Not a good sign for the economy. It means investors don’t have much confidence in today’s economy.
One of the only contemporary economists I take seriously, Dr. Tim Morgan, conceives of the global economy as an energy system and not a financial system, and he's been predicting on his blog for a while that because per capita prosperity has been deteriorating in the Netherlands more quickly than almost any other country in the EU, the Dutch will likely be the next to see Gilets Jaunes-style social upheaval. o thanks for bringing this development to our attention.
I can only speak for myself when it comes to reading and weighing multiple sources of media-- and I am talking about some diverse sources. I just read something that I felt was surprising...
"If you follow conservative media at all, you’re keenly aware that Sens. Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley have been out front in attempting to chart a new ideological course for the GOP. Rubio has drawn on Catholic social teaching to call for “common-good capitalism.” Hawley in a recent speech called for a “new politics of family and neighborhood—a new politics of love and belonging—a new politics of home.”
While the precise contours of the “new politics” are largely undefined, it philosophically retreats from both the free market and individual responsibility—two bedrock elements of small-government conservatism. For example, Hawley mocks “market worship” and says this about personal responsibility:
And where does this leave those without power or money? On their own.
If you’re a worker with a high school degree in the urban core who can’t get a good job, you’re told it’s your fault and you should work harder, get more education, stop being lazy.
If you’re a farmer or working a trade in the middle of the country and can’t support your family on what you bring home, you’re told you should move, that smart people live in cities, and you should have made better life choices.
It’s no wonder so many Americans feel so unappreciated and unheard.
Here’s Rubio:
Common-good capitalism also means recognizing that what the market determines is most efficient may not be best for America.
And:
We must remember that our nation does not exist to serve the interests of the market; the market exists to serve our nation. And the most effective benefit the market can provide is the creation of dignified work."
This sounds like an advocacy for third way economics-- Distributism. By. Republicans.
I have always been interested in it and and Distributism's roots are in Catholic Social Teaching-- and it is compatible with many ideas of New Economy. For example-- the book Small is Beautiful or the article Buddhist Economics by E.F. Schumacher would echo some of those very same ideas. For a very long time.. I think back in the mid 200o's I have felt that there needs to be a change and after reading about this, felt a.. I don't know-- a harmony within myself? Is that what people mean when they say "attunement"? It was what immediately came to my mind when reading predictions about the change in the way we live/our economy and what people will value and the return to community based life vs. the giant centrally controlled corporate bureaucracies and monopolies-- Although the last place I expected it to come from is Republican politicians-- particularly after that last tax "reform" that basically favors corporations.
Article: "Does Marco Rubio’s ‘common good capitalism’ go far enough?"
https://catholicherald.co.uk/magazine/does-marco-rubios-common-good-capitalism-go-far-enough/?fbclid=IwAR1cMT_7S59_6PXUvKp5o-6AkXVVpEZt42_981DE4Q9jqLSLLxbJEy-CMXM
Some background on Distributism from a very different source: "Not Socialism, Not Capitalism… Distributism Seeks Community Power"
IwAR0MTK0_JbTU0cd8us3z645Qwy9IX8yjJctJn7Ozb8XsF0ge6g
And I also read a recent opinion article in the NYT decrying the loss of local community based small business: "The Life and Death of the Local Hardware Store: It’s cheaper and more efficient than ordering from Amazon. But American capitalism has turned against small business."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/opinion/sunday/small-business-economy.html Some of the comments note that -- outside NYC-- many Main Streets and local neighborhood shops were first displaced by Walmart and dollar store chains who then closed stores leaving nothing so they must rely on Amazon and other online sellers. It looks to me like there may be opportunity for people to reopen a local shop.
Yes,yes, yes. At its very basic, currency is of course energy. Just like all of the rest of us and everything else.
When we finally get that we can manifest a better reality for ourselves and our world.
I keep reading all these reports on unemployment rates in record low numbers, no increase in inflation... Also these high numbers in the stock market and how this is a great economy and if all historical numbers were taken into account, 45 will win reelection.
Thing is.. there is a paradox. There was a large article in the NYT about how the full employment situation is not causing the inflation that would be expected and that was seen in the past.
Some are saying it is because wages have not really gone up.
