Listen to my last two Alternative Visions shows of December 19, 2025 (Year End Review of the US Economy 2025) and January 2, 2026 (Predictions for US Economy 2026) on the condition of the US economy during the first year of the Trump regime–and my predictions where it’s headed in 2026 and beyond.
REVIEW OF THE US ECONOMY 2025
Today’s show reviews the performance of the US economy the past year. Topics covered include actual inflation, jobs and likely GDP numbers. Special focus on Trump’s 2 main economic initiatives: the $5 trillion tax cut package and Trump tariffs offensive. What have been the actual impact of both thus far? Likely impact in 2026 and beyond? Trump monetary policy browbeating the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Why neither corporate cost reduction via tax cuts and interest rate cuts will have much effect on the real economy. Contradictions in 21st century US capitalism that negate stimulative effects of fiscal and monetary policies. Trump record on war spending and social program spending. US Deficits, National Debt, and interest payments 2025. State of AI investing and financial bubbles (tech stocks, gold-silver, cryptos). What’s the Trump record on the trade deficit, FDI financial flows, and US dollar.
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-2025-us-economy-review/
PREDICTIONS FOR THE US ECONOMY 2026
As a follow up to last show’s ‘Review of US Economy 2025’, this week the show makes predictions where it’s headed in 2026. Topics include US GDP for next year, jobs & unemployment, Inflation (CPI & PCE), Fed interest rates (short & long term), continued devaluation of the US dollar and its consequences, direction of financial asset bubbles (gold, silver, crypto, stocks), AI investment & real business spending, government spending (defense vs social programs), budget deficits and national debt, US trade deficit. Impact of global trends (BRICS, sanctions, dollar demand, demand for US Treasuries by China, BRICS, etc. also discussed).
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-1-2-26/
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus









This financial summary from the present back to the early 2000’s is critical to understanding how balmy Trump’s National Security Strategy of the USA is despite its superficial attraction in refocusing the US away from Europe and toward the Western Hemisphere and Pacific.
What makes the plan utterly balmy is that you cannot divorce economic fundamentals from military planning; you can’t continue military spending by trillions and at the same time continue to run up trillions of dollars in various deficits. Trump’s financial answer to the $38 trillion dollar deficit is chicken feed: his tariffs or proposed taxes on defense sales or taxes on foreign work visas won’t make any real dent in that astonishing number of $38 trillion—and rising.
And of course it is the same elites who are obsessed with military action——-currently against Iran and Venezuela and ultimately China—as ludicrous and deadly as all that is—-who are equally obsessed with maintaining and expanding tax cuts for the rich and businesses. To use the mild metaphor “contradiction” to describe this “planning” does not capture the scale of the underlying madness.
Trump and the US ruling elite factions aren’t trying to reduce the $3 trillion debt, but to try to get it under control by reducing the annual deficit from its current run rate of $2 trillion/year back down to less than $1 trillion and thus to reduce the escalating interest payments on the debt to some manageable level. (Reducing interest rates by taking over the Fed is another way to reduce the interest costs on that debt, by the way). Refocusing from Europe and cutting ‘wasteful’ defense spending (USAID, NED, NATO maintenance costs, etc) is the cost side of reducing unsustainable empire costs; tariff revenues is on the revenue side of reducing the gap. Other minor measures won’t be sufficient, of course. Grabbing Venezuela oil and other resources, which the US govt will then sell for revenues is another way to reduce the empire funding gap. There will be other measures coming as well. In addition, they’ll have to come up with a new policy to increase Fed sale of US Treasuries, now that CHina and other central banks are shifting to gold purchases and Europe will likely soon not continue to increase its purchases of Treasuries. In other words, the finances of Empire are approaching crisis–a true indication of imperial stress and even decline. Which becomes all the more unstable as the Emire resorts to direct force to defend its interests and acquisitions from the BRICS and entire global south now in early stages of breakaway. That explains why Trump proposes to increase Pentagon spending by $500 billion in 2026-27 fiscal year. They are planning for more wars, regime change ops, proxy wars, etc. We are in the midst of a major global shift and it can’t be understood without understanding the material-economic foundations of that shift. Too many left and other critics of empire are content to explain it by means of superficial geopolitical analysis, loaded with a good deal of wishful thinking in lieu of a material-class analysis
That’s $38 trillion national debt now $3
now – ‘not’ (damn typos)