Global Capitalism: What Trump 2.0 Means https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u4A0D_Wc9c
Democracy At Work
Google transate: (under edit ) what the uh election and the new government coming in on Monday what it's going to be doing and why it's doing doing it and what we can expect and
so I want to begin by telling you that partly what I'm going to say is going to upset you and so I want you to remember that I'm just the messenger I didn't make these things happen but
I do want to honestly tell you if you would like a much more comfortable version of this then just turn on your television or radio whenever you have a free moment on the toilet and and you can hear the make-belief .
because we live now in a weird time, weirder and in different ways from what we were used to uh
this country is as Dr Leon Ias he pointed out we live in a in a time of Decline and then when an Empire declines which is something we hadn't gone through because Empires don't decline very often so but
let me tell you from the history books a little bit we can tell, it's not fun to be in a declining Empire -- much more fun when the Empire is going up which was the last century or a century and a half of this country the
ride up
we are now on the ride down we haven't been prepared because we have leaders who can not say a word about that
I want to just drive that home because the split in this country is really about that so l
et me start with the split in the obvious way this Monday we are having a national celebration of
two key events one that you hear about every day all day the inauguration of a
new president it's also the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther
King same day wow how different one celebration
from the other who's celebrating what you might say and you wouldn't be
far wrong that those celebrating Mr Trump are probably also celebrating the
assassination of Mr King and those that are mourning one are likely also
mourning the other one of those two events but it's a country split between those
on the one side of that and those on the other and that split is everywhere now
and if you haven't noticed it yet you will because it's going to impact your life in all kinds of
ways so one of them one of them to start is a little bit about what a
declining Empire means just to give you the context the United States lost the war
in Vietnam when I say that in my classes my students look at me they' never heard such a
thought America as they know from the comic books they read as children only
wins Wars it doesn't lose Wars but we lost the war was fought against the
Communist Party of North Vietnam which has been running that country since the
United States was driven out in 1975 go check all of this you will find I'm not
making it up after we lost the war in Vietnam we
went and had a big war in Afghanistan which we also lost that war was against
the Taliban which now runs that country which a good sign that you
lost we lost the war in Iraq we are in the process of losing the
war in Ukraine but the split in the country is if if I were in certain
audiences I wouldn't dare say what I just said cuz they couldn't hear it they could not hear it and I wouldn't be able
to get anything else across so I couldn't start that way I'm a teacher I'm not going to try to lose my audience
before I begin but it is the reality let me give you a couple of more
just bits of getting what decline means last week something happened on the part of a
country called Indonesia I don't know if you're familiar with it it's a remarkable
country in Asia made up of 18,000 islands in the
Pacific it's a huge country the population of Indonesia is
280 million people makes it one of the largest countries in the world let me remind you the population
of United States is 330 million 280 isn't that far less than
330 it's an enormous thing what they did they joined the
bricks they joined a full partner of the bricks Bricks by the way means it's the
first letters of the countries Brazil Russia India China and South Africa a
dozen years ago they began to form an alliance of what came to be called the
global South to be independent relatively from
the domination of the United States and the core economy there the biggest one
the most powerful is I'm sorry to tell you this I know it'll come as an upset
the People's Republic of China remember I'm the messenger I didn't I have no
responsibility for this at all China and the
bricks you uh Indonesia joined them together now the
Bricks Built around China have as the population of the countries that are
part of the bricks about 22 countries now all together they have about 55 to
60% of the population of the world are members
what is the percentage of the world's population of the United States 4 and a
half% you understand we are 4 and a half% they are 50 to
60% uh in the words of you know Mickey Mouse
uhoh those odds are not so good no matter how you cut it and as a group let
me tell you how you cut it we in economics have this little game we ask
what is the total output in goods and services in a year of a country gives us
a kind of rough idea of how big a country it is how important its
footprint is in the world okay so if you take the
bricks together now they are about 35% maybe maybe a bit more total output
of the world if you add up each of those countries total output in a year and you add them up they account for
36% more or less of the world's output now let's compare that to the United
