What Experience Can Accomplish (my words)

[Joinfortmill]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-30-2023?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Letters from an American: Heather Cox Richardson

'Biden has worked to replace 40 years of supply-side economics with policies to rebuild the nation’s economy and infrastructure by supporting ordinary Americans. The American Rescue Plan gave the United States a faster economic recovery from the COVID pandemic than any other major economy. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has already funded more than 32,000 projects in more than 4,500 communities in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and U.S. territories.

The Inflation Reduction Act made the biggest investment in addressing climate change in our history, and according to University of Washington transportation analyst Jack Conness, it and the CHIPS and Science Act have already attracted over $220 billion in private investment, much of it going to Republican-dominated states: Tennessee, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oklahoma have each attracted more than $4 billion; Ohio, more than $6 billion; Arizona, more than $7 billion; South Carolina, more than $9 billion; and Georgia, more than $13 billion...the reordering of the economy under Biden and the Democrats has reversed the widening income gap between wage workers and upper-income professionals that has been growing for the past 40 years. The pay of those making an average of $12.50 an hour grew by almost 6% from 2020 to 2022, even after inflation.

Those gains are now at risk as pandemic measures end and the Fed raises interest rates to bring down inflation, although the wage increases are only a piece of the inflation puzzle:...the New York Times today reported that companies raising their prices to “protect…profits” are “adding to inflation.” In other words, companies pushed prices beyond normal profit margins during the pandemic and the economic recovery, then maintained those higher profit margins with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and continue to maintain them now.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Every recession and market tumble is met with Fed largesse

We haven't had a cyclical, contraction recession since 1973-75. One where debt actually implodes, where bankruptcies are widespread. Instead we just keep injecting liquidity and shuffling artificially-supported assets to new owners. Greenspan pumped up the economy with low interest rates, Bernanke flooded the collapse with liquidity. 10 years of liquidity. Everytime the market senses it could all go soft, the Fed props up Wall Street. Hedge funds are no help. They're like a private Fed. With so much liquidity there are no consequences to raising prices. Inflation stops when products sit on the shelves because consumers won't pay those prices, or can't afford them. We are 7-10 years away from that.