Trump Trade Wars A Perfect Smokescreen For A Market Crash

This article was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.com

First, I would like to say that the timing of Donald Trump’s announcement on expansive trade tariffs is unusual if not impeccable. I say this only IF Trump’s plan was to benefit establishment globalists by giving them perfect cover for their continued demolition of the market bubbles that they have engineered since the crash of 2008.

If this was not his plan, then I am a bit bewildered by what he hopes to accomplish. It is certainly not the end of trade deficits and the return of American industry. But let’s explore the situation for a moment…

Trump is in my view a modern day Herbert Hoover. One of Hoover’s first actions as president in response to the crash of 1929 was to support increased tax cuts, primarily for corporations (this was then followed in 1932 by extensive tax increases in the midst of the depression, so let’s see what Trump does in the next couple of years).  Then, he instituted tariffs through the Smoot-Hawley Act. His hyperfocus on massive infrastructure spending resulted in U.S. debt expansion and did nothing to dig the U.S. out of its unemployment abyss. In fact, infrastructure projects like the Hoover Dam, which were launched in 1931, were not paid off for over 50 years. Hoover oversaw the beginning of the Great Depression and ended up as a single-term Republican president who paved the way socially for Franklin D. Roosevelt, an essential communist and perhaps the worst president in American history.

This is not to say Hoover was responsible for the Great Depression. That distinction goes to the Federal Reserve, which had artificially lowered interest rates and then suddenly raised them going into the economic downturn causing an aggressive bubble implosion (just like the central bank is doing right now). But Hoover did actually aid the Fed in their undermining of economic stability by pursuing policies which were poorly timed.

I’m hitting readers with all of this because I am growing rather tired of the contingent of Trump apologists in the liberty movement scrambling to defend every single Trump action no matter how illogical. These people should know better. Sorry, but Trump is not “playing 4D chess” against the globalists. His primary actions have only served so far to create a useful distraction away from the globalists.

The disturbing key to all of this is the fact that many of Trump’s policies are things that I and many others have argued for in the past. The problem is, he is implementing them out of order and with bad timing, which will only make such policies appear destructive in the end, rather than constructive.

In terms of the implementation of tariffs, the people who are defending this action at this time do not seem to understand the basics of international trade. Tariffs can only be enacted from a position of economic strength and resource development. This strength comes from internal self-sufficiency in production; meaning, in order for the U.S. to force a trade balance (which is what tariffs are supposed to do) the U.S. must have a strong industrial base and MUST be capable of producing most if not all necessary goods and goods in broad demand.

The fact is, U.S. manufacturing has been utterly outsourced by the very corporations Trump just gave a 10% tax cut to, and rebuilding that industrial base would take decades. Why? Because there are no incentives for corporations to bring manufacturing back.

As I already stated, Trump is instituting potentially solid policies but he is doing so out of order. Tax cuts for corporations should have been enacted only as an incentive for manufacturing jobs to be returned to America. Instead, corporations got tax cuts for absolutely nothing. And will those tax cuts go towards more jobs or innovation? Nope. They will be going to pay off unprecedented corporate debts, and stock buybacks, most of which were accrued through borrowing from the Federal Reserve.

Will this stock buyback bonanza even generate new highs in the Dow? Probably not. But I’ll explain why that is later.

If Trump had given tax incentives for corporations to bring manufacturing back into the U.S., and then given those corporations a few years to make the shift, only then would tariffs have been an effective action. But as the situation stands now, we have minimal tangible production in this country, and, historic debts held by the same overseas competitors that Trump is now seeking to “teach a lesson.”

Debt is the next issue which needs to be addressed before tariffs can ever be implemented in a practical way. In terms of national debt, rather than setting up a plan to reduce U.S. debt expenditures, Trump is increasing debt by reducing taxes while at the same time increasing spending. Trump did not take a hard stand on the debt ceiling debate as he originally claimed he would, and so, the debt train continues unabated.

Who is going to purchase this debt, I wonder? Over the past several years the largest buyer of U.S. treasury debt was the Federal Reserve through fiat money creation. Now, the Fed has tapered quantitative easing and is dumping their balance sheet at a rate faster than anyone expected. The Fed is pulling the plug on its artificial support of the economy.

The next largest buyers are major foreign central banks in countries like China, Japan and to some extent the supranational EU. If the debt buyers of last resort are now the very same countries Trump is seeking to enact tariffs over, how do you think this little theater will end? Yes, with a dump of U.S. treasury bonds and perhaps the dollar as world reserve by those nations.

But what about the U.S. consumer? Isn’t the consumer market in America so enticing that nations like China would “never dare” dump U.S. debt or the dollar? No, not really. If we are talking about a trade “war,” then a country like China, which has a vast manufacturing base and which has also been building up its own domestic consumer market, would be willing to make the sacrifice. America would be hurt far more by the threat of debt default and the loss of the dollar’s international buying power than China ever would be by the loss of American consumers. With tariffs being implemented, they may lose the American consumer anyway.

Our retail market is hardly as appetizing as it was 10 years ago given the decade of drudgery Americans have endured, with the largest number ever of working age citizens no longer participating in the jobs market, as well as real worker wages in continued decline while the American consumer is now more indebted than at any other time in history.

All of these negative effects are weighing down our economy while the Federal Reserve is quickly deflating the fraudulent markets that the establishment used during the Obama administration to argue that America was “in recovery.” Of course, alternative economists have known since the beginning that this was a lie, and that the only thing propping up the economy and stock markets was central bank manipulation.

The Fed under Jerome Powell has made it crystal clear that they WILL be raising interest rates and cutting the Fed balance sheet, perhaps more than their dot plots had indicated in the past. Without low rates and a steadily rising balance sheet we have already seen the results. Stocks in particular have gone crazy compared to the past few years, dumping nearly 10% one week, spiking about half that the next week. One thing is certain, the supposedly endless bull market induced by the Fed years ago is now over. Stocks are in heart attack mode.

It is no coincidence that the first two times the Fed reduced its balance sheet the Dow plunged over 1,000 points. The latest dump of $23 billion at the end of February resulted in a drop of around 1,500 points. It is too early in this process to know what the trend will be, but it seems to me that stocks are being steam valved down every month. With a marked decline just after a balance sheet dump, followed by a less impressive dead cat bounce the week after.

In the meantime, Trump’s “trade war” is now being blamed in the mainstream for the decline in stocks that the Fed is actually responsible for. As I have always said, Trump is the ideal scapegoat for the inevitable economic crisis the central bankers have staged. Trump’s tariffs might exacerbate the problem, just as Hoover’s policies did in the beginning of the Great Depression, but the blame rests squarely on the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world. Will the average person understand this dynamic once the dust settles on our financial system? Probably not.

