It's no longer creative accounting, it's a dangerous bare faced lie.

This is a story of an international extortionist who is attempting to subjugate the world to feed his sick ego

Hello my friends, my apologies for being AWOL for the last week, I fell victim to flu which hit me like a freight train. You know us men, we don’t handle illness well and it appears I needed more than a few days to feel sorry for myself. While I’ve been resting up, I took some time to try and get a grip on the big picture which frankly left me wondering is there any escape from this tyranny. What I want to do today is to try and look at the broader picture and offer a finer tuned economic disengagement strategy that I believe could have a significant impact on where we are. The only question is, do Americans have the will to make it happen?

You will note now that Trump is getting bolder with his lies. He called into CBS News last week to lie about the job numbers being manipulated and his poll numbers. He claimed the job numbers were juiced up just before the election and then revised down after the election. It was of course the absolute opposite. In a report by Michael Sainato in the Guardian on 1st November 2024, the headline was:

US adds only 12,000 jobs in October in final report before election

The report went on:

The US added just 12,000 jobs in October, the last snapshot of the employment market before election day

Economists had expected the temporary impacts from Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton and the ongoing strike by 33,000 Boeing workers in the Pacific north-west to reduce job growth numbers in October. But the number of jobs created was far lower than their estimate of 120,000 jobs for the month.

The Trump campaign jumped on the numbers at the time

“This jobs report is a catastrophe and definitively reveals how badly Kamala Harris broke our economy,”

So his statement on CBS was just another bare faced lie, and no challenge was made by the presenter, who just sat there and allowed his program to be an infomercial to spread more Trump lies. Incidentally the November job number was revised up in December to 32,000.

It is also worthy of note that in March Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disbanded the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, which had been in place for two decades. As reported by Reuters on 5th March 2025:

"This will impact the quality of data because it's a core principle of federal statistical agencies that they continually improve and innovate," Erica Groshen, a former FESAC member, told Reuters. "Without a robust flow of information and advice between experts outside their agencies, it's going to be harder for them to do that."

Groshen, who is also a former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner, said FESAC was made up of academics, private-sector economists and data scientists, and focused on continually improving economic data produced by the BLS as well as the Commerce Department's statistical agencies, the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis.

One can’t help feeling that this was all part of the plan, or is that just the old cynic in me?

I have spoken many times about Trump's fantasy economy, but it’s not difficult to understand how this carefully constructed illusion can convince people that he is ‘winning,’ as he likes to put it. He operates by using threats for economic leverage, then allowing sufficient time, as seen in his recent August 1st tariff increases, to enable importers to front-load inventory and fill containers before August 7th. Each time he does this, as he did in April, it defers the impact of those tariffs in the real economy.

To date, consumers have not yet felt the full impact of the tariffs, primarily due to front-loaded inventory and companies absorbing at least some of the cost to maintain consumer confidence. We have, though, recently started to see retailers pass on tariff costs, and this will grow as they can no longer absorb the rising input costs to their businesses. The bottom line is, soon it will be a simple choice: higher inflation or lower corporate profits. I would expect that the latter is now inevitable because inflation will kill consumer confidence, and profits will fall anyway. Trump is walking a tightrope, and I suspect he knows it, but by seizing control of the primary economic data reporting, he can simply hide the problems, much as the banks did in 2018 before the banking crash.

What Trump forgets is that you can only bully and extort your trading partners as he is right now, and in the short term. While the US will see a tariff revenue spike, which is precisely what we are seeing, its victims have little choice but to play the game. However, if he thinks they will just become subjugated cash cows, he should think again. It takes time for the global economy to absorb the impact of a lunatic in the White House, but rest assured, the world is working to rewire global trade to mitigate Trump's racketeering. Trump believes tariffs are the ultimate economic weapon, but as with all evolution, the world will adjust, and the only beneficiary of his bullying will eventually be China.

We are seeing closer relationships now between Canada and Europe and Canada and Asia; it simply takes time to adjust infrastructure to drive around US routes to market that have been long established. The thing about this economic evolution is that once it has taken place, there is no going back, and the US will simply see diminishing investment at a time when it is carrying an unsustainable debt burden. Even if it generated the estimated $2 trillion in tariff revenue over the next decade, it would not cover even 50% of the debt added by his big beautiful bill, which is now estimated to add $4.1 trillion to the deficit in the same period. You cannot tariff your way out of debt.

