President Trump"s Confidence In Missile Defense Is A Dangerous Illusion

Authored by Andrei Akulov via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The US is pushing ahead with expansion of the nation’s homeland ballistic missile defense (BMD). The effort enjoys strong bipartisan support in Congress and among experts. Many allies place a high value on BMD cooperation with the United States. However, there are ample reasons to question the efficiency of US missile defenses, especially the capability to protect against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

“We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97% of the time,” President Donald Trump said in his interview with Fox News on October 11, adding “and if you send two of them, it’s going to get knocked down.” He was talking about the threat coming from North Korea to be repelled by the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) in Alaska and California – the $40 billion project administered by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

The US military conducted the first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile in May. The ICBM-type target was fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands toward the waters just south of Alaska. The mission was to prepare for countering an intercontinental missile launched by North Korea. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) described the test as an “incredible accomplishment”. According to Vice Admiral Jim Syring, director of the agency, “This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.” The assessment appears to be exaggerated as the test was not conducted in a realistic environment.

The next test of the GMD system is scheduled for late 2018 and, for the first time, will involve firing two interceptors against one ICBM target. It makes unsubstantiated the president’s affirmation that two interceptors are enough to knock out a North Korean missile as no such tests have been conducted so far.

The US currently deploys 36 interceptors – 32 at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. By the end of 2017, there will be 44 deployed GBIs. A majority of the interceptors use the CE-I variant of kill vehicle that has scored only two successes in four tests. At least ten interceptors are to be equipped with the CE-II Block I vehicle, which has had two successful intercept tests in three tries.

It is generally believed that it takes at least four-five interceptors to hit the target. It means President Trump is off base saying the hit probability is 97%. Prior to the ICBM test, the GMD system had successfully hit its target in only ten of 18 tests since 1999. A success rate is about 56%, not 97%. But even 56% is almost certainly an overstatement, given the less-than-realistic nature of the tests.

A success rate for four-five interceptors per target may be 97% but the possibility that each successive interceptor’s chance of successful kill might not be independent of the previous one, due to correlated factors such as design shortcomings, leading to a lower overall success rate. Nevertheless, President Trump believes each interceptor has a single-shot probability of kill (SSPK) for a given interceptor of 97% (rather than 56%).

According to the Washington Post, “No single interceptor for ICBMs has demonstrated a 97-percent success rate, and there is no guarantee using two interceptors has a 100-percent success rate. Moreover, the military’s suggestion that it could achieve a 97-percent success rate with four interceptors appears based on faulty assumptions and overenthusiastic math. The odds of success under the most ideal conditions are no better than 50-50, and likely worse, as documented in detailed government assessment.”

Joe Cirincione, the President of Ploughshares Fund and the author of Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late, investigated anti-missile programs for almost 10 years as professional staff on the House Armed Services and Government Operations Committees. He believes that “If people took a close look at just one of these interceptor tests, they would likely conclude, as I did, that the tests bear little resemblance to real-world conditions.”

If North Korea fired an ICBM - or multiple ICBMs - at the United States, the GMD with its Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) is only one system that could take a shot at intercepting and destroying the warhead outside the earth’s atmosphere in midcourse flight. Other missile defense systems such as THAAD and Aegis are in no position to hit ICBMs as they’re designed for other classes of targets.

With only one test against an ICBM, the MDA is not even close to demonstrating that the system works in a real-world setting. The GMD systems have not yet been tested in the range of conditions under which it is expected to operate. No tests have been conducted at night or against complex countermeasures, such as electronic countermeasures and decoys. The tests are always rigged because the intercept team knows the timing and trajectory of the incoming missile. But even the scripted tests have often failed. What has been done so far is insufficient to demonstrate that an operational BMD capability really exists.

The US has not publicly conducted any tests to see whether the missile-defense radars can distinguish a missile from chaff. Even cheap inflatable balloons can make all intercept efforts go down the drain. With no air resistance (or drag) in space, a decoy like a balloon shaped like a nuclear warhead could travel in the same way as the true warhead, making it difficult for a missile to distinguish the real thing from the decoy. Balloons are light enough to enable a sophisticated warhead launch 20 or 30 decoy balloons to obscure the path of the warhead, swamping the defense system with fake signals.

