Great conversation. What happens, though, when we do enter a recession and there’s no govt spending/policy to get us out of it? I fear that’s where we are headed.
Any attempt to apply prescriptive policy will be corrupted most likely. This administration is also likely going to cook the books, as Dr Krugman as previously discussed.
This administration has no game plan at all. If you did your job like they are doing theirs, you would not have one. Who goes into something on this scale without a plan and a Plan B? This is just an absolute cluster fuck if you ask me.
I'm also worried about this. I'm having trouble imagining that our Republican-controlled Trump government will take steps to stimulate the economy, help the poor, work to create jobs -- all things that need to be done during a recession.
In unprecedented times we need to call upon our better instincts. Trump is pushing the narrative that the American people do not have his skill set, the art of making any deal. Truth to the matter, we know all of this is pure insanity. Again, and until death, the onus is on SCOTUS. They FAILED! Giving this, or ANY president, a pardon of the magnitude they gave, Agent Orange, was/is a fundamentally flawed argument. As I see it, history will be written that proves this. In the mean time, we ride this roller coaster and we do not stop flooding their, so-called, zone with what is actually happening. Members of that cabinet will fall right and left. Their own families and friends will be suffering. Everything has a breaking point.
Absolutely. The failure of the SCOTUS depends, of course, on your perspective. From the Orange Scourge and Bitch McConnell's perspective's they acted precisely as they were installed to act - illegitimately.
Up till recently, the "Chief Justice", Roberts, gave the appearance of concern for his legacy. He's now completely and shamelessly dashed it to the rocks.
History will indeed not be kind to this administration, this SCOTUS, or the GOP in both chambers, much less the GOP as a whole.
Yes. That seemed to be exactly what she was saying. Especially after the GOP pass their huge tax cuts for the rich later this year, that will all be deficit-financed, thus further juicing inflation. Coupled with DOGE's crippling of the IRS, which will cut their take by 10%--resulting in a whopping $500bn shortfall for fiscal 2025. So if by the Fall, all of these GOP policies will have created a budget deficit of $2.5trillion or higher, and then recession hits, they'll simply say, "We're tapped out because of all our stupid policies, and refuse to spend any more to ease the pain." Then it's an even deeper recession, with more social pain.
Thank you Paul....it is as harsh and illogical as we feared, and a LONG recession can lead to a depression..where the real DANGER is immense. All unnecessary ! Your mind goes right to sanity questions like why isn't the GOP nailing this administrations feet to their literal FLOOR demanding a full explanation of their PLAN..I know, but they have to live in a broken America too ??? !!!! It is so painful to watch and feel no support and therefore - feeling helpless. Unnecessary and illogical and unfathomable that the GOP will not ACT to save the years and years and years of pain ! I for one think the trump plan is so nefarious to mirror Victor's Hungary or Putin's Russia that they would never divulge it anyway. We honestly need no more proof...an honest government would not have a 'prison' in El Salvador. How to stop the madness and we are so so quickly running out of runway
This is what the GOP has been aiming at for decades now. Enriching the fat cats and impoverishing the rest of us. That's what "trickle down" was always really about. They don't mind living in a broken America - indeed, it was their plan all along.
If you feel helpless, the thing to do is act. It's going around substack that the next nationwide rally is April 19, be there or be square! It should be even bigger and better than the April 5 rally - which was gigantic. It was awesome to be there.
So start making a sign and get ready to get out there and participate.
I agree 100%. The thinktank 2025 plan spelled out their plan, which is exactly what you hypothesize above. It's about impoverishing the populace so they will be gracious for the handouts of the oligarchy. Their only concern in autocratic rule is making themselves richer and tightening control of the media bubble land (all is going great), courts, legislature, armed forces--with the threat of gulags for the resistance. It's already here. With greed of this magnitude blinding the reality of the society they are creating, it will eventually cause REVOLUTION! Just hope I live long enough to witness the return to democracy, so we can focus on the science of fixing our dying planet.
The one thing missing in this discussion is the rapidly approaching planet change causing loss of air travel due to deadly storms, and loss of food sources due to temperature change and coming increase in storm intensity and frequency and eventually mass migrations. The Earth environment will will be the next economic depression. We need to totally focus on "Project Restore Planet" so life will be sustainable before we loose the means/resources to reverse global warming. Effort will be on a scale many times larger than the Apollo Mission to the moon. We would also need to start screening our politicians for propensity for greed and lack of empathy.
