Greatly depressing

Going down

Foreign Policy has an article today: The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back.  In a modern journalistic twist, the article is scarier than the title. (It would be a lot less scary if we had an administration of professionals instead of one of Trump ass kissers) 

I won't bother to excerpt the article.  Every sentence is as necessary as the next.  So, you can read it all for yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Also, remember:  all money is funny money. There's nothing backing it since the gold standard was dropped in the early 30s.  The idea of balancing debits and credits for a government that can simply print money is ridiculous.  (As is the perennial political question:  How are you going to pay for it?)

If they believe it, it's true

May I just point out that there are more people in the United States than at any time in our country's history?  

Yes, we’re experiencing near-record low unemployment and rising wages. But that’s from the momentum of a recovery that started ten years ago, when President George W. Bush convinced an unwilling Congress to pass a $700 billion bank bailout, saving us from another depression. Since then, the U.S. has enjoyed 100 straight months of increased employment.

Trump can’t take credit for that.

  The Hill

Oh, but he does.

It’s true that workers’ pay grew 2.9 percent last year — the fastest since the Great Recession. But before that, wages after inflation rose far slower during Trump’s presidency than Obama’s. Obama averaged real wage increases of 0.8 percent, compared to Trump’s average of 0.3 percent.

Trump boasts about GDP growth being the highest ever. But Obama generated four years of higher GDP growth than Trump has in any year of his presidency.

Trump claims he’s produced record-breaking job growth. In fact, more jobs were added during Obama's final 18 months (206,000 per month) than during Trump's first 18 months in office (193,000 jobs per month). U.S. job growth peaked in 2010.

What's a little lie or ten among supporters?

The GDP growth that delights Trump supporters is likely to be short-lived. Trump’s tax cuts failed to launch the promised investment boom that was supposed to lead to long-term growth. In fact, growth may already be slowing. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, recently rose by 8,000. A growing number of economists and 73 percent of money managers predict a recession later this year or next.

All the more reason to be lie-bragging now. Try to get them in the mindset that he's doing great things long enough to hold over until the elections. Or at least distract them from the crimes being exposed by investigations.

Trump’s tax cuts pose significant risk to the economy, which seems to have escaped the notice of his base. The cuts ballooned the deficit, because they reduced government revenues without generating enough growth to compensate. In FY18, corporate tax receipts shrank by $92 billion, while the deficit grew by $113 billion. And it’s getting worse. Just in the first four months of FY19, the deficit grew another $124 billion.

Although Obama and Bush added more to the deficit than Trump, they had to spend billions to recover from the Great Recession. Trump on the other hand took office when the economy, wage and job growth were strong, yet he cut taxes and blew up the deficit and debt anyway.

He just won't mention that part.

Historically, low unemployment and GDP growth meant more people paid more taxes and deficits shrunk. But because of Trump’s tax cuts, that’s not happening now. Other than during wartime, this decoupling of the deficit from the business cycle has never happened before.

Debt has soared under Trump, and the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio has grown to 105 percent, the highest since 1950. Rising debt-to-GDP ratios often signal a recession. Every percentage point of debt above 77 percent reduces economic growth by 1.7 percent, which means we’re losing over half of our potential GDP growth to debt.

Trump’s tax cuts will also widen the income and wealth gaps between Trump’s cheerleaders and the very rich. According to bond ratings firm Moody’s, it will likely put pressure on the U.S.’s fiscal strength and weigh on its credit profile.

The threat of a credit downgrade is implicit in Moody’s narrative. A lower rating will lead not only to higher Treasury rates but also to higher rates on residential mortgages and consumer spending (which is two thirds of our economy).

Don't be such a gloomy gus. Things are great. Listen to your president.

That leaves truth-telling up to the Democrats. They must pound away at the facts until they convince enough Trump supporters of the true impact of his policies and weaken Trump’s political leverage over Republicans in Congress. Only then will they be able to vote their conscience.

Don't hold your breath.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

RIP Aaron Swartz

Somehow I missed posting on the fifth anniversary of Aaron Swartz' death, January 11.  By an incidental Twitter posting today, I found Ken White's August 2014 article reviewing a film about Aaron.  It's a nice tribute to a tragic soul and a cautionary tale about many aspects of our current condition.  Read it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Signs of a depression

"Deaths of despair"





Fifty-one percent in 10 years!

America is already great.