In February and April 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessed that the MDA has not “demonstrated through flight testing that it can defend the US homeland against the current missile defense threat,” relying on “a highly optimistic, aggressive schedule” to upgrade the system.

The US abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, which greatly obstructed arms control process. Efficient or not, the US current and potential BMD capability is taken into consideration to influence Russia’s military planning. It provokes Moscow into taking countermeasures to respond to BMD plans and negatively affects the prospects for future Russia-US arms control agreements. With uncertainties raised about the strict balance of arms agreed upon in New START, a chain reaction is triggered leading to arms race.

Philip Giraldi, a highly respected expert and the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, believes that the American people are being fooled by the administration, which tries to make them think that a nuclear war is thinkable. According to him, “If that is the message being sent by the White House, it would encourage further reckless adventurism on the part of the national security state.” Mr. Giraldi hit the nail right on the head. The GMD effort creates a dangerous illusion that a victory in a nuclear conflict is achievable and no money should be spared to spur the implementation of the MDA plans. In reality, the US defense industry is the only benefactor while the taxpayers throw money into the drain. The result: further erosion of arms control and reduced security.

Mutual Assured Destruction

Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Sometimes it is possible to read or view something that completely changes the way one looks at things. I had that experience last week when I read an article at Lobelog entitled “A Plea for Common Sense on Missile Defense,” written by Joe Cirincione, a former staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who now heads the Ploughshares Fund, which is a Washington DC based global foundation that seeks to stop the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The article debunks much of the narrative being put out by the White House and Pentagon regarding missile defense. To be sure, it is perfectly reasonable to mistrust anything that comes out of the federal government justifying war given its track record going back to the War of 1812. And the belligerent posture of the United States towards Iran and North Korea can well be condemned based on its own merits, threatening war where there are either no real interests at stake or where a diplomatic solution has for various reasons been eschewed.

But the real reason why the White House gets away with saber rattling is historical, that the continental United States has not experienced the consequences of war since Pancho Villa invaded in 1916. This is a reality that administration after administration has exploited to do what they want when dealing with foreign nations: whatever happens “over there” will stay “over there.”

Americans consequently do not know war except as something that happens elsewhere and to foreigners, requiring only that the U.S. step in on occasion and bail things out, or screw things up depending on one’s point of view. This is why hawks like John McCain, while receiving a “Liberty” award from Joe Biden, can, with a straight face, get away with denouncing those Americans who have become tired of playing at being the world’s policeman. He describes them as fearful of “the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, [abandoning] the ideals we have advanced around the globe, [refusing] the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism.”

McCain’s completely fatuous account of recent world history befits a Navy pilot who was adept at crashing his planes and almost sank his own aircraft carrier. He also made propaganda radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese after he was captured. The McCain globalist-American Exceptionalism narrative is also, unfortunately, echoed by the media. The steady ingestion of lies and half-truths is why the public puts up with unending demands for increased defense spending, accepting that the world outside is a dangerous place that must be kept in line by force majeure. Yes, we are the good guys.

But underlying the citizenry’s willingness to accept that the military establishment should encircle the globe with foreign bases to keep the world “safe” is the assumption that the 48 States are invulnerable, isolated by broad oceans and friendly nations to the north and south. And protected from far distant threats by technology, interceptor systems developed and maintained at enormous expense to intercept and shoot down incoming ballistic missiles launched by enemies overseas.

In a recent speech, relating to the North Korean threat, President Donald Trump boasted that the United States anti-missile defenses are 97% effective, meaning that they can intercept and destroy incoming projectiles 97 times out of a 100. Trump was seeking to assure the public that whatever happens over in Korea, it cannot have an undesirable outcome over here in the continental United States nor, apparently, in Hawaii, Alaska and overseas possessions like Guam, all of which are shielded under the anti-missile defense umbrella. Trump was undoubtedly referring to, even if he was ignorant of many of the specifics, the Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) installations in Alaska and Hawaii, which are part of the existing $330 billion missile defense system.

