the verge of overtaking that position) are destabilizing; not only politically but perhaps even more in terms of the global economy. In the post-coronavirus world we all now inhabit, the political storm brewing in the U.S. may be the final element that brings about a total economic depression, thus ensuring that the Global Economic Crisis is deeper and of longer duration than the pundits and analysts are currently predicting.

IMF Cuts Global Growth Projection Amid Growing Fears of Worldwide Recession

January 23rd, 2019 Comments off

Sheldon Filger-blogger for GlobalEconomicCrisis.com

Christine Lagarde, chair of the International Monetary Fund- – IMF- – added to the anxieties of the rich and powerful gathered for the annual pilgrimage to Davos , Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Cutting the IMF forecast for 2019 from 3.7 % to 3.5 %, she was acknowledging what is already widely known; there are a growing number of indicators that the global economy is headed for a hard landing.

There is growing instability in major economies, for example the Brexit snafu afflicting the UK and the European Union. There is political gridlock in the USA. And then there is China, the economic gorilla in the room,

The trade wars initiated by the Trump  administration  have harmed both American and Chinese economies. But China is facing other forces; a growing level of indebtedness afflicting both public and private companies. The recent data reflecting the sharp drop in official Chinese GDP growth statistics reflect a major slowing down of the Chinese economy.

Unlike the economic crisis of 2008. when the United Sates was the primary trigger, the next major global recession will most likely be unleashed by events in China, now the world’s second largest economy. 

 

Trump Global Trade War Could Bring Economic Catastrophe

July 10th, 2018 Comments off

The  core supporters of President Donald Trump maintain that despite the at times troublesome tweets and verbal coarseness, this is trivial compared to the tangible economic results achieved during the first year-and-a-half of his administration. The relatively high GDP growth rates and low official unemployment rates are heralded by his adherents as signposts on the road of making America “great again.”

I am not as sanguine. In  the first place, based on the pattern of economic cycles in the last hundred years, the American economy is overdue for a severe  recession. It has not happened yet due to the monetary alchemy of the U.S. Federal Reserve, in lockstep with other central banks across the globe.

Secondly, and more importantly, Trump has now unleashed a trade war. It is the economic equivalent of an economic world war, as President Trump is targeting friend and foe alike;   China, Canada   and the European Union have been hit with sizeable tariffs; these countries have responded with retaliatory tariffs, matching America’s in scope and severity.

Many scholars of the Great Depression have argued that this worldwide economic calamity was not driven by the Wall Street crash of 1929, buy by a massive wave of protectionism in the early 1930s, characterized by a wave of tariffs and quotas.

Has President Donald Trump opened a Pandora’s box that may unleash a massive global economic crisis?

Is Donald Trump Headed To The White House After New Hampshire Primary Victory?

February 10th, 2016 Comments off

Trump as a presidential candidate and political phenomenon challenges any attempt at a balanced appraisal. The Republican Party’s presidential frontrunner has offered an admixture of divisive diatribe with cogent observation  (as with his excoriating critique of President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq), forming a complex puzzle. This bewildering political persona’s complexity and contradictions prove frustrating to the objective observer seeking to comprehend Trump and his message, while inviting partisan supporters and critics to define Donald Trump to their respective constituencies. In particular, major segments of the mass media have chosen to join with conventional political insiders, especially actors within the Republican Party’s establishment  and old guard, in constructing an oversimplified caricature of Trump, and then using their own mythology to justify prognostications that the Trump presidential campaign was a “joke” and publicity stunt, which would end as soon as the self-indulgent narcissist tired of the enterprise. The one description that would never appear in the lexicon of these pundits and observers was that Donald Trump was very serious about his presidential aspirations, and that his campaign was far from being an exercise in humor.

When Trump quickly ascended to the status of frontrunner in the GOP’s presidential primary, the pundits and political consultants affirmed that this “summer of Trump” was a seasonal anomaly that would soon dissolve when the Republican electorate became more focused on the unfolding presidential campaign. When the “autumn of Trump” soon followed, these same Washington beltway experts and commentators merely adjusted their rationale while their conclusion remained immutably fixed; when the actual primary voting began, the Trump campaign would inevitably implode.

Donald Trump’s decisive win in the New Hampshire Primary may have put the final nail in the coffin of conventional and establishment theories on presidential campaigning in the United States, as a new paradigm has arisen. Its author is Donald J. Trump.

The New Hampshire primary is history, with the South Carolina primary soon to follow, and Trump’s double-digit lead in the polls appears unassailable. This poses the following questions: Why did the media get the Trump campaign so wrong?  What does New Hampshire suggest for the outcome of the GOP presidential primary? Finally, what do these recent campaign developments reveal about the presidential general election in November?