States and its major allies those are called the G7 The Group of Seven United
States Japan Canada Britain France Italy and Spain and Britain excuse
me okay that used to be the dominant player of the world that used to be what
World Trade meant what they did together they that's all of them now
account for about 28% of the world's output do you understand the bricks is
now what the United States was but is no
more now now if you're looking to where the wealth is you go east not
West you if you're a poor third world country as we used to call them and you
need money for a build railroad or you need to find places to sell your exports
you direct your diplomats first to go to Beijing because that's where it's
at if you can't get a good deal there well you might go to London or
Washington but but whatever you are doing you going to play them against each other you're going to say to the
Americans oh that that's the best you offer let's go the other place see what
they offer you want to know why most of the railroads being built in Africa today are being built by the Chinese
there's your answer they got a better deal everything is changing because of
this except here where the make believe is the way this country is dealing with
this denial you know we ought to ask Dr fra to help us with the understanding
psychologically we all know it from our personal lives right when we've lost a friend or a lover and we had to wait
until all our friends told us what we couldn't face ourselves well we are the friends in
this country who are being unable to V that's why what Indonesia did last week
is something I'm not going to ask how many of you noticed it because nobody will raise their
ha how could you make believe made sure that that was not on the newspapers
front page or in most newspapers on any page ever how many of you know that the
the Chinese are now the fast growing dominant economy in the world we're not
we haven't been for a while every major high-tech firm in this country has an
analog sorry has an analog in China when we heard earlier that there
was a an offer by China and by Russia to work with the United States earlier which the United States turned down
that's part of denial they didn't just turn it down then they turned it down
now one more example and then I'll stop and tell you what this all means
15 years ago every automobile company in this on this planet went to work trying
to develop what they understood was the next wave in that business which was
putting aside the gasoline powered car and substituting an electric operated
car or truck by the way not a rational response
because it's ter terribly wasteful to have that vehicle which those of you who haven't notice sits on the street or in
the garage most of its life that's kind of let's use a
fundamental word stupid it's stupid it's a waste of
resources that car could serve 20 people each day if it were managed
properly what do I mean managed properly well like a car rental business that's how they would manage that or those
bicycles we can now just take off the rack and put back on that's a rational
way if you want to avoid killing people which private cars do if you want to a
avoid air pollution cars are the major po cause of it and on and on rational
would be to go from the private car to a mass transit efficient system a
beautiful train every 5 minutes a beautiful bus even more beautiful every
3 minutes everywhere that's it infinitely cheaper much more
efficient and none of you have to worry about it because wherever it's parked in the central Lots which we call car
rental centers there would be paid mechanics who make sure they're in proper condition so the car would be in
better shape better cared for it the whole thing is nuts and who is the person who invented
this crazy bad solution to the fuel burning
car that genius who did this terrible thing Elon
Musk that's what he did he found the way that automobile companies could make a
profit by taking us out of gas cars into electric cars so 15 years ago all the
electric all the car companies said hooray here's how we hold on to our profits by making these private cars for
everybody and they all went to work to compete and there was a winner as of
three years ago one company figured out how to make the best
quality electric cars and trucks at the lowest price which is what competition
is supposed to result and I'm sure you all know the name of this company it's the byd corporation let me
do that again b as in boy Y is in yellow D is in dog byd now your fa is give you
away you never heard of this place or this thing what is it well what did I just tell you they
won the competition for the entire new wave of cars and trucks moving across
this planet every day by the millions and you never heard of them why because
they move everywhere where except here if you go to Europe right now
you'll see them all over the roads byd and by the way other there's several Chinese car companies they're not the
only one they're just the ones who did it best why don't you see them because we have a
tariff started by Mr Trump raised by Mr
Biden the Tariff on the Chinese electric vehicles is 100% so let me explain
quickly what that means the Chinese produce this wonderful thing this
electric vehicle and let's take a simple number $330,000 is what they cost for
the car you're an American you need therefore to come up with $30,000 if for example you're a company
that uses electric trucks to do part of your business it's an input you'd have
to come up with $30,000 to get the truck and then you'd
