August 10, 2018

Whose Economy Will Trump Take Aim at Next?

Depo Photos via ZUMA

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Donald Trump appears to be on a mission to either destroy or damage the economies of China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey. I assume he’s thinking that this is all a zero-sum game, and if they do badly the United States will do great. This is, needless to say, not the case. The 1997 financial crisis started in Asia. The 1998 financial crisis started in Russia. The 1995 peso crisis started in Mexico and, luckily, stayed there because the United States intervened to help out. The 2008 crash, of course, started in the United States and then spread to Europe, China, and everywhere else. Even little Iceland played an unusual starring role.

So what country will spark off the next big global financial crisis? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big one. It just has to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Turkey? Iran? Post-Brexit Britain? Russia? China? The Philippines? Greece? Who knows? It could be any of them.

And what if the United States doesn’t intervene to help out, but instead stands on the sidelines with its president tweeting that they’re just getting what they deserve? That’s never happened before. But it would probably be bad, wouldn’t it?

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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