RE:RE:forecastsDaveMtl said "Unless those forecasts were written AFTER the American election...The world changed last Tuesday."
Why so glum Dav? The world didn't change on Tuesday--it just returned to being itself.
Trump certainly doesn't represent a change in America--he's a return to normal. Worried about him blowing up the world? Relax, a sabre rattling president is as old as the hills. Nixon famously said the idea is to have the commies worried that he was a mad man with his finger on the button. Reagan was asked to speak into a microphone for a sound check and he actually said 'Attention Russia, the bombs will fly in five minutes'. So, when Trump asked a general 'if we can't use nukes what's the point of having them?' he was just creating space around himself to manoeuvre in--think Gordie Howe's elbows on a global scale.
Trump's racism and mysogyny are likely a return to the historical standards of 3/4 of all presidents. As for his crudeness, he has a long way to go to match Lyndon Johnson. Johnson's idea of a 'negotiation' with the majority leaders of the Senate and Congress was to have the poor schmos stand in the doorway of the bathroom while he took a dump. Yet, if it wasn't for getting sucked into Kennedy's war in Vietnam Johnson would be remembered as the best president (civil rights amendment, voting rights legislation) since Eisenhauer who left office warning of the dangers of the military industrial complex.
Trump could do anything. Stumble into a war in the middle east? Sure. Or maybe he closes half of the 900 plus American military bases around the world, walks away from Afganistan, tells NATO (correctly) to pay for their own damn defence and uses the trillion or so saved to fund his infrastructure build!
Hindustan Zinc is on the other side of the world where the cars in India and China rust out in 18 months. Enter rust-proof zinc plated steel to the rescue...yet more demand in a time of deficit! Thanks for the artcle references aaaaaaargh.
Cheers.