have to pay 100% another 30,000 will going to Uncle Sam Uncle Sam who put the
Tariff tariff is just a word for a tax it's a word for a tax on an
imported good or service something that produced out of the country but brought in here for sale that's what an import
is and tariff is the name of the tax you put on
Imports we have been putting taxes on Imports as a nation from the beginning although throughout
the history the come nothing new about it but it's 100% which means an American
would have to buy that truck by giving China 30 grand for the truck and Uncle
Sam another 30 grand and so with 60 Grand you get the truck but of course no one does that why
because Ford and General Motors and Tesla will sell you an electric car a
truck for a mere 40 Grand or 50 Grand or something like
that so who's helped by this Ford and General Motors they
wouldn't be able to sell their crappy cars otherwise we would none of us buy A40 or
$50,000 electric car if we're going to do that and
give byd 30,000 for a better car rather than 40 or 50,000 into General Motors
however patriotic we might feel and you know who knows it Ford and
General Motors so they went to the president they said put that tariff
there it'll protect us of course they didn't say our
profits which is the truth it'll protect jobs whenever you hear a capitalist tell
you about what they're doing to protect jobs hold on to your wallet
someone's reaching why is it false because this is a terrible act for
most American Producers think of yourself as a maker of shirts or of chairs or of software
programs you would like to buy the trucks you need to bring in your inputs to to sell and distribute your outputs
you're going to have to buy electric trucks you'd like to buy the best one at
the lowest price of course you're competing with Enterprises in France and
in Germany and in Brazil and in Nigeria and fill in the blank they're all buying
by cars at 30 grand you have to pay 40 or 50 to General Motors you know what
that means they're going to defeat you economically you going to be
loser and when you lose you're going to lay off your workers because you can't compete with
the companies that can buy the biggest the best and the cheapest electric vehicle now multiply this by dozens of
other Commodities China is winning we are
losing don't tell anyone because you live in a country
country which is pretending to itself that none of this is going
on it's either never discussed or we turn it around and we say the Chinese
are becoming aggressive in the world huh they're doing what exactly we did you
know how United States became a big powerful country by doing to Europe what the chines are doing to us it's not new
it's not different the only question is why would it be
surprising what a what a strange behavior is going on
here now where is this taking us and I I have a few things and that's all I really want to tell
you Mr Trump is a problem you've probably already noticed that one of the
ways he's a problem is that he has come this far as a politician he had a
different life before it's known as a Playboy so he went from a New York
Playboy to a national politician maybe even an international politician and he
did it in one basic way he understood maybe it's not clear
he understood that America was in such trouble that the mass of people here
were remarkably alienated from the conventional
Republican and Democratic parties they didn't feel those parties were doing much for them which is true
that those parties weren't protecting them from a decline they couldn't quite pinpoint but they
felt particularly over the last 30 years their budgets were
squeezed you might have noticed that 40 years ago the level of household debt in
this country was small nowadays everybody is loaded with
debt I can add if you're interested that corporate debt is at a higher level than it's ever been in our country and
government debt in other words we are a country in debt on a scale we didn't imagine 10 years ago let alone think we
would have now there's a name for companies that have been for several years so deeply in
debt that they don't make enough profit ready to service their debt that is to
pay the interest and the portion they have to repay now we have a special name in economics for them I kid you not I
didn't make this up zombie corporations because they're dead they're
economically defunct you know how they manage to survive when their profits
aren't enough to cover their debts they take on more debt to pay the debt they
couldn't otherwise cover uh-oh that makes them more zombie is next year than
they were this year which is what's happening you might wonder who lends
money to all these indebted people businesses and
government well let me start with the government because if you thought the world was crazy before way do you get
this the two biggest creditors of the United States government are Japan and
China Japan Number One China number two few years ago it was the other way China
was number one Japan was number two United States is the biggest deor
country in the world by countries the second biggest creditor of
the United States is the biggest debtor is the People's Republic of
China do you understand the United States owes China
$850 billion roughly it has to pay interest of course
on that debt like it has to pay on others which means I'm here to tell you
that a portion of the taxes every one of you in this room pays when you buy a bottle of beer or
you smoke a cigarette or you pay your your taxes a portion of that money you
