Alternative Visions - What’s Behind Trump’s Invitation to China to Renew Trade Talks

Summary: This week Trump invited China to return to talk about trade, as he again threatened $200 billion more tariff implementation (and raised prospect of another $267 billion). The show discusses what’s behind the invitation to China. Growing pressure from big business and bankers to Trump imposing more tariffs and precipitating a true trade war with China. Is Trump’s move just to reduce the heat from business? Is he preparing the g round for actual further tariff implementation? Was the invitation made by Mnuchin, not Trump, who is now firmly behind the military-industrial-intelligence faction on China trade (Lighthizer-Navarro-Bolton). The show then discusses Turkey’s recent hike in interest rates to 24% and the growing crisis among emerging market economies as currencies continue to collapse. How contagion occurs across currencies, stock markets, bond markets. Rasmus revisits the Lehman Brothers collapse of Sept. 15, 2008 and the role of Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, in engineering the collapse to benefit his corporate alma mater, Goldman Sachs, that made billions off collecting CDS contracts it wrote betting Lehman would collapse. How bankers ‘eat their own’—and in 2008 with the help of the US government Fed and Treasury. What’s different 2018. Will there be a Trump ‘October Surprise’ general trade deal announced?