So, to summarize, while Trump has indeed set in motion policies that conservatives in general tend to approve of, he has done so in an impractical way that will ultimately be blamed for a market crash the Fed created. If conservative ideals such as limited government and sovereign trade protection get the blame for an unprecedented economic crisis then this could sabotage conservatism for generations to come. If elections are still even a factor as this crisis unfolds, the chances of the public accepting a socialistic nightmare regime after Trump exits the White House are high. And, the banking elites that conjured the whole mess will escape once again without any punishment.

The question we must ask is this – Is Trump aware that his policies are creating a perfect distraction for those same banking elites? I believe we will know for certain the answer to that before 2018 is over.

***

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You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com

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Infrastructure Emergency: 50,000 American Bridges Are “Structurally Deficient”

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Last week, President Trump announced his proposal for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure program in his State of The Union address to the American people. He failed to mention that over the next decade, the federal government would provide very little money whatsoever for America’s crumbling bridges, rails, roads, and waterways.

Trump’s plan counts on state and local governments working in tandem with private investors to fork up the cash for projects.

In overhauling the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, the federal government is only willing to pledge $200 billion in federal money over the next decade, leaving the remainder of $1.3 trillion for cities, states, and private companies.

Precisely how Trump’s infrastructure program would work remains somewhat of a mystery after his Tuesday night speech, as state transportation officials warned that significant hikes to taxes, fees, and tolls would be required by local governments to fund such projects.

To get an understanding of the severity of America’s crumbling infrastructure. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) has recently published a shocking report specifying more than 50,000 bridges across the country are rated “structurally deficient”.

The roads and sidewalks, airports and bridges, are perfect in Dubai. Everything looks clean & strong. In U.S., everything is falling apart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2014

If the “structurally deficient” bridges were placed end-to-end, they would stretch 1,216 miles or nearly the distance between Miami and New York City, said ARTBA. Cars, trucks, and school buses cross these 54,259 compromised structures more than 175 million times per day, which it is only a matter of time before another Mississippi River Bridge collapse occurs.

Here are the highlights from the report: 

• 54,259 of the nation’s 612,677 bridges are rated “structurally deficient.”


• Americans cross these deficient bridges 174 million times daily.


• Average age of a structurally deficient bridge is 67 years, compared to 40 years for non-deficient bridges.


• One in three (226,837) U.S. bridges have identified repair needs.


• One in three (17,726) Interstate highway bridges have identified repair needs.


• Website features listing of deficient bridges by state and congressional district.

Dr. Alison Premo Black, chief economist for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), who conducted the analysis, said, “the pace of improving the nation’s inventory of structurally deficient bridges slowed this past year. It’s down only two-tenths of a percent from the number reported in the government’s 2016 data. At current pace of repair or replacement, it would take 37 years to remedy all of them.”

Black says, “An infrastructure package aimed at modernizing the Interstate System would have both short- and long-term positive effects on the U.S. economy.”

She adds that traffic jams cost the trucking industry $60 billion in 2017 in lost productivity and fuel, which “increases the cost of everything we make, buy or export.”

Other key findings in the ARTBA report:

• Iowa (5,067), Pennsylvania (4,173), Oklahoma (3,234), Missouri (3,086), Illinois (2,303), Nebraska (2,258), Kansas (2,115), Mississippi (2,008), North Carolina (1,854) and New York (1,834) have the most structurally deficient bridges. 


• The District of Columbia (8), Nevada (31), Delaware (39), Hawaii (66) and Utah (87) have the least.


• At least 15 percent of the bridges in six states – Rhode Island (23 percent), Iowa (21 percent), West Virginia (19 percent), South Dakota (19 percent), Pennsylvania (18 percent) and Nebraska (15 percent)—fall in the structurally deficient category.

As Staista’s Niall McCarthy notes, U.S. drivers cross those bridges 174 million times a day and on average, a structurally deficient bridge is 67 years old. Dr. Alison Premo Black carried out the analysis for the ARTBA and she has said that if things continue at their current pace, it would take 37 years to repair all of the bridges that need attention. With a total of 5,067 of them, Iowa has the most structurally deficient bridges, followed by Pennsylvania (4,174) and Oklahoma (3,234).

You will find more statistics at Statista

Here are the most traveled “structurally deficient” U.S. bridges in 2017:

In 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed during an evening rush hour commute, sending cars and trucks diving into the river. Thirteen people were killed and 145 were injured. The incident served as an eye opener to America’s deteriorating infrastructure. Ten years later, not much progress has been made in America’s bridges.

President Trump has undoubtedly over-hyped his proposal for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure program, but for the 50,000 “structurally deficient” bridges across America, it is a race against time for the Trump administration, before the next bridge collapses triggers a mass causality event. We are almost positive this administration does not want this on their plate.

“Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and — where appropriate — tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit,” Mr. Trump said in his State of the Union address.

China"s Infrastructure Boom Heading For Rapid Slowdown In 2018

There have been signs since October’s Party Congress that China’s infrastructure boom was about to cool off as the leadership seeks to contain debt levels and focus on the quality not the quantity of growth. Subway building is one sector which has seen some high-profile project cancellations. In mid-November 2017, Caixin reported that China’s top economic planning authority, the National Development and Reform Commission, was “raising the bar for subway proposals” – increasing scrutiny in terms of fiscal conditions, population and GDP. In recent weeks, we’ve seen two large subway projects shelved, one in Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia (worth 27 billion Yuan) and another in Baotou, another Inner Mongolian city (worth 30 billion Yuan). As Caixin noted.

The cancellation of the Inner Mongolia subway projects is having a ripple effect in other cities. Several city governments, including those of Xianyang in Shaanxi province and Wuhan in Hubei province, said in statements that their subway plan are unlikely to win immediate approval under the central government’s crackdown on financial risks related to borrowing for such projects.

The crackdown on local government debt, a key source of infrastructure financing, will have a knock-on effect on Chinese GDP growth. A difficulty for China’s central planners is that the infrastructure share of Chinese fixed asset investment has been on a rising trend, surpassing 20% during 2017 versus just over 15% in early 2014. While we’ve been expecting China’s infrastructure spend to slow next year, we are surprised by the rate of slowdown estimated by Bloomberg, which surveyed a large number of forecasters.

China’s frenzied construction of roads, bridges and subways is set for a major slowdown, adding a headwind to economic growth in 2018. The nation’s fixed-asset investment in infrastructure will grow 12 percent next year, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey, down from almost 20 percent in the first ten months this year. All 18 economists in the survey anticipated a moderation, adding to reports by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG predicting a similar trend.