should be very pleased is collected by the United United States government not
used for houses or medical care or student loans but shipped to China as
interest on the debt to enable them to build their military capacity to fight
the United States hello I didn't make this
up on the other hand think of it this way these kinds of loans from Japan from
China and a the United States government to spend all the money Dr Leon told us
about in Ukraine without having to tax us because you know what would bring the war in
Ukraine to an end in about 10 maybe 11 seconds if Americans had to pay for it
but we don't the Chinese and the Russian and China by the way supports Russia against
Ukraine but lends government money to the United States which pays for the
ukrainians whoa you think you ought to pay respect
to a system working like this think we are we are in a completely
different world than we once were the Empire is
declining we are not strong we are weak we don't produce the bulk of the
world's output we don't control the bulk of the World's
Trade the US dollar which in 1950s 60s 7s was the Global Currency dominating
all others isn't anymore central banks around the country
which used to hold dollars as backing for their own currencies in their own countries
because the dollar was as good as gold it isn't anymore so the dollar from
being 70 80% of the reserves held by central banks is now about
40% still important we're still in a big industrial power but nothing like we
were now Mr Trump understood that in this changing
World Americans were being squeezed and he was right about that and
you should understand that we're still in that situation and Mr Trump is President because of it here's how it
works every Empire as it goes
down has the following procedure of handling it the people at the top the
rich and the powerful respond to the decline by saying oh this is terrible
but not for me the top always offloads the difficulties
and burdens of a decline onto those people less powerful and less Rich than
themselves the emperor in Rome didn't suffer the way the average people did
the emperor in Persia or the emperor in Greece it doesn't matter all the empires show the same phenomena those at the top
hold on work hard harder than they used to to hold on because they know damn well it's going
down and who can't do that or the people who don't have much power and the people who don't have much
wealth and so the working class has to be one way or another squeezed as you go
down and we you me we're all being
squeezed and in our naive we turn to the Republican and Democratic already
protect us they can't oh they'll tell you whatever you
want to hear you know that we live in that but they can't do
anything because the only real thing to do would be to say honestly to the
people our Empire is going down it's going to be a hard thing and maybe we
all ought to get together to try to get through this difficulty together oh that would be an interesting idea would have
a name like I don't know socialism that would be rational but we
don't live rational how do you squeeze the mass of people a lot of ways it's a
little bit like that famous poem you know how do I lovely let me count the ways how am I going to screw to working
class let me count the ways so for 40 or 50 years we make sure that unions can't
function they can't do what they were invented to do help the workers get a better deal not going to get that we're
going to demonize unions we're going to make every Union look like it's you know that movie on the waterfront a bunch of
crooks that are grabbing your your du every week etc etc you've been you've
been living your life in that kind of an environment it's changed the last few years as working people begin to get it
and they are that's part of what this meeting is a sign of
beginning the Starbucks workers are beginning and the Amazon workers are beginning the labor movement is kind of
coming back to life but it's coming late in the process
of squeezing the working class here's another way you squeeze the
work in class you have this thing which you say is some kind of mystery it's called an
inflation so what an inflation sounds like something you do to a
balloon what what is it inflation in economics just means prices are going up
but now let's be a little bit more careful if you know anything about the inflation of the last few years here's a
little statistic the inflation has gone up faster than average wages and
salaries of people okay now I'm going do this very difficult arithmetic if the
money you have to spend your wages and salaries are not going up as fast as the
prices they're going to be things you can't afford anymore you
know really special expensive things like
eggs right what but will someone honestly tell you that the inflation is
a way of squeezing The Works not you look long and hard you won't get it the
inflation in eggs is doe to bird flu huh
what what look I'm talking to people I'm not going to be mean but half of you
believe that and the other half of you think it might be
true here's what an inflation is it's a decision made by some people to jack up
the price you have to pay for the things they can control the prices of who sets
prices in a capitalist economy answer the employer those of you who have had jobs
all your life as workers do you ever recall being called into an office to add your opinion as to what the price
should be of what you help to produce never happen the United States sens census
