Ominous Trump, Pt. II

 

Continuing the themes of yesterday's post about a Common Dreams article about Trump's ominous Veterans Day speech, I'll pick up again on the many subjects brought up in Trump's statement:

The former president vowed to target communists and Marxists—ideological groups that he described as "radical left lunatics"—and "rout the fake news media until they become real."

"The real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left, and it's growing every day—every single day," Trump claimed. "The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within."

Remember "Jobless Recoveries"?

Remember how, in the 1980s and 1990s, we used to laugh ruefully at the nonsensical notion of a "jobless recovery"? Good times. Now that the general public's standards have been lowered by thirty-years of failed neoliberal dogma, they think we're ready for the "increasing unemployment recovery."

As Mike Whitney mentioned, this so-called "recovery" is based on a US stock-market rally that's fueled by loose money from the US Federal Reserve. Unemployment continues to rise in the United States, household wealth continues to fall with falling real-estate values, which means that household debt there will be a growing burden. Given that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the USA's GDP, and given that much consumer spending there was based on increasing levels of debt, this "recovery" in the USA seems unsustainable, to say the least.

As for Canada's "increasing unemployment recovery," it actually appears that we might just be getting started on our recession, as the effects of the plummeting US economy start to impact our export industries. It looks like the Bank of Canada (which appeared to have been caught off-balance by the enormity of this recession)'s prediction of a slow recovery is going to have to revised.