The cooling construction fever is taking shape as authorities renew a pledge to focus on debt management following the Communist Party Congress in October. In a rare move, China has suspended subway projects in some cities, and scrutiny has also toughened on public-private partnerships -- until now a widespread way to fund projects. The easing could even threaten global capital expenditure growth, as China represents one-fifth of the world’s total investment, according to estimates by Oxford Economics.

Infrastructure investment "grew much faster than other investments in the past five years," Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong, wrote in a note. "Policy makers might be able to accept slower growth for infrastructure spending from next year, as the growth in the past five years is unsustainable."

Slowdown or not, the scale of spending on Chinese infrastructure remains vast, about $1.7 trillion during January-October 2017. The pick-up in spending during the last two years followed efforts by the authorities to promote PPP (public-private partnerships) to finance infrastructure projects as one way to limit the growth in local government debt. As is the case with many things related to investment in China, the policy was quickly subject to abuse. In the majority of cases, the “private” partner in PPP projects turned out to be a state-owned firm, which merely added to the state’s debt burden via a different route. Eight local governments have been reprimanded by the finance ministry and the National Audit Office for “disguised borrowing”. We can only imagine the degree of abuse when local governments guaranteed returns on PPP-funded projects. According to Bloomberg.

The Ministry of Finance last month banned local governments from guaranteeing returns for private investors in PPP projects or backing a project’s debt. The national watchdog for state-owned enterprises also published rules to regulate state companies’ participation -- a potential blow to a major source of funding.

"A change in central government’s attitude towards PPP does not bode well for infrastructure in 2018," according to Yao Wei, chief China economist at Societe Generale SA in Paris. "A slowdown from the rapid pace this year looks inevitable."

The challenges for Xi Jinping and his top bureaucrats are mounting, as 2018 looks like it will see the convergence of a host of major reforms of which slower infrastructure spending and altering PPP funding arrangements are a small part. Other major ones include cooling the property market, reducing overcapacity in heavy industry, pollution control, continuing the crackdown on corruption, deleveraging and reforming the out-of-control shadow banking sector.

The China bulls will undoubtedly downplay the scale of these challenges, expecting little deceleration in Chinese growth, helped by a near seamless transition from investment to consumer-led growth. We will be amazed very impressed if Xi can pull it off.
 

Stunning Footage Of American's Crumbling Infrastructure

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

It’s no secret that America’s infrastructure is in dire need of repairs. Earlier this year, America received her infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ and received a repulsive D+. The ASCE guesstimates the US would need to spend $4.5 trillion by 2025 on infrastructure.

Here’s the breakdown of the report card:  

• Aviation: D


• Bridges: C+


• Dams: D


• Drinking Water: D


• Energy: D+


• Hazardous Waste: D+


• Inland Waterways: D


• Levees: D


• Parks and Recreation: D+


• Ports: C+


• Rail: B


• Roads: D


• Schools: D


• Solid Waste: C+


• Transit: D-


• Wastewater: D+

With that being said, I’ve spent the entire weekend inspecting America’s infrastructure at the Port of Baltimore.

At some locations, I was given special access to a behind the scenes view of America’s crumbling infrastructure that the public is not allowed to see. The reasons you’re left out of the know is because it destroys the mainstream narrative that everything is awesome.

Even Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group says, “the US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure”.

In the Sunday Edition, Alastair Williamson is on site at a marine terminal in the Port of Baltimore. He provides an interesting view of America’s deteriorating infrastructure blended with the current shape of the US economy.

In this video, Alastair is given special access to behind the scenes of America’s crumbling infrastructure. This view is rarely seen by the mainstream public. Enjoy!

Infrastructure 'Stimulus' - Chinese Ghost Cities & The Big Money Drain

As President Trump"s "Infrastructure Week" comes to an ignominious end, NIRP Umbrella"s Alex Deluce reminds us that spending money on bridges to nowhere and cities of the future is anything but the stimulating panacea it is talked up to be...

Is a Chinese credit bubble in the cards? Well, it will be interesting to see if China’s authorities can get through the unwind of US $3 trillion worth of excess credit and the distressed debt on banks’ balance sheets.

From 2009 to 2016, more than 10 trillion of Chinese investment was thrown at infrastructure, ghost cities, and corruption thanks to a helping hand from the Chinese banks and foreign lenders eager to participate in the Chinese growth story.

In fact, hundreds of new cities in China are essentially empty. The hope is that rural population someday move in.

Roughly 40% of the 300 million Chinese expected to move into a town by 2030 will mostly be moving to smaller cities in the “chengzhenhua” system.

As OfTwoMinds" Charles Hugh Smith recently explained, building bridges to nowhere isn"t just a waste of money in the present; it saddles the economy with productivity-draining costs for decades to come.

If there is anything the political left, right and center can agree upon, it"s the lasting benefits of spending more (borrowed) money on infrastructure: roadways, rail lines, airports, seaports, pipelines, dams, electrical lines and so on: the physical networks of advanced civilization.

That Roman roadways constructed 2,000 years ago are still visible illustrates the longstanding value of reliable infrastructure: Roman political control and trade depended on roadways and sea transport to tie the sprawling empire together.

This is the basic assumption behind the notion that virtually any and all infrastructure spending will create value far into the future.

But is this really true? Does rebuilding and/or adding infrastructure create economic value?

To answer, we need to look at two issues: productivity and cost-benefit.

Infrastructure creates new value when it boosts productivity, generally by lowering costs of moving goods, energy, etc.

The value created by increased productivity must far outweigh the cost.

Consider the classic "bridge to nowhere" infrastructure project: a bridge is constructed between a sparsely populated island and the mainland. The payoff is a handful of residents are spared the time and inconvenience required to ship their vehicles between the island and mainland on a ferry.

Does this time savings translate into increased productivity, or merely extra leisure? And what was the cost to gain this very modest increase in leisure/productivity? Spending tens of millions of dollars on the bridge actually reduces the productivity of the entire economy due to the opportunity cost: the millions of dollars could have been more productively invested elsewhere, and spending the money on a low-value-creating bridge deprived the economy of the capital, labor etc. that could have been better invested in productivity-generating projects.

As correspondent Bart D. explains, opportunities to boost productivity via new infrastructure are scarce:

Why anyone believes that building "infrastructure" somehow promotes economic growth in this day and age (as though it were 1950’s) is delusional. The reason "infrastructure" worked back then to build economic activity was simply because it lagged behind the burgeoning private industry. These days there is no ‘hard industry’ left to "lag behind." Building a bigger road between the suburbs and the Mall won’t create prosperity for anyone except the owners of the road building company. Unlike a 1950’s road linking a steelworks to a port or a Beef farm to a meatworks."

In other words, when commerce already exists but is cumbersome, infrastructure that smooths the flow yields enormous productivity gains.