Most commenters are saying that they are not seeing what they consider the prosperity that these numbers suggest.
So there are a lot of theories. Most of them ignore the one that I have a gut feeling about.
All these numbers/data/conclusions are bullshit. They are not the right numbers. That someone is cooking the data. Anyone else feeling this?
I think that the numbers are correct, I think we are taking exception with the interpretation. The Federal Reserve has been increasing the money supply since September (buying bonds and exchanging them for dollars - printing dollar for all practical purposes). They just announced that they would be injecting $500 billion in the next month. This is more money injected faster than during the Great Recession. It is this liquidity that is propping up the stock market. This can't go on forever and it never ends well. The Fed did the same thing going into Nixon's re-election trying to goose the economy so Nixon would win. The net result was a bunch of inflation.
There are any number of financial types you can see on YouTube who are beside themselves.
Paul Krugman is not impressed with how the economy is going. As a Nobel laureate in Economics, he has some credibility. And he is not fond of Trumponomics.
Why is Trumponomics a Flop? Neither tax cuts or tariffs are working. - August 1, 2019 NY Times
Conclusion: "And since everything is political these days, let me say that pundits who think that Trump will be able to win by touting a strong economy are almost surely wrong. He most likely won’t face a recession (although who knows?), but he definitely hasn’t made the economy great again. He'll have to run on racism."
Problem is the collapse may come after (and if) the dems get the white house back. Then they'll have to spend years cleaning up that mess, and possibly suffer electoral losses because of the mess the republicans created. Infuriating.
@lynnventura I agree that future administrations will have to clean up Trump's mess.
That said, I don't think people will be feeling better off in 2020 enough to vote Republican in November.
But the fact is that people are not financially better off under Trump. It's a phony economy. So it is not clear that he will get their vote at the polls.
People vote how they feel financially in the 8-10 months before the election, not necessarily what the numbers claim.
Middle class incomes have not increased under Trump. So who here is feeling richer?
The tax cut did little for the middle class. So what if it was a huge boost for corporations and the wealthy?
The deficit has skyrocketed under Trump and people know that means they will have to pay for it down the road.
We have high employment but no change in income. Gig economy.
We have low interest rates, but what good are low interest rates if you still can't save enough from your paycheck to buy a home?
He has not brought manufacturing jobs back to America like he promised.
Foreign investors don't trust his trade policies because he is so volatile and flip flops so often.
That said, it will help if dems can get people to understand in simple terms why Trumponomics has been bad for them. I've seen 2020 as a collapse year, although it doesn't seem so yet.
I'm bringing this thread back. There are a lot of economic trends right now that are pointing to fundamental shifts in the economy, but they're not getting as much attention in the press next to short-term concerns regarding unemployment numbers and the stock market.
On Thursday, the New York Times reported on a coming wave of corporate bankruptcies that could hit the US in the next 30-60 days and may outdo what happened in 2008-09 (my intuition says it will be worse this time). The author helpfully points out that these bankruptcies aren't solely the result of COVID-19 lockdowns:
"But in many cases, the coronavirus crisis exposed deeper problems, like staggering debts run up by companies whose business models were already struggling to deal with changes in consumer behavior."
Moreover, these bankruptcies could have a cascading effect, which is how I've seen COVID-19 effecting the economy:
"Generally, the longer a company stays in bankruptcy, the greater the chances of a liquidation. And that increases the likelihood that the company’s troubles will spread: Suppliers of raw materials could fold if a manufacturer languishes in bankruptcy, and smaller stores in entirely differently lines of business can suffer if a shopping-mall anchor can’t stay open."
I think the problem goes deeper than what this article addresses, though. It's not just changing consumer behavior, COVID-19, or debt from secular stagnation that will be driving these bankruptcies. The global economy has exhausted all of its cheap (fossil fuel) energy sources and is now in a state of irreversible shrinkage. No amount of stimulus from central banks will be able to change this macro-picture. In the short term (4-8 years), many business the world over will go extinct and hundreds of millions of people could lose their jobs. In the long term, though, this loss of business activity (most of which didn't serve real human interests) will actually result in ingenuity, humanism, and economic reinvention like we've never seen. Stay tuned!