Agreed. Project 2025 reminds me of both great Orwell books: 1984 and Animal Farm. Unfortunately, Agent Orange seems determined to accelerate and exacerbate global warming. Also unfortunately (for me) I don't expect to live long enough to witness the restoration of Democracy. I'll have to settle for spending the remainder of my days doing everything I possibly can to fight this Orange Scourge.
While the Sahm Rule is helpful, it obscures the job quality index. Dems are baffled because many ignore the long term median household income numbers and wonder why The Deplorables are complaining so much despite "full employment". Until the Dems have a plan for reversing these trends, we will continue to lose to those who promise action (regardless of whether it makes sense). AI could have the same effect on US white collar labor as offshoring did for blue collar labor. Enough snarky condescension. The Clintons promised healthcare while selling us NAFTA, WTO, and TPP. This is just the chickens coming home to roost. We need to reverse these tax cuts and properly fund education and healthcare. The alternative will be even more radical.
The Microsoft Office suite and Adobe already had the kind of effect on white collar employment AI may have, with the impact felt mainly in “pink collar” jobs. Beginning in the mid 1990s, secretaries, typists, executive assistants and office managers started disappearing. By the 2010s the middle aged women who had held these positions were more likely to be out of the workforce. Except for labor economists and a couple of NPR reports, no one really paid attention. No political consultants proposed targeted efforts to win their votes like they are now with blue collar white men. This comment serves as a memorial to the executive assistant at my employer who lost her job in 2012, couldn’t find a new one at age 53 and ended up drinking herself to death at age 54.
Yep, history will conclude 45 years of tax cuts drove a prosperous nation to ruin. The irony is that tariffs, a tax, was the final straw.
This is what capitalism devouring itself looks like. Elites that voted for tax cuts over continued growth and stability signed our death warrant as a great nation.
What we really need is basic minimum income >and< healthcare >and< dignified housing >and< education. Then the fat cats can bring in all the dirt cheap labor from overseas they want and nobody will complain about it.
Oh yes, and we can easily pay for it by eliminating obscene tax cuts for the stolen wealth, tax capital gains at the same rate as >earned< income, ditch the "carried interest" loophole, raise the AMT threshold so that it doesn't hit the middle class.
AI is a disruption just as the industrial revolution was. It replaced manual process with the beginnings of automation. But in the long run, it improved the prosperity of society. Same was true in transportation. "Experts" predicted for example that steam locomotives driving trains over 20 mph would cause deaths because people couldn't sustain such speeds.
Alfred North Whitehead noted that advances of the mind are not made through operations of the mind but removing operations from the mind. Viewed this way, AI is a tool of the mind that eventually will prove to be an advance. It could well have prosperity effects greater than even the industrial revolution.
What is important is to provide the educational resources to train those affected to find other ways to work effectively. One thing that worries me is the current regime is doing the opposite and that is the real danger.
I'm bullish on AI helping American workers. As we speak, Claude is helping me write software in Rust so that I can bid on a project that I would not have even considered before. I would go beyond your call for more training - funding public education also supports communities that depend upon the services provided by urban school districts. This is why Shapiro's vouchers are so insidious.
Extremely helpful. Institutional and political problems contribute to having just one individual in charge. The president uses EO’s as the easiest way to implement policy without having the checks of the other branches. Those checks take time in the judiciary and are virtually inexistant in Congress. The flood of EO’s was meant to impress his political base and diffuse opposition. Politically Congress is inactive regarding responsible fiscal policy making. These institutional problems will not resolve in the short term.
And the supreme court voted 9-0 that there are caveats that allow you to finagle around complying with the law. And that’s exactly what the administration did a day later.
This is as bad as, or worse than Citizens United effect upon Democracy. Few understood that then or this now. Both checks have failed us. Pitchforks in the streets is all we have left.
I think the near term (less than a year) impact of DOGE will be greater than Dr. Sahm suggested right after the 25:00 minute mark. Sure, the Federal and Federal dependent workforce is relatively small compared to the nation's total workforce, but the impact of those workers not doing the jobs they were, until recently, paid to do will have a big immediate impact.