One example of this from history is the construction of the first stone bridge across the Seine River in Paris. This single structure changed commerce, tourism and social relations in the city, as it enabled two carts to pass side by side and enable pedestrians to cross the river safely.

For more on this impact of a single durable, commerce-enabling bridge in Paris, read this book: How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City.

Replacing existing infrastructure is also problematic. It may well be necessary, but since it won"t boost regional productivity (since it"s merely replacing existing structures), it acts as a tax on the regional economy: if the replacement costs $1 billion and generates no real gains in productivity, it is in essence a tax that bleeds capital from the economy that could have been productively invested elsewhere.

Rebuilding a bridge generates higher spending on materials and wages, but if it doesn"t generate additional productive capacity equal to its cost, this additional spending (in our world, always paid for with borrowed money that accrues interest for decades to come) runs out once the project is complete, but the costs of paying for the replacement continue on for decades.

As a rule of thumb, if a replacement bridge costs $1 billion, it will cost users and taxpayers $3 billion over the life of the loan/bond that funded the project.

Borrowing immense sums to spend on infrastructure that doesn"t boost productivity actually cripples an economy by channeling scarce capital and tax revenues into projects that only boost spending for a few years at best, while the costs of borrowing the money pile up for decades to come.

In other words, building bridges to nowhere isn"t just a waste of money in the present; it saddles the economy with productivity-draining costs for decades to come.

This high future cost for no-productivity gain infrastructure effectively bleeds the economy of income and capital for decades, for the temporary sugar-high of infrastucture spending today.

A rigorous cost-benefit analysis might conclude that some aging, marginal infrastructure should be torn down rather than replaced. If self-driving vehicles will reduce vehicles on the roads significantly-- and some estimates range as high as an 80% reduction in traffic--perhaps we should wait for this technology to mature before spending trillions of dollars on infrastructure that is about to be under-utilized.

We should instead ask: where are the big gains in productivity going to come from going forward? The answers to that question should guide our public and private investment decisions.

In the meantime, we should question whether proposed infrastructure spending is actually an "investment in our future" or just another bureaucratic boondoggle designed to enrich crony-cartels and justify rising bureaucratic budgets:

New Federal Infrastructure Policy To Be Driven By Sustainable Development Dogma

Technocracy is all about infrastructure. Infrastructure connects things: people, neighborhoods, smart cities and networks of smart cities. It includes roads, rail, air, fiber optic, data communications, etc.

Dr. Parag Khanna, scholar and Technocrat, authored a book in 2016 called Connectography which promotes the concept of connecting everything together… for the sake of implementing Technocracy, or a resource-based economic system run by scientists, engineers and technicians.

Thus, when President Trump says that we need to rebuild America’s infrastructure, we must pay careful attention to what exactly this will look like. Will our nation be ‘rebuilt’ for our sake or for the benefit of Technocrats and Technocracy? That answer is now becoming clear.

The American Planning Association (APA) was created in 1978 by the merger of the American Society of Planning Officials and the American Institute of Planners. It is the largest and most influential planning association in America and has 35,000 members from 100 countries. It has since become a major driving force of UN policy for Agenda 21, 2030 Agenda, and New Urban Agenda.

Worse, the APA is advising the Department of Transportation on how to re-work the nation’s infrastructure. This is dangerous for those who anticipated a reduction of UN influence over American life!

The APA openly and forcefully supports:

• Regional Planning – Unconstitutional Councils of Governments are already networked across America and are used by the government to dole out funds to local communities who comply with their arbitrarily imposed conditionalities.


• Public-Private Partnerships – Similar to Fascism, PPP yokes business with government and subverts the Constitutional process of public representation in government.


• Sustainability and Sustainable Development – This is the ‘greening’ of America, where Agenda 21, 2030 Agenda and New Urban Agenda is implanted into every decision.

Needless to say, this a huge Trojan horse and a betrayal of the American mandate to get the UN out of American affairs. The APA will influence the spending of over $200 billion in the next four years, which will reinforce and set in concrete many more UN programs.

“State of Emergency, the Entire Bridge Is Compromised”: The Moment a Burning Section of I-85 in Atlanta Collapsed

If you were looking for confirmation that the nation’s infrastructure needs a complete overhaul, a collapsing bridge in Atlanta may have provided it in stark imagery.

Around 6:30 p.m. Thursday night, a fire broke out under a section of the highway bridge on busy I-85 in Atlanta, Georgia. Just thirty minutes later, a huge section of that bridge burst into flames and completely collapsed.

Amazingly, no motorists were injured when this happened:

“This is as serious a transportation crisis as we could have,” Mayor Kasim Reed said, noting that he had spoken with the FBI and terrorism was not suspected at this time.

Authorities still don’t know what exactly caused the fire as the entire area is still too unsafe for crews to examine, but it is believed that PVC piping stored under the bridge (as shown on a screen capture from Google maps below) caught fire first.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency, however, as authorities claim the entire transportation network in Atlanta has been significantly impacted, including five different public bus lines. In addition, DeKalb County Schools were canceled Friday, City of Atlanta government offices won’t open until 10 am, and all non-essential DeKalb County government workers will not be required to report in to work.

City officials have no idea when the bridge in what is otherwise a heavy traffic area will be able to be fixed.

In other words, traffic is going to be a bitch.

Meanwhile, how’s that aging American infrastructure working out?

Read more:

America Too Broke to Fix Crumbling Infrastructure? “Bridges, Roads, Airports In Long Term Collapse”

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 39 people
Date: March 31st, 2017
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The Sad State Of America's Infrastructure In One Infographic

Every year, Americans spend a combined 600,000 years stuck in traffic, and Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes, if you’re thinking that time could be spent a little more productively, you’re not the only one.

In fact, even politicians are taking notice of aging and insufficient infrastructure in the United States. Recently, President Trump has started mapping out his $1 trillion plan to rebuild the country’s roads, bridges, and airports – and it is worth mentioning that infrastructure spending was also a key component of Bernie Sanders’ platform as well.

A LOOK AT AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE

Today’s infographic is from HighTide Technologies, and it dives into the infrastructure situation in the United States, including a comparison of federal and state spending.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the United States currently has an “infrastructure gap”. If the discrepancy is not closed between what needs to be invested in infrastructure and what is actually invested, it could ultimately create a $4 trillion drag on GDP by 2025.

As a result, between 2016 and 2025, each American household will lose $3,400 in disposable income due to infrastructure inefficiencies.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED?

Should money go to roadways, airports, water systems, broadband networks, or rail?

The biggest challenge facing America’s infrastructure problem is where to get the biggest ROI from infrastructure investments. Putting a trillion dollars towards problems that don’t really exist would be a catastrophic failure to everyone involved, with the exception of any crony capitalists that find a way to profit.

