Donald Trump, in his role as former president, recently gave a short speech about the war in Ukraine and the U.S. government’s involvement.

This was Trump at his finest. Sure, he bragged a bit as usual, but his language really spelled out the enemy. He referred to ” the warmongers and America-last globalists, the deep state, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the national security-industrial complex.”

He spoke of himself not starting any wars while in office because he rejected the advice of the generals, bureaucrats, and so-called diplomats. He named Victoria Nuland, one of the architects of the coup in Ukraine in 2014, as one of the culprits for our disastrous foreign policy.

Aside from Trump stroking his own ego, a libertarian could have written this speech. He was completely right on everything he said that didn’t involve his bragging.

He said we never had it so good when he was president, which is kind of hard to take seriously coming off of COVID lockdowns. But his overall message of peace was a great one, and it is hard to believe this is the Republican favorite. This is the same party that supported George W. Bush and his evil wars earlier this century.

While I think people like Ron Paul laid the groundwork, Trump has certainly brought the Republican Party outside of the establishment to a more pro peace position. You can call it “America first” or whatever, but less war is less war.

Words Don’t Match Actions

The problem is that Trump’s four years as president doesn’t really match his rhetoric. He didn’t start any new major wars as president to his credit, but he did allow the continuation of conflicts that were already happening. This includes Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. He also almost did start a war with Iran.

He tried to withdraw from some of those conflicts, but his own people wouldn’t allow it.

And that’s really where the problem comes in. He talks about warmongers in his speech, but Trump surrounded himself with warmongers. He had people such as Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Nikki Haley around him. These are people who opposed Trump’s foreign policy, but he put them in positions of power anyway.

It’s not just that these people differed a bit from Trump on foreign policy. They actually opposed Trump in many ways. When Trump tried to withdraw from Syria, his advisors and cabinet members spoke up and said that he didn’t really mean it. They were essentially disobeying Trump’s orders in order to continue the wars.

It is impossible to find people who think exactly like you. But why did Trump surround himself with the people who completely opposed him on the most important issue? It is easy to make excuses and say that Trump had to play ball with the establishment in order to get some of their support, but what good does that do if they are going to undermine everything good you have to offer?

Trump put Douglas Macgregor in as an advisor in November 2020 after Trump had already been declared as defeated in the election. Trump could have put Macgregor in there when it actually mattered, but that isn’t what happened.

What About 2025?

Trump is running for president again. If he is elected and sworn into office again, he will be president in January 2025. What will change his time around?

I really like Trump’s pro peace stance on Ukraine. Maybe he is just taking advantage of the sentiment out there. He sees people frustrated that they are struggling to pay their bills while Washington DC ships off tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine.

The problem is that it doesn’t do much good if he is going to surround himself with bad people and bend to the whims of the establishment.

And it isn’t just foreign policy where this happens. Trump is the lockdown president who somehow managed to let Fauci dictate policy to the entire country in 2020. Thankfully, a few states defied these policies relatively early on.

And that’s where Ron DeSantis comes in. DeSantis has a major advantage over Trump when it comes to anything COVID related, including lockdowns and vaccines. It is less clear on foreign policy where DeSantis stands, although he hasn’t been enthusiastic about sending money and weapons to Ukraine.

If DeSantis does take a hard stand against the warmongers, then I may trust DeSantis more because he tends to not surround himself with people who hate him. But we can’t assume that DeSantis will be pro peace.

Trump should be the nominee if he plays his cards right. He played them right with this speech on Ukraine. He didn’t play them right when he was attacking DeSantis.

Trump is extremely frustrating for people who want liberty. I feel like when he has done some really good things, he goes and does something horrible. When I am really down on him and think little of him, he somehow redeems himself a bit as with his attack on the war hawks.

It will be interesting to see how the Republican primaries play out next year. At the very least, it is good that there is some opposition to the U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine. It isn’t just an echo of what is coming from the media and Washington DC as we’ve often had in the past.

It is almost the end of February 2023, and the yield curve is still highly inverted. Just about any measure shows an inversion at this point, and it is quite dramatic.

Some people look at the 10-year yield versus the 2-year yield. Some use the 10-year versus the 3-month (my preferred metric). I have seen some use the 30-year versus the 3-month. They are all inverted.

It is interesting to go back and look at last year. The 2-year and 10-year inverted around the beginning of July 2022. The 2-year yield went above the 10-year yield when they were around 3%.

It was sometime in October 2022 when the 3-month yield finally went higher than the 10-year yield. A few weeks after that and the 3-month went consistently higher than the 30-year.

Perhaps the most notable thing is to look at the beginning of 2022. The short-term yields were almost at zero. Even at the end of February 2022, they were near zero. It is hard to believe how far they have risen over the course of one year.

It is easy to forget that the Fed’s fight against inflation (that it created) really started about a year ago. The Fed never really had a period of stable money.

In 2021, the Fed was still expanding its balance sheet. It was even still expanding at the beginning of 2022. It quickly went from loose money to tight money. The Fed almost immediately went from balance sheet expansion to raising its target federal funds rate.