It is certainly comforting to learn that the United States cannot be physically attacked with either nuclear or conventional weapons no matter what our government does overseas, but is it true? What if the countermeasures were somewhat closer to 0% effective? Would that change the thinking about going to war in Korea? Or about confronting Russia in Eastern Europe? And for those who think that a nuclear exchange is unthinkable it would be wise to consider the recent comments by Jack Keane of the aptly named Institute for the Study of War, a leading neoconservative former general who reportedly has the ear of the White House and reflects its thinking on the matter. Keane is not hesitant to employ the military option against Pyongyang and he describes a likely trigger for a U.S. attack to take out its nuclear facilities or remove “leadership targets” as the setting up of a ballistic missile in North Korea with a nuclear warhead mounted on top “aimed at America.” Some observers believe that North Korea is close to having the ability to reduce the size of its nukes to make that possible and, if Keane is to be believed, it would be considered an “act of war” which would trigger an immediate attack by Washington. And a counter attack by Pyongyang.

The claim of 97% reliability for the U.S.’s anti-missile defenses is being challenged by Cirincione and others, who argue that the United States can only “shoot down some…missiles some of the time.” They make a number of arguments that are quite convincing, even to a layman who has no understanding of the physics involved. I will try to keep it simple.

First of all, an anti-missile interceptor must hit its target head on or nearly so and it must either actually strike the target or explode its own warhead at a close enough distance to be effective. Both objectives are difficult to achieve. An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) travels at 5,000 meters per second. By way of comparison a bullet fired from a rifle travels at about one fifth that speed. Imagine two men with rifles standing a mile apart and firing their weapons in an attempt to have the bullets meet head on. Multiply the speed by five if one is referring to missiles, not bullets. Even using the finest radars and sensors as well as the most advanced guidance technologies, the variables involved make it much more likely that there will be a miss than a hit. Cirincione observes that “…the only way to hit a bullet is if the bullet cooperates.”

Second, the tests carried out by the Pentagon to determine reliability are essentially fraudulent. Contrary to the Donald Trump comment, the 97% accuracy is an extrapolation based on firing four anti-missile missiles at a target to make up for the fact that in the rigged tests a single interceptor has proven to be closer to only 56% accurate, and that under ideal conditions. This statistic is based on the actual tests performed since 1999 in which interceptors were able to shoot down 10 of 18 targets. The conclusion that four would result in 97% derives from the assumption that multiple interceptors increases the accuracy but most engineers would argue that if one missile cannot hit the target for any number of technical shortcomings it is equally likely that all four will miss for the same reason.

The tests themselves are carefully scripted to guarantee success. They take place in daylight, preferably at dusk to ensure maximum visibility, under good weather conditions, and without any attempt made by the approaching missile to confuse the interceptor through the use of electronic countermeasures or through the ejection of chaff or jammers, which would certainly be deployed. The targets in tests have sometimes been heated to make them easier to find and some have had transponders attached to make them almost impossible to miss. As a result, the missile interceptor system has never been tested under realistic battlefield conditions.

Even the federal government watchdog agencies have concluded that the missile interception system seldom performs. The Government Accountability Office concluded that flaws in the technology, which it describes as “failure modes,” mean that America has an “interceptor fleet that may not work as intended, prompting one Californian congressman John Garamendi to observe that “I think the answer is absolutely clear. It will not work. Nevertheless, the momentum of the fear…of the investments…[of] the momentum of the industry, it carries forward.”

The Operational Test and Evaluation Office of the Department of Defense has also been skeptical, reporting that the GMD in Alaska and Hawaii has only “…a limited capability to defend the U.S. Homeland from small numbers of simple intermediate range or intercontinental ballistic missile threats launched from North Korea…the reliability and availability of the operational [interceptors] are low.”

The dangerous overconfidence being demonstrated by the White House over the ability to intercept a North Korean missile attack might indeed be in some part a bluff, designed to convince Pyongyang that it if initiates a shooting war it will be destroyed while the U.S. remains untouched. But somehow, with a president who doesn’t do subtle very well, I would doubt that to be the case. And the North Koreans, able to build a nuclear weapon and an ICBM, would surely understand the flaws in missile defense as well as anyone.

But the real danger is that it is the American people that is being fooled by the Administration. War is thinkable, even nuclear war, if one cannot be touched by it, a truism that has enabled the sixteen-year- long and counting “global war on terror.” If that is the message being sent by the White House, it would encourage further reckless adventurism on the part of the national security state. Far better to take the North Korean threat seriously and admit that a west coast city like Seattle could well become the target of a successful nuclear weapon attack.