Take the IRS for instance. Half of the workforce is now gone. So an already woefully undermanned IRS will now have even fewer people to audit tax returns and collect taxes. That's got to have an immediate impact on how much revenue the IRS will collect for fiscal year 2026. So, on top of all the other inflationary pressures Trump's administration is inflicting on the nation, there will be what essentially is a "surprise" hit to Federal revenue from uncollected taxes and tax cheating because the IRS will be too understaffed and demoralized to do its job. I think that could add up to tens of billions of dollars in lost tax revenue, depending on how aggressive well off filers employ borderline creative tax reduction methods, or simply decide to cheat because the tax cops are no longer on the beat.
Another big near term hit may come from the overall deterioration of the physical and institutional Federal government infrastructure that keeps things going. Fire all the people who pave the roads and the roads fall apart. Fire all the people who fix the bridges and the bridges fall down. Fire all the people who administer Social Security and old people don't get their checks. If there was any fat in the Federal government, maybe the workforce cuts wouldn't have the potentials I listed above for mischief. But it doesn't. Contrary to popular mythology (and the Fox News crazyverse) the Federal government's workforce was already pretty lean before DOGE.
So we could see big economic hits coming in late 4Q25 or 1Q26 because things that the public depends on the Federal government doing are just nor being done.
Hate government until you need an IRS agent, a wildland fire worker, a CDC researcher, a bit of help after your house floated down a river and so on. I’ve lost all empathy.
So the economic, political, and credit cycles intermingle. What is called the economic cycle is determined by flip flopping political power and the credit cycle was in full view through the past decade.
I define the credit cycle as an arbitrary beginning in the long cycle in which interest rates on consumer credit are low to attract consumers who then spend as a chorus thus raising inflation, followed by the fed raising interest rates guidance to banks who then raise interest rates on high accrued debt and consumers slow their spending to pay down high interest accrued debt and when massive debt is paid down, banks lower interest rates guided by the fed who see's reduced economic activity, and consumer credit rates are decreased beginning the cycle anew again.
Democrats create prosperity, then Republicans pass tax cuts to keep it.
Democrats are exceptionally good at enriching Republicans on a regular political power cycle. They take turns if you will.
Thanks for the transcript. It allows me to occasionally step back a few sentences to learn.
Actually, labor "shortages" are little more than an excuse for "holding the line on upward salary pressures". There's no actual shortage of labor - it's just that nobody wants to work for a song and dance, and the oligarchs don't want to pay a living wage.
You could argue that a living wage is "inflationary", but nowhere close to as much as profiteering. Low wages and price increases = more billions for our corporate overlords.
It's the same thing as the phony claims of a "skills gap". Translation: people with the skills we need want a bigger salary than we're willing to pay, so we'll just create a special visa to bring in dirt cheap labor from overseas, or better still, offshore to even more dirt cheap labor. Win win for us, lose lose for you. Suck it up buttercup. This is the new normal, get used to it.
Paul, thanks; great discussion. A couple of thoughts:
1. In 2008, looking back, we all said stimulus was too slow and the recession cycle extended. With COVID, the stimulus was hot, a lot of dollars sloshing around, and as you said everyone hated it. But during both, we largely had Democrats at the top, and Democrats 'feel your pain'. Now, we have just the opposite: its the cruelity, stupid.
2. I like the discussion of factors 'layering'; its not just tariffs, but also adding layoffs, immigration, etc., resulting in uncertainty. But at the end of the discussion, you all added the effects of AI that have not been factored in yet. AI is really great for the non-empathetic, which we've got in spades now. What happens to the uncertainty factor when that is factored in?
Extraordinarily important and helpful discussion. Immense thanks to both of you for your intelligence, knowledge and ongoing willingness to be public voices. Even for those of us who appreciate the value of thoughtful expertise, the window in to the depth of thought and nuance needed for sound policy-making that is discussed here is invaluable. I have restacked, and I do hope this will be widely watched/read and shared.