This actually just shows the complete incompetence of the people at the Fed and the establishment financial community in general. It was already clear that price inflation was rising in late 2021. Why didn’t they stop creating new money out of thin air at that point?

Now we are in a situation where price inflation is not under control, so the Fed is still essentially forced to keep raising its target rate and slowly drain its balance sheet. But it is doing this in the face of an already heavily inverted yield curve.

The Winds Can Change Quickly

Just as the Fed’s stance from loose money to tight money changed quickly, so too can the prospects for the entire economy.

All signals point to a recession. The biggest signal is the highly inverted yield curve.

It’s hard to say how long it will stay inverted, but it actually doesn’t matter that much at this point. It has been highly inverted for so long that a recession is baked into the cake. This is assuming we don’t see a 2020 event again where society is locked down and the Fed goes on a massive money creation spree.

The yield curve will likely flatten before the worst of the recession hits. The worst of the recession typically happens after the yield curve had already been inverted. I don’t see why it would be different this time.

The recession will most likely start in 2023, but it is quite possible it might not show up until 2024. Things seem to happen slowly and then all of a sudden. That’s true of both life and the financial markets.

It is surprising how many in the financial media are actually admitting that there may be a recession coming. But most of them say it will be mild. So even if you thrive on being a contrarian, the contrary position may not be that there will be no recession. The contrary position is that the recession will be a lot worse than mild.

Most people are not ready for what is to come, even though the warning signals are there.

Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, has announced that she is running for president on the Republican ticket for the 2024 election.

While Trump’s popularity has seemed to fade with some, a majority of Republican voters don’t really want to go back to the days of an establishment Republican figure.

You could argue that Trump and DeSantis both promote establishment policies in their own way, but these two are generally opposed by the establishment figures in Washington DC who seek to maintain the status quo.

Trump or DeSantis is by far the most likely outcome right now for the Republican nomination. Maybe Haley is hoping they will tear each other apart, but I don’t think it will matter.

It’s hard to say what Nikki Haley’s positioning is here. Is she just trying to take Trump down a notch for the establishment? Is she hoping to play somewhat nice and have Trump pick her as a running mate? Or is she hoping to actually win the nomination and the presidency?

I haven’t been impressed at all with Trump lately. Depending on what happens from now until the election, I may or may not vote for him as the lesser of two evils. I will more likely vote for Dave Smith.

I can absolutely declare that if Trump picks Nikki Haley as his running mate in the VP slot, there is no chance I will vote for that ticket.

Don’t Let Her Looks Fool You

Nikki Haley is an attractive woman. When she speaks, she seems down to earth. She seems like a decent person if you don’t actually pay attention to what she is saying.

The problem is that she is a bloodthirsty war hawk. She would be one of the worst possible people to have as president if you want a peaceful foreign policy.

That is the number one issue that the president has the most control over, and it is the one issue where she is absolutely clear. She is a total interventionist, and she will not hesitate to use the military to carry out her goals.

On other issues, she is mostly bland and predictable. She will occasionally say a few good things about the free market, but you can take it to the bank that her number one obsession is foreign policy, and not in a good way.

Haley wouldn’t be capable of being a fiscal conservative because any spending cut domestically would be put to use to bomb and invade other countries.

The few times I’ve heard her speak since announcing her presidential run, everything she says is fluff. It is mostly platitudes. And the only place where she is clear is that she is a war hawk through and through.

Parts of the establishment and the left will criticize her, but not in the way they criticize Trump. Most of the left is accepting of her foreign policy as long as they don’t have Trump. She would be perfectly acceptable to the establishment as the next president. Even Fox News is being quite generous in their coverage of her.

Why Did She Oppose Trump?

Let’s remember back before 2016 when Trump was running for the Republican nomination. Nikki Haley was a critic of Trump.

She opposed him for similar reasons as many other establishment Republicans opposed Trump. She didn’t like his foreign policy ideas. She thought Trump might actually pursue a more peaceful foreign policy.

But once Trump got the nomination and his popularity showed with the Republicans outside of DC, she cozied up to him. It is much the same way that many others did, such as Lindsey Graham and John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

Trump stupidly appointed her to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Why did Trump feel like he owed her anything? Could he have not found anyone else to take the job?

Nikki Haley’s presence actually just reminds me of how ineffectual Trump was as president. He stupidly surrounded himself with people who originally opposed him. Why didn’t he surround himself with the people who supported his campaign from the very beginning?

Nikki Haley was never an ally with Trump. She just played the game. And now she is running for president against the man who appointed her to her last major job.

I hope she falls flat on her face. Her foreign policy views should be shunned by every libertarian. She is so bad on foreign policy, it doesn’t even matter what her other views are.

It will be interesting to see how Trump deals with her. We all know that Trump just can’t ignore her. Anyway, I would rather see Trump attacking Nikki Haley than DeSantis at this point.

Trump needs to play his cards right here. He obviously shouldn’t go after her physical appearance in any way. He needs a good nickname for her that spells out the fact that she is a war hawk. She can be “Bloodthirsty Nikki”. Or maybe “Nikki the War Maker”. It would be the truth.