Welcome To Trump's Third World America

This morning Carolyn Maloney,vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee released a report, Retirement Insecurity, meant to coincide with the 84th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act. The report shows that, while Social Security has been successful in preventing millions of Americans from falling into poverty, the two other pillars of America's retirement system are in crisis: personal savings and pensions. "Half of American households," it reads, "are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. Even those who take extraordinary steps-- like working until 65 (five years past the current average retirement age), annuitizing all financial assets or reverse-mortgaging their homes-- may not be able to maintain their living standards. Worse, forty percent of workers ages 50-60 who are not currently poor would be poor if were they retire at age 62. Women, Blacks and Hispanics are at substantially greater risk of being poor in retirement."

Earlier in the week, Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, wrote that "Senate and House negotiators will soon meet to decide whether to advance legislation to ban Chinese-owned or controlled companies from using taxpayer money to build U.S. rail cars and buses. The Senate already passed language to ban both, but the version passed by the House applies only to rail. And if folks like GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy get their way, nothing will happen. There’s widespread bipartisan concern-- and growing-- about the litany of security risks posed by allowing companies backed by the Chinese government to make America’s rail cars and buses."

And in rural America, Trump's policies have already brought on a bad recession, dairy farms being hit hardest. According to the American Farm Bureau farm loan delinquencies and bankruptcies are rising. And among the hardest hit states are red counties in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Georgia, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas and New York. Trump areas of Iowa, Pennsylvania and North Carolina are also hurting badly.

Following several years of low farm income and rising debt levels, a review of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation quarterly call report data reveals that the delinquency rates for commercial agricultural loans in both the real estate and non-real estate lending sectors are at a six-year high.

For the first quarter of 2019, 2.5% of commercial real estate loans in agriculture were more than 30 days past due, up from 2.1% in the prior quarter and above the long-run average of 2.1%. Similarly, 2.2% of non-real estate loans in agriculture held by commercial lenders were more than 30 days past due, up from 1.5% in the prior quarter and above the long-run average of 1.6%. The first quarter of 2013 was the last time delinquency rates were this high for commercial lenders. Figure 1 highlights the delinquency rate for both real estate and non-real estate loans held by commercial lenders.

While the delinquency rates are well below the levels experienced following the recession, they are above the historical average and trending in the wrong direction due to several years of poor farm income exasperated by extreme weather events and ongoing trade disruptions.

...In the year ending June 2019, Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies increased in every region in the United States, except for the Southeast. However, there were still a significant number of bankruptcies filed in that region. The Midwest and Southeast had the highest number of filings, 240 and 100 bankruptcies in the past year, respectively. The Midwest is up from 215 filings from the previous year to 240 filings, an increase of 12%. The biggest increase in bankruptcies, 50%, occurred in the Northwest, which includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Across the U.S., farm loan delinquencies and Chapter 12 bankruptcies are rising. The deteriorating financial conditions for farmers and ranchers are a direct result of several years of low farm income, a low return on farm assets, mounting debt, more natural disasters and the second year of retaliatory tariffs on many U.S. agricultural products.

Meanwhile the federal deficit is at $3.7 trillion, Trump being the worst fiscal steward in living memory. According to Newsweek, the ridicule of Trump and his incompetent economic team is bipartisan. So far this year Trump has added $867 billion to the deficit.

The massive 27 percent deficit increase from last year is only expected to worsen as Trump's $1.5 trillion tax plan from a year-and-a-half ago fails to "pay for itself" as the White House previously claimed. Congress also passed another over-budget spending bill earlier this month. The Treasury Department report predicted on Monday a $1 trillion deficit in two months at the end of the fiscal year and analysts noted it's the most money the federal government has spent in the first 10 months of a fiscal year since 2009 efforts to pull out of the Great Recession.

"In case there were any remaining doubts about whether Trump's tax cut would pay for itself, it hasn't," Chris Lu, a previous White House cabinet secretary and deputy secretary of Labor under former President Barack Obama, said on Tuesday.

Fiscal critics blasted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which was passed by a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress before being signed into law by Trump that December. This week, both Democrats and Republicans criticized the budget passed August 1 which suspended the debt ceiling until the end of July 2021 and put spending levels about $320 billion above limits set by a 2011 law. Trump championed the budget deal as a "great victory" for the U.S. military and veterans as the Defense Department was allotted record amounts of taxpayer money.

Kentucky GOP Senator Rand Paul said earlier this month the budget deal marked the "death of the Tea Party movement" among fiscal conservatives. Twenty-three Republicans joined five Democrats to oppose the budget deal.

"Great work by Mitch McConnell in deepening our budget deficit. I guess it was worth it to give his rich friends and donors a tax break," said Amy McGrath, the Kentucky Democratic challenger to the current Republican Senate Majority Leader.

"Revenue up 3 percent, spending up 8 percent equals [a] deficit of $897 billion in 10 months. DC doesn't care," remarked former GOP Florida Governor Jeb Bush Tuesday. He also commended Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey for balancing the state's budget, "Great work Governor Ducey. Is Washington watching?

..."The part of DC with all the power at the time wanted its taxes cut and insisted this wouldn't happen," CNBC economy analyst John Harwood replied to Bush via Twitter Tuesday.

Harwood went on to label Bush's "DC doesn't care" comment inaccurate and an "evasion of accountability" given the numerous debates and deals cut between congressional Republicans, Democrats and Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

"Maybe electing the guy with all the bankruptcies and debt was a bad idea?" quipped writer Molly Jong-Fast.

"It seems after Obama, the elected conservatives have conveniently dropped 'fiscal' from their descriptions. I can ignore the false talking points but I think neither side brings this up because the spending means votes until the dollar becomes worthless," replied a pro-Trump Twitter critic.

Many top Republicans and fiscal hawks remained silent or offered deflections after the Monday Treasury report was released, prompting mockery from several conservative-leaning social media users. "Let's go to Capitol Hill to get a response from budget hawk Republicans," replied one critic, displaying a picture of crickets.

Trump has been a very weak, even disastrous, steward of the American economy and, despite his endless boasting and contemptible gaslighting, the stock market has performed very poorly since he and his entirely incompetent team of imbeciles occupied the White House. And the Great Trump Recession hasn't even started yet-- except in farm country. In terms of the stock market, the only recent president that has done worse than Trump is George W. Bush. This list represents how stocks performed under all recent presidents since Ronald Reagan, from best to worst:

• Bill Clinton +210%
• Barack Obama +182%
• Ronald Reagan +118%
• George HW Bush +51%
• Señor Trumpanzee +25%
• George W. Bush -40%