Monday 21st of September 2026
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great-fuque-crap trumponomicals: time to worry.....

 

When some of the nation’s best informed business and financial players start describing the current economic outlook as “GFC-like”, it’s time to worry.

For weeks, the concern about the confluence of higher interest rates on government debt, the AI building boom, inflation and the Trump administration’s loose grip on economic reality has been building.

 

Alarms flashing red as Trump takes US debt to level almost beyond comprehension

BY Shane Wright (SMH)

 

As one analyst I spoke to recently put it, that concern is now flashing red.

And the person at the centre of this – Donald Trump – either doesn’t care or understand what he’s doing.

The heart of the problem is the sheer level of debt being created by the US government.

The numbers are almost beyond comprehension.

On track for a budget deficit of $US2 trillion this year ($2.8 trillion, about 6 per cent of GDP), government gross debt sailed through $US40 trillion last month. Experts believe it will clock $US41 trillion later this year.

The interest bill on that debt is rapidly climbing and is now $US1.25 trillion a year. That’s more than $US3 billion a day.

One of the reasons the interest bill is growing is that the interest rate on all that debt is soaring. Between the end of February – the day before Trump’s missiles started flying into Iran – and today, the interest rate on US government debt has soared by more than 20 per cent.

America’s not alone. Interest rates on government debt have jumped everywhere. By about 40 per cent in Japan, 26 per cent in Germany, 21 per cent in Britain. Australia has fared relatively well with a 12 per cent increase, but it is still adding to the burden facing the nation’s present and future taxpayers.

Now, these higher rates are reflecting several issues.

Big tech companies are undertaking the largest build of new infrastructure since the rollout of railways and canals. That means they are asking investors – the same ones who would buy government debt – to sling them upwards of $US1 trillion.

To win over an investor, interest rates go up.

Investors also need higher interest rates to cover the cost of inflation. In the US, the frontline defence against inflation is the Federal Reserve which would ordinarily be lifting its own interest rates to slow the economy.

But everyone is now worried the Fed under new chairman Kevin Warsh, recently appointed by Trump, is reluctant to lift borrowing costs because it might upset the president.

Warsh might be right.

After stronger-than-expected American job figures were released last week, Trump took to Truth Social to warn that if the Fed doesn’t cut interest rates, he will “STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT”.

Here was the president threatening economic self-harm on a scale so large it would drive the world into a recession if not depression. It was ludicrous even by Trump standards.

It acted like a feedback loop into the pricing of American government debt. Investors want confidence that they will be repaid for sinking their cash into the US.

The US Treasury market has been for decades considered the safest of all investments. As one seasoned US observer told me this week, investors don’t trust Trump’s America to pay its bills.

We’re seeing the decline in faith in real time.

Last week, Norway’s huge sovereign wealth fund revealed plans to cut by 40 per cent its holdings of American government debt. The Netherlands’ central bank announced it was moving tonnes of gold out of the US (and Canada).

Adding to the turmoil, American tariffs on Canadian imports ramped up last week while the oil price nudged $US100 a barrel over growing concerns about how the now seven-month old war against Iran is progressing.

The president’s social media performance at the weekend gave no confidence his focus is on the troubles he has helped create.

He released a map of New Mexico but with Mexico crossed out and replaced with America (to go with his changes to Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico).

Not satisfied with renaming a US state, Trump looked to the stars.

He put on his social media feed an image of the moon, an American flag and the words “The Moon Is Ours”. He also released renderings of versions of uniforms for the US Space Force.

As one critic noted, if George Lucas of Star Wars fame had been asked to clothe members of the Empire in these uniforms he would have baulked because they were too Nazi-looking.

It’s almost as if Trump has no interest or understanding of the path of economic disaster he has set the US upon.

There had been hope that Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, would act as a check on the president’s worst impulses.

He hatched a “3-3-3” plan of 3 per cent economic growth, a 3 per cent budget deficit to GDP rate and a 3 million barrel a day increase in domestic oil production. He hasn’t reached any of his self-set targets.

Rather than come up with new ideas to deal with the huge budget deficits being run-up by his boss, Bessent is borrowing from the Trump playbook by resorting to abuse.

Last week, he ranted at both the Financial Times and Wall St Journal for their coverage of America’s debt issue.

He labelled the FT – a paragon of economic centralism – as “anti-American”, “anti-business” and “anti-Western values”. The Journal, he declared, was no longer a business paper. Instead, he only read it for the book reviews.

Like populists everywhere, including here in Australia, facts or reasoned arguments are just speed humps on the way to power. But there are real, tangible repercussions from ineptitude, ignorance or vindictiveness.

The GFC – the biggest economic dislocation since the Great Depression – was a credit crisis amplified by a collapse in faith in the American property market.