Listening to this makes a thought come to mind…I see how manipulative trump is and how people gave him credit for giving them checks with his name on them during the first part of the pandemic. Who’s to say he isn’t looking to cause a downturn for whatever reason and give out money again to bring voters onboard to change a negative course in the direction people will vote. I feel like there’s no way to predict what’s coming but I don’t trust the mad king.
Totally disagree. ‘So’ is a word that indicates a continuation of ideas, it’s the mark of a rational thinker who’s conveying a logical argument. It’s a necessary building block in a rational conversation. It’s not a word Trump would ever use properly. She used it appropriately and I appreciate her sharing her thought process with me. I purposely use it as often as I can.
REMARKABLE! If two giant minds in macroeconomics cannot forecast what's next for America or the world's economy, where does that leave you and me? We have a megalomaniac running the world's economy on a whim! Yes, the political system has failed in its job, but capitalism has failed and allowed the political system to fail. DT and friends are stumbling around in the ashes, trying to find a Phoenix. Capitalism/consumerism works well when you represent 80% of the world's GDP and 4% of the population, not so well at 24% of the world's GDP. We are at that point in the historic cycle when it will take a new illusion to save us, a Phoenix. We are in a Renaissance, a change, a renewal in how we interpret ourselves. Paul and Claudia are in the same boat!
Great conversation. What happens, though, when we do enter a recession and there’s no govt spending/policy to get us out of it? I fear that’s where we are headed.
Any attempt to apply prescriptive policy will be corrupted most likely. This administration is also likely going to cook the books, as Dr Krugman as previously discussed.
This administration has no game plan at all. If you did your job like they are doing theirs, you would not have one. Who goes into something on this scale without a plan and a Plan B? This is just an absolute cluster fuck if you ask me.
Understatement.
I'm also worried about this. I'm having trouble imagining that our Republican-controlled Trump government will take steps to stimulate the economy, help the poor, work to create jobs -- all things that need to be done during a recession.
What happens is the oligarchs tell us "Suck it up buttercup. This is the new normal, get used to it."
That's the time for us to pull out the guillotines and start chopping until they get the hint.
In unprecedented times we need to call upon our better instincts. Trump is pushing the narrative that the American people do not have his skill set, the art of making any deal. Truth to the matter, we know all of this is pure insanity. Again, and until death, the onus is on SCOTUS. They FAILED! Giving this, or ANY president, a pardon of the magnitude they gave, Agent Orange, was/is a fundamentally flawed argument. As I see it, history will be written that proves this. In the mean time, we ride this roller coaster and we do not stop flooding their, so-called, zone with what is actually happening. Members of that cabinet will fall right and left. Their own families and friends will be suffering. Everything has a breaking point.
Absolutely. The failure of the SCOTUS depends, of course, on your perspective. From the Orange Scourge and Bitch McConnell's perspective's they acted precisely as they were installed to act - illegitimately.
Up till recently, the "Chief Justice", Roberts, gave the appearance of concern for his legacy. He's now completely and shamelessly dashed it to the rocks.
History will indeed not be kind to this administration, this SCOTUS, or the GOP in both chambers, much less the GOP as a whole.
You mean like 70 million missed social security checks?
Yes. That seemed to be exactly what she was saying. Especially after the GOP pass their huge tax cuts for the rich later this year, that will all be deficit-financed, thus further juicing inflation. Coupled with DOGE's crippling of the IRS, which will cut their take by 10%--resulting in a whopping $500bn shortfall for fiscal 2025. So if by the Fall, all of these GOP policies will have created a budget deficit of $2.5trillion or higher, and then recession hits, they'll simply say, "We're tapped out because of all our stupid policies, and refuse to spend any more to ease the pain." Then it's an even deeper recession, with more social pain.
Thank you Paul....it is as harsh and illogical as we feared, and a LONG recession can lead to a depression..where the real DANGER is immense. All unnecessary ! Your mind goes right to sanity questions like why isn't the GOP nailing this administrations feet to their literal FLOOR demanding a full explanation of their PLAN..I know, but they have to live in a broken America too ??? !!!! It is so painful to watch and feel no support and therefore - feeling helpless. Unnecessary and illogical and unfathomable that the GOP will not ACT to save the years and years and years of pain ! I for one think the trump plan is so nefarious to mirror Victor's Hungary or Putin's Russia that they would never divulge it anyway. We honestly need no more proof...an honest government would not have a 'prison' in El Salvador. How to stop the madness and we are so so quickly running out of runway
This is what the GOP has been aiming at for decades now. Enriching the fat cats and impoverishing the rest of us. That's what "trickle down" was always really about. They don't mind living in a broken America - indeed, it was their plan all along.
