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With all of the impeachment hype going on, Americans may have forgotten that the “Witch Hunt” over President Trump’s tax returns is still ongoing, and that the Supreme Court only just issued a stay on a lower court ruling that had granted the House Oversight and Reform Committee access to the president’s financial records.

But with House Dems ready to get right back to their various investigations into the president, including his financial history, President Trump is apparently toying with the possibility of spoiling their whole game by releasing his financial statements (presumably including his tax returns) to the public some time between now, and the next election a year from now.

Bob Mueller, after spending two years and 45 million dollars, went over all of my financials, & my taxes, and found nothing. Now the Witch Hunt continues with local New York Democrat prosecutors going over every financial deal I have ever done. This has never happened to a…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2019

…..President before. What they are doing is not legal. But I’m clean, and when I release my financial statement (my decision) sometime prior to Election, it will only show one thing – that I am much richer than people even thought – And that is a good thing. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2019

Trump contends that Bob Mueller spent $45 million and two years on an investigation and didn’t manage to find anything – so what do the “local New York Democrat prosecutors” who have taken over an investigation into Trump’s finances think they’re going to find.

It’s actually unclear whether Mueller actually reviewed Trump’s financial records during his investigation, according to the Hill.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Trump has promised to release his financial records. Trump made a similar pledge in September to release “extremely complete” financial records following reports about Air Force personnel staying at his resort in Scotland, however, he never followed through.

But the Supreme Court can’t keep Congress off forever…the court’s stay will only hold until it makes a decision on whether to take up the president’s challenge and make its own ruling.

And while the NYT and other media orgs have persistently speculated that Trump doesn’t want to release his tax returns because it will expose him for being poorer than he has said, Trump insists that the opposite is true. He is “much richer” than people believe – and that’s a “good thing.”

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Since 9/11, the cost of Forever War totals $6.4 Trillion and 801,000 killed including 335,000 dead civilians. For What?

Neta C. Crawford, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Boston University and a co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University calculates the [Cost of 20 Years of War].

Summary of War-Related Spending

Changing the Names of the Wars to Hide the Total

One potential barrier for civilians to understanding the total scale and costs of the post-9/11 wars is the changes in the naming of the wars. The US military designates main war zones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria as named operations. The longest war so far, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has had two names: Operation Enduring Freedom, designated the first phase of war in Afghanistan from October 2001; it was designated Operation Freedom’s Sentinel on 1 January 2015. The war in Iraq was designated Operation Iraqi Freedom from March 2003 to 31 August 2010, when it became Operation New Dawn. When the US began to fight in Syria and Iraq, the war was designated Operation Inherent Resolve. For ease of understanding, the costs are not labeled here by their OCO designation, but by major war zone — namely Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Iraq and later Iraq and Syria.

Hiding Was as Emergency Funding

OCO spending is considered emergency spending. Emergency appropriations for the DOD are not subject to the same detailed Congressional oversight and limits as regular, or “base” budget non-emergency appropriations, for costs that endure whether or not the US is at war.

Shifting Expenses to Exceed the Budget

In FY 2019, the Trump Administration made the practice of shifting emergency OCO appropriations into the base budget overt when it introduced new ways of categorizing the Department of Defense spending related to the Overseas Contingency Operations. Some of the funding that was previously designated for specific military operations has now been moved into a category called “OCO for Enduring Theater Requirements and Related Missions” and another, “OCO for Base Requirements.”

These changes are specifically and explicitly intended to get around Congressionally imposed limits on the base defense budget. The Department of Defense FY2020 request explicitly stated as much: “These base budget requirements are funded in the OCO budget due to limits on budget defense caps enacted in the Budget Control Act of 2011.”

War Veterans Medical Care and Disability Compensation

In 2018, there were 4.1 million post-9/11 war veterans, comprising about 21 percent of all veterans and 16 percent of all veterans served by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The post-9/11 war veterans are, in general, less healthy than the veterans of previous wars. Advances in trauma and battlefield medicine, have meant that the veterans of these wars, also called Gulf War era II veterans, have survived to live with more serviceconnected disabilities than veterans of previous wars. These veterans, exposed to different field conditions and who often served multiple deployments, need more and different kinds of medical care than the veterans of previous wars and those costs will only rise.

How Many Died?

The American Conservative comments the Costs of Forever War: 335,000 Dead Civilians and $6.4 Trillion.