tells us 3% of Americans are employers welcome to the other
97% that's you and me the employer set the prices we pay them when they jack up
the price that's because they want to give us fewer of whatever it is they
make for the money we have to give them it's a way of screwing the working
class and that's how it's been used in the last few years and all these
economics professors including many of mine and people I know sit around
debating how are we going to control the inflation
is what is it how does it happen I sit there I'm one of their
students and I really want I want to run up there and you know hit them over the head with a
pingpong paddle what are you doing what is this noise coming out of your your
mouth and then their decision which really at this point I hope I'm getting
to you you're getting up upset their decision is we're going to deal with it by raising interest
rates oh wow this is wonderful who gets screwed when you
raise an interest rate in case you're not rich yourself I'm going to tell you
it's not rich people then don't get a flying whether the interest rate is 2%
6% they're rich that's what it means to be rich you don't care but you have to
care because it's going to mean that that little bit of money at the end of the month that you have to pay on your credit card going to be bigger than it
was before and everything works like that
the rich don't care you know what that's like it's like I'm going to stick it to
you now for a moment conest question pricing oh good we have a problem in New
York with traffic this should come as hot news it's it's only been true for a century and we're going to finally do
something oh really yeah what we're going to tax everybody the
same what the same a rich person who will not give a damn and the poor person
for whom this adds up as a extra Buck or two every time you do something if if you have to come in and out of Manhattan
etc etc only an American politician who's
just seen what inflation has done to people would come up with that
solution and by the way raising interest rates because I can see it perked some
of your interest is that the only way to deal with an inflation of of course
not why did you ever think it answer because that's what you were fed all the time in all the media the last time the
United States had an inflation as bad as the one a couple years ago right was back in the late 70s and
80s we had funded the war in Vietnam by printing a lot of money because
otherwise the people would have revolted against it if you'd said to everybody we're having a war in Vietnam is going
to cost every family a couple th a year wh end of War so we borrowed we printed money and
borrowed and then we had the terrible inflation and then a Conservative
Republican president Richard Nixon went on the television August 15
1971 and said I'm going to do something about
this terrible inflation oh good there was tremendous suffering in
the country and a lot of pressure and put that together with the problems with the war he had to do
something so he declared a wage price freeze that day 15th of
August as of tomorrow morning he said this Conservative Republican president
who became president by becoming the champion of anti-communism
as of tomorrow morning he said any business that raises its prices we will
come for you we will arrest you and you go to jail guess what the next morning
inflation vanished amazing are are you surprised shouldn't
be is this a story about how you control an inflation yeah did it work yeah did
it happen in the United States yeah do you know about it no no and the and the people at the
Federal Reserve who decide interest rates they made sure not to ask about it
not to talk about it not to debate it let me give you another example because
I think that perk some of your interest in in the early 1940s the
United States decided to enter and fight World War II and the economists who by the way
included a significant number of marxists and socialists cuz in the 1940s
they would be hired by President Roosevelt at the time be because they were considered the most reliable
anti-nazis anti-fascists so people like Galbraith whose name you may know Paul Sweezy
Harry magdor people very important people on the left of American economics were working in Washington and they went
to Roosevelt and they said okay you got a problem you're about to fight a war you're going to move all these resources
fact iies railroads to work on a war to supply the army supply the Navy and
fight a war and those resources are therefore not going to be available to produce food clothing shelter consumer
goods so we're going to have a shortage of consumer goods since we're using these resources a large number of them
to fight a war and here's the problem with that president if there's a
shortage of goods for the mass of people who presumably will still want to buy
Underpants and shoes and coasters and all the other things of life with a
shortage we got a problem and then the president said well what's our problem he said the market system the president
was confused I said I thought we were supposed to be for that yeah but we can't afford it in a war why not they
had to explain to him just like I'm doing now with you if there's a sudden
shortage then there won't be enough toasters or ice cream cones or fill in
the blank and you know what happens in a market economy when there's scarcity of
goods the people with the money offer more you'll come with your dollar to the
