The Trump Economy: How Great Is It?

[djAdvocate]

www.lewrockwell.com/2019/05/paul-craig-roberts/does-america-have-an-economy-or-any-sense-of-reality/

We are having a propaganda barrage about the great Trump economy. We have been hearing about the great economy for a decade while the labor force participation rate declined, real family incomes stagnated, and debt burdens rose. The economy has been great only for large equity owners whose stock ownership benefitted from the trillions of dollars the Fed poured into financial markets and from buy-backs by corporations of their own stocks.

I have pointed out for years that the jobs reports are fabrications and that the jobs that do exist are lowly paid domestic service jobs such as waitresses and bartenders and health care and social assistance. What has kept the American economy going is the expansion of consumer debt, not higher pay from higher productivity. The reported low unemployment rate is obtained by not counting discouraged workers who have given up on finding a job.

Do you remember all the corporate money that the Trump tax cut was supposed to bring back to America for investment? It was all BS. Yesterday I read reports that Apple is losing its trillion dollar market valuation because Apple is using its profits to buy back its own stock. In other words, the demand for Apple’s products does not justify more investment. Therefore, the best use of the profit is to repurchase the equity shares, thus shrinking Apple’s capitalization. The great economy does not include expanding demand for Apple’s products.

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note: I have some misgivings about this article, including the source, but there are some fundamental truths in it; IE: corporate tax breaks discourage domestic job growth, and encourage offshoring.  this is precisely what I have been saying for years.