The amount of money spent on these wars cannot fully convey their sheer wastefulness. Wars are always expensive, and they usually end up being much more expensive than anyone anticipates at the beginning, but when those wars are unnecessary and useless it makes the exorbitant cost that much more sickening. The money and resources expended on almost twenty years of failed wars could have been put to any number of more productive uses. Instead, that vast sum has been poured down the drain. As it is, the U.S. has little or nothing to show for the massive malinvestment that it has made in fighting these wars. These wars have not made the U.S. more secure, they have created more enemies than they destroyed, and they have set fires in their respective regions that will take years to burn out. As staggering as the $6.4 trillion figure is, it doesn’t capture how ruinous these wars have been. The U.S. will continue to pay for these wars long after they are over in more ways than one.

A full reckoning of the costs of our wars has to include the hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, and the wreckage of multiple countries. These are the truly senseless losses that could have been avoided. The report details these costs as well:

The report, from Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, also finds that more than 801,000 people have died as a direct result of fighting. Of those, more than 335,000 have been civilians. Another 21 million people have been displaced due to violence.

The death and destruction that our wars inflict on the people living in these countries are rarely mentioned in our foreign policy debates, and these losses are almost never taken into consideration when thinking about the costs of these wars. That encourages U.S. politicians and policymakers to take a very cavalier approach to supporting the use of force in other parts of the world, and it allows them to escape accountability for the harm that these policies cause.

For the last twenty years, there has been no limit on what the U.S. would spend on foreign wars, and Congress and presidents of both parties have reliably thrown more money at the Pentagon to sustain these unwinnable wars. While there might be occasional griping about “waste, fraud, and abuse,” there has been no serious, consistent effort to rein in these wars or the military budget. There has been even less interest in grappling with the horrific human costs of our militarized foreign policy. That has to change, and it starts with demanding that the U.S. end its failed and open-ended wars abroad.

Drain the Swamp

Republicans argue for “Balanced Budgets” except of course when they hold the office of Presidency.

They refuse to fund the wars and military spending they demand.

Drain the Swamp my ass.

Anyone who expected Trump to “drain the swamp” was delusional.

If you disagree, please see “Peak Trump” by David Stockman: Book Review.

Art of Compromise

Compromise is nothing more than Republicans agreeing for more social spending as long as Democrats agree to more military spending.

Delusioned Democrats are just as bad if not much worse.

Please note AOC’s Green New Deal Pricetag of $51 to $93 Trillion vs. Cost of Doing Nothing.

There are no controls anywhere to stop the madness.

How Did this Happen?

The answer is easy.

In 1971, Nixon removed closed the gold window ending all deficit spending controls. This enabled Congress to spend at will, and nations in general to abandon all fiscal responsibility.

The result was a whopping $250 trillion in global debt.

I asked, $250 Trillion in Global Debt: How Can That Be Paid back?

The short answer is that it “won’t”. A currency crisis awaits, as noted in the above link.

Meanwhile, spending is more than a bit out of control, and will remain out of control until some sort of currency crisis settles the hash.

Just weeks after the UAW struck a deal with General Motors, ending one of the longest labor strikes in history, the union’s corrpution-ridden President, Gary Jones, is on his way out. 

Recall, it was only just yesterday that General Motors sued Fiat Chrysler, alleging that the auto manufacturer had engaged in bribery with top UAW officials in order to get better terms during labor negotiations.  

On Wednesday, the UAW took the first steps necessary to remove Jones and expel him from the union, according to CNN Business. Jones then promptly resigned, according to NPR. 

Jones had been on leave since the beginning of November as a result of on ongoing scandal involving misuse of union funds and bribery. 10 people have so far plead guilty to federal criminal charges surrounding the scandal – most of them are former union officials. 

Jones is not facing criminal charges, the report notes, and was identified as “UAW official A” in the indictment of another union official. Jones’ total annual compensation is $260,243. The next step for Jones would have been undergoing a union trial, which would have considered the charges against him. It’s unclear whether such a trial will take place now that Jones has resigned.  

UAW Acting President Rory Gamble said: “This is a somber day, but our UAW Constitution has provided the necessary tools to deal with these charges. We are committed at the UAW to take all necessary steps, including continuing to implement ethics reforms and greater financial controls, to prevent these type of charges from ever happening again.”

Some of the federal charges being lobbed against Jones include bribes paid to union officials by executives at Fiat Chrysler. 

In yesterday’s lawsuit against Fiat, General Motors alleges that Fiat corrupted collective bargaining agreements between GM and the UAW in 2009, 2011 and 2015 by paying million of dollars in bribes. 

