Pilkington's Shrewd Predictions For Trump

Today’s New Year’s Eve and I’ll be taking a mental health day of sorts—they never seem to quite work out. At the same time, predictions for the New Year are traditional. Philip Pilkington offers some shrewd ones, and it looks like Trump will be trying to work his way through a minefield on multiple fronts. Nothing will be easy, would be my guess, and it’s certainly Pilkington’s.

First off, the ruling class that installed the most corrupt and mentally challenged POTUS in history isn’t about to make anything easy for Trump—the most hated (by the ruling class) POTUS in history. Am I exaggerating? I’m open to other suggestions, but it remains that the ruling class will try to sabotage Trump, are already doing so.

Philip Pilkington@philippilk

Here we go, folks. Bitter old Joe Biden’s parting gift. The man doesn’t care about his own reputation any more than he cares about his country’s international reputation. He was likely the worst President in US history and his team are a bunch of vindictive failures. 

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MarketWatch@MarketWatch 22h

Natural-gas prices see biggest jump in more than 2 years, leading oil higher https://trib.al/wS08iXt

Philip Pilkington@philippilk

What’s actually happening is that the outgoing Biden administration is trying to further collapse Europe and his “allies” in Europe go along with this. It’ll probably cause inflation for Americans too - but the Biden team never cared much for them either. Very destructive people.

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Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 )@chigrl

Dec 29

Ukraine-Russia Gas Transit Deal At Critical Moment of Truth

(Bloomberg) The future of gas transit through Ukraine is at a turning point. If a last-minute deal isn’t struck by Wednesday, billions of cubic meters in gas flows could come to a halt.

Ukraine is under mounting pressure from Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and a group of central European companies to keep gas moving from its eastern border with Russia into the European Union following the expiration of a transit agreement on Dec. 31.

…

7:15 AM · Dec 30, 2024

Janet Yellen will be leaving a fiscal crisis in Trump’s lap, warning of, yep, the results of her support for the most insane fiscal policies in American history—like someone else was at Treasury.

Pilkington sees trouble everywhere on the global war fronts, but devotes a separate tweet to the machinations behind the ruling class extension of the Ukraine front beyond any plausible end point. The smart people said it was to protect Zhou’s legacy by letting the collapse happen while Trump is in the Oval Office. American’s, as I’ve been remarking lately, hate losers and screwups—and they’re not always fair or perceptive about assigning blame. That type of revisionism usually comes a generation later, although the internet could change that. Still, Pilkington argues that it’s actually a bit more nefarious. Yesterday we heard that John Brennan of evil repute was praising Little Marco Rubio for “engaging” with the Blinken DoS—that can’t be good for Trump:

Philip Pilkington@philippilk

There’s little behind Pokrovsk but open fields. Meanwhile the @realDonaldTrump and @JDVance team are being misinformed about Russia’s terms. Strong evidence the Blob is trying to draw out negotiations until the frontline collapses and Trump is humiliated. Don’t fall for it!

12:54 PM · Dec 30, 2024

Which is not to absolve Trump for significant blame in the debacle of the war on Russia. It’s just that, going forward, one would like to see a true peace made possible, rather than undermined by swamp critters.

Pilkington has a longer presentation of what he foresees on the economic front, but including the impact on geopolitics. His mention of Ukraine in that context is brief, while he looks a bit more closely at the Middle East—where Trump professes to see nothing but clear sailing ahead, but where Pilkington sees economic trouble for Trump:

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

There are at least 3 potentially large exogenous economic events in 2025: the impact of protectionist policies with fiscal loosening; the Trussification of Trump via a bond market crisis; and war in the Middle East. Link in comment below.

