Alternative Visions - Argentina Crises Deepens + US-Mexico Phony Trade Deal - 08.31.18

Summary: Argentina’s currency collapses by more than 50% and central bank raises domestic interest rates to 60%. Inflation raging more than 30%, GPD collapsing more than 6%. IMF lends most in history, $50 billion, to try to stem the crisis. Big austerity measures coming. Turkey LIRA currency falls another 5% (to 40-45%). Is this just isolated events, or harbingers of a growing and spreading global emerging markets crisis that will reverberate to Europe, US, and elsewhere? Rasmus explains how these events are ‘made in America’ and Trump fiscal and monetary policies. The potential contagion effects of global currency instability—and the relationship to Government and Corporate bond debt—are discussed.  Second half of the show reviews the US-Mexican trade deal (and Canada soon) and how it represents further Trump’s phony trade war with allies. Trump suspends trade war with Europe and quietly also exempts steel and aluminum tariffs worldwide. (Next week: Labor day 2018 and the truth about jobs & wages and ‘Indicators of America’s Broader Social Crisis’)