The history of the USA in the past half century, or since the 1970s, has exhibited gradual changes in the economic, social and political life. Three salient, interrelated and unfolding trends have taken place in the economic life that explain the social and political development since. These changes have been identified in relation to predictions made for the USA based on the national horoscope for the country discovered in 2006. Indeed, during the Sun major period since 2016, far from being a straight-forward improvement in the national life, the predicted change has been unfolding with fierce resistance from powerful social forces, such as the corporations profiting from the trade imbalances that cause the inequality. Nevertheless, the change to fairer policies is taking hold. With or without Trump they are likely to continue in coming years.Corporate Socialism
In the past half century, the US has developed a system of Corporate Socialism. The pivot was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, although the stage was set by Nixon's visit to China in 1972, in order to open up trade. The ensuing imbalances in trade, income distribution and financial markets (see graphs below) resulted in the significant socio-political upheaval we have witnessed at a growing pace throughout the past decade, from the Tea Party movements criticism of out of control government spending in 2009, the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011 and the 2016 election of Donald Trump.
In 1976 Richard Barnet and Ronald Muller wrote their influential book Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations, documenting the spread of US firms to the rest of the world, searching out low wage areas to build turnkey manufacturing operations. In order to import cheaper goods into the USA, the companies outsourced millions of well paying American jobs abroad. After China opened up in 1978, these companies went increasingly to China and the "China trade" was born.
As the US exported less and imported more, an unstoppable trade deficit opened up from the 1980s.
Further, the trade deficit was associated with increasing corporate profits from the China trade, which saw the stock market rise ever higher, turning millionaires into billionaires.
Meanwhile, the China trade also resulted in the loss of well paying jobs, that made poverty increase sharply in the USA. One measure of the growing inequality is the Gini-coefficient.
Open borders added to the pain, by exposing millions of households to the incessant flow of crime, drugs and social chaos across the US-Mexico border. Movies like No Country for Old Men and Sicario have documented the devastating conditions in US border communities and many inner cities. Trump was correct to Build the Wall, as promised, even if the Democrats have thrown every trick in the book at him to stop it. His push to end the trade imbalances with China and Mexico (and Canada) has also made progress, despite the Democrat opposition. Indeed, the lowest wages in the USA have been rising the fastest in recent years.
The economics profession and academia and the coastal elites they have served, were slow to grasp this phenomena. Some quip they are paid not to understand it. If it were not for the 1994 masterful expose of Ravi Batra, Professor of Economics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, we would likely still be in the dark about the immiserising effects of the China trade on American workers. Importantly, these fundamental economic developments explain why Trump entered the political fray and has unleashed a veritable revolution on the cozy corporate arrangements.
Link to astrology
In May 1998, I made the acquaintance of my late astrology mentor Vinod Kumar Choudhry, or Professor Choudhry as we affectionately and respectfully called him on the SA discussion lists. After learning the Systems' Approach from him, I founded SAMVA list in November 2000 in order to search for an authentic horoscope for the USA as well as other countries. It was on December 30, 2006, that I discovered, with the research assistance from the late historical scholar, John Thomas Wyder Battalana, the 1781 event underlying the SAMVA USA chart.
With the help of Professor Choudhry, I went on to carefully bring out the indications of the chart against what we know about the national entity of the USA. In the years that followed, and as this blog attests to, the chart was tested against the innumerable significant events in the countries history, as well as the long term historical dynamics, or trends. At the same time, the effort was made to perform many and successful predictions against it.
It was in early 2008 that I discovered what was likely to become a major transformative trend change in the life of the country. It involved the ending of the weak Venus period and the commencement of a strong Sun period in April 2016, which was expected to unleash a much more vigorous phase in the life of the country. I wrote several articles about it.
Competitive capitalism
In June 2015, a candidate, Donald Trump, arrived on the US stage with a Presidential platform embodying the predicted transformation. While his platform isn't perfect, it has begun, as promised, to address the trade and income distribution issues. Understandably, the US corporations didn't like it. As they own the media corporations, like CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, The Atlantic, etc., they were brought into action to fiercely resist Trump and stop his reforms. Deep State actors were called into action, resulting in the hapless Mueller investigation and subsequent Impeachment drive. Even Hollywood actors, who benefit by Chinese investments in film and music projects, have along with the corporations, media and Democrats, come out angrily out against Trump. As explained in the previous article, the ire is directed mostly at Trump's actions as a man, and rarely his policies.
The mega corporations have been used to getting their way, through a highly lucrative system of political corruption, whereby they pay into political coffers in return for laws and regulations that allow them to make ever greater profits. The Democrats -- actually the entire political establishment before Trump purged most RINOs out of the GOP -- had perfected a system, where they would smooth out the rough edges of the capitalist system by taxing higher incomes and giving out government handouts to the poorest. More recently, there have even been allegations that Joe Biden compromised US national interests in return for financial wealth from China for Biden family members. In any event, theirs is a system of Corporate Socialism.
Trump, however, sees it differently, he wants to retain capitalism but cut down its excesses by focusing on restoring American workers, millions of whom have sunk into squalor and poverty, to their prior middle class position. If he is successful, the need for tax and spend policies is less, and a more competitive economy will deliver more benefits to more people.
Trump's revolution has just started. If he gets reelected, more needs to be done to reduce the yawning inequality and ridiculous profits of the huge companies, which keep the financial markets at lofty levels. As any financial bubble is doomed to burst, the Trumpean economy is possibly coasting on false prosperity. Likely, Trump hopes to unwind the financial imbalances by breaking up the monopolies, and by generating more competition in his second term. While he hasn't talked much about it, we can infer that from the DOJ investigations into the monopolistic practices of the tech behemoths.
That said, there is much more to the history of any country than a single man, even the leader. Indeed, the national horoscope shows many other things going on, besides what we can infer from the major periods, such as the important but fleeting sub-periods and transits.
Conclusion
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