Capitalist Capoeira

The gloves are off and the song and dance has begun.  Trump had to keep his word, and his adversaries didn’t hold back.  And after all that, he quicky pushed the ‘hold’ button, delaying for 30 days the implementation of the famous 25% tariff on Canadian goods, shortly after having done the same for Mexico.  As for Canada, it was apparently due to a call from Trudeau, with a promise to address some of Trump’s concerns.  Fine, but why does it always end up like a character play?  Lots of bolstering and claiming, finger pointing, and hot air.  

I’m sure Trump will get something out of all this, after all, in a world run by money and consequently power, Trump is king, which is exactly the way he likes it.  He’ll spend another four years putting up walls and tearing up agreements and dismantling every roadblock that corporations may still have in their way, in order for them to maintain steady economic growth.  Many of his devotees don’t even realize that no one is immune to the tariffs, but Trump and his team do, so why would they shoot themselves in the foot?  Because, deep down, they know it’s just a game.  Whatever the consequences of their actions, the ones paying the price will be us.  They’re immune.  They pay little or nothing in taxes, and when they trip up from getting too greedy, they become “too big to go under”, so we put the bill on our card.  

Trump is, as has been said numerous times, the bully in our collective school yard.  He might not be the most intelligent, but he’s much bigger, (and louder), than most, so just by throwing his weight around he commands attention, which he thoroughly enjoys.  I don’t think he really cares about the rest of us. He’s basically a man on a mission, set on getting his way and this tariff business fits perfectly with his modus operandi.  On a positive note, the Prime Minister reacted, (I think), accordingly, as did some premiers.  Everyone knows that when bargaining with Trump, you can’t come to the table with mere words, so the threat of immediate retaliation was the only way to act.  Since this is all theatre, Canada simply played their part.  No one really wants to trigger any kind of economic collapse, but the jousting can be good for everyone, in the end, even if it serves as a wake-up call, of sorts.  A reminder that one can never get too comfortable when playing politics and running nations.

Before us we have these people running our lives, pulling our strings for their own gain.  They’ve trained us to watch their antics unfold, like a night-time soap, and not to think much about the fact that we’re all major players, in every episode.  These kinds of situations need to be seen for what they are.  We need to do a 180, and run this world in a way where all our efforts are for everyone, so that no one is left out.   A smart man named Einstein once said: “The real purpose of socialism is precisely to advance beyond the predatory phase of human development.”  

Different from what we have now:  all for one, and none for all.

Fiquem bem,

Raul Freitas/MS