One viewpoint on this again comes from the American Society of Civil Engineers: they figure that by 2020, the U.S. needs to put $1.7 trillion towards roads, bridges and transit, $736 billion to electricity and power grids, $391 billion towards schools, $134 billion to airports, and $131 billion to waterways and related projects.

But even with these kinds of targets in place, how the decisions are actually made is another potential issue. Infrastructure investments are notoriously hard to gauge and often run overbudget. They are also capital-intensive, constrained by regulations, and disrupting to daily life at a local level, where the investments are being made.

Trump’s current plan is to provide $137 billion in tax credits to create incentives for private industry to spend the dough – but it remains to be seen how this will play out to mitigate the above risks, while solving the most important problems at both state and local levels.

America Too Broke to Fix Crumbling Infrastructure? “Bridges, Roads, Airports In Long Term Collapse”

Public domain image, CC0 (source)

This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at the Economic Collapse blog.

Editor’s Comment: It is certainly solid to suggest that the entire national infrastructure is in bad need of an overhaul. Bridges, roads, tunnels, sewage, water pipes, the electric grid and more are corroded, toxic, faulty and blemishes. They reflect the vibrance and prosperity of the country, and it is no surprise to find the worst cases of these failing public works in some of the most economically depressed areas of the country, with high unemployment, and in the big cities where too many people are crammed together and overflowing the various utilities and roadways.

The problem adds to the deep structural problems, with economic growth and a return of good jobs necessary to balance the investment, but also needed to stimulate boosted productivity, spending and commerce. The federal debt is bloated and prone to complete disaster. Personal households, cities and states, and many businesses are all prone to bankruptcy, debt implosion and foreclosures and closed doors. The big question is how to get out of the financial hole that has everyone so captive… it’s a big question, but the answers somehow never seem to surface – and it is my suspicion that the powers that be want it that way, with most everyone too desperate to challenge their power.

Can the quagmire be overcome? Will a make over fix the bigger problems Americans are facing?

11 Deeply Alarming Facts About America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

by Michael Snyder

No matter what your particular political perspective is, if there is one thing that virtually everyone in the United States can agree upon it is the fact that America’s infrastructure is crumbling.  Previous generations of Americans conquered an entire continent and erected the greatest system of infrastructure that the world had ever seen, but now thousands upon thousands of those extremely impressive infrastructure projects are decades old and in desperate need of repair or upgrading.  The near catastrophic failure of the Oroville Dam is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

We should be constructing the next generation of infrastructure projects for our children and our grandchildren, but instead we are in such sorry shape that we can’t even keep up with the maintenance and upkeep on the great infrastructure projects that have been handed down to us.

Once upon a time nobody on the entire planet could even come close to matching our infrastructure, but now our crumbling infrastructure has become a joke to much of the rest of the industrialized world.  Sadly, this is just another symptom of our long-term economic collapse.  We simply are not able to put as much of our money toward infrastructure as previous generations of Americans did, and as a result we have a giant mess on our hands.

The following are 11 deeply alarming facts about America’s crumbling infrastructure…

#1 According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, nearly 56,000 bridges in the United States are currently “structurally deficient”.  What makes that number even more chilling is the fact that vehicles cross those bridges a total of 185 million times a day.

#2 More than one out of every four bridges in the United States is more than 50 years old and “have never had major reconstruction work”.

#3 America does not have a single airport that is considered to be in the top 25 in the world.

#4 The average age of America’s dams is now 52 years.

#5 Not too long ago, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the condition of America’s dams a “D” grade.

#6 Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers said that the condition of America’s infrastructure as a whole only gets a “D+” grade.

#7 Congestion on our highways costs Americans approximately 101 billion dollars a year in wasted fuel and time.

#8 According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, over two-thirds of our roads are “in dire need of repair or upgrades”.

#9 In order to completely fix all of our roads and bridges, it would take approximately 808 billion dollars.

#10 Federal spending on infrastructure has decreased by 9 percent over the past decade.

#11 According to Bloomberg, it is being projected “that by 2025, shortfalls in infrastructure investment will subtract as much as $3.9 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product.”

The quality of our infrastructure affects all of our lives every single day.  For instance, we all simply take it for granted that safe, clean drinking water is going to come out of our taps, but recent events have shown that is not necessarily always going to be the case.

Just ask the residents of Flint, Michigan.

Water pipes, sewer systems and water treatment facilities all over the nation are aging and are in desperate need of repair.  Of course the exact same thing could be said about our power grid.  It was never intended to handle so many people, and on the hottest days of the summer the strain on the grid is very evident.

And of course the power grid is exceedingly vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse event, and this is something that I covered in my book on getting prepared.  It has been projected that it would only cost a couple billion dollars to harden the grid against an EMP event, but our politicians refuse to spend the money.

Meanwhile, President Trump is completely correct when he says that our airports look like something that you would see in a third world country.  Most of our airports are at least several decades old, and they are definitely showing their age.

But things are even worse when you look at other systems of mass transit around the country.  While other nations such as Japan and China are investing huge amounts of money into high speed rail, we are doing next to nothing even though what we currently have is absolutely pathetic.

I could go on and talk about our ports, schools, waterways, parks, etc. but I think that you get the point.

President Trump’s instincts are right on the money when he says that he wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure.  Without a doubt, we desperately need it.

The problem is that we are flat broke.

We are 20 trillion dollars in debt, and we are adding more than a trillion dollars to that total every year.

So where are we going to get the money?

It is easy for liberals to say that we should raise taxes, but how much more are you going to squeeze out of U.S. consumers?  Two-thirds of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, and we just learned that U.S. household debt has risen to a grand total of 12.58 trillion dollars.

Once upon a time, America was the wealthiest nation on the entire planet and we could afford to construct bold, new infrastructure projects from sea to shining sea.

But today we have the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and we can’t even afford to repair what we already have.

When I speak of our long-term economic collapse, this is precisely the sort of thing that I am talking about.  We have clearly been in decline for a very long time, and anyone that would suggest otherwise is simply not being honest with you.

This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at the Economic Collapse blog.

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North Dakota Governor Signs Executive Order Evicting Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters

After nearly a year since the first protest camp sprung up in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, it looks as if the Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, has finally had enough and has signed an executive order demanding that protesters evacuate by February 22nd.

Gov. Burgum has issued an exec order reinforcing @OmahaUSACE"s Feb. 22 deadline for vacating the main protest camp. https://t.co/PJc0iXZBnY

— Doug Burgum (@DougBurgum) February 16, 2017

Ironically, environmental damage caused by the protesters, including "months of accumulated debris, and human waste generated by the populations that have occupied the aforementioned areas," and the resulting risk posed to the waters of the Missouri River was cited by the Governor as the primary reason for the eviction notice.  Per the Executive Order:

WHEREAS, large populations have ignored the November 28, 2016 evacuation order detailed in Governor"s Executive Order 2016-08 and the separate eviction order issued by the United States Army Corps of Engineers on November 25, 2016.  These populations continue to unlawfully occupy and reside in flood-prone areas...