What Americans still have not come to terms with is that Trump has imposed a 20% tax on American importers which will eventually translate into a 20% federal sales tax on what they buy. This is largely because at every opportunity, he has lied and claimed that foreign countries are paying his tax, when they are not paying a cent. In what must be an absolute first for the party of small government and low taxes, this Republican administration has increased taxes on Americans by around 20% and its leader is being hailed by his cult as an economic genius. His supporters will go down in history as the Turkeys who voted for economic Thanksgiving.

One thing that should be becoming increasingly evident to Americans is that a political solution to this situation is now almost out of reach. They have broken the system so well that all common routes to a solution no longer exist. There is much talk about the 2026 midterms as being the opportunity to place the brakes on Trump. Firstly, if you think Trump is the source of the problem, there is no hope. He has largely achieved his intended purpose of disrupting and normalising an authoritarian approach to government. Democrats are currently dead in the water, despite the best efforts of a brave few; they simply have no answers. Special election victories are being hailed as significant democratic wins, but in reality, they are more of a big protest vote against Trump. They are overperforming not because of a clear vision, but rather, because the people are rejecting Trump's policies.

There is no doubt in my mind that if the election were fought next week, Republicans would lose BIG TIME. It would be an absolute bloodbath. However, when you win because you are the lesser of two evils and not because of the vision you have for a better tomorrow, that is a big problem. When you can only win because the voters hate you a little less than a tyrant, it's time for some serious questions, and make no mistake, that is precisely where we are. The voting public simply believes that Democrats are likely to be less cruel than Republicans. Hardly a resounding endorsement. How can you build a vision on that?

Nine months have passed since the Democratic Party's catastrophic electoral defeat, and there is still no coherent vision for the future. Republicans are dominating the narrative. They now have control over the corporate media space, along with social media. They are moving to control government statistical data output, so nobody can assess the actual economic state of the nation, while they try to race towards global domination of AI. We have, unfortunately, reached the point where almost the entire population is in denial of an epic impending economic catastrophe the likes of which America and the world have ever seen.

Even the very fundamentals of economics are being distorted by senior administration officials. Scott Bessent can't even answer the fundamental question of 'Who pays the tariffs?' He and all other spokespeople are not allowed to answer a straightforward, unambiguous question. They can't do this because the moment they admit it's a tax on Americans, then the whole game is over. So, we see this endless, embarrassing political messaging choreography attempting to sustain the illusion that foreign countries are being forced to pay the tariffs. It amazes me that six months into the Trump regime, they have been allowed to maintain this illusion, but here we are, and it's not for the likes of people like me hammering home the truth each and every day. This should give you an idea of the level of the challenge ahead and why support for independent media is so vital in this moment.

We have reached the point now where the administration understands two things

1. Unless they can control elections they will be politically obliterated

2. If they did lose power, the way they have reimagined government would allow any incoming Democrat administration to banish them into the political wilderness for a generation.

Neither of these options can be contemplated, so ‘election integrity’ will be the battlefield on which this war will be fought. I’ll be discussing this in detail in a subsequent post, but what should now be very clear to anyone opposing this tyranny is that surviving to the midterms is not a viable strategy, despite that appearing to be the ball game for Democrats.

The Texas redistricting battle is the first of what will become a new strategy to solidify power. The problem is that it then provokes retaliatory strikes from states like California. It all just serves to corrupt the system further and prove to voters that both parties are no better than each other. While gerrymandering is illegal election tampering regardless of which party is perpetrating the crime against voters, Democrats have no choice but to retaliate in kind to this move by Republicans.

We are reaching the point where international election monitors will need to be deployed in a country that claims to be a beacon of representative democracy. Take a moment to think about that.

The realisation should be dawning now that there may not be a political solution to the hole America finds herself in. Trump and his acolytes have long seen this coming, which is why they have created executive orders to drive around the need to declare martial law as seen in Washington today. As things stand, Trump can deploy the National Guard and the military to any city without consulting Congress. These powers exist through carefully crafted executive orders designed to be suitably vague and ambiguous. This, therefore, allows the administration to easily crush any dissent on the streets without being granted further powers by legislators.