“FCA was the clear sponsor of pervasive wrongdoing, paying millions of dollars in bribes to obtain benefits, concessions, and advantages in the negotiation, implementation, and administration of labor agreements over time,” General Motors said.

The statement continues: “FCA corrupted the implementation of the 2009 collective bargaining agreement. It also corrupted the negotiation, implementation, and administration of the 2011 and 2015 agreements. FCA’s manipulation of the collective bargaining process resulted in unfair labor costs and operational advantages, causing harm to GM.”

Recall, this summer, we reported that the FBI had raided the home of the UAW’s President as part of an ongoing corruption probe into the labor union.  

Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,

A leaked US intelligence report is making its rounds suggesting that Qatar knew ahead of time that Iran would attack four tankers in the Gulf of Oman in May, yet failed to notify its at-risk allies, Fox News recently reported.

The May attacks targeted two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, both near the critical oil chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, and both of which sustained “significant” damage according to an official Saudi statement at the time. Iran denied the attacks.

The other two vessels were a Norwegian tanker and a UAE bunkering ship.

The intelligence report, which has not been made public, has apparently made its way to at least one French Senator who said she was “very concerned” and a British lawmaker who said the contents of the report were “very alarming”. Both were sending the report up their respective chains for a closer look.

No one from inside the US intelligence community has officially acknowledged the report or its contents.

If Qatar did, in fact, know that Iran would attack the vessels and declined to warn its allies, there may be geopolitical repercussions for the tiny Middle Eastern country that finds itself sandwiched precariously between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — both of which have participated in a long-running blockade of Qatar.

Qatar has, in recent years, purchased a significant number of arms from France, and the United States’ Central Command station in Qatar and its 10,000-strong military presence in Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base is a nice security feature that Qatar boasts — for now.

But things can turn on a dime.

US President Trump has already flopped on Qatar, first calling it a “funder of terrorism at a very high level” and later saying that the ruling emir was “a friend of mine”.

Qatar has denied any prior knowledge of the attacks.

A day which has already had a near-record number of “trade deal on/trade deal off” twists and turns just got its latest reversal, when not long after Hong Kong’s SCMP boosted futures to session highs when it “reported” citing an unnamed source that the US would be willing to delay the Dec 15 tariffs even if there is no trade deal, warned – again – that the pro-Hong Kong Bill passed by Congress on Wednesday, i.e., the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, could become a major obstacle to a trade deal between the US and China, “with Beijing closely watching developments.”

While US President Donald Trump is not expected to veto the bill, which enjoys broad bipartisan support, even the symbolic aspects may carry an extra significance – with a high-profile signing ceremony likely to further anger the Chinese government.

“The Hong Kong issue has the potential to influence the process of the trade talks. China will have to respond … if Trump signs it into law,” said one person who is familiar with the trade talks.

Quoting unnamed (of course) sources again, the SCMP also said said that in a worst-case scenario, China was willing to “fight and talk alternatively”.

A separate but similar report run by China’s Xinhua News Agency warned that legislation passed by Congress on Hong Kong is a “fiasco of interfering with other nations’ internal affairs” and is a U.S. miscalculation is due to fail.

The report went on to say that ensuring “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong for the city’s prosperity and stability is in the common interest of international community.

It then cautioned that “US politicians’ acts to harm Hong Kong’s position of international center of finance, shipping and trade via legislation will also undermine other nations’ interests, including the U.S.” This too was a clear warning that China may scuttle the trade deal if the Bill is passed.

In short, nothing really new here – all of this has already been noted by China – but the algos of course are very eager to pretend some new piece of market-moving information just hit. As a result, two hours after hitting session highs, S&P futures were back to the lows, and below 3,100 once again.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

What’s been normalized are policies and cultural norms that seek to enrich and protect the few at the expense of the many.

When the initially extraordinary fades into the unremarkable background of everyday life, we say it’s been normalized. Put another way, we quickly habituate to new conditions, and rationalize our ready acceptance of what was previously unacceptable.

Technology offers many examples of extraordinary advances quickly becoming normalized as we habituate to new devices and behaviors, but my focus today is on policies and cultural norms that were radical departures from accepted norms at their introduction but which are now accepted as “normal.”

This normalization of extreme policies conceals the often equally extreme unintended consequences of the new policies and norms.