WHEREAS, months of accumulated debris, including human waste generated by the populations that have occupied the aforementioned areas of Morton and Sioux Counties pose a significant and increasing environment threat to the waters of the Missouri River if cleanup and removal efforts are not quickly accelerated and completed before flooding begins...

WHEREAS, the presence of accumulated waste, abandoned vehicles and unlawful temporary and permanent dwelling structures in this flood-prone area has created significant health and public safety risks as well as environment hazards, even absent imminent flooding...

All persons occupying or residing in the evacuation area are ordered to leave the area no later than 2 p.m. on Wednesday, February 22,2017.

The full Executive Order can be read here:

Of course, this executive order comes after the US Army Corps said in a court filing earlier this month that it had granted the final easement needed to finish the controversial pipeline. The easement was needed for Energy Transfer Partners to complete work on the last pipeline portion located under Lake Oahe.

Stmt from US Army says they intend to grant the easement needed to complete the #DakotaAccessPipeline: pic.twitter.com/NgLyIzMXww

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) February 7, 2017

And for those of you not familiar with this ongoing saga, the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline will bring crude oil from North Dakota"s Bakken shale region to Patoka, Illinois, and from there connect to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located.

Finally, here is a compilation video of protesters efforts to disrupt the pipeline over the past several months...it was a valiant effort.

Activists Warned Officials About Oroville Dam 12 Years Ago (But Nobody Listened)

Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

Officials were warned twelve years in advance about potential safety hazards at the Oroville Dam in Butte County, California, which now faces the risk of flooding nearby residential areas as a result of a broken spillway and increased rainfall.

Local outlet Mercury News reports:

“Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.”

That never happened. The aging Oroville dam, which exceeded capacity on Sunday, began to overflow and spill over the earthen emergency spillway after the main spillway was severely damaged. These developments prompted flood warnings and a declaration of a state of emergency from Governor Jerry Brown. The spillway is on the verge of collapse, a potential disaster that prompted mass evacuations. Over 188,000 residents have been displaced.

The environmental groups’ 2005 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expressed concern over the exact situation at risk of unfolding now. They warned that in the “event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as ‘loss of crest control.’”

According to Ron Stark, policy director with Friends of the River, “We said ‘are you really sure that running all this water over the emergency spillway won’t cause the spillway to fail?’ They tried to be as evasive as possible. It would have cost money to build a proper concrete spillway.”

Indeed, FERC dismissed their filing “after the state Department of Water Resources, and the water agencies that would likely have had to pay the bill for the upgrades, said they were unnecessary.”

Though by Sunday evening officials reported water was no longer spilling over the emergency spillway, they are continuing to release water through the regular, damaged spillway at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second, which they claim is consistent with “normal flood control releases.” Footage from local affiliate Fox40 shows the Feather River, which is receiving much of the water releases, is brimming. They report it “looks more like a lake today,” though for now, officials say Feather River remains below flood stage.

According to Fox40, officials with the Department of Water Resources say “they have not been able to access the area on the emergency spillway that has been eroded.”

Officials are scrambling to continue clearing water and repairing the damaged spillway, as more storms are expected on Wednesday and Thursday.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said officials are working on a “repopulation plan” for evacuated residents, though they offered no time table, asserting instead they will allow people to return when it is safe.

Regardless of the outcome, the ongoing incident has undoubtedly demonstrated gaping flaws with the methods government agencies use to maintain aging infrastructure.

“Recognize That the Situation Is Beyond Repair”: Trump’s Plan to Save the Economy Won’t Be Enough

This article was written by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com and first published at PersonalLiberty.com.

Editor’s Comment: Despite a number of positive steps at the beginning of the President Trump’s administration, the economy is very, very far gone. Under the arrangements of the past half century, the United States has become an engine of global centralization. The goods its people need are produced overseas and imported; an imperial model poised for collapse. Central bankers have our country in a vulnerable and interdependent state, and even with the best intentions, Trump can’t pull us out of it with renewed manufacturing, tariffs and federal meddling.

Though many of his initiatives are in the right direction, it may be a case of too little, too late. Once the U.S. loses the dollar’s world reserve currency, there won’t be much else propping it up. It is seems that an economic collapse has been readied, and Trump may be cast as the man to blame, rather than the man to save us from it. May we have better wisdom in rebuilding, if those who would enslave us completely in a highly centralized, mechanized global system don’t succeed first.

Prepare now for the recovery as best you can; either way, it will be a long road ahead.

Irreversible Damage – The U.S. Economy Cannot Be Repaired

by Brandon Smith

As I outlined in my article ‘The False Economic Narrative Will Die In 2017’, the mainstream media has been carefully crafting the propaganda meme that the Trump administration is inheriting a global economy in “ascension,” when in fact, the opposite is true. Trump enters office at a time of longstanding decline and will likely witness severe and accelerated decline over the course of the next year. The signs are already present, and this fits exactly with the basis for my prediction of the Trump election win — conservative movements are indeed being set up as scapegoats for a global economic crisis that international financiers actually created.

Plus, it doesn’t help that Trump keeps boasting about the farcical Dow hitting record highs after his entry into the White House. Talk about the perfect setup…

With the speed at which Trump is issuing executive orders, my concern is that people’s heads will be spinning so fast they will start to assume an appearance of economic progress. Here is the issue — some problems simply cannot be fixed, at least not in a top down fashion. Some disasters cannot be prevented. Sometimes, a crisis has to run its course before a nation or society or economy can return to stability. This is invariably true of the underlying crisis within the U.S. economy.

It is imperative that liberty activists and conservatives avoid false hope in fiscal recovery and remain vigilant and prepared for a breakdown within the system. Despite the sudden political sea change with Trump and the Republican party in majority control of the D.C. apparatus, there is nothing that can be done through government to ease fiscal tensions at this time. Here are some of the primary reasons why:

Government Does Not Create Wealth

Government is a wealth-devouring machine. The bigger the government, the more adept it is at snatching capital and misallocating it. Such a system is inherently unequipped to repair an economy in a stagflationary spiral.

I’m hearing a whole lot of talk lately on all the jobs that will be created through Trump’s infrastructure spending plans, which reminds me of the desperation at the onset of the Great Depression and the efforts by Herbert Hoover to reignite the U.S. economy through a series of public works programs. Reality does not support a successful outcome for this endeavor.