5:49 AM · Dec 31, 2024

Pilkington assumes, based on Trump’s past track record, continued loose fiscal policies, but in a vastly more treacherous geopolitical setting, resulting from the collapse of the Rules Based Order. He also takes Trump at his word regarding tariffs. I’m not as sure on either count. Trump got major backing from Wall St., and some of the people he’s been quietly consulting with—like Jamie Dimon—want to see the government get its fiscal house in order. That’s the real point of DOGE, right? So, we’ll have to see how that works out. It’s a mess, that’s for sure, but if the blowup comes quickly Trump may be able to place the blame on Zhou and push through some drastic measures.

Here are some excerpts from Pilkington’s longer form presentation:

In an unusual intervention, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen recently raised concerns that incoming president Donald Trump’s tariff policies might “derail” progress on bringing down inflation and in doing so “significantly raise costs for households”. Yellen also raised the issue of fiscal sustainability, saying that “the deficit needs to be brought down, especially now that we’re in an environment of higher interest rates”.

These two comments are unusual because Yellen’s Treasury has itself pursued a simultaneous path of raising tariffs and at the same time massively increasing government spending. …

If I understand that correctly, that’s called chutzpah. Pilkington does note, with remarkable understatement:

It does seem rather brazen …

He goes on to discuss why what he sees as the likely economic policy path will be a recipe for inflation. I won’t argue over economic definitions, it boils down to hard times for Americans.

While the incoming Trump administration is not promising big spending giveaways such as Biden and Yellen’s ill-conceived – and bizarrely named – Inflation Reduction Act, it has committed to lowering taxes.

Lowering taxes without cutting spending has the same effect on economic demand as increasing spending.

Well, on the fiscal responsibility front there is DOGE, and this also points to the high priority for peace that Trump will need to set. He needs to get the National Security State under fiscal control. At a minimum, stop the bleeding—red and green.

After more economic speak Pilkington moves on to the “exogonous” events that have loomed large in our ongoing national crisis—mostly as a result of crazed Ruling Class and Anglo-Zionist policies:

In recent years, exogenous events have been playing a much larger role … Two of the largest drivers of the recent burst of inflation have been exogenous events: firstly, Covid and lockdowns; secondly, the war in Ukraine and sanctions.

Covid served as an excuse to hammer small businesses and to increase dependance of the majority of Americans on government handouts—not backed by any real economic activity. Voila, inflation!

The impact of the war in Ukraine was somewhat different. The war led to major disruptions in global energy markets as Western countries tried to shift away from buying Russian oil and gas. ... This created a “double whammy” that resulted in a major cost-of-living crisis in many countries.

… The nature of exogenous events is that they are unpredictable. But there are a few risks that stand out. The first is geopolitical. While the war in Ukraine may be winding down – with Trump saying that he will end it within 24 hours – the conflict in the Middle East is only becoming more chaotic and unpredictable.

The collapse of Bassar al-Assad’s government in Syria has unleashed a wave of chaos and shifting alliances, the results of which won’t be known for a long time. But this event comes on top of an already unstable situation.

Arguably the biggest risk from the Middle East is a major disruption to global oil markets in the event of a conflict between Israel and Iran. ...

...

... With the collapse of the Syrian government, another point of instability has emerged for the Israelis and where things go from here is anyone’s guess. Trump is seen as more friendly toward Israel than Biden, so he might be more open to a broader conflict if this is what the Israelis feel they need to pursue.

I guess that’s a polite way of saying that The Israel Lobby has more of a lock on Trump than they had on the Dems. But the consequences of another major Middle East war are such that Trump may recoil from that path.

The other potential exogenous event on the horizon for an incoming Trump administration is a fiscal crisis. …

…

… Yellen highlighted this once again, fretting about “fiscal sustainability” and the possibility of a sharp rise in borrowing costs. It is hard to ignore the political angle in these pronouncements.

And Trump probably won’t be able to count on any help from Republicans, if the past tells us anything about the future.

The people highlighting the possibility of a fiscal event are often Democrats – and they seem to have been strangely unconcerned with the size of the fiscal deficit when Biden was engaged in a spending splurge. ...

