Thursday, March 15, 2018

Is No One Noticing The Greatest Economic Mismanagement In History?

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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.

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12 Comments:

At 5:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It would appear that Grayson also failed to notice that summers and goolsbee, who were mentioned as other celeb ass clowns given the reins of the economy, were part of obamanation's economic mismanagement program that saved the big banks and their investors and ratfucked everyone else. also. again. still.

What can one say when the democraps' paragon of virtue suffers the same profound myopia he is lamenting. Hypocrisy? Irony?

 
At 5:40 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

While this story has some merit as news, the tale of the Democrats who helped the Republicans blast the vault doors open by eliminating most banking regulations is more important. By doing so, they now allow such poor economic behaviors which are going to harm this nation (and the world) far more than some media fool which that major idiot Trump taps to sit in a chair at his executive meetings to fawn over him.

 
At 7:18 AM, Anonymous Hone said...

Do you think any banker will go to prison the NEXT time there is a bailout? Screw the Dems who voted with the Republicans on this. As Elizabeth Warren said, NO ONE should have voted for this bill.

Oy fucking vey, the mess we are in. It is hard to know where to focus our attention, which scenario is worse. Massive treason; massive conflicts of interest; nepotism; Russian election interference; North Korea, Iran, ISIS; banks; corruption by government officials; gutting our democracy; Republican obstruction; destruction of the state department; ruination of our environment; rape of our national monuments and parks; trashing public schools; guns....

It's a long list, folks. I probably left plenty of stuff out, too.

We need a chiropractic country adjustment.

 
At 9:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hone, puhleeeeze!

Where was Warren's condemnation when the likes of geithner, summers, goolsbee, Bernanke and immelt were being named by obamanation to "mismanage" the economy??
And who did most of the damage under Clinton? bob rubin. Did we forget?
Actually, the question is WHY do we forget? Or WHY do we avert our eyes when a democrap does exactly the same things?

Republicans are not alone and should not be singled out. We need to be fair about our criticism.

We need a left party. Not more democraps to keep ratfucking us all.

 
At 12:40 PM, Blogger Tony Wikrent said...

I detest Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. But "Obama left a vibrant economy" is just plain wrong.

 
At 12:40 PM, Blogger Tony Wikrent said...

I detest Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. But "Obama left a vibrant economy" is just plain wrong.

 
At 4:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Allow me to support the contention that Obamanation left us in poor economic straits.

About the time of the Great Recession beginning, I ended up with four adult college graduate relatives living off my one full-time income because only one of them had even a part-time job and combined they couldn't make it on their own. It took until after the November election before all of them had at least a part-time income. Thus, they remain living off my one full-time income, but at least they can assist with the monthly expenses. They still cannot support themselves without me.

PS: I DON'T have a college degree.

 
At 5:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks to the above supporters.

It takes only a moderate amount of investigation to see that obamanation's economy got well for only the top 10% while the rest were left to flounder. And that's what they did.

If you remove the top 1% from the wage data, wages have stagnated to fallen slightly.
Total (non top 1%) wages in the economy have recovered since 2009, but still do not approach that of 2007.
If you count everyone who wants full time work, unemployment is still close to double digits.

to characterize that as 'vibrant' is totally dishonest. horseshit, in fact.

And it's not as if the democraps were totally impotent in 2009 to affect reasonable remedies. They were paid not to and/or they were just too petrified that spending money to heal the little guy would get them defeated in 2010.

As it turned out, their doing less than nothing was what got them defeated in 2010.
And they never learned.

 
At 6:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

All I can say is that I lost a lot of money when Shrub was president and I made a lot back when Obama was president. Just personal experience and maybe I am simplifying things.

 
At 1:38 AM, Blogger Jan said...

"democraps" guy is a Russian troll.

 
At 6:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just how many threads will DemBot Jan drop the same empty slur before someone catches on that there is no there there?

 
At 11:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

6:13, unless you can discern a cause/effect relationship, it doesn't mean anything.

I made my "fortune" when Clinton was president. He had nothing to do with it just as his horrid policies had a delayed impact creating the 2008 crash.

Late '90s saw 2 bubbles as a trillion dollars in non-taxed money was invested into all manner of internet startups seeking "google" or "amazon" returns. Most of it was flushed, but some of it was flushed my way (I was in tech).
In addition, Y2K caused businesses to spend trillions in just a few years trying to prevent catastrophe on 1-1-2000. A bit of those trillions landed in my pocket as, in their desperation to fix it on short notice, they overpaid tech experts like me.

Were it not for those 2 coincident events, I'd still have to work into my 90s to live.

But Clinton was still a terrible president, the democraps were and are still corrupt and he still created a vacuum into which cheney/bush were drawn.

I made a lot of defensive moves (in 2006) when I saw 2008 coming, so my losses were minimized. And I ventured back in when everything was scraping bottom, so I made a lot as the bailout-fueled rebounds happened while obama was keeping the seat warm.

So I am now retired because of venture capital money spent stupidly on internet get-rich-quick schemes, Y2K and because of the crash. I was lucky... and a little smart. mostly lucky timing.

Clinton and Obama were still horrible presidents.

 

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