Trump Tax Cuts Aided & Abetted Economic Collapse

The parallels are eerily similar. Republican POTUS, tax cuts, rising stock market, job losses… Great Depression.

Of course, there are other markers along the way, but the primary ones are self evident.

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase wrote no less than twice that a recession was coming in the company’s April 6, 2020 letter to shareholders. “Recognizing the extraordinary extension of new credit, mentioned above, and knowing there will be a major recession [emphasis added] mean that we are exposing ourselves to billions of dollars of additional credit losses as we help both consumer and business customers through these difficult times.” p10
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“Halting buybacks was simply a very prudent action – we don’t know exactly what the future will hold – but at a minimum, we assume that it will include a bad recession [emphasis added] combined with some kind of financial stress similar to the global financial crisis of 2008.” p15

Bluntly put, it wasn’t China that started this problem.

Just like in the Great Depression, and the “Great Recession,” it was the United States.

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase

And the entire world suffered.

Not only did Dimon unequivocally state that we will suffer “a major recession,” and reiterated it writing “the future… will include a bad recession,” but he also identifies problems that most Democrats (Bernie Sanders notably among them) have long identified, which Republicans refuse to even hear – critical problems in health, healthcare, education, (within the purview of domestic security), infrastructure, declining wages, increased poverty, failed immigration policies, governmental inefficiency at Federal and state levels, and more.

Dimon continued by writing,

“Of course, America has always had its flaws. The current pandemic is only one example of the bad planning and management that have hurt our country: Our inner city schools don’t graduate half of their students and don’t give our children an education that leads to a livelihood; our healthcare system is increasingly costly with many of our citizens lacking any access; and nutrition and personal health aren’t even being taught at many schools. Obesity has become a national scourge. We have a litigation and regulatory system that cripples small businesses with red tape and bureaucracy; ineffective infrastructure planning and investment; and huge waste and inefficiency at both the state and federal levels. We have failed to put proper immigration policies in place; our social safety nets are poorly designed; and the share of wages for the bottom 30% of Americans has effectively been going down. We need to acknowledge these problems and the damage they have done if we are ever going to fix them.

There should have been a pandemic playbook. Likewise, every problem I noted above should have detailed and nonpartisan solutions. As we have seen in past crises of this magnitude, there will come a time when

Fun-n-Easy Guessing Game… of International Intrigue

Hey kiddos!

Here’s a fun–n–easy guessing game!
(Emphasis on “easy.”)

Don’t be scared or intimidated by the fill-in-the-blanks.
(Which appear as _?nation?_.)

It’s really only two answers.
(The other answer is _?currency?_.)

HINT: (None of which are “United States.”)
FROM:

The CIA World Factbook

The _?nation?_ economy has experienced continuous growth and features low unemployment, contained inflation, very low public debt, and a strong and stable financial system. By 2012, _?_ had experienced more than 20 years of continued economic growth, averaging 3.5% a year.

Demand for resources and energy from Asia and especially China has grown rapidly, creating a channel for resources investments and growth in commodity exports. The high _?currency?_ has hurt the manufacturing sector, while the services sector is the largest part of the _?nation?_  economy, accounting for about 70% of GDP and 75% of jobs.

_?nation?_ was comparatively unaffected by the global financial crisis as the banking system has remained strong and inflation is under control.

_?nation?_ has benefited from a dramatic surge in its terms of trade in recent years, stemming from

Our National Economy

This is the second in a multi-part series about our national economy.

How we are affected by downturns, spikes and elevations in the economy individually/personally and as families/communities has great similarity across a wide spectrum. But perhaps most importantly, in this instance, once we know the problem, or the causes of the problems, we also know the solutions. That is the natural corollary to identifying those problems.

The CIA World Factbook – which is available online at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html – indicates that “Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.”

The next question that arises from that fact is this: Why?

The Central Intelligence Agency offers this explanation:

How to fix this ROTTEN economy

Here are a few “quick” points, and anecdotal observations, followed by solutions.

According to published reports, unemployment has ranged, on national average, between 9-12%. However, some suggest that the real unemployment rate may be much higher, in some cases, up to twice – or more – of the reported figure. Adding strength to that argument is the fact that 1.) the government reports

The United States Economy

Recently, I had the pleasure to revisit with a good friend, and we shared pleasantries, and updated each other on our lives. For several hours, we had a genuinely pleasant time.

My friend has dual citizenship – that is, he is a citizen of the United States and of another nation. He is also an entrepreneur.

What he shared with me gave me serious pause for thought – however, it wasn’t as if I had never seriously considered the implications of the subject he addressed. The subject was about the American economy.

Before we parted ways, I said that