I wrote a piece 11th July about what I called ‘economic disengagement’

If consumption were a global sport, the US would be the world and Olympic champions with total consumer spending of around $18 trillion, which is more than the next four countries combined, and that includes China. It is an economy dominated by consumption. Trump is trying to replicate the Russian model of control and fear to create a compliant environment where dissent is kept at arm’s length. In most situations like this, revolutions become violent as the people rise up. Trump is prepared to use the military to deal with this, so it makes no political sense to play into his hands.

It’s not for nothing that the US government’s focus is on the consumer sentiment index. If consumer confidence falls, spending falls, and the economic engine starts to stutter. This is their kryptonite. The US economy is now sustaining over $37 trillion of debt, with the challenge of having to refinance $9.2 trillion of that debt this year. Given the stress that tariffs are placing on manufacturing and the incoming inflation from rising consumer prices, the government is very vulnerable. Your spending is providing the fuel for the economy.

Every time there is a recession, you will see that Real Personal Consumption Expenditures drops. In the 1973-1975 recession, it fell by 3.4%. In 2018 (which more people will be more familiar with), it dropped 2.6%, and of course, during COVID, it fell 16.7%, but that is an outlier because the whole world was closed for business. If consumer spending were to drop by, say, 3%, that would have a massive economic impact, to which the government would be forced to respond. If it went down 5% it would be a game changer.

What you have to remember here is that the government works on the principle that the bank always wins and that the population is inherently selfish in the same way that the rich are. Self-preservation kicks in, and we throw everyone else under the bus. It’s a relatively safe bet on the part of the government because Americans don’t handle inconvenience well.

The truth is that with innovative organising and some simple technology, this government can be brought to its knees without one politician raising a finger. Why is that important? Because this would be a fight between consumers and corporate America. You can rest assured that both Republicans and Democrats would fight as one to defend the corporations that provide the troughs from which they both feed. So this would truly be a unique battle. The US requires an economic revolution driven by consumers for consumers without fear or favor.

AOC and Bernie Sanders were not wrong to make this about the people versus the Oligarchs. This is almost an apolitical fight that has to be fought in carefully planned stages. It has to be done in a way that protects low-income workers who are unable to participate without starving their families. As I said in my last piece in July, this is about the ‘middle class’ taking one for the team. The first step involves withdrawing from streaming services. No need to go mad, pick one to keep and cancel the rest. This is likely something low-income families could do too. The reason to target streaming services is that this would attract media attention to raise the profile of the project.

The key is to target large ticket high margin items. Just park plans for any new purchases like vehicles expensive holidays for later. Look on it as a savings scheme. It's about targeting white goods and high-value air travel. No need to stop essential business trips, etc, or going out to eat, for example, to low and mid-price outlets. This will help keep restaurant jobs in place to some degree. Also, continue to buy low-priced items online for delivery too. It’s important to note that impacts are inevitable and will lead to job losses. However, the object is to manage the economic disengagement carefully so as to reduce the impact as much as possible. A set of economists and social scientists should be at the top table to develop and refine the strategy, supported by a simple app that participants can sign up for, using it to target their participation. It would enable individuals in various states to communicate more effectively and target their actions more precisely.

The app could operate on just email addresses and an optional state tag, as it’s simply a strategy element to coordinate action, so it wouldn’t matter who signed up. The key point is that the strategy would come solely from the system admins, who would also serve as the organising committee. There would be no credit card required or any personal data; it would just act as a digital notice board for coordinated action. Depending on how focused you wanted it to be, there could be state-level disengagement, too. This would be about democratising spending for social change.

The assumption is that a political solution, driven by the opposition, is always necessary. However, this is not the case. Political participation is not required to make this work. Instead, it's about the purity of public action and the power that collective action can bring to the table. It’s YOUR money, you get to spend it how you want or not spend it at all. Take that action individually, and you’re just a man walking a dog. Take the same action collectively, and you are a freight train hurtling down the track, threatening to break the system.

This should not constantly crying and complaining about what can be done, but rather taking responsibility for your collective future, because take it from me, Trump has no intention of giving you an opportunity to vote in 2026.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and observations. I hope you feel it was worth the investment of your time. I deliver a post to my community most days and invest significant time, money, and effort in producing fact-checked pieces. If you appreciate my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help offset the associated costs. It makes a huge difference. It has never been more important to support independent reporting.