Trump Will Run on the Economy
by John Lawrence, January 20, 2020
What's not to like about the economy? Lowest unemployment in 19 years. The stock market is through the roof. Low income workers have made the biggest gains in wages. According to the Wall Street Journal: "The lowest-paid Americans saw weekly earnings grow more than 5% in the second quarter from a year earlier, more than the national median gain of 1.7% for all workers, according to a quarterly survey of households produced by the Labor Department. Workers with less than a high-school diploma saw their wages grow almost 6%, and younger workers’ pay grew almost 3%." So is trickle down really working?
The Fed stands by to give more money to the rich if the economy shows a sign of faltering. The Big Banks are too big to fail. Unlimited prosperity, right? Except all this economic growth is adding to rather than subtracting from global warming. More people are traveling while jets are spewing more jet fuel effluent into the atmosphere. The automobile industry has a huge investment in fossil fuel cars. Every year more carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere as oil still predominates in world markets. The American as well as the Chinese consumer economy is providing more middle class goodies each year which are tossed away creating more and more waste. Plastics are piling up in the oceans. More and more weedkillers are used to grow crops whose residues end up in human blood streams. Feed lot animals are fed a diet of antibiotics to make them grow quicker so they can be slaughtered sooner. This creates the situation in which they are not really useful for overcoming human diseases any more. The American way of life, which the whole world aspires to, is polluting the planet and despoiling the atmosphere, but it keeps the economy churning. Entrepreneurs are thinking up even more ways to sell us useless products and vapid entertainment.
The economy is predicated on waste, inefficiency and destructive weapons production including nuclear weapons. More and more money goes into the military-industrial complex to develop more and more expensive planes and battleships which are so complex they don't work half the time. But we are promised a computer fix after they alter a few lines of code. And all those people making a living off the military-industrial complex waste would be out of a job if peace broke out. All those people involved in the labyrinthine insurance industry would be out of a job if Bernie's Medicare for All came to fruition. The economy thrives on inefficiency and waste. If things were done rationally, so many people would be out of a job that the economy would grind to a halt.
Wall Street is not about to change its policy of promoting companies which seek maximum short term profits instead of sustainable growth that benefits all stakeholders including Mother Earth who in the final analysis is the most consequential stakeholder. But Americans and humans in general don't want to tighten their belts in order to save the planet. They would rather have short term profits and growth particularly if it can be tailored to fit into their lifespans. After their death all hell can break loose, but they won't be here to experience it. They had a good life at the expense of future generations. Ta ta, future babies. Trump will win because people care more about their present life than they do about the future generations of life on earth. Besides all those people in the military-industrial complex, which in the larger sense includes anyone who has ever been in the military, will vote for Trump because association with the military, whether pecuniary or not, represents masculine pride, virility and vanity. Ayn Rand would approve.