If you feel helpless, the thing to do is act. It's going around substack that the next nationwide rally is April 19, be there or be square! It should be even bigger and better than the April 5 rally - which was gigantic. It was awesome to be there.
So start making a sign and get ready to get out there and participate.
Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
//
Don't let up folks, it's working:
Boycott TE卐LA! Boycott Swastikar!
Short TE卐LA! Short Swastikar!
Boycott 卐tarlink!
Boycott 卐/Twitter!
Curb your DOGE!
https://generalstrikeus.com/strikecard
I agree 100%. The thinktank 2025 plan spelled out their plan, which is exactly what you hypothesize above. It's about impoverishing the populace so they will be gracious for the handouts of the oligarchy. Their only concern in autocratic rule is making themselves richer and tightening control of the media bubble land (all is going great), courts, legislature, armed forces--with the threat of gulags for the resistance. It's already here. With greed of this magnitude blinding the reality of the society they are creating, it will eventually cause REVOLUTION! Just hope I live long enough to witness the return to democracy, so we can focus on the science of fixing our dying planet.
The one thing missing in this discussion is the rapidly approaching planet change causing loss of air travel due to deadly storms, and loss of food sources due to temperature change and coming increase in storm intensity and frequency and eventually mass migrations. The Earth environment will will be the next economic depression. We need to totally focus on "Project Restore Planet" so life will be sustainable before we loose the means/resources to reverse global warming. Effort will be on a scale many times larger than the Apollo Mission to the moon. We would also need to start screening our politicians for propensity for greed and lack of empathy.
Agreed. Project 2025 reminds me of both great Orwell books: 1984 and Animal Farm. Unfortunately, Agent Orange seems determined to accelerate and exacerbate global warming. Also unfortunately (for me) I don't expect to live long enough to witness the restoration of Democracy. I'll have to settle for spending the remainder of my days doing everything I possibly can to fight this Orange Scourge.
I’m with you.
Many thanks for this discussion!
Thanks for the cleaned-up transcript. I always read to save time!
While the Sahm Rule is helpful, it obscures the job quality index. Dems are baffled because many ignore the long term median household income numbers and wonder why The Deplorables are complaining so much despite "full employment". Until the Dems have a plan for reversing these trends, we will continue to lose to those who promise action (regardless of whether it makes sense). AI could have the same effect on US white collar labor as offshoring did for blue collar labor. Enough snarky condescension. The Clintons promised healthcare while selling us NAFTA, WTO, and TPP. This is just the chickens coming home to roost. We need to reverse these tax cuts and properly fund education and healthcare. The alternative will be even more radical.
The Microsoft Office suite and Adobe already had the kind of effect on white collar employment AI may have, with the impact felt mainly in “pink collar” jobs. Beginning in the mid 1990s, secretaries, typists, executive assistants and office managers started disappearing. By the 2010s the middle aged women who had held these positions were more likely to be out of the workforce. Except for labor economists and a couple of NPR reports, no one really paid attention. No political consultants proposed targeted efforts to win their votes like they are now with blue collar white men. This comment serves as a memorial to the executive assistant at my employer who lost her job in 2012, couldn’t find a new one at age 53 and ended up drinking herself to death at age 54.
What a sad ending for a woman who worked likely for less pay than males in similar positions.
Yep, history will conclude 45 years of tax cuts drove a prosperous nation to ruin. The irony is that tariffs, a tax, was the final straw.
This is what capitalism devouring itself looks like. Elites that voted for tax cuts over continued growth and stability signed our death warrant as a great nation.
What we really need is basic minimum income >and< healthcare >and< dignified housing >and< education. Then the fat cats can bring in all the dirt cheap labor from overseas they want and nobody will complain about it.
Oh yes, and we can easily pay for it by eliminating obscene tax cuts for the stolen wealth, tax capital gains at the same rate as >earned< income, ditch the "carried interest" loophole, raise the AMT threshold so that it doesn't hit the middle class.