That would demonstrate that war has real life consequences and the unfamiliar dose of honesty would perhaps result in a public demand to seriously negotiate with Pyongyang instead of hurling threats in speeches at the United Nations and on Capitol Hill.

Is The American Empire's War Machine Running Out Of Steam?

Authord by James Holbrooks via TheAntiMedia.org,

“Years of complex operations and the ongoing demands of units in the field have left the armed forces struggling to maintain both operational capacity and high levels of readiness, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office.”

That’s the opening paragraph of an article published last week. The piece, titled “The US military is struggling to keep up with all its responsibilities,” could just as easily been titled “The American Empire is overextended,” as it thoroughly details the GAO’s negative assessment of the current state of the U.S. war machine.

Writing that “unrelenting demands from geographic commanders for particular types of forces are disrupting manning, training, and equipping cycles,” the report breaks down how each branch of the military is essentially overburdened and underprepared to fulfill its national security obligations.

The Air Force, for instance, has reported that less than 50 percent of its forces are at acceptable readiness levels. Additionally, the branch says, it’s short of 1,500 pilots and 3,400 maintenance crewmembers.

The Marine Corps is also running short of resources, with 80 percent of its aviation units lacking the minimum number of aircraft available for training — with the same trend going for the number of craft ready for wartime.

The Navy, the GAO found, suffers primarily from the high pace of operations and a lack of funds devoted to maintenance.

As for the Army, the GAO found that while its level of readiness is generally favorable, the rate at which its readiness is declining is continuing to grow, due in large part to ever-increasing demands from the White House.

In reporting on the GAO’s evaluation, Business Insider points out that criticism of the United States military’s preparedness for combat doesn’t come from Washington D.C. offices alone, but also from assets on the ground.

One former trainer at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Germany, Captain Scott Metz, wrote in a paper published this spring that “many of our multinational partners are more tactically proficient at company level and below than their American counterparts.”

The captain writes that “several of them are significantly better trained and more prepared for war than we are,” and goes on to detail how a lack of basic training at home bases before troops are deployed overseas could potentially lead to fatal mistakes in combat:

“They will stop for long periods of time in the open with minimal dispersion. They will not effectively use their dismounted infantry and will likely leave them in the back of vehicles for too long, allowing them to be killed with the vehicle. They also will probably make little use of tactical formations and will not use terrain to their advantage.”

Summarizing the GAO report, Business Insider writes that the root of the U.S. military’s problem is that it’s slowly — but surely — losing its edge:

“Though the US armed forces maintains definite advantages over peers and other forces in technology, training, and capabilities, years of operations and, according to many officials, reductions in funding have imperiled the US military’s ability overcome opponents and fulfill its missions.”

And while many would rejoice at the news of an American war machine that’s running out of steam, it’s important to remember that it’s reports such as these from the GAO that are held up as justification for that very same machine to receive infusions of resources.

That is, in fact, the argument the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made before the House Armed Services Committee this month.

“In just a few years, if we don’t change our trajectory, we will lose our qualitative and quantitative competitive advantage,” General Joseph Dunford said, adding that the U.S. military needs “sustained, sufficient and predictable funding,” or else it will lose its “ability to project power.”

Balance Of Student Loans In Default Soars To Over $137 Billion

Last week we noted a survey from LendEDU which found that 31% of college co-eds spend at least some portion of their student loan debt proceeds to fund week-long hedonistic, binge drinking trips to Cancun and Daytona Beach for spring break.  And, just to add insult to injury, 24% said they spend those taxpayer-subsidized loan dollars on drinking at school and 7% even splurge on drugs (see "31% Of College Students Spend Their Loans On Spring Break"). 

In light of those findings, it probably shouldn"t be terribly surprising that, according to new data published by the U.S. Department of Education, $137 billion of federal student loans were in default as of December 2016, a 14% year-over-year increase.  Key findings from the Consumer Federation of America:

Average amount owed is $30,650 per federal student loan borrower. Average amount owed per borrower continues to tick up, rising 17% since the end of 2013, when borrowers owed on average of $26,300.