First off, Trump’s ideas for infrastructure spending to kick start a U.S. recovery are not new. The Obama administration and Congress passed the largest transportation spending bill in more than a decade in 2015 and pushed for a similar strategy to what is now being suggested by Trump. I should point out though that like Herbert Hoover, Obama’s efforts in this area were essentially fruitless. Obama was the first president since Hoover to see “official” annual U.S. GDP growth drop below 3 percent for the entirety of his presidency, with GDP in 2016 dropping to a dismal 1.6 percent.

Though projects like the Hoover Dam were epic in scope and electrifying to the public imagination during the Depression, they did little to fuel the overall long-term prospects of the American economy. This is because government is incapable of creating wealth; it can only steal wealth from the citizenry through taxation to pay debts conjured out of thin air, or, it can strike a devil’s bargain with central banks to print its way to fake prosperity.

Some might argue that Trump is more likely to redirect funds from poorly conceived Obama-era programs instead of increasing taxes or printing, but this does not change the bigger picture. Redirected funds are still taxpayer funds, and those funds would be far better spent if they were returned to taxpayers rather than wasted in a vain effort to increase GDP by a percentage point. Beyond this, the number of jobs generated through the process will be a drop in the bucket compared to the 100 million plus people no longer employed within the U.S. at this time.

Bottom line? Though new roads and a wall on the southern border are winners for many conservatives, infrastructure spending is a non-solution in preventing a long-term fiscal disaster.

Interdependency Is Hard To Break

Another prospect for raising funds to pay for job generating public works projects is the use of tariffs on foreign imports. Specifically, imports of goods from countries which have maintained unfair trade advantages through global agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA or the China Trade Bill. This is obviously a practical concept and it was always the intention of the founding father post-revolution for government to generate most of its funding through taxation of foreign imports and interstate commerce, rather than taxation of the hard earned incomes of the citizenry. However, the idea is not without consequences.

Unfortunately, globalists have spent the better part of a half-century ensuring that individual nations are completely financially dependent on one another. The U.S. is at the very CENTER of this interdependency with our currency as the world reserve standard. In order to change the nature of the inderdependent system, we have to change the nature of our participation within that system. This means, in order to assert large tariffs on countries like China (which Trump has suggested), America would have to be willing to sacrifice the main advantage it enjoys within the interdependent model — we would have to sacrifice the dollar’s world reserve status.

Keep in mind, this is likely to be done for us in an aggressive manner by nations like China. China’s considerable dollar and treasury bond holds can be liquidated, and despite claims by mainstream shills, this WILL in fact have destructive effects on the U.S. economy.

Also keep in mind that with higher tariffs come higher prices on the shelf. The majority of goods consumed by Americans come from outside the country. Higher tariffs only work to our advantage when we have a manufacturing base capable of producing the goods we need at prices we can afford. The American manufacturing base within our own nation is essentially nonexistent compared to the Great Depression. In order to levy tariffs we would need a level of production support we simply do not have.

The point is, an unprecedented change in America’s production dynamic would have to happen so that we do not face heavy fiscal consequences for the use of tariffs as an economic weapon.

Manufacturing Takes Time To Rebuild

Much excitement has been garnered by reports that certain U.S. corporations will be bringing some manufacturing back within our borders over the course of Trump’s first term as president. And certainly this is something that needs to happen. We should have never outsourced our manufacturing capability in the first place. But, is this too little too late? I believe so.

I remember back in 2008/2009 mainstream economists were applauding the Federal Reserve’s bailout efforts and the call for quantitative easing, because, they argued, this would diminish the dollar’s value on the global market, which would make American goods less expensive, and by extension inspire a manufacturing renaissance. Of course, this never happened, which only adds to the mountain of evidence proving that most mainstream economists are intellectual idiots.

It is important that we do not fall into the same false-hope trap in 2017. While Trump may or may not handle matters more aggressively, there is only so much that can be accomplished through politics. Rebuilding a manufacturing base after decades of outsourcing takes time. Many years, in fact. Factories have to be commissioned, money has to change many hands, wages have to be scouted for the best possible labor per-dollar spent and people have to be trained from the very ground up in how to produce goods again. In many cases, the skill sets required to maintain functioning factories in the U.S. (from engineers to machinists to assembly line labor to the people who know how to manage it all) just don’t exist anymore.  All we have left are millions of retail and food service workers forming mobs to demand $15 an hour, which is simply not going to encourage a return to manufacturing.

Beyond this, at least in the short term, America will have a much stronger dollar on the global market, rather than a weaker dollar, due to the fact that the Federal Reserve has initiated a renewed series of interest rate increases just as Trump entered office.  While the mainstream theorizes that the Fed will turn “dovish” and back away from rate hikes, I think this is a rather naive notion.  It serves the elites far better to create a battle between Trump and the Fed – therefore, I see no reason for the Fed to back away from its rate hike process.  Trump will demand a weaker dollar, the Fed won’t give it to him, and ultimately, the global economy will start to see the dollar as a risky venture and dump it as the world reserve; which is what the globalist have wanted all along so that they can introduce the SDR as a bridge to a new world currency.

With a “strong” dollar (relative to other indexes) there is even LESS incentive for foreign nations to buy our goods now than there was after the credit crisis in 2008. If the dollar loses world reserve status (as I believe it will during Trump’s first term), then at that point we will have a swiftly falling currency — but too swift to fuel a manufacturing reboot.

Is there even enough internal wealth to support the rise of manufacturing within the U.S. for a period of time necessary for our economy to rebalance?  If there is I’m not seeing it.  We are a nation mired in debt.  So much so that even selling off our natural resources would not erase the problem.

Ultimately, the shift away from being tied to a globalized system towards a self-contained producer nation with a citizenry wealthy enough to sustain that production in light of limited exports to foreign buyers is a shift that requires incredible foresight, precision and ample time. It is not something that can be ramrodded into existence through force or by government decree. In fact, the act of trying to force the change haphazardly will only agitate an economy already on the verge of calamity.

Solutions Start With The Citizenry, Not Washington

I understand that conservatives in particular want to “make America great again,” and I fully agree with that goal. But, someone has to point out the inconsistencies in the current strategy and recognize that the situation is beyond repair. To make America great again would require decentralized efforts to maximize production and self reliance at a local level, not centralized federal tinkering with the economy. The globalists have been far too thorough in their programs of interdependency. The only way out now is for the system to crash and for the right people to be in place to rebuild.

Sadly, not only will a crash result in great tragedy for many Americans, but it is also an outcome the globalists prefer. They believe that THEY will be the men in the right place at the right time to rebuild the system in an even more centralized fashion. They hope to sacrifice the old world order to inspire the social desperation needed to convince the masses of the need for a “new world order.” Again, this crash cannot be avoided, it can only be mitigated. We can prepare and become self sufficient. We can fight to ensure that the globalists are not in a position to rebuild the system in their image once the dust settles. But, we should not place too much expectation that the Trump administration will be able to solve any of our economic problems, if that is even their intent.  The solution remains in our hands, not in the hands of the White House.