ice cream vendor in the park and you got your two little kids with you and you want to buy them an ice cream cone and
you hand him two bucks for the two cones and he looks at you and says I only got
four cones left and before you can respond the person next to you who you
can tell by his outfit is much better healed than you are says I'll offer you
$5 for each cone guess who gets the cones if you have a shortage a market
system is a system that allocates whatever is scarce to the people with
the most money those of you who think of yourself
as moral or ethical ought to think about why you support a market system that
does what I just said really that's what you want you want to live in an economy that
distributes whatever is scarce to people with the most money you know what that
means it means that the little bit of milk will be purchased at a high price
by the nice rich couple who gives it to their cat but it will not be affordable to the
poor couple who needs it for their children how the market Works
Jack you're supposed to love the market you're supposed to believe it's efficient it never
was that is that kind of argument is what we in Academia call
but it Works Mr Trump has become president
because he knew that the mass of the American people were being
squeezed and that the conventional Republicans and Democrats weren't doing
squat about it and he said I'm Different watch me
I'm going to call all Mexicans rapists I'm going to be outrageous
I'm going to say the things that were quoted earlier I'm going to be a misogynist not quietly and under the
table where is usually done but big and loud and open all about it watch me I'll
say all those racist and other things that other politicians believe but no
have learned don't say that or at least don't say it in public um and he he he
convinced American a lot of them not all but a lot of them he's different and
when you got two parties that aren't doing anything for you and you're feeling very squeezed you give your vote
to somebody different after all why
not the Democrats had the equivalent you all know his name
Bernie he was the different on the other end the politician who for the first
time in half a century didn't run away from the name socialist had he run he would have
picked up that same different maybe let's go with him but the Democrats shut down their
only chance and look at them they suffered the
results Mr Trump there's no reason for any of us to
imagine he's going to change he's going to be Mr different that's what he does and you
can already see it you can see it in what what he did to Mr
Netanyahu bye-bye bye-bye Mr Netanyahu your your life is probably
over your career almost certainly for those of you who don't
understand it it's again American craziness the Israelis made a decision
to Hitch their wagon with the United States they made that decision many years ago fateful decision
good in the short run a disaster in the long run and that disaster has now come
full circle they're identified in the whole world as a complicit partner in
what was done in Gaza the Israelis went into Gaza to defeat and Destroy Hamas didn't
work to defeat or eject the Palestinian people didn't work and all that happened
two days ago was the decision by the United States upon which it depends to
cut its relationship with a losing proposition it's ugly all
around it will not save the United States from being identified as complicit with all that happened there
and the books and articles and documentaries about it will be with us
for the next generation and Hamas it will
inherit the rage and the fury of two and a half million residents of Gaza who
have watched their mother their father their children the young people that are coming are going to be a much greater
danger to Israel than the old Hamas ever was this is a
disaster and the most of the world sees it that's why the votes in the UN are lopsided 150 countries on the side of
the Palestinians 25 extensions of the United States Israel and the Canary Islands I mean
this is silly it's a silly spectacle but that's
another sign of a country going down last
example Ukraine the problems in Ukraine begin
with the dissolution of the Soviet Union back in 1989 1990
Ukraine a major part of what used to be the Soviet Union particularly important in Grain
growing very very rich soil so forth lot of finagling of the countries
of the West NATO moving Eastward threatening Russia and all that I won't
bore you with the rehis and then to stop what was
happening after NATO took over in Poland in Czechoslovakia you all
Mr Putin and the Russians said no not Ukraine not the eastern part of Ukraine
which is majority Russian and Russian speaking Russian language Russian culture and so
on and the United States says oh oh good you invaded that's a bad thing we can
mobilize the whole world around the bad thing of a big country invading a little country that sounds good that was
already a mistake because what was Afghanistan a big country invading a
little poor country what was Vietnam a big country invading the position of the United States as going to war around the
principle of a big country shouldn't invade a little country sounds a little Hollow coming from the United States
except of course here where the denial is the governing Spirit of the
country just like we're going to be denying on Monday the Martin Luther King Association while
we talk endlessly about the Donald Trump Association so the war and the United
States decides to go in for and round up the usual Europeans to go with