$137 billion in default. For federal loans originated by financial institutions (FFEL) and the US Department of Education (Direct), a total of $137.4 billion in balances were in default, a 14% increase from 2015. This cumulative level of defaulted balances includes loans which defaulted in previous years. Defaulting on a federal student loan comes with severe consequences. Borrowers can face seizure of their tax refund, garnishment of their wages, and an inability to pass employment verification checks.

1 million Direct Loan defaults in 2016. In 2016, 1.1 million Federal Direct Loan borrowers defaulted. Federal law typically defines a federal student loan default as being 270 days past due. Borrowers defaulting for the first time slightly decreased compared to 2015, though borrowers re-defaulting slightly increased compared to 2015.

Data withheld for new defaults in bank-based student loan program. The Education Department did not release data on loans entering default in the bank-based FFEL program. The largest holder of these loans is Navient, with $87.7 billion in outstanding loans as of the end of 2016. “With more than 16 million Americans still on the hook for bank-based federal student loans, the cost of being kept in the dark is real,” said Chopra.

Total federal student loan portfolio increases $79.4 billion. Total outstanding federal student loans, including loans owned or guaranteed by the government, increased $79.4 billion in 2016, roughly the same as the $80.2 billion increase in 2015.

Ironically, these soaring defaults come despite Obama"s executive actions setting up "income-driven repayment" (IDR) plans specifically intended to lower the burden on borrowers and avoid defaults.  As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, Obama"s so-called IDR plans set caps on borrowers" monthly student loan payments at 10% of discretionary income, which is defined as earnings above 150% of the poverty level.  Then, whatever principal balance is left over on the loans at their maturity date is simply "forgiven" (which is government speak for "repaid by taxpayers"). 

The report, to be released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office, shows the Obama administration’s main strategy for helping student-loan borrowers is proving far more costly than previously thought. The report also presents a scathing review of the Education Department’s accounting methods, which have understated the costs of its various debt-relief plans by tens of billions of dollars.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) ordered the report last year amid a sharp increase in enrollment in income-driven repayment plans, which the Obama administration has heavily promoted to help borrowers avoid default. The most generous version caps a borrower’s monthly payment at 10% of discretionary income, which is defined as any earnings above 150% of the poverty level.

That formula typically reduces monthly payments of borrowers by hundreds of dollars. Any remaining balance is then forgiven after 10 or 20 years, depending on whether the borrower works in the public or private sector.

Enrollment in the plans has more than tripled in the past three years to 5.3 million borrowers as of June, or 24% of all former students who borrowed directly from the government and are now required to be making payments. They collectively owe $355 billion.

While Congress originally approved the IDR plans in the 1990s and 2000s, Obama used executive actions, starting in 2010, to extend the most-generous terms to millions of borrowers which is precisely when loan volumes under the program started to skyrocket.

Congrats, taxpayers...you"ll soon have the privilege of repaying $137 billion worth of debt spent by entitled millennials on binge-drinking trips Cancun and drugs...life, after all, is just a little bit better when we spread the wealth around....

50% Of College Students Believe Their Student Loans Will Be Forgiven By Federal Government

LendEDU, a private firm that connects students and their families with student loans and loan refinancing, has finally revealed a clue that helps us better understand the mystery of why so many college students across the country have become so comfortable haphazardly taking out $100s of thousands of dollars in student loans to  fund their degrees in anthropology.  According to a survey of 500 current college students conducted by LendEDU, apparently 49.8% of America"s entitled youth is convinced that the federal government will simply forgive their student loans upon graduation...call it a nice little taxpayer funded graduation gift.

Of course, as the US Department of Education points out, only a select few students who actually enter into public service jobs, teach in underserved areas or attend schools that shutdown within 120 days of their graduation actually qualify for federal loan forgiveness.

The US Department of Education says that federal direct student loan borrowers can get off the hook if they enter public service jobs for a specified period of time, agree to teach in an underserved area, die or become permanently disabled, or if the school they attended shuts down while they are enrolled or within 120 days after they leave.

“The biggest exemption is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, and very few students go into public service,“ said Nate Matherson, who co-founded LendEDU in 2014.

“With maybe 14 percent of the American workforce in a public service job, the actual numbers of those who may qualify for student loan forgiveness or discharge is maybe below 10 percent.

