America

Another day, another shot across the bow from Donald Trump aimed squarely at China.

Having already participated (and in the case of one, precipitated) two mini diplomatic snafus with Beijing in just the past two weeks, Trump is sending a clear message to Beijing that US-China trade under his administration will be anything but business as usual, by creating a National Trade Council inside the White House to oversee industrial policy and has decided to appoint a hard core China hawk to run it.

While it will hardly come as a surprise to anyone following the ongoing additions to Trump's cabinet, one can now effectively cross off "draining the swamp" from the list of Trump's stated intentions.

Speaking in an NPR interview on Wednesday, former Speaker Newt Gingrich said that Trump has taken a different tone as president-elect and may be leaving behind his campaign promise to “drain the swamp.” Gingrich told "Morning Edition" that he was told Trump “now says [the phrase] was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore.”

A leaked communication between the Trump transition team's Undersecretary of Defense for policy Brian McKeon, and the Pentagon, has revealed the four biggest defense priorities for the president-elect. Among the top four items listed in the memo from are: 1) developing a strategy to defeat/destroy ISIS; 2) build a strong defense by eliminating budget caps/the sequester, 3) develop a comprehensive cyber strategy, and 4) eliminate wasteful spending by finding greater efficiencies.

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Solutions abound, but not within our centralized state-cartel neofeudal system.

Not to rain on the new administration's parade, but one question needs to be asked of any new administration: will tax cuts and more federal borrowing/ spending fix what's broken in the U.S./global economy?