With a grim fiscal situation and a politically fractured body politic, the US appears to be running the risk of a fiscal crisis. But we should also add to this mounting illiquidity in the foreign market for Treasuries. Nervous about the future status of the US dollar, central banks around the world are snapping up gold, and this is creating a lack of foreign demand for Treasury bonds.

... As Trump enters the White House next year there are several inflation risks that might be on the cards. We will have to wait and see whether any of them become a reality.

In related matters, fiddling while a fiscal wildfire heads toward the Imperial City on the Potomac, The Israel Lobby, through their bought puppets in Congress, are trying to hardwire global war for Jewish Supremacy into the constitution (in a manner of speaking)—note the small “c”:

Congress Coerces Conversion from Catholicism

This month Congress passed a resolution to change the religious perspective of the American people as well as practically attempting the forced conversion of Catholics to Zionism.

Right, you thought that the First Amendment prevented an establishment of a national religion? That was before The Israel Lobby.

In spite of these clear words, this First Amendment right was violated on December 5, 2023, when Southern Baptist and … Zionist Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, pushed House Resolution 894 through Congress on that date. Here is the exact language of the violation in the Resolution: “(3) calls on elected officials and world leaders to condemn and fight all forms of domestic and global antisemitism; (4) clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism” [emphasis added].

In a nonbinding resolution, Congress attempted to change the ethos and religious perspective of the American people through a coercive bill that threatens many innocent Americans with the label of hate speech. It practically attempts the forced conversion of Catholics to Zionism. Like the nonbinding “guidelines” of the NIH during the Covid crisis—which led to coercive policy decisions and mandates of government and the private health-care industry, monitoring by Big Tech, and school closures—such nonbinding resolutions (basically guidelines) ultimately still lead to persecutions of people who are unfairly labeled and later found to have been right and/or innocent. Nonbinding resolutions and guidelines lead not only to violations of legal and protected speech but violations of religious freedom and the press.

…

… did Mike Johnson and his associates ever consider that some forms of anti-Zionism are actually intrinsic to the defined religious beliefs and professions of a majority of non-Baptist Americans ever since the time of ratification of the U.S. Constitution? As a Catholic American theologian, …, I can testify that “religious Zionism” as proposed by a growing number of Israelis (even their current government Ministers) is actually contrary to the continuous teaching and doctrines of the Catholic Church.

These teachings are found in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (9.3) and even testified to by Benedict XVI in a Communio essay from 2018. As a Catholic theologian, I have a religious obligation to testify against “religious Zionism” and the false prophecies of Christian Zionists and televangelists who support forms of Zionism contrary to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (see CCC 676). While I am opposed to antisemitism (as understood prior to 2023) by my religious beliefs, I am bound by traditional religious beliefs to maintain forms of anti-Zionism. … People are free to disagree with me, but Congress is not free to deny or block my First Amendment rights.

…

Since 1948 to 1967, and still continuing today, Zionist arguments in favor of the right of Jews to currently occupied Palestinian territories can only be argued through (1) justification of brutal, secular neocolonialism and or (2) religious motivations and claims, such as having a mandate from God to take the Land forcibly. ... Such arguments are doctrinally rejected by orthodox Catholics because orthodox Catholics believe the arguments are based on false interpretations of the Law and Prophets and neglect that Jesus is the true fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham.

For the record—and please consult the archives—I don’t accept the notion that Christian faith requires a fundamentalist interpretation of Israelite or Judahite holy books—such as accepting the historicity of narratives about a figure in those books named Abraham speaking with God, and God making promises. Again, consult the archives for details on my view of what “revelation” actually means for Christians.

For Congress to redefine anti-Zionism as antisemitism in 2023 is to enter a religious debate and define Catholicism as a forbidden religion in the United States. Congress is now officially anti-Catholic and has violated the Establishment Clause—even if ignorant Catholics were duped in favor of the resolution and even if bishops have yet to comprehend the situation. …

What a country!