The recovery has been very strong,” Donald Trump said on Monday. Then the commerce department reported the US economy contracted between April and June at the fastest pace in nearly three-quarters of a century, which is as long as economists have been keeping track. The drop wiped out five years of economic growth.
The comeback “won’t take very long”, he reassured Americans on Thursday. But every indicator shows that after a small uptick in June, the US economy is tanking again. Restaurant reservations are down, traffic at retail stores is dwindling, more small businesses are closing, the small rebound in air travel is reversing.
What’s Trump’s plan to revive the economy? The same one he’s been pushing for months: just “reopen” it.
He wants the public to believe the shutdown orders that began in March caused the economy to tank in the first place, so reversing them will bring the economy back.
Decades ago, one New York City official famously said, "I wouldn't believe a word he says -- even if his tongue were notarized." And, if there is one thing that remains consistent about Trump, it's that you can't believe a word he says. Reich continues:
The sequence of cause-and-effect is clear. The virus has surged most in states that were among the first to reopen, such as Florida, South Carolina, Texas and much of the rest of the sun belt.
Because of this resurgence, many states are pausing plans to reopen and some are reimposing restrictions. But these restrictions are not the reason the economy is slowing. They are the necessary consequence of allowing the pandemic to get out of control.
Even the White House’s own coronavirus taskforce concludes that 21 states have outbreaks serious enough to justify more restrictions.
And things are getting worse. Two days ago, the $600 a week payment to unemployed workers ended:
The White House argues that the extra unemployment payments have discouraged workers from seeking jobs because some are receiving more money in benefits than they would earn by working.
“We don’t want to create disincentives to work,” says Trump adviser Larry Kudlow.
More rubbish. A study by Yale economists finds “no evidence” that people who have lost their jobs are choosing to stay unemployed because of the extra federal aid. In fact, “workers facing larger [unemployment] expansions generally appear to be quicker to return to work than others, not slower.”
People can’t go back to work because there is very little work for them to do. Fourteen million more people are unemployed than there are jobs.
Trump has spent his whole life lying. That will not change.
Image: The New York Times
10 comments:
Perhaps, when all is done, when many more Americans have died from the virus, when their economy is beyond the point of recovery, when the American democratic experiment has failed, when Donald is no longer President, he will tell his greatest lie. "Americans were not worthy of me. They deserve what they got!"
CED
One way or another, CED, they will deserve what they got. The real tragedy is that so many of them did not foresee what they got.
Clearly, Owen, America's much-vaunted Manifest Destiny as been replaced by Manifest Incompetence, the one thing Donald Trump excels at.
H.L. Menken predicted, Lorne, that Americans would one day elect a moron to the presidency. His prediction has come true.
I thought I had left a comment but apparently didn't post it.
Trump appears to be in some full-bore meltdown. He is almost universally blamed for bungling the pandemic. The economy cannot recover while the pandemic surges. One might have thought Trump would recalibrate his failed policies but, instead, he has doubled down. He's pushing hydroxychloroquine again. He's attacking Fauci again. He seems incapable of confronting this crisis.
WaPo and other mainstream news media report WH insiders think Trump is resigned to his fate and is instead trying to craft some narrative by which he can scapegoat others for his failure. If this is true I fully expect him to resign the presidency, perhaps before Christmas, leaving Pence to deal with the indignity of handing the White House to Biden. That would also be necessary if Trump wants a blanket pardon for himself, his family, Bill Barr and other top minions.
Trump is obsessed with spectacle but, after angrily rejecting Charlotte and then being forced to abandon Jacksonville, it's unclear if there'll be any GOP convention worthy of the name. A lot of Republican notables have said they'll give it a pass. Small wonder Trump has banned the media from covering the nomination ceremony, whatever that might be.
Will Trump debate Biden? I wouldn't bet the farm on it. If he is going to fight to retain the presidency, he's got a lot of catching up to do which is asking a lot of a 73 year old guy unused to working hard at anything.
I, too, wouldn't be surprised to see Trump quit, Mound. At least he could claim that he didn't lose. He is incapable of acknowledging loss or failure.
Trump could, I hope, feign ill health and not run again for election but I doubt it!
Of all his failures he knows the American dream and myth of rags to riches plus mega doses of reality TV , evangelist churches, american exceptionalism and more that I have not thought of.
Those American vices I have listed are powerful tools that could yet see him retain his presidency .
TB
Trump will do anything to stay in power, TB -- including trying to delegitimize the election. That seems to be his last play; and he's working on that now. But, if it's clear that there's a tidal wave that will sweep him away, he could get out of town and leave Pence to deal with the recriminations.
A. at 10:05 a.m. the voters/adults may have deserved what they got, but don't forget all those children. they didn't deserve it. all those who didn't vote for Trump don't deserve this. All those who couldn't vote because of voter suppression don't deserve what is happening. All those dead, don't think all of them voted for Trump or stayed home. By the time this is over in the U.S.A. there will most likely be at least 500K dead. That is what was killed in the Civil War. No one deserves that.
what the U.S.A. is demonstrating is, if you don't guard your democracy, you can wind up with a dictatorship and most didn't expect it to happen in the U.S.A. Once he came down that elevator, nothing he has done has surprised me. He did after all have a track record. I'm still surprised it hasn't been worse.
Trump may walk away instead of going into the election. He can't stand loosing and some of those ads I do believe are aimed at causing him to do so. they are poking at him and they aren't going to let up. He'll have a "heart attack'. nice way of getting out of it. Then watch him leave the country for Brazil, dump the current wife and hve a kid in Brazil so he can't be extradited. worked for Ronnie Briggs.
Once COVID hit and Trump started his routine of bad mouthing people like Inslee, Washington State's gov. I expected it to get worse, thought he would use the pandemic and lack of response as a method of ethnic cleansing because we do know who is doing all the dying. then today I check in with the Empty Wheel blog and yes, they'd got an article up about ethnic cleansing and the pandemic. I suspect that is why Brazil has had such a poor response. their president would like a lot of the Indigenous people to die also, alone with the poor.
One things is sure, e.a.f. Before Trump is done there will be a lot of what he himself called "American Carnage."
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