Inflation rose to 2.9 percent in September from 2.7 percent last month, and the economy produced a dismal 22,000 in the latest jobs report. Meanwhile, the imminent threat of a recession indicates a tarnishing rather than the “golden age of prosperity” President Trump promised at his inauguration.
Under normal slowdowns that any economy undergoes, such numbers would be of cyclical concern, but in in the current climate they may be precursors to large economic disasters lurking underneath the numbers.
Prices, jobs, and economic health are not just self-propelling numbers, but rest upon ever-deepening layers of an economy and their connection to a host of institutions which provide signals to investors to take risks, for consumers to buy, and for governments to spend or not spend.
The deeper malaise lies in the “wrecking ball” metaphor now regularly employed to describe Trump’s approach to economic institutions. This has played out at three levels: the direct government interventions in market behavior; the willingness to disregard the most productive sectors of the economy in favor of the least; and the disastrous approach to scientific research and innovation that the administration hails as a war on liberal elites.
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