Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,
We have been living in a world of rapid globalization, but this is not a condition that we can expect to continue indefinitely.
Figure 1. Ratio of Imported Goods and Services to GDP. Based in FRED data for IMPGS.
While the market has had its share of bogeymen to worry about so far in 2016, mostly along the lines of the "Four Cs", namely China, Crude, Credit and Currencies, it has so far largely ignored one letter: the Big D, for Donald, as in how would a Trump presidency affect the market. And, as Reuters writes, it is time for Wall Street to add "the juggernaut that is Donald J. Trump to the list of what-ifs that is worrying Wall Street."
The proposed ban on Muslim Immigration to the United States by Republican front-runner Donald Trump is endorsed by a large number of GOP voters and the establishment. The consideration of such policy is a betrayal of American values and has far reaching consequences besides being racist and Islamophobic, according to Murtaza Hussain from The Intercept. The Intercept reports: Exit polls conducted by ABC News on “Super Tuesday” show that more than 60 percent of GOP voters in five states favor Trump’s proposed ban. In Alabama and Arkansas, that figure rises to nearly 80 percent.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been recruited as the head of a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing cutting edge Silicon Valley ideas to the U.S. military. U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter announced the new appointment on Wednesday, saying that he hopes that Schmidt will be able to use his experience at Google to bring the U.S. military up-to-date technologically. Businessinsider.com reports: Carter is due to discuss the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco.
Given the vicious downward spiral of competitive devaluation that is washing around the world's economic bathtub, it appears - just as we saw during The Great Depression - that currency wars have given way to mal-investment-fueled protectionism as US launches the first missile in the trade wars with a massive 266% tariff on imports of cold-rolled steel. “There’ll be a short-term benefit,“ said John Packard of Steel Market Update. ”However, in the long run, the U.S.