NOURNEWS/NORTH CAROLINA - Donald Trump has over a billion dollars in debt and half of that is coming due in the next four years. He did not pay taxes for a decade this century and in 2016 and 2015 he paid $750. His faux wealth is likely to vanish if he gets booted from the Presidency by Joe Biden and he, with his supercharged ego, is going to be shamed as the good businessman he never has been at any point in his career. A house of cards, really, is the Trump fortune, and the White House has never housed such a con-man, grifter, liar and buffoon. It’s quite amazing.
Consider that Trump took a tax deduction of $70,000 he paid to have his hair styled. Think about that. Only a deeply insecure person with a narcissistic personality would do that: if he is bald, why not show it?
All this comes from a 10,000-word report just released by the New York Times which somehow got access to his tax returns for the past two decades and distilled the information in the article without actually publishing the returns themselves. The newspaper released its report just two days before the first of three televised debates between Trump and contender Joe Biden.
The first debate is now done and it was, as said even on national television, a “shitshow” of insults and aggression by Trump who, among other things, refused to condemn White supremacism and lied about his taxes. But worse was his statement indicating that he would refuse to accept the election results in November if Biden “wins” the White House, and then he called on a group of known racists and White supremacists to “stand by” for the election ahead. This presages violence and anarchy around the election. The debate was by all accounts the worst ever in political history in the U.S.
As for the U.S. tax system, it is so very rigged with loopholes that it favors the wealthy. It is plausible that, strictly speaking, Trump broke no IRS tax laws in getting away with insignificant tax payments, but he sure did bend the laws, which clever, high-paid accountants and lawyers can do for their clients in the U.S. Trump’s supporters have long touted his claimed “success” as a businessman and the fact that he say he is a billionaire. This impresses them but they fail to consider that Trump is a liar and a con man who over the years has declared bankruptcy six or so times over failed ventures, and may actually have a negative net worth.
But don’t presume in any estimation of Trump’s crimes that Biden is a whole lot better. There are skeletons in his closets, too. Maybe some of the scariest related to his dealings, and his son’s, in Ukraine. But here’s the positive take on Biden: he’s less corrupt than Trump (but still corrupt like many politicians), he is likely to appoint far better and far more knowledgeable people to flesh out his administration that Trump ever has.
He may even draw the U.S. back into the JCPOA, or at least be less inclined to infuriate Iran and try to prod Iran into a military move that could start a regional war in the Mideast. He may be far from a “peacenik” himself but progressives who voted for him will scream if he launches a fresh war. In general, it’s safe to say Biden may prove a lot more progressive in office than he has been, because he’s being pushed in that direction by the Democratic Party’s best politicians.
But still, the U.S. is doomed and neither Biden nor Trump can put the Humpty Dumpty back together again as it has been more or less since the end of World War 2 until this century. The reason? The majority of U.S. citizens have been so dumbed down by decades of propaganda in the corporate media, and become so divided over issues they can barely comprehend or agree on, and the monetary system is near implosion along with the fiat dollar, and the debt so enormous that it might be better if the country split apart and the separate parts started over with a clean slate and governed themselves. Of course, this may not happen anytime soon, but it is a possibility in the next 30 years or so if the U.S. and its foes don’t literally destroy the world.
The U.S. may well still have its vast military, but the country itself, and especially America’s big cities, increasingly look like those found in a “banana republic”, or perhaps one should say a “banana oligarchy”. The year the U.S. began its long slide downhill has even been pinpointed by some sage observers – 1971. The Vietnam War was still raging then, but the U.S. could not pay for it and got off its modest “gold” standard, such as it was, and began printing fiat money (debt) and deploying what became known as the “petrodollar” after an agreement with the Saudis. No country can live beyond its means forever with fake “money”, and the U.S. has nearly destroyed itself doing so.
NOURNEWS