As Trump’s first year back in office comes to a close, it is clear most voters think the economy is in poor shape and that prices for essentials have become unbearable.
Our economic malaise for the bottom quintiles has been decades in the making and the discontent won't go away quickly either. The second and third lowest quintiles are exactly the ones that have felt the pinch, forever. It's going to take a heck of a lot more than short term small gains of income to make up for 35 years of decline.
I think tariffs are a lot less damaging to joe lunch box than they are corporate America, but the constant mention in the media is a great way to make people blame them for a general sour economy. The bottom quintiles spend almost nothing on imports. When you are short on money to pay the bills, and you hear the government is going to make anything more expensive, you get pissed at the government.
Corporate America however has taken some pain.
Last week the Fed announced they'd be buying bonds again, an easy way to pump liquidity into our economy without lowering rates. $40 Billion a month. The market every day is at or close to record highs. Hedge funds aren't happy but everyone else is.
"I think tariffs are a lot less damaging to joe lunch box than they are corporate America, but the constant mention in the media is a great way to make people blame them for a general sour economy."
Agree completely. Companies don't have the pricing power to pass them on, so they are getting absorbed in lower margins.
One of the most useful contributions of this piece isn’t the “K-shaped” metaphor itself, but the distinction you draw between a wage-based economy and what you describe as a risk-based one. That framing gets closer to how the system actually functions. It shifts attention away from whether growth or employment looks healthy in aggregate and toward where volatility and shock absorption really land. For understanding what people are experiencing, that distinction feels more informative than the K-shape alone.
If this is truly a systemic shift, though, it likely didn’t originate with any single administration or event. Systems of this scale usually change much earlier and reveal themselves later. The post-2008 period already hinted at this: despite aggressive stimulus and a strong recovery in asset prices, wages and household security didn’t respond the way prior models would have predicted. That suggests the transmission mechanism had already weakened.
One way to sharpen the hypothesis would be to look further back (1960s–present) and let a small set of long-run curves speak for themselves. For example: real equity market returns alongside median real wages, paired with some measure of household risk exposure, fixed costs as a share of income, reliance on credit for necessities, or emergency-expense fragility. If those curves begin to decouple in the 1990s (which I suspect), that would point to a structural shift rather than something driven primarily by Covid. Systems don’t change quickly, and one as fundamental as this likely has several significant structural drivers. Identifying them matters if we want to fix them.
Seen that way, Covid may be less the cause than the stress test that made the system’s design visible. Your wage-based versus risk-based framing points toward a genuinely useful diagnostic. Anchoring it more explicitly in long-run, data-based system behavior would make it even clearer where, and how, the economy changed
As a GOP partisan I urge, nay, IMPLORE Democrats to run with the "economy sucks." Betting against the U.S. economy, over time, is a losing proposition. Meanwhile, Trump has nearly completely restructured the U.S. government financial system to be tariff based on foreigners, not tax burdened based on Americans. I predicted 6-8 mo back in 2024, but I had no idea judges would temporarily block so many elements for about six months. So, like the Reagan Recovery of 1981-82, the Trump Boom will hit in the next 2-3 months. If Ds are focused solely on that, game over.
I think it far better for GOP partisans to take the blinders off. No one blocked much of anything as it pertains to the economy--Trump got his tax cuts through more or less frictionlessly, he let Musk run roughshod over Congress's right of appropriation to make his spending cuts, and he's been given free rein in terms of tariffs.
Yet job growth is *worse* than it was when he got in office. And if you (and Trump) had taken the time to understand how modern supply chains work, and reckoned with how changing tariff rates every ten minutes effects business certainty, you could've seen that coming, too. '81-'82 came courtesy of Volcker, not Reagan, and happened at the height of dollar hegemony, when interest rates were at 20% and had a generation to decline--we're at 3.5% with nowhere to go, and the dollar's on its way out. Stagflation in the 70s went from '72-'82--if you'd have bet against the U.S. economy during that time, you would've won. In the long run, surely, you don't bet against it, because it will always grow--but, as Keynes said, in the Long Run We Are Dead, and so are all the returns you may reap by investing.
From 1972-1982 a ton of money was made in parts of the economy that benefits from inflation; oil stocks, oil services, mining, etc.
When President Carter appointed Paul Volker, the fed chair drove a stake through the heart of inflation. It was time for investors to sell the inflation play stocks and move into businesses that would prosper the old fashion way, by increasing productivity. Add in tax reform that broadened taxable income and reduced the tax rate and stimulated savings with IRAs, making anyone with earned income eligible to saving with one, and the great bull market began.