you okay how do you fight the war and this goes to something said before and I
want to conclude with the United States is caught in the decline
discovering that the decline trumps everything else and I don't mean to be clever by using the word
trumps the nuclear weapons of the United States are
useless the enormity of them useless why because if you dared use
them in NRA the other side has them too and will use them and that made that
quite clear so you can't because it's
self-destructive so that that's out but what do you have conventional Warfare
but then you got another problem the Russians are better equipped for that than you are the Russians also have a
history in case you're not familiar with it uh Napoleon thought he could defeat
Russia he couldn't Hitler thought he could defeat Russia he couldn't invading
Russia has turned out to be or fighting Russia a really bad
idea but the United States used to fighting such powerhouses as the poorest
countries on Earth Vietnam Afghanistan didn't make the
adjustment so it can't fight it it realized that within months so it came
up with the great plan the genius of Mr Lincoln or Jake Sullivan or other people
who I hope whose names mean nothing to you CU he sure mean nothing
historically here's what their great strategy was a war of
sanctions oh we will get the Russians we will I'm now quoting president B Biden
reduce the ruble to Rubble somebody with poetic genius gave him that one the
rubble will be become rubble and Russia will fall to its knees what wonderful
images right up there with Mickey and other mouses in the American
Consciousness and they did they they stopped the Europeans if you know the story sto buying uh oil and gas from
Russia which is a major export of the Russian economy and that would Russia was the
idea prob Russia is part of the
bricks and the Russians went to the Chinese and the Indians and said they
won't buy our oil and gas we need to sell the oil and gas how about you buy
our oil and gas done said Mr Modi done said XI
jingping and thereby the American strategy went along with everything else
into the toilet didn't work total fail Russian
rubles fine Russian economy in case you don't know has grown faster over the
last two years than the American economy has which should surprise no one because
remember how we as a nation got out of difficult Economic Times known as the Great Depression we went to war in World
War II we took half our unemployed people people and put them in uniform and we took the other half of the
unemployed and gave them jobs making a uniform and that's how we solve that's
how we did it turns out War can help solve economic problems we should have
known because that's what we did but we couldn't imagine it these failures of
imagination these are the signs of economic a powerful
decline so if you really want to understand where we
are it doesn't depend on anything Mr Trump
does that's the important thing to understand don't get caught up in
that Mr Biden's influence on the economic conditions of our society are
marginal Mr Trump's in his first presidency were marginal most of the
things he boasted about couldn't do he built a war a wall you know along
the Mexican border more Mexicans came not fewer that was 100%
bust right now he's proposing as you probably know and as I heard as I was
coming over here today that ice is going to be raiding cities Across America and
throwing people into Mexico yeah he may do some of that maybe he'll do a lot of it who knows he
doesn't know he you know he talks however he feels moment to moment
like certain jerks we all know right so what difference does it make if he
actually does it if he actually takes the 10 to 15 undocumented immigrants in
the United States and puts them into Mexico we're going to have meetings like this only it's going to be about
Mexico Mexico lives off the remittances the money earned by Mexico
uh people here that they're sending back to their mother their father their children back home and that flow of
money it is an absolute blessing to Mexico it doesn't have to sell anything
it doesn't have to export anything it just gets the money shipped by its exp Patriots
here imagine that suddenly gets stopped because they're not here anymore they lost their job and they were deported
back to Mexico but it gets worse they're arriving in Mexico at a time
when Mr Trump is threatening them or hitting them with tariffs which is killing the market Mexico had in the
United States its biggest buyer of its output including many automobiles made
by Ford and General Motors in Mexico for export here those goods are not going to
be able to come in here without a tariff which means we're not going to be buying them which means the Mexicans are going to be
laying people off when when the money from remittances
isn't coming and the millions are coming looking for the work that will not be there you know what that's going to make
out of Mexico a disaster that's going to remind everyone else of the sad country
of Haiti a disaster of gangs and pol
American tourism there bye-bye
that's the kind of chaos that's coming out of the denial the war in Ukraine is
lost because the Russians can fight forever and for those of you who pay attention you may have noticed you
should have that the Russian army is many many miles into Ukraine it's very
clear who's winning and very clear who's losing except here so my parting final words most of
what's about to happen is not about Mr Trump or what he does or doesn't
do his capacity for saying one thing and doing another is already legendary you
