Is No One Noticing The Greatest Economic Mismanagement In History?

Yesterday, there was a trial balloon about decision to appoint deranged coke freak Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn as Trump's chief economic advisor. Kudlow is a greed-and-selfishness crackpot who can only make the vibrant economy that Obama left Trump worse-- and more rapidly. Trump has already been sowing the seeds for a big downturn himself. As Alan Grayson, a former economist as well as a former congressman, pointed out this week: "Trump’s 'fiscal policy' bears a striking resemblance to Trump’s real estate business model: borrow your way to bankruptcy, and hope to leave someone else holding the bag. Four Trump subsidiaries have gone bankrupt. Or is it six?  And all exactly the same way: borrowing more than they could afford to pay. And Trump himself? In 1990, his net worth was NEGATIVE $900 million-- making Trump possibly the 'poorest' individual in history. Although I’m sure Trump has heard the old saying: 'owe the bank $10,000, and you have a problem. Owe the bank $1,000,000, and the bank has a problem.' And look at what Trump is doing to our government’s 'business model': something very similar. 

FY2017 federal borrowing: $519 billion
FY2018 federal borrowing (est.): $955 billion

And that, continued Grayson "is BEFORE the Trump tax cuts for billionaires kick in fully. After that, the federal deficit is $1,000,000,000,000.00+ per year, for as far as the eye can see. And that’s assuming that there will be someone out there-- the Martians, maybe?-- who are going to remain willing to lend that kind of money to a government run by Putin’s Papaya Pawn. It’s the greatest economic mismanagement in history. Which is saying a lot, given the fact that we already have a foreign debt of more than $10 trillion."

Grayson, who is running for Congress again, is warning that Trump's merry-go-round will spin faster and faster, until everyone is thrown off and asking the American people to "prevent Trump from putting us all on line at the Trump Soup Kitchen."

And, don't get me wrong, a deficit isn't a terrible thing... if it's being used to create more wealth for the general public. Trumponomics is all about discredited, failed trickle-down theories that creates more wealth for the very rich and leaves the rest of us on the side of the pot-holed road to rot.

Tim Canova, the progressive attorney running for a South Florida congressional seat occupied by Wall Street ally Debbie Wasserman Schultz, found it easy to fit the shortcomings of Trumponomics into the news of the day:

The appointment of TV commentator Larry Kudlow-- the latest episode of celebrity White House apprentice-- returns the office of chief economic advisor to the clownish tradition of past administrations. Kudlow's main qualification is his adherence to extreme supply side economics, opposing estate taxes and taxes on dividends and capital gain, even in the face of gaping and growing inequalities in income and wealth. This trickle-down fiscal policy is mirrored by a trickle-down monetary policy in the form of trillions of dollars in Federal Reserve quantitative easing (QE) programs for Wall Street banks and wealth holders. This is also bubble economics, cheering on the gross inequalities and exploitations that inevitably result in bust. Not to worry, to supply siders like Kudlow this becomes yet another opportunity for plunder, from enormous Wall Street bailouts and corporate subsidies to a strategy of austerity for Main Street and relentless privatizations of public services.

Kudlow is not the first clown or blowhard to serve as White House economics advisor. Glenn Hubbard, Larry Summers, Austen Goolsbee all strutted and fretted their hour on the stage only to reveal more clearly the tragicomedy of trickle down among the many failures and hypocrisies of crony capitalism: supply side tax rates when progressive taxation is most needed, massive deregulation of Wall Street in the face of reckless speculation, endless pain for Main Street and endless gains for Wall Street.

Larry Kudlow fits well within this clownish tradition. He famously denied the coming recession, even after it was well under way in 2007 he was still hailing a Bush boom and Bush himself as the nation's top economic forecaster. For Kudlow, it's always a bubble show and that's what makes it so clownish. He's exactly the kind of economist we would expect Donald Trump to have by his side when the roof starts to cave in on our financial markets.