Let’s start with two examples which have unleashed unintended consequences that have completely distorted markets: allowing pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to “consumers” and allowing corporations to buy back their own shares. Each of these activities had been banned for self-evident reasons, yet were allowed in the neoliberal rush to deregulate industries without regard for the long-term consequences.

Now Big Pharma dominates advertising in late-night TV and various print publications, directing “consumers” to “ask their doctor about”…. The ads all feature a comical parody of disclosure, with a fast-talking voice talent listing all the horrific side-effects as quickly as possible in the hopes “consumers” won’t hear the real-world consequences of the oh-so-pricey med being promoted.

I’ve long mocked this Big Pharma profiteering via my parody ads for imaginary meds such as Delusionol:

Meanwhile, enabling corporations to buy their own stocks has incentivized borrowing billions to buy back shares, boosting the earnings per share even as sales and profits stagnated. This trick pushed shares prices higher, enriching managers and major owners.

Rather than invest in risky new products, corporate managers have enriched themselves by blowing billions on stock buybacks, distorting valuations while creating fabulous wealth for themselves and major shareholders while crippling the company with debt. (For an example, consider GE.)

More recently, central banks’ ceaseless interventions to prop up market valuations have been normalized to the degree that what was once unimaginable– central bank balance sheets in the trillions of dollars and outright purchases of trillions of dollars in mortgages, bonds and stocks–is now accepted as “normal.”

This flood of currency and credit has enriched private banks, financiers, super-wealthy families and corporations, vastly widening the wealth-income gap between the top 0.1% and the bottom 99.9% (see chart below).

The Federal Reserve’s policy of giving trillions in low-cost credit to the super-wealthy in the absurd hope some tiny rivulets would trickle down to the bottom 99% has been revealed as the greatest engine of wealth-income inequality in modern history.

Unintended or not, this consequence cannot be “fixed” by issuing even more trillions to the financial Oligarchy. Rather, the Fed’s favorite “fix” only makes the inequality more politically explosive.

Then there’s the normalization of government-issued statistics that purposefully misrepresent reality for political purposes, with Exhibit #1 being the completely fabricated Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate, which has been a laughable 2% or less for a decade while big-ticket expenses such as rent, healthcare, childcare and college tuition have registered in double-digit increases year after year.

An accurate admission of real-world inflation for the unprotected class would be political dynamite, so the corporate media plays along, announcing the Soviet-Propaganda like phony inflation numbers with a straight face.

The resulting loss of trust in government and institutions is eating away at the social contract and social order, with potentially disastrous consequences. There is no alternative (TINA) until the entire flim-flam collapses and takes the social order with it.

Guilty until proven innocent is another recent development. Completely fabricated charges are heavily promoted in the corporate media, based on outright lies, second-hand innuendo, unsubstantiated claims and carefully constructed narratives supported by thin tissues of cherry-picked tidbits.

A wide spectrum of alternative-media sites, progressive and conservative, have been gutted by just such guilty until proven innocent charges which are then instantiated in the platform monopolies of Twitter, Facebook and Google without any evidence or any avenue of redress / recourse.

That this is extra-legal suppression of free speech–who cares? The suppression of free speech that is politically inconvenient has now been normalized, hidden behind the faceless corporate monopolies of Twitter, Facebook and Google and the corporate media that insists non-approved websites are by definition fake news, an Orwellian reversal of their own role as Elitist purveyors of officially sanctioned fake news such as the bogus inflation rate, the bogus employment rate, and so on.

Put this in your pipe and smoke it: wealth and income inequality is driving social and political disorder on a global scale as the politically and socially disenfranchised are driven to extremes by extremely repressive policies that have been normalized, even as their unintended consequences stripmine the bottom 90% and fracture the social order.

What’s been normalized are policies and cultural norms that seek to enrich and protect the few at the expense of the many. Unfortunately for the few, the unintended consequences are bringing down the entire status quo they depend on for their wealth and power.

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My recent books:

Will You Be Richer or Poorer? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World (Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

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If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

It seems the impeachment circus is having some affect on Republicans’ attitudes as, according to Bloomberg’s consumer comfort survey, while Democrats saw a small increase in confidence, Republicans plunged to their least confident since May 2018…

Source: Bloomberg

All three of the major pillars rebounded modestly in the last week…

Source: Bloomberg

But Renters appear to be extremely frustrated all of a sudden…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, it appears record-er and record-er highs in the US stock markets is doing nothing to rescue Americans’ views of their personal financial outlook…

Source: Bloomberg

But, but, but… the consumer is strong!