1. The media largely failed to perceive the power and strategic sophistication of the Trump presidential campaign due to its intimate connectivity with the political establishment in Washington. Journalists covering national politics largely depend on inside sources for the formation of their own insights and estimates of the political landscape. In other words, much of America’s political reporting is funneled through the prism of beltway politicians and consultants, who themselves were to  demonstrate a profound alienation from mainstream American public opinion. Trump shrewdly perceived the distrust bordering on universal contempt that a large section of the American electorate harbors towards the political class, and utilized his expertise in branding and messaging to latch on to that deep social malaise. The media largely missed this unfolding phenomenon simply because it took seriously and uncritically the thinking of conventional political insiders, who have proven to be historically flawed in their misjudgment.

2. Trump’s win in the New Hampshire primary only reinforces his already massive  and consistent dominance in the polls in the other upcoming state primaries. Early and decisive wins in South Carolina and Nevada will quickly kill any lingering expectations of a brokered Republican convention or a last stand by a still unidentified GOP establishment savior. It would appear at this point that Donald Trump will win the Republican presidential nomination, with no serious impediment to that outcome.

3. There is a new wave of theoretical conventionality in analyzing presidential politics that holds that even if Trump wins the GOP presidential nomination, he stands no chance of defeating the most likely Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton. The same experts and commentators that assured  their audiences that Trump’s campaign was a flash in the pan – – and later that he stood no chance of winning his party’s nomination – – are now thumping their chests with assurances that Hillary Clinton will defeat the real estate mogul in a landslide. I suspect that this thinking is as flawed as earlier predictions of Trump’s imminent political demise.

A Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton battle for the presidency will be a no-holds barred test of power and wills between two political celebrities.  Separating Trump the business and political strategist from the unfiltered commentary he often unleashes to the distress of many, it is clear, at least to this writer, that far from being impulsive, Donald Trump and his political organization have carefully mapped out a campaign strategy that provides a clear path to victory in November.  We already have early clues from the manner in which Trump has attacked Hillary Clinton on a host of issues, including her email controversies, her perceived failures as Secretary of State and the scandals involving her husband and former president Bill Clinton. A lack of concrete accomplishments in the course of her public life, alongside the present difficulties  she is encountering with a challenge for her party’s nomination from a 74-year old independent socialist senator, Bernie Sanders, points to Hillary Clinton being far from invulnerable as a political campaigner on the national level. Her defeat to Barack Obama in 2008 – – then a newcomer to national politics – – is a reminder that Hillary Clinton is not universally admired even within her own party. In a presidential election that will in part be  a referendum on the Obama administration, and with Trump far more likely to arouse enthusiasm from his supporters than his presumptive Democratic challenger from hers, it is inexplicable as to why the political establishment , including its media complex, still clings to their theory that there exists no credible chance of Donald Trump being elected 45th President of the United States.

 

DONALD TRUMP 2016: America’s Next President? is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/DONALD-TRUMP-2016-Americ…/…/B0156PAAVM

 

Sheldon Filger's photo.

 

 

DONALD J.TRUMP

October 22nd, 2015 Comments off

When Donald Trump first announced his candidacy for president of the United States in the 2016 general election, he was immediately dismissed by political pundits and media commentators as a publicity-seeking billionaire, with no chance of ever entering the White House as the nation’s chief executive. The summer of 2015, which would become known as the “Summer of Trump,” would prove them all wrong. With the slogan MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN and urging voters to board the TRUMP TRAIN, real estate mogul would quickly emerge as the GOP frontrunner, sowing panic in the ranks of the Republican Party. establishment.

Why did the media experts and political consultants fail so conspicuously in reading the political landscape in America? How was Donald Trump able to connect so effectively with a large part of the electorate? Can Trump win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and prevail in the general election? If Donald Trump is elected America’s 45th president, can he implement his agenda, and how effective a president would he be?

DONALD TRUMP 2016: America’s Next President? offers an objective look at the state of American presidential politics and Donald Trump the candidate. Sheldon Filger provides a fresh perspective on the Trump presidential campaign, avoiding the partisan stereotypes that typically dominate any discussion of Trump and the 2016 presidential election. The author presents the case that America is undergoing a radical revolution in political affairs, and the Trump phenomenon is an inseparable outcome stemming from the growing alienation and disaffection Americans harbor toward the nation’s political elites.

The presidential campaign of Trump has stumped the GOP establishment, with the ‪#Republican Party in near shock over the radical revolution occurring in American presidential politics. The slogans MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN ‪and  TRUMP TRAIN have overwhelmed traditional Republicans. So have Trump’s policy positions, including immigration, taxes, trade and the economy.