“The fact that many students do not understand this means that they may be significantly underestimating the cost of financing a college education,” he added.

Of course, maybe these students are just planning on never getting a job after college and thus relying on Obama"s executive actions on "income-driven repayment" (IDR) plans that would repay a portion of their loans if they fail to hit certain income thresholds (see report entitled "Federal Student Loans:  Education Needs to Improve Its Income Driven Repayment Plan Budget Estimates" from the Government Accountability Office).  In this scenario, the student loans of these 50% of college students would, in fact, fall into the $137 billion bucket that the GAO figures Obama saddled on the backs of taxpayers through his unilateral executive action.   

For the fiscal year 2017 budget, the U.S. Department of Education (Education) estimates that all federally issued Direct Loans in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans will have government costs of $74 billion, higher than previous budget estimates. IDR plans are designed to help ease student debt burden by setting loan payments as a percentage of borrower income, extending repayment periods from the standard 10 years to up to 25 years, and forgiving remaining balances at the end of that period. While actual costs cannot be known until borrowers repay their loans, GAO found that current IDR plan budget estimates are more than double what was originally expected for loans made in fiscal years 2009 through 2016 (the only years for which original estimates are available). This growth is largely due to the rising volume of loans in IDR plans.

Education’s approach to estimating IDR plan costs and quality control practices do not ensure reliable budget estimates. Weaknesses in this approach may cause costs to be over- or understated by billions of dollars.

Of course, we still kind of like this guy"s idea for repaying student debt...it"s a novel approach whereby borrowers are encouraged to stop playing video games in their parents" basements and get a job...it just might be crazy enough to work.

???????? ???? ???? ???????? "It"s Horrible!!! You don"t understand!!! America is doomed!!! Trump is the &§$@#* President!!! pic.twitter.com/CWfQgg3EOW

— tom alex (@rejialex7) November 29, 2016

China Will Stop the Trump Rally Dead In Its Tracks

The market reaction to the Trump Presidency win has been excessive to say the least.

Trump won’t take office until January 20^th 2017. And he will likely not be able to engage in any of his proposed reforms until this time next year (it’s possible he might be able to ram through a few bills via “reconciliation” in Congress, but the odds are likely that any major reforms will take a year).

And yet, the financial media are abuzz with the idea that somehow GDP growth of 5% is going to hit in January. And investors are acting as if they believe this!

Let’s run through Trump’s proposals quickly.

1)   Tax Reform: Trump wants to simplify the tax code, lower the corporate tax rate and offer multinationals the ability to repatriate their offshore cash with a one-time tax charge of 10%.

Long-term, all of these moves are positive for the US economy. They will increase competitiveness and will allow large firms to put more money to work in the US.

However, NONE of these items will have a major impact on the markets. Yes, a lower tax rate opens the door to greater corporate profits… but:

a.     As Tom Lee noted on CNBC, NO ONE gets excited about investing in a company because said company is going to be paying less in taxes.

b.     Any benefits from tax reform would take at a minimum six months and possibly a year to really begin trickling into corporate results.

c.      More importantly, most large corporations are already paying little if any taxes due to various gimmicks and loopholes. The Government Accountability Office found that in 2012 more than 43% of large corporations (those with $10 million in assets or more) paid no corporate income tax.

2)   Deregulation/Infrastructure Spending/ etc.: None of these will likely be implemented until late 2017. A large-scale stimulus is a controversial measure that might not get through Congress. Even if it did, we already know such policies have minimal effect on GDP particularly late in an economic cycle (Bush’s Stimulus act of 2008 and Obama’s Stimulus of 2009).

My point with all of the above is that any policies Trump implements will have minimal impact on stocks in the short-term. They CERTAINLY do not warrant the absolute mania we are currently experiencing in the stock market.

Meanwhile, China, the second largest economy in the world, is on the verge of a banking crisis. 

In the last three weeks, China has:

1) Been forced to issue emergency loans to financial firms.

2) Halted trading in its bond market multiple times.

3) Has aggressively defended the Yuan.

The fact is, stocks are poised for a sharp correction (at least) based on what"s happening in China...

Another Crisis is brewing… the time to prepare is now.

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Phoenix Capital Research