If investors continue to lose trust in the American government debt market, it will be American taxpayers and businesses paying the initial price – and then the rest of us.

Shane Wright is a senior economics correspondent.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/alarms-flashing-red-as-trump-takes-us-debt-to-level-almost-beyond-comprehension-20260909-p60vqm.html

 

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

 

 

rust.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDZ_gaUQab4

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

 

buying voters.....

 

US President Donald Trump has promised a $5,000 “dividend” to every adult American if Republicans retain control of both houses of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

Speaking at the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday, Trump argued that the US economy and revenues generated by his tariff policies would allow Washington to make direct payments to citizens.

“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

“The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we’re making must be spent in the United States of America,” he ⁠added.

https://www.rt.com/news/645368-trump-republican-convention-speech/

 

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PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

giant stash.....

With the midterm races officially beginning this week, a big question hanging over the Republican Party is how Trump will allocate his giant stash of super PAC money. As of July 31, MAGA Inc. had more than $400 million on hand, larger than the cash reserves of any of the major party committees.

But he’s barely spent any of it yet. Why not?

Is he waiting to see where his stash can do the most good for Republicans during the peak campaign season?

I doubt it. He’s already missed the chance to lock in airtime at lower advance rates and define candidates before attitudes harden.

Is he using the stash as a means of silencing criticism in the Republican ranks or holding back support until a candidate lavishes praise on him?

Also doubtful. Republican candidates who believe they need to criticize his war or his economic policies to stay viable won’t restrain themselves because of his possible campaign cash.

Maybe he’s conserving the money to discipline Republican candidates in the 2028 primaries and general election, when he’ll use the stash to penalize disloyalty and reward loyalty?

Possibly, but he’s already practically a lame duck.

Is he conserving the cash to pass it on to his chosen presidential successor — Vance or Rubio or a third selection as yet unknown?

Probably not. That’s a long way off.

None of these theories holds water because they don’t figure in Trump’s towering malignant narcissism.

I think he’ll be putting the money behind his favorite politician — the person he most admires, who represents everything he believes in, who he considers the single most important and talented living person in the entire flaming firmament of the known universe.

Himself.

He’s going to use his campaign cash to make himself look good, or at least far better than he looks now. Multiple public and private polls show Trump’s approval rating now mired in the mid-30 percent range — at or near historic lows for a president facing a midterm election.

So he’ll launch a campaign to regain the adulation he’s lost, to recast himself as the hero he believes he is, to reclaim the mantle of savior to which he thinks he’s entitled.

In other words, it will be a campaign to promote, glorify, and exalt Donald J. Trump.

The nonprofit arm of Trump’s political operation, Securing American Greatness, has already spent about $1 million on its first midterm ads set to air nationwide, featuring video clips of Trump talking about tax breaks in his domestic spending legislation and lower prices for eggs and prescription drugs.

In early August, according to The Atlantic, Trump told advisers they should follow the same strategy as the Democrats — making the election all about him.

But as Karl Rove, who was senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for George W. Bush, notes in The Wall Street Journal, given how unpopular Trump is, making the election even more about him only helps the Democrats.

Trump also plans to travel all over the country to hold rallies like he did during his presidential elections. Fox News’s senior White House correspondent, Peter Doocy, reports hearing “whispers of a ton of Trump travel in October, possibly as much as a Trump rally a day” in competitive states and districts.

It begins this week when Trump hosts an unprecedented midterm party convention in Dallas, centering on his accomplishments. From there, he’ll head all over America, campaigning like mad — for himself.

Rove warns: “Trump is never disciplined. He’ll have no script, saying whatever comes to mind. His crazy comments will dominate the news, locally and nationally. Republican candidates will constantly have to fend off questions about whether they agree with his latest insult or half-baked idea. The narrative won’t be on anything positive about them or the GOP.”

Presumably this is why some battleground Republicans told Trump’s staff that they’d prefer he not visit their districts ahead of November, according to Republican operatives involved in the conversations, as reported by Politico.Meanwhile, Republican pollsters have told candidates in tight races to limit their references to him.

Rove and other Republican functionaries are urging Trump to “act more presidential” by using his vast super PAC funds to support Republican candidates rather than finance a campaign about himself.

But they’re yelling into the wind of Trump’s ballroom-sized ego.

Such is Trump’s epic narcissism that he’ll dedicate the next two months to promoting himself rather than Republican candidates. Then he’ll treat a Republican defeat on November 3 not as a repudiation but as a compliment — saying they lost because he wasn’t on the ticket.

As almost everyone in the world knows by now, Trump cares only about himself. That’s been his MO forever.

Bad news for Republicans in the midterms, good news for Democrats, a continuing catastrophe for America.

https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/08/trumps-favorite-midterm-candidate/

 

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PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….