This article was written by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com and first published at PersonalLiberty.com.

New executive order will fast-track infrastructure projects and create “millions of jobs”

jasonwoodhead23/Flickr

(INTELLIHUB) — More often than not infrastructure projects have been dragged through miles of red tape, killing the true essence of job potential in the United States which has historically been held back by vast environmental restrictions. And although President Donald Trump is an environmentalist at heart, he also understands the need to open up the market to get projects and jobs flowing again.

On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Expediting Environmental Reviews and Approvals For High-Priority Infrastructure Projects,” which will, in theory, get this country cranking again, after a failed onslaught by the Obama Administration to create jobs.

“Infrastructure investment strengthens our economic platform, makes America more competitive, creates millions of jobs, increases wages for American workers, and reduces the costs of goods and services for American families and consumers,” the executive order maintains.

Effectiveness is crucial to our nation’s growth and success but the respect of “property rights and protecting public safety and the environment” is also a factor.

“To that end, it is the policy of the executive branch to streamline and expedite, in a manner consistent with law, environmental reviews and approvals for all infrastructure projects, especially projects that are a high priority for the Nation, such as improving the U.S. electric grid and telecommunications systems and repairing and upgrading critical port facilities, airports, pipelines, bridges, and highways.”

The executive order marks only one of many steps which the President has already taken since his Inauguration on Jan. 20 that will ultimately make America great again.

President Trump’s approval rating currently sits at 57%.

Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Get the Podcast. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

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Chinese Billionaire Says He Knows Where America’s Jobs Went — and It’s Not China

January 19, 2017   |   James Holbrooks

(ANTIMEDIA) Davos — Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba — the Chinese company that surpassed Wal-Mart as the world’s largest retailer in 2016 — said the United States has no one but itself to blame for its economic woes, and that much of the problem is rooted in wasteful spending on warfare.

CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin had asked Ma about his thoughts on the American economy and how it relates to China. Incoming President Donald Trump’s stance has consistently been anti-China — the former reality TV star has long accused the Asian superpower of siphoning U.S. jobs — and he and the trade team he’s putting together appear eager and willing to impose tariffs on Chinese goods.

“It’s not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It’s your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way,” Ma said, adding, “You’re supposed to spend money on your own people.”

On the issue of military spending, the Chinese billionaire claimed the U.S. has wasted over $14 trillion on warfare over the past three decades — money that, again, could’ve been invested in domestic infrastructure and programs for the American populace.

On Wednesday, as Anti-Media reported, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a historic speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in which he praised globalism and made a case for China as the world’s new economic leader.

Speaking of globalization, Ma called it a “perfect” strategy, and pointed out that U.S. corporations have profited substantially from the system:

“The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization. The past 30 years, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, they’ve made tens of millions — the profits they’ve made are much more than the four Chinese banks put together…But where did the money go?”

In welcoming China’s president to the stage at Davos on Wednesday, WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab stated, “In a world marked by great uncertainty and volatility the world is looking to China.”

Alibaba’s Jack Ma, in speaking to CNBC, seemed to echo this sentiment — that’s it’s China and the system of economic globalization that will blaze the path into the future:

“The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together. As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together.”

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This article (Chinese Billionaire Says He Knows Where America’s Jobs Went — and It’s Not China) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to James Holbrooks and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. Image credit: World Economic Forum. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

In Stunning Last Minute Power Grab, Obama Designates Election Systems As "Critical Infrastructure"

In a stunning last minute power grab by the Obama administration with just 14 days left in his Presidency, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement this evening officially declaring state election systems to be "critical infrastructure."  The statement from DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson defines "election infrastructure" as "storage facilities, polling places, centralized vote tabulations locations, voter registration databases, voting machines" and all "other systems" to manage the election process...so pretty much everything.

I have determined that election infrastructure in this country should be designated as a subsector of the existing Government Facilities critical infrastructure sector. Given the vital role elections play in this country, it is clear that certain systems and assets of election infrastructure meet the definition of critical infrastructure, in fact and in law.

I have reached this determination so that election infrastructure will, on a more formal and enduring basis, be a priority for cybersecurity assistance and protections that the Department of Homeland Security provides to a range of private and public sector entities. By “election infrastructure,” we mean storage facilities, polling places, and centralized vote tabulations locations used to support the election process, and information and communications technology to include voter registration databases, voting machines, and other systems to manage the election process and report and display results on behalf of state and local governments.

Of course, it"s likely not a coincidence that the DHS made this announcement just hours after the "intelligence community" declassified their "Russian Hacking" propaganda which basically noted that RT has a very effective social media distribution platform while once again providing absolutely no actual evidence.

Johnson"s statement goes on to note that while many "state and local election officials are opposed to this designation" he went ahead with his decision anyway, because that"s just what the Obama administration does.

Prior to reaching this determination, my staff and I consulted many state and local election officials; I am aware that many of them are opposed to this designation. It is important to stress what this designation does and does not mean. This designation does not mean a federal takeover, regulation, oversight or intrusion concerning elections in this country. This designation does nothing to change the role state and local governments have in administering and running elections.

The designation of election infrastructure as critical infrastructure subsector does mean that election infrastructure becomes a priority within the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. It also enables this Department to prioritize our cybersecurity assistance to state and local election officials, but only for those who request it. Further, the designation makes clear both domestically and internationally that election infrastructure enjoys all the benefits and protections of critical infrastructure that the U.S. government has to offer. Finally, a designation makes it easier for the federal government to have full and frank discussions with key stakeholders regarding sensitive vulnerability information.

Particularly in these times, this designation is simply the right and obvious thing to do.

Of course, one of the most vocal opponents of this move has been Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp who recently told Politico it is nothing more than an attempt to "subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security."

During an earlier interview with the site Nextgov, Kemp warned: "The question remains whether the federal government will subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security." Kemp told POLITICO he sees a “clear motivation from this White House” to expand federal control, citing Obama’s health care law, the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation and the increased role of the Education Department in local schools.

To some election officials, this sounds like the first stage of a more intrusive plan.

“I think it’s kind of the nose under the tent,” said Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat. “What I think a lot of folks get concerned about [is] when the federal government says, ‘Well, look, we’re not really interested in doing that, but we just want to give you this,’ and then all of a sudden this leads to something else.”

Meanwhile, Kemp continued on by noting that "this administration only has 15 days left in its term" and to make such a critical decision during the 11th hour "smacks of partisan politics."

But we"re sure it"s nothing, Obama doesn"t really strike us as the type to play the "partisan politics" game.