don't need me to remind you of it but whatever he in fact does is
marginal most of what is going to happen to you and me is going to depend on two
things one what the rest of the world does as it watches and navigates Ates
the decline of the American Empire so it's actually more important
what jingping and Mr Modi and uh Lula in Brazil and so forth and so on and that
remarkable woman who's now the head of Mexico who has her her work cut out for her she has a very famous Hispanic name
shine Bal is her name uh but she's the one to watch cuz what she does faced
with what I've just described to you that's going to be powerful whatever it is so it's the outside that's going to
affect us more than our own political leaders because we don't have the power
and they don't anymore plus we are so lost in denial that we don't know what
we're doing that's why we miscalculated in Ukraine that's why
they're out of touch not just with the American people but with the world reality watch them this morning I read a
story in a major American financial newspaper about the the international
monetary fund saying that the United States would grow 2.7% in the year
2024 and thereby lead the world economy
I couldn't believe it it's so gross by the way the number is correct 2.7% is
what the IMF has has now said but that's not leading the world economy that's
lousy Chinese growth this year will be 5% and the the Indian growth will be
seven United States isn't leaving anything except here in its own weird
mentality and what's the other thing the second thing beside the outside dominating the
inside it's you and that has been said by both of my fellow
speakers we are the unknown will the American people
allow themselves to be the ones who get screwed as this Empire
passes it's the same question that the British working
class had to face when the British Empire collapsed over the last century
we whether women building up or formerly incarcerated people will they get
together will they make movements will they make demands will they make
coalitions with one another to realize those demands that's the Wild Card Everywhere
by the way there are think tanks All Over America that are asking the same question they're worried is the labor
movement waking up in a way that could change all of this people were being worked at
unbelievable stress in Amazon warehouse for years or in Starbucks coffee shops for
years but in the last two or three years enough is enough no more we're going to
we're going to that remarkable group Chris Smalls and and the folks out
there in Staten Island that that's a remarkable and and has had effects everywhere
else the Boeing workers on the west coast rejected three contracts before
they accepted the one that they find which was better than the ones that they had rejected the labor movement it
that's the question that's why this meeting and that's why this building and that's why
these efforts and that's why the speakers are really very very important if this gives you a swell head
that's my point it is more in your hands than you think of because in addition to saving
yourselves if it's a time of decline if the people who run this Society are so
busy denying it refusing to face it as I've tried to show
you then we are stronger than we might suspect and they are weaker than they
might feel confident about and that's a good time for us to
act the conditions are pretty good not terrible as some of my fellow leftists
are worrying about of course we have problems and difficulty I don't I'm not
pretending otherwise but we also have an historical moment I was having a conversation with
one of you in the audience just before I made my speech and she pointed out quite
rightly that the old Cold War mentality that everything to the left is evil Bad
won't work is dead that generation died and took it
with him young people today don't they don't have that mentality they're much more
open to what it is if anything that I have said strikes
you as reasonable and logical and linked together and makes a point then you
might take some comfort in knowing that this is what I say I do radio television adverti uh es every
day we have 450,000 subscribers to our you YouTube
channel the audience for what I have to say is
enormous and these are people who are not offended or disgusted or anything
else the questions we get from email are all perfectly reasonable questions that
people have about something they disagree with or something they you know want more information about so we
shouldn't worry this country is split this is not a trump country this
is a country is split and when the leaders recognize it and they come up with plans and gimmicks
to make us think we're all together like suggesting that we suddenly reverse course and re
reacquaint ourselves with colonialism we are going to snatch Greenland
and we're going to take back the Panama Canal and we're going to make Canada the
50 but but careful this is Mr Trump
articulating the tough guy in Char that's what he's hope that's what's
gone so since you can't do it about it and that's his plan like that's not
much so thank you for your attention but the most important thing is to do what
all of the speakers every one of them stressed build on what you got take
advantage of this wonderful location of the people you've already gathered work
with us with everybody else that's what that's what can make an enormous difference at this time and it couldn't
be that we needed it more thank you