If you want a near perfect analogy to what America's current
economy looks like, think of Barack Obama spending 8 years applying a “steady
as she goes,” professional hand to fix the train wreck that George W. Bush (43)
left behind. He did all this while baking a most perfect cake anyone can bake.
Obama handed Donald Trump an impeccable legacy on which to build.
It was to take a Sterling American economy through a new phase that will be challenged
by new entrants into the competition for the shaping of a globalized economy
that’s in the making. It was meant to decide what the socioeconomic condition
of the entire planet will look like in the future as far as the eye can see.
While all of this was brewing, the pillars that made America what
some people call an exceptional nation, were beginning to decay. That's because
the highly educated who used to go to America from countries around the world,
were now staying home where better opportunities were opening to them. The
change also helped to create low skilled jobs in those countries; and that kept
at home even the unskilled workers who used to go to America looking for
opportunity. The net result has been the creation of a labor shortage in all
fields in America; one that caused low unemployment and higher pay for
everyone.
Instead of taking the baton from Obama and remaining on the
professional 'steady as she goes' track, Donald Trump immediately acted like a
stunned-by-his electoral success hillbilly, and ran around like a lightheaded
yahoo, yodeling the refrain: look at me, I'm the best, I'm the best. He
attributed to himself the success of the Obama cake while publicly denigrating
the cake itself. He then did the equivalent of injecting poison into the cake
by borrowing trillions of dollars from today's foreigners and from America's
future generations. He gave the money to his cronies who whipped up the icing
they used to cover the Obama cake, and went on to inscribe on it the lie:
Trump's economy.
If you want to know how Trump and his toadies get away with this
kind of nonsense, you may read some of the many pieces the toadies write on the
subject, three of which are reviewed below. They are the following:
First, “2020 Democrats are biggest losers from Trump economic
boom,” a piece authored by the editors of The Washington Examiner, and
published on February 8, 2020. Second, “Paul Krugman, who predicted 'global
recession' under Trump, admits economy is 'strong'”, written by Philip Klein and
published on February 7, 2020 in the Washington Examiner. Third, “Sanders
Rejects Trump's Booming Economy Message in New Hampshire,” written by Erielle
Davidson, and published on February 7, 2020 in The Federalist.
Here is where the editors of the Washington Examiner went wrong as
they described what they believe is happening: “It's clear that Trump is just
as responsible for one of the longest bull markets and tightest labor markets
in history, as much as Barack Obama was for the slowest economic recovery in
nearly a century”.
It is clear that these editors don't understand that after
inheriting the Bush train wreck, Obama had to use a steady hand rather than a
panicky one to stabilize the ship and get things back to normal. It is also
clear that these editors don't understand that inheriting an impeccable economy
from Obama, Trump should have stayed on course rather than borrow to inject a
sugar high into the economy; one that will be paid for with interest by future
generations.
As to Philip Klein, he has demonstrated his lack of fluency in
economics by criticizing Paul Krugman for predicting a global recession. Klein
does not know that when an economist makes a prediction, he may specify the
nature of the change, or when the change will occur but not both. Krugman
specified a global recession but did not say it will happen immediately after
Trump's election. Well, it is happening now throughout the world more than
three years later, except for a handful of countries in Africa, which are
experiencing extraordinary economic conditions, and for America that is
digesting the Trump sugar high.
As to Erielle Davidson, She quoted Bernie Sanders who said this:
“If you are the average American worker, despite huge increases in technology
and productivity over the last 45 years, today you are not earning a nickel
more in real inflation-accounted-for dollars than you did 45 years ago.” And
Davidson countered that argument by quoting the one made by Michael Strain and
went as follows:
“Making apples-to-apples comparisons of the purchasing power of
wages becomes much more difficult the further back you go. How do you compare
the price of a car in 2019 with one in 1973, given the significant improvements
in automobiles? How do you compare the price of a laptop in 2019 with one in
1973, given that none existed in the 1970s?”
That's a valid argument but does not concern this debate. It is
mostly used to discredit the attempt to compute the rate of inflation by making
a comparison between prices of two different periods. As to the argument that
would address the concerns voiced by Bernie Sanders, it goes like this:
45 years ago and previous to that, the average family in America
raised 2 or 3 children on the salary of one earner. It took a vacation in
America or abroad every year, and had enough saved after 2 or 3 decades to send
at least one child to college. Today, the average family in America raises 1 or
2 children on the salary of two earners. It cannot afford to take a vacation
every year, and has little saved after 2 or 3 decades to send even one child to
college. This is why, in addition to inheriting crushing state and federal
debts, America's young who go to college, borrow thousands of dollars they
spend a lifetime paying back.
This being the reality of the situation, it is safe to predict
that for the purpose of campaigning, the Democrats will adopt an argument that
goes something like this:
In the same way that Bill Clinton restored growth after the Bush
41 recession, in the same way that Barack Obama cleaned up the Bush 43 train
wreck, we may be called upon to revive the economic collapse that Donald Trump
is engineering at this time.