Scrambling To Save the Economy

THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD, seven strong, which, contrary to the wild imaginings of conspiracy theorists is owned and controlled by neither extraterrestrials nor a secret consortium of multi-trillionaire Europeans cloistered deep in the Swiss Alps, reduced the prime interest rate Sunday night, just in time for the market to continue its collapse Monday morning, undeterred by the life support. The prime rate was lowered to near zero to nearer zero, oxygen for a collapsing corporate capitalistic system. It will do no good. The cat, so to speak, is out of the bag. Interest rates have been historically low for over a decade, since the great recession. since the great recession of 2007-08, the economy has been on life support; since which time all illusions of a sound and prosperity economy have been a myth. Trump's tariff war against China and America's European allies caused a disruption in the supply lines; his refusal to take the pandemic seriously before it was far too little too late is the dagger, imprisoning Americans in their homes, driving down demand, hence spending, forcing the economy into bankruptcy. Trump's senseless trade war weakened both the American and the global economy; the virus is mopping up, finishing the job. When every American household has a year's supply of toilet paper and bottled water, the jig, as they way, will be up. Standard wisdom is that "its the economy, stupid", that the presidency is won or lost based on the vicissitudes of our eternally volatile economic system, the so called "business cycle". Accordingly, one would assume that Trump is in trouble; for entertainment now we can all sit back, break out the popcorn, and watch while Trump and his message spinning machine blame anything that moves, except himself. The usual suspects are, in no particular order, the liberal media, the Democratic party, the Chinese, and immigrants. Donald Trump took credit for Obama's good economy, to the extent that it has ever been "good"; let him take the blame for its current and future collapse. Politics isn't fair, never has been. At any given point in time, he U.s. economy is described as either "good" or "bad", based upon a few indicators, mainly the direction of the stock market. Unemployment figures are sometimes mentioned, less frequently discussed are factors such as household income of the working class,inflation level, purchasing power, and so forth. In truth there has never been a single discernible american economy; but rather two economies, that of the wealthy, and that of the poor. To the extent that the wealthy have always been wealthy, and the poor have always been poor, the economy has always been, and is always, including at present, both good, and bad. since the concentration of wealth in America is at its greatest level since the gilded age of the eighteen nineties and the roaring twenties, when it was notoriously good and bad, and since the poor, now as then, greatly outnumber the rich, it can be safely said that the American economy is currently about as bad as it have ever been, and has been this way since the late seventies, having been relatively good, with comparative economy equality and prosperity for all segments of society, between the end of World War Two and 1980. both the gilded age and the roaring twenties came to an abrupt end with severe depression. As they say, here we go again.