That would be a good starting point.
AI is a disruption just as the industrial revolution was. It replaced manual process with the beginnings of automation. But in the long run, it improved the prosperity of society. Same was true in transportation. "Experts" predicted for example that steam locomotives driving trains over 20 mph would cause deaths because people couldn't sustain such speeds.
Alfred North Whitehead noted that advances of the mind are not made through operations of the mind but removing operations from the mind. Viewed this way, AI is a tool of the mind that eventually will prove to be an advance. It could well have prosperity effects greater than even the industrial revolution.
What is important is to provide the educational resources to train those affected to find other ways to work effectively. One thing that worries me is the current regime is doing the opposite and that is the real danger.
I'm bullish on AI helping American workers. As we speak, Claude is helping me write software in Rust so that I can bid on a project that I would not have even considered before. I would go beyond your call for more training - funding public education also supports communities that depend upon the services provided by urban school districts. This is why Shapiro's vouchers are so insidious.
Bingo! Immigrant's infilling.
Extremely helpful. Institutional and political problems contribute to having just one individual in charge. The president uses EO’s as the easiest way to implement policy without having the checks of the other branches. Those checks take time in the judiciary and are virtually inexistant in Congress. The flood of EO’s was meant to impress his political base and diffuse opposition. Politically Congress is inactive regarding responsible fiscal policy making. These institutional problems will not resolve in the short term.
I'm willing to bet in private King MAGA refers to EO's as "decrees" or "edicts".
And the supreme court voted 9-0 that there are caveats that allow you to finagle around complying with the law. And that’s exactly what the administration did a day later.
This is as bad as, or worse than Citizens United effect upon Democracy. Few understood that then or this now. Both checks have failed us. Pitchforks in the streets is all we have left.
How did we get here? Insufficient Democrats voting perhaps?
I think the near term (less than a year) impact of DOGE will be greater than Dr. Sahm suggested right after the 25:00 minute mark. Sure, the Federal and Federal dependent workforce is relatively small compared to the nation's total workforce, but the impact of those workers not doing the jobs they were, until recently, paid to do will have a big immediate impact.
Take the IRS for instance. Half of the workforce is now gone. So an already woefully undermanned IRS will now have even fewer people to audit tax returns and collect taxes. That's got to have an immediate impact on how much revenue the IRS will collect for fiscal year 2026. So, on top of all the other inflationary pressures Trump's administration is inflicting on the nation, there will be what essentially is a "surprise" hit to Federal revenue from uncollected taxes and tax cheating because the IRS will be too understaffed and demoralized to do its job. I think that could add up to tens of billions of dollars in lost tax revenue, depending on how aggressive well off filers employ borderline creative tax reduction methods, or simply decide to cheat because the tax cops are no longer on the beat.
Another big near term hit may come from the overall deterioration of the physical and institutional Federal government infrastructure that keeps things going. Fire all the people who pave the roads and the roads fall apart. Fire all the people who fix the bridges and the bridges fall down. Fire all the people who administer Social Security and old people don't get their checks. If there was any fat in the Federal government, maybe the workforce cuts wouldn't have the potentials I listed above for mischief. But it doesn't. Contrary to popular mythology (and the Fox News crazyverse) the Federal government's workforce was already pretty lean before DOGE.
So we could see big economic hits coming in late 4Q25 or 1Q26 because things that the public depends on the Federal government doing are just nor being done.
Hate government until you need an IRS agent, a wildland fire worker, a CDC researcher, a bit of help after your house floated down a river and so on. I’ve lost all empathy.
Terrific condensed education. Thank you.
So the economic, political, and credit cycles intermingle. What is called the economic cycle is determined by flip flopping political power and the credit cycle was in full view through the past decade.
I define the credit cycle as an arbitrary beginning in the long cycle in which interest rates on consumer credit are low to attract consumers who then spend as a chorus thus raising inflation, followed by the fed raising interest rates guidance to banks who then raise interest rates on high accrued debt and consumers slow their spending to pay down high interest accrued debt and when massive debt is paid down, banks lower interest rates guided by the fed who see's reduced economic activity, and consumer credit rates are decreased beginning the cycle anew again.
