IM2
Diamond Member
- Mar 11, 2015
- 113,093
- 141,797
- 3,645
Trump is killing the economy. But he is asking us to pay him 230 million dollars because he was held to account by the press. All around us, the economy is failing. The people who voted for Trump were warned about what would happen, but they didn't listen. There are 3 years left, and unless we change Congress to get people in there who will do their constitutional duty, America will die.
Inflation of 3 percent doesn’t seem too bad, but it conceals a great deal of softness in the economy. That weakness will be sufficiently worrisome for the Fed to likely proceed with its planned quarter-point rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee meets next week. But after that, both inflation and unemployment are likely to worsen, leaving the Fed with no good options.
On the inflation front, Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have yet to fully bite, but their impact is likely to increase over time. Other specific price hikes, as in health insurance under the ACA, will begin to hit only in November, although health insurance costs generally are already more than 6 percent over last year’s. In addition, Trump’s killing of antitrust enforcement and other consumer protections is allowing a lot of opportunistic price increases that reflect abuses of market power.
Employment is also weakening. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics staff mostly on furlough because of the government shutdown, precise numbers on joblessness are not available. But myriad indicators of a soft job market are unmistakable. Trump’s rescissions of federal spending and layoffs of federal employees raise the unemployment rate directly, and have cascaded throughout the economy.
As Paul Krugman has observed, every job indicator is soft and getting softer. New hires are barely above the rate of the Great Recession. The rate of long-term unemployment—more than six months without a job—soared in August, and updated numbers are likely to be worse but not available because of the government shutdown.
Jobless rates were higher in August than a year earlier in 243 of the 387 metropolitan areas. More and more corporations are announcing or planning layoffs, including Microsoft, Meta, Intel, Target, and Kohl’s. Amazon plans to replace 600,000 warehouse workers with robots.
Trump inherited a strong economy. Tearing down the house is the right Trump visual.
prospect.org
Trump’s Faltering Economy
The Consumer Price Index for September increased at an annual rate of 3.0 percent, the Labor Department reported this morning. This was an increase from 2.9 percent in August, 2.7 percent in July, and around 2.3 percent this past spring, before Trump’s perverse policies began to bite.Inflation of 3 percent doesn’t seem too bad, but it conceals a great deal of softness in the economy. That weakness will be sufficiently worrisome for the Fed to likely proceed with its planned quarter-point rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee meets next week. But after that, both inflation and unemployment are likely to worsen, leaving the Fed with no good options.
On the inflation front, Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have yet to fully bite, but their impact is likely to increase over time. Other specific price hikes, as in health insurance under the ACA, will begin to hit only in November, although health insurance costs generally are already more than 6 percent over last year’s. In addition, Trump’s killing of antitrust enforcement and other consumer protections is allowing a lot of opportunistic price increases that reflect abuses of market power.
Employment is also weakening. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics staff mostly on furlough because of the government shutdown, precise numbers on joblessness are not available. But myriad indicators of a soft job market are unmistakable. Trump’s rescissions of federal spending and layoffs of federal employees raise the unemployment rate directly, and have cascaded throughout the economy.
As Paul Krugman has observed, every job indicator is soft and getting softer. New hires are barely above the rate of the Great Recession. The rate of long-term unemployment—more than six months without a job—soared in August, and updated numbers are likely to be worse but not available because of the government shutdown.
Jobless rates were higher in August than a year earlier in 243 of the 387 metropolitan areas. More and more corporations are announcing or planning layoffs, including Microsoft, Meta, Intel, Target, and Kohl’s. Amazon plans to replace 600,000 warehouse workers with robots.
Trump inherited a strong economy. Tearing down the house is the right Trump visual.
Trump's Faltering Economy - The American Prospect
The seemingly not-too-bad Trump economy is living on borrowed time. Both inflation and employment are getting worse, and the booming stock market is in AI bubble territory.
prospect.org
