THAT ONE IS GOING TO BE BAD …
Years ago we wrote a piece in defense of “creative destruction.”
Our column referenced the legendary Austrian school economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter … but then we remembered we were a political blog based in the dumbest state in America. At which point we quit with the Schumpeter-speak.
But the point still stands: Creative destruction is (and always has been) a good thing. It’s a natural part of the free market … and an essential part of creating the conditions for future growth.
In a recent column on his website, investment advisor Lance Roberts makes this point. But he also makes the critical caveat: We are not in a free market. We are in a manipulated market, one in which government-driven centralized “financial engineering (has) had a very negative side effect of deteriorating economic prosperity.”
In other words all those government efforts to “save the economy” have only made matters worse … which is exactly what we said would happen more than seven years ago.
Roberts is arguing the Austrian school perspective … which maintains the best thing government could have done during the recent recession was, well … nothing.
Here in a nutshell, is the problem (according to Roberts) …
The Fed continues to follow the Keynesian logic, mistaking recessions as periods of falling aggregate demand, and they rush to try and stimulate demand hoping to increase the rate of consumption. However, the reason the policies that have been enacted by the current Administration have all but failed to this point, be it from “cash for clunkers” to“Quantitative Easing”, is because all they have done is either to drag future consumption forward or to stimulate asset markets that create an artificial wealth effect thereby decreasing savings that could, and should have been, used for productive investment.
Amen …
The numbers don’t lie … as we noted in a recent column, America’s gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded five percent expansion in twelve out of thirty years from 1950-1980. In seventeen out of those years, it exceeded four percent growth.
Since then, things haven’t been so hot …
The U.S. economy hasn’t expanded at a five percent clip since 1984 … and hasn’t hit four percent growth since 2000. Hell, GDP hasn’t even expanded at three percent or better in a decade.
Is it any wonder our country is sliding into the ash heap of history?
“The continued misuse of capital and continued erroneous monetary policies have instigated not only the recent downturn but actually thirty years of an insidious slow moving infection that has destroyed the American legacy,” Roberts concluded. “‘Recessions’ should be embraced and utilized to clear the ‘excesses’ that accrue in the economic system during the first half of the economic growth cycle. Trying to delay the inevitable, only makes the inevitable that much worse in the end.”
Which America is about to find out the hard way … (even if the “rainbows and unicorns” crowd would have you believe otherwise).
The good news? As bad as things are, we can turn them around. America has thrived in the past – it can thrive again in the future. How? Easy: We must stop the perpetual expansion of the welfare state, get rid of unchecked crony capitalism, eliminate the radical redistribution of wealth, shut down “compassionate” immigration, end Obamacare and fundamentally rethink the efficacy of waging future “Wars on Terror.”
Do those things and this country has a fighting chance …
28 comments
A recession is coming.Under Obama the cost of living has increased while wages are down.More small businesses have closed under Obama than opened.Obamacare will reduce the workforce by 2,000,000 full time jobs by 2025.45 million in poverty and riding the perpetual welfare train under Obama.
You only raise interest rates when the economy is ‘hot’.We won’t even hit an anemic 2% growth.
That’s why you’re on the Fed Board right? Geesh!!!!!
The Fed Board didn’t make this decision just like the DOJ doesn’t make decisions nor does HLS under the dictator and traitor occupying the wH.
wH told em to raise rates to give the illusion prior to the 2016 elections that the economy is improving.
You realize the Fed is independent of the President right? 5% unemployment, record DOW, low inflation, gas at $2 a gallon – it must really hate to live your universe. Is that Swansea?
‘independent’ of the President? Just like the DOJ and HLS. LMAO!!!!!
REAL Unemployment is 20%. Gas was only $1.87 a gallon when Obama was sworn in.For 6+ years under Obama it was $3.50 a gallon.The DOW is up because the Feds have been printing FREE money.
Hi pogo! How many disqus accounts do you have?
Certainly more accounts than IQ points.
You know Pogo is Flip is Tango is Dirty Pete is Sanchez is ZwetZback is TARev….blah, blah. blah!!!
Ooops, the Crapville News has spoken.
You are right on the “money,” when speaking of the economy. I would say “target,” but you only use that in reference to the Military.
We are not a free market any longer, government-controlled economies don’t abide by classical free market changes.
Buy gold, the end is coming, inflation is 16%, unemployment is really 50% – aaahhhhhh – the government lies, their is no money left, we’re owned by China, consumers aren’t spending……Did I miss anything Will.
SC is the dumbest state in America. That’s all I got out of the ‘article’.
Flip would know.
Actually holiday spending is DOWN and the reason the wH is giving is the warm weather.
You just can’t make this shit up.
“You just can’t make this shit up.”
Someone should call the White House and tell them that.
Don’t cheer too soon, there’s still a week of shopping left. That and at some point, rational people say – “I have enough shit.”
But we got healthcare for all! Yippee!
Please get the fuck off of Obamacare. The Insurance industry collects premiums to put in the stock market. It resists (until the very last) paying for healthcare, and often simply does not pay at all. The hospital ERs backed up so bad that there was no help for actual emergencies. The entire healthcare system was collapsing. Congress is owned by the insurance companies.Obamacare is the only help there is. No GOP alternatives, only lies and misrepresentations on behalf of the owners. The fix is getting rid of the insurance companies completely thru a single payer system. Just ask Lyin’ Joe Wilson about that idea. How can you be so smart about so much, but so stupid about this!?!?!
Oh yeah single payer! You are a mindless fucking moron!
“The U.S. economy hasn’t expanded at a five percent clip since 1984”
Yes, and we basically lost manufacturing after that time. We obviously are not doing so well with the new “services” industry jobs/wages.
In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53 percent of the economy. By 1988 it only accounted for 39 percent, and in 2004, it accounted for just 9 percent.
Obama has made mistakes, but it helps nothing for fits to completely misidentify our problems. Trying to compare GDP from the fifties to the present is a big mistake.
1. You could compare population growth and GDP since 1950 and find that GDP has on average been twice the population growth rate. Population growth rate:
1950 = 2.07% GPD 4%
2015 = 0.73% GDP 2% +/-
2. You can also find a correlation growth in percent of the workforce that are women and GDP growth.
70’s – 14% increase
80’s – 11% ” ”
90’s – 10% ” ”
00’s to ’12 – 6% ” ”
3. A lot of our growth since 1945 has been the result exports for rebuilding Europe and Asia often WWII. The United States was the only industrial power spared destruction during the war. As they recovered the trade trade balance has shifted.
Swammy – could you say there is no correlation between GDP growth and labor force participation?
Most of the change in the labor force participation is due to retiring baby boomers and the fact that the elderly are living longer. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think that Obama has done things that has slowed and weakened the recovery.
Yes, but there is still a problem with personal income growth.
The world economy is in the dumper, propped up by corporate media. My company just changed its investment program so that it will weather 5 years of volatility with little gains.
Because of that SC will close to new entrants the state pension plan by 2020. They will send them to IRA type investments.
I wonder how much more it is going to cost us to service that 19i trillion debt with that .25 interest rate hike?. That is kinda like shooting one of your toes off because your foot aches.
1980 was when the GOP began the war on the middle class. What was the top income/capital gain tax rate for this period?
Bruhz,
We’ve been in a recession since 2007. There was no recovery unless you’re in the bartending business.