In his analysis of Donald Trump and the 2016 presidential election, Sheldon Filger provides the reader with an opportunity to view the real estate mogul’s ascent in political viability within a broader context of national malaise, and crisis within the body politic. DONALD TRUMP 2016:America’s Next President? not only explores the vices and virtues of the celebrity candidate running for president; the book is also an indictment of a political culture that across the land, but especially in Washington DC, has evolved into a dysfunctional failure.

DONALD TRUMP 2016: America’s Next President? is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/DONALD-TRUMP-2016-Americ…/…/B0156PAAVM

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Sheldon Filger's photo.

Trump Continues To Lead in GOP Presidential Race

October 17th, 2015 Comments off

The “Summer of Trump” is now the “Autumn of Trump.” Donald Trump continues to maintain his lead over all other challengers for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. The latest Reuters poll has the following data:

Trump  31%

Carson 21%

Bush  8%

Rubio 7%

Fiorina  5%

Paul  4%

Trump has been the frontrunner in the GOP presidential race since July. Despite many predictions  from pundits, Donald Trump not only has help onto his lead–he is very far ahead of his opposition, with only Ben Carson holding a double digit poll number. Jeb Bush, who was early on predicted to be the early frontrunner, has instead faded into the political sunset.

 

How Donald Trump shocked the political establishment & media in 2016 election-Amazon Kindle eBook-click: 

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Donald Trump, Presidential Politics and The Art of Disruptive Innovation

September 23rd, 2015 Comments off

In analyzing the unanticipated success of the Donald J. Trump For President campaign–at least in its early phases–I have found far more insight from a Harvard Business School professor than from any of the legion of established political commentators, consultants and journalists. Clayton Christensen, to the best of my knowledge, has never written specifically on American politics. However, the Harvard professor and management guru conceived of the concept of disruptive innovation. It strikes this writer that disruptive innovation is the most cogent explanation for the early and surprising success Donald Trump has generated in the early months of the 2016 presidential election.

In his description of disruptive innovation, Professor Clayton states that it is “a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market , eventually displacing established competitors.” Transferring this theory from the corporate business world to the realm of presidential politics, one can observe how effectively it is being applied by Trump. While the political and media establishment wrote off the Trump campaign in its nascent period as a public relations stunt not to be taken seriously, the Trump campaign organization laid the groundwork and messaging to capture a constituency that was largely ignored by the establishment contenders for the GOP presidential nomination. The development of a simple theme–“Make America Great Again”–was clearly intended to resonate with potential voters who felt alienated from traditional politics, and were receptive to a messenger, especially with a high-profile celebrity brand, who offered the promise of American restoration.

Perhaps the most disruptive element that Donald Trump introduced into the Republican presidential primary was his laser-beam focus on the alleged incompetence and “stupidity” of the political class. While traditionally Republican contenders for their party’s nomination based their campaign on attacking Washington D.C., suggesting they were somehow distinct from the political culture on Capitol Hill, Trump unleashed a “shock and awe” ( to use a Pentagon term) assault that targeted the entire political class, Republican and Democrat. In the face of the real estate mogul’s schadenfreude, the GOP’s perceived establishment frontrunners, in particular Jeb Bush, have been floundering. Their old standby sloganeering, such as railing against Washington, is proving to be both ineffective and irrelevant in the new presidential campaign dynamic that Trump and his campaign organization have facilitated through their successful adaptation of the techniques of disruptive innovation. It is as though Jeb Bush–and also Hillary Clinton–are offering American voters obsolete mainframe computers, while Trump is aggressively marketing smartphones

The history of the 2016 presidential election cycle is yet to written. There remains more than a year of campaigning, and much can still happen that is currently unanticipated. Yet, whatever transpires in November of 2016, Donald Trump has already had a transformative impact on presidential campaigning that will likely endure far beyond the next presidential election.

 

 

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DONALD TRUMP

September 21st, 2015 Comments off

My new book, DONALD TRUMP 2016, is available on Amazon.com as a Kindle eBook. Trump has emerged as the Republican frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race. A major component of the billionaire entrepreneur’s platform is revitalizing the American economy.

DONALD TRUMP 2016:America’s Next President? offers an objective look at the state of American presidential politics and Donald Trump the candidate. Sheldon Filger provides a fresh perspective on the Trump presidential campaign, avoiding the partisan stereotypes that typically dominate any discussion of Trump and the 2016 presidential election. The author presents the case that America is undergoing a radical revolution in political affairs, and the Trump phenomenon is an inseparable outcome stemming from the growing alienation and disaffection Americans harbor toward the nation’s political elites. information on

Information on DONALD TRUMP 2016:America’s Next President, available at the hollowing Internet address: (http://www.amazon.com/DONALD-TRUMP-2016-Americas-President-ebook/dp/B0156PAAVM/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

 

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