When people in business figure out the guy across the table from them is an idiot, they don’t take pity on him. They take him for all he’s worth.
America is led by a very stupid man, and the world has recognized this.
A good example was on the Idiot’s trip to Saudi Arabia, where he apparently agreed to isolate Qatar.
To the Saud royal family, which let’s not forget is the closest thing the world today has, to the 18th century Bourbons, Qatar is like Voltaire, a pain in the ass. Qatar is the leading edge of the Muslim World’s efforts to engage the Western World.
Think of Qatar as 15th century Florence, and the Qataris as the Medici.
Qatar owns Al Jazeera, the closest thing to an independent news voice in the Arab world. It maintains ties with Iran, the closest thing to a democracy west Asian Islam has. Qatar also supported the elected government of Mohammed Morsi, which was overthrown in a coup supported by the Sauds. Qatar is searching, as no other Middle East country is, for a way out of dependence on oil.
The Saud royal family hates democracy. The Saud royal family hates independent voices. The Saud royal family believes its Wahhabist clerics, its own Inquisition, should be the only voices heard, on any subject, across the whole of the Islamic world. You remember Wahhabis – they’re the boys who gave you 9/11. New York didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition, but that’s what you get when you turn history into a punch line.
Just a week after the Idiot went wings up from Riyadh, on his way to insult Europe, the Sauds cracked down. They are isolating Qatar in every way they can. Emirates Air planes are no longer allowed in Arab air space – they route over Iran. There is food hoarding going on, literally panic in the streets.
Oh, did I mention that the U.S. has 10,000 troops in Qatar, and that it’s our forward base for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars the Idiot has escalated? Did you know that Qatar has a sovereign wealth fund worth over $330 billion, which is propping up such institutions as Volkswagon, Deutsche Bank and Barclay’s? Guess who owns Tiffany’s and the Empire State Building? Qatar came to our aid during the 2008 financial crisis as well.
Yet Qatar is the enemy? Really? Really. Really?
This is taking stupidity up a notch. Several notches. Donald Trump is systematically allying us with the world’s worst dictators – Putin, Duterte, the Sauds – against democratic forces and tolerance.
There is some good news here. The world is learning how to take care of itself. Europe is being unified, knowing there is no American backstop. The power of the United States, relative to that of other actors on the world stage, is going down. This loss of power is permanent. In acting against Trump, the world is learning to constrain the U.S. permanently. Also, Trump’s approval rating is going down, Democrats getting closer-and-closer to victory with each Republican district they fight in.
What’s happening in a diplomatic sense is going to happen in a financial sense. The biggest banks in the world are now Chinese. With the U.S. diplomatically isolated, other nations are taking control of their own Internet resources and telling U.S. giants like Google and Facebook they must dance to their tune. Trump doesn’t care about the five biggest American companies by market cap, and is doing nothing to support them.
Stupid could hit the financial wall this summer but my guess is that Wall Street will get the message when it returns from summer vacation. A market crash – and with only five companies holding up the market such a crash is inevitable – is going to leave Trump and the Republicans incredibly exposed.
It’s also going to leave you exposed. Personally. I’m predicting a falling dollar alongside rising interest rates, and a continuing fall in asset prices. Anyone buying a house today is likely to be underwater by the end of the year. When money costs more, housing goes down.
That’s the way stupid works. You notice when it hits you in the wallet. And when it hits you in the wallet, guess what is going to happen to the people of Trumpistan?
They’re gonna be pissed…make sure they get pissed at the right people.
