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Highlights:
German elections
As we forecast last week, Germans were “set to punish Merkel” in the “Super Sunday” elections held in three German states.That the Alternative für Deutschland won 24 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt represents “the best regional result of any German populist right-wing party since 1945,” wrote the Financial Times.Other observers noted that “Sunday’s elections could be the starting pistol for Merkel’s would-be successors.” The elections were a “wake-up call” which signaled Germany’s entry into “a dangerous new political era.”“German politics as we know it,” noted The Local, “is crumbling.”“A defeat in state elections was the beginning of the end for Ms. Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schröder,” observed the Telegraph.
Is a world dictator about to appear?Putin leaves Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin may very well be surprised by how well his Syrian adventure worked out.He spent only 2 percent of his $50 billion defense budget and probably had less than a dozen human casualties.But his venture showcased his military hardware to potential customers like Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Uganda, Nigeria and Ethiopia; exposed the United States as a weakening power in the Middle East; announced his nation as a resurgent power in the Middle East—to allies and enemies alike; reshaped Russia’s image after the Ukraine crisis; ensured the survival of the Syrian regime; and played a significant role in some seismic shifts in Middle East alliances prophesied to occur soon!End of the finance economy
The finance economy’s fuel is just about spent, warned Janus Capital Group’s Bill Gross.Central bankers appear to be moving into “the black hole of negative rates.”According to the Wall Street Journal, “Negative rates are ‘an enigma to almost all global investors,’ [Gross] says, that undermine the basic architecture of the financial markets. ‘But central bankers seem ever intent on going lower, ignorant in my view of the harm being done to a classical economic model that has driven prosperity—until it reached a negative interest rate dead end and could drive no more.’”Iran’s involvement in 9/11
Iran and Hezbollah were involved in the 9/11 terror attacks, according to documents related to a lawsuit heard last week by a New York federal court.
Trumpet managing editor Joel Hilliker wrote about this lawsuit in our Sept. 14, 2011 article “Iran Helped Plan 9/11”: The 9/11 Commission Report “described how Iran ‘frequently turned a blind eye’ to recruiters, travel facilitators and document forgers streaming in and out of al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan; it also said Iran had covertly facilitated travel for several of the 9/11 hijackers in the months before the attack. The cia considered the information so touchy (in part because it exposed the cia’s failure to recognize in advance just how important it was) that it lobbied, unsuccessfully, to have it stricken from the report.”Mr. Hilliker added: “As [Trumpet editor in chief Gerald] Flurry said, 9/11 was a clear act of war. America answered the call—but all this evidence proves just what the Trumpet said right after that tragedy: It aimed at the wrong target. … Iran has been waging war against America for10 years! (Or we could go back much further—1979.) It helped kill 3,000Americans on 9/11. It has helped in killing thousands more on the battlefield since. It is bloodying America’s nose, trashing its reputation, burning its honor, and draining its treasury.”Garry Kasparov on socialism
Democrat socialist Bernie Sanders will certainly not make America great again, implied Russian chess Grandmaster and political commentator Garry Kasparov. Instead, he would “make America Greece again.”Kasparov’s comments were intended to “remind people that Americans talking about socialism in the 21st century was a luxury paid for by the successes of capitalism in the 20th. And that while inequality is a huge problem, the best way to increase everyone’s share of pie is to make the pie bigger, not to dismantle the bakery.” He added, “Sanders’s socialist policies would replace banks that are too big to fail with a government that is too big to succeed.”America’s F-35 looks terrible
America’s dream of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has turned into a nightmare: It’s “six years behind schedule and tens of billions of dollars over budget,” wrote the Daily Beast.It’s “fundamental failures” include a lack of maneuverability; incomplete, vulnerable software; and a steep $100 million price tag for each jet!Other news:
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is becoming more authoritarian. Indian journalists face increasing attacks and threats of attacks.Japan is worried about the isolationist rhetoric of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. The Japanese government “is scrambling to prepare for the possibility of a Trump presidency” in ways that affect its military and economy, wrote the Nikkei Asian Review.Get more details on these stories and more by subscribing to the Trumpet Weekly!