Democrats create prosperity, then Republicans pass tax cuts to keep it.
Democrats are exceptionally good at enriching Republicans on a regular political power cycle. They take turns if you will.
Thanks for the transcript. It allows me to occasionally step back a few sentences to learn.
Actually, labor "shortages" are little more than an excuse for "holding the line on upward salary pressures". There's no actual shortage of labor - it's just that nobody wants to work for a song and dance, and the oligarchs don't want to pay a living wage.
You could argue that a living wage is "inflationary", but nowhere close to as much as profiteering. Low wages and price increases = more billions for our corporate overlords.
It's the same thing as the phony claims of a "skills gap". Translation: people with the skills we need want a bigger salary than we're willing to pay, so we'll just create a special visa to bring in dirt cheap labor from overseas, or better still, offshore to even more dirt cheap labor. Win win for us, lose lose for you. Suck it up buttercup. This is the new normal, get used to it.
Now, where are those guillotines?
Paul, thanks; great discussion. A couple of thoughts:
1. In 2008, looking back, we all said stimulus was too slow and the recession cycle extended. With COVID, the stimulus was hot, a lot of dollars sloshing around, and as you said everyone hated it. But during both, we largely had Democrats at the top, and Democrats 'feel your pain'. Now, we have just the opposite: its the cruelity, stupid.
2. I like the discussion of factors 'layering'; its not just tariffs, but also adding layoffs, immigration, etc., resulting in uncertainty. But at the end of the discussion, you all added the effects of AI that have not been factored in yet. AI is really great for the non-empathetic, which we've got in spades now. What happens to the uncertainty factor when that is factored in?
It makes it more certain that the Robber Barrons will rule and impoverish the rest of us.
Extraordinarily important and helpful discussion. Immense thanks to both of you for your intelligence, knowledge and ongoing willingness to be public voices. Even for those of us who appreciate the value of thoughtful expertise, the window in to the depth of thought and nuance needed for sound policy-making that is discussed here is invaluable. I have restacked, and I do hope this will be widely watched/read and shared.
Listening to this makes a thought come to mind…I see how manipulative trump is and how people gave him credit for giving them checks with his name on them during the first part of the pandemic. Who’s to say he isn’t looking to cause a downturn for whatever reason and give out money again to bring voters onboard to change a negative course in the direction people will vote. I feel like there’s no way to predict what’s coming but I don’t trust the mad king.
Claudia. Very enlightening . Please don’t start every sentence with “So”. That’s what high school freshmen do, but outgro.
Totally disagree. ‘So’ is a word that indicates a continuation of ideas, it’s the mark of a rational thinker who’s conveying a logical argument. It’s a necessary building block in a rational conversation. It’s not a word Trump would ever use properly. She used it appropriately and I appreciate her sharing her thought process with me. I purposely use it as often as I can.
So what?
So, no comment
So, you mean like?
Uh…you know..Whatever. See what I mean?
Now you're tawkin!
Will we ever have people like Claudia Sahm in government again?
Compare Ms. Sahm’s knowledge and clear-headed analyses with the self-serving, imbecilic lurching of the Trump Administration.
One hopes we can somehow survive until the ‘26 midterm elections.
Thank you both for your restraint on the current sitch. What was not said was equally important.
I’ll say.
REMARKABLE! If two giant minds in macroeconomics cannot forecast what's next for America or the world's economy, where does that leave you and me? We have a megalomaniac running the world's economy on a whim! Yes, the political system has failed in its job, but capitalism has failed and allowed the political system to fail. DT and friends are stumbling around in the ashes, trying to find a Phoenix. Capitalism/consumerism works well when you represent 80% of the world's GDP and 4% of the population, not so well at 24% of the world's GDP. We are at that point in the historic cycle when it will take a new illusion to save us, a Phoenix. We are in a Renaissance, a change, a renewal in how we interpret ourselves. Paul and Claudia are in the same boat!
The reason they can't predict is no human (even Trump) knows what disruptive action he is going to take next week (if not tomorrow).
Trump isn't even sure what he did LAST WEEK.
All anyone knows for sure is that one of Trump's major talents is CHAOS. Unfortunately, that is not very good for the economy.