Deep State Data Manipulation Threatens Economic Stability

Guest Post by Brandon Smith

Recent revisions to U.S. jobs data raise questions about the state of the economy, Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com reports. With so much uncertainty and our economic future in the balance, what exactly can we trust?

The U.S. consumer spending engine and tariffs as leverage

Mainstream economists were surprised last week after Donald Trump closed two massive trade and tariff deals, the first with Japan and the second with the EU. And this happened without triggering an economic crash.

The deal with Europe in particular has made a number of critics look rather foolish; there’s an army of mainstream economists who might reasonably acknowledge they misjudged the situation. But we all know that economists never admit their mistakes.

As I have been telling people for months, the American consumer is the economic engine of the world. There was no chance that any nation, or group of nations, was going to effectively challenge the U.S. on tariffs.

Doing so would mean catastrophic loss of the U.S. export market.

As I noted in my article Europe’s Anti-American Shift: Now Globalists Are The Saviors Of The West? from April:

The U.S. makes up 30%-35% of all global consumer spending and is the largest consumer market in the world. There are no clear numbers for the whole of Europe, but Germany, Europe’s largest economy makes up only 3% of global consumer spending. Germany is also the third largest economy in the world next to China. In other words, Europe has NO capacity whatsoever to fill the void in trade left behind by the U.S. If the U.S. economy detaches from Europe, or if the U.S. economy crashes, Europe would crash also. This is a fact…

It’s safe to expect the EU to fold. They cannot afford not to.

Why the EU folded on trade

I’m not saying that it’s a good thing that the U.S. is the consumption engine of the global economy! Rather, I’m explaining the reality we live in.

Tariff deals help to balance a long running pattern established post-WWII which positions America as the primary consumer market for the planet, while limiting the retention of a robust domestic industrial base. Tariffs also balance the highly uneven relationship the American public experiences with global corporations. As I argued in my article Tariff Freak Out: Why So Many People Cling To The Cancer Of Globalism earlier this year:

I’m getting a little tired of people constantly defending international conglomerates as if they are victims. On the libertarian side of things there are number of well meaning skeptics that suggest tariffs are “unconstitutional” because they symbolize taxation without representation. This is incorrect. Tariffs are not a tax on the public. They are not a tax on foreign economies. They are a tax on global corporations and the foreign goods they import…

And:

Frankly, I do not care that they’re getting taxed for importing foreign goods and exporting American jobs. That’s a good thing. If they want to void the tax, all they have to do is bring manufacturing and jobs back to the U.S. It’s not as if they don’t have options.

Americans can also buy from smaller locally sourced producers to avoid price hikes. Suddenly, the playing field in which international companies get an unfair advantage is a little more level and competition returns. That’s a free market, as opposed to what we have today…

Look: The EU made a deal because they need international conglomerates to continue investing dollars into their industries.

Every other nation (including China and even Canada) is likely to follow suit for similar reasons.

An extra $100 billion is already in the federal government’s coffers as of July. It’s just as important to give Trump props for his successes as it is important to call him out for his mistakes.

Because I think he made one…

The hidden economic threat ahead

That said, Trump has stumbled into one blaring economic blunder that he should have seen coming a hundred miles away. It could undermine his entire term, as well as putting future conservative efforts in the U.S. at risk.

READ MORE HERE