Looking at the history of US balance-of-payments deficits, I'd say the more accurate view is that after the U.S. obtained over half of the world's gold supply during WWII, prolonged postwar U.S. military spending produced consistent balance-of-payments deficits and by extension gold outflows that eventually reduced its bullion stock to such a degree that it had to de-link from gold and collapse the Bretton Woods system during the 70s. Aside from causing a huge inflationary devaluation of the dollar--inflation that arguably prevented a financial crisis, at the cost of reduced production and higher unemployment, i.e. stagflation--this transformed the world economy from one in which trade was financed essentially by gold, to one in which trade was financed by U.S. treasury debt. (thence the post-1970s fiat dollar standard) This allowed the U.S. to functionally take the surplus savings of the world's major economies and recycle them back into Wall Street, which inflated a massive debt bubble. This *looked* like a 'bull market', and was advertised as such, but the 'bull run' was largely concentrated in finance, insurance and real estate, i.e. the extractive parts of the economy. The underlying industrial economy and the wages of labor actually stagnated post-1975, (and the high unemployment destroyed the unions) a fact which was not made undeniably clear until the debt bubble imploded in 2008 and took all the financialized gains with it. Reagan--and after him the two Bush's and Clinton--was really only helping to prop up this debt bubble and these unsustainable debt-financed gains, alongside the guidance of Greenspan. And then Obama and the rest of the G20 made the huge mistake of forgiving the debts of their economy's creditors and the extractive sections of the economy through financial bailouts, while leaving the debts of debtors and labor intact. That enfeebled the recovery by diverting the spending of debtors from goods and services into debt payment, and we've really never recovered. After the pandemic there seemed to be a momentary resurgence in labor's fortunes due to shortages providing them with labor power--remember the 'Great Resignation'?--but capital quite effectively neutered this by jacking up the price level to devalue all the wage growth that followed. All as the algorithms came along and slowly turned a huge proportion of the population into angry paranoiacs. It's a mess--largely of our own making--but hopefully one that will eventually be cleaned up. I wouldn't look to present political leadership to do it, though.
Interesting to read about those times. I lived them but as one more piece of labor flotsam tossed about by unseen unpredictable economic factors. I loved the Great Resignation, short though it was. The BLS says that the only time they have higher numbers for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) is in the mid 60s to the mid 70s.
One always wonders if that the feelings one has about the economy are due to one's own situation, or prejudices, or reflect actual economic factors. Looking back via statistics from economists gives perspective.
How much of the rich's outperformance in income over the past 45 years is due simply to asset appreciation? I am guessing most of it. I think the government played a role in that.
One of the more insidious pieces of legislation from the 1970s is the Fed's dual mandate, which tells the Fed it must control inflation and minimize the unemployment rate. Well-intentioned, it sounds good in theory. In practice, it has driven this increase in inequality.
The dual mandate in practice tells the Fed to keep the pedal to the metal as long as CPI inflation is behaving and we are below full employment. While the Fed recognizes the risk of "too much money chasing too few goods," it has no problem with "too much money chasing too few assets."
Indeed, since the dual mandate has been in place, we have seen serial asset bubbles in commodities (early 80s), stocks (late 90s), and residential real estate (mid 00s). If you own assets like the rich, it is great - it increases your wealth and income. If you are middle class or lower, it just raises your cost of living.
There aren't many policy levers to address costs. Energy is probably the easiest since many of its costs are artificially imposed by the government: taxes and regulation which can be reversed.
Maybe there is something that government can do to increase housing construction, but I doubt it - we just completed a boom in multifamily construction and it has led to only slightly declining asking rents, but nothing major.
It is clear government doesn't have a clue how to lower healthcare costs, if Obamacare's effect on the bending the cost curve is any indication. All it knows how to do is add more subsidies, and as any econ 101 student knows, when the government subsidizes an inelastic good, the subsidies accrue to the producer.
Does Trump have the answer? I think his instincts are correct. Lowering energy costs and re-shoring manufacturing are probably going to have the most bang for the buck.
Interesting commentary. From a simplistic perspective, I just filled my oil tank and saved enough, from last year’s price, to fill my car with gas 4x or to comfortably pay for Christmas gifts. It looks like, when the dust settles, the economic data will show record setting Christmas sales.
It takes a long time to wring out inflationary expectations, but it looks to me like the economy may be improving with the price of oil continuing to drop. If it is recognized as an improving economy, how does the Democrat party want to frame their agenda? Is there an optimistic Democrat plan?
The people are generally very ignorant about the long-term health of their economic situation. The corporate "buy this" media is only too happy to keep enhancing this ignorance.
Trump was elected primarily to fix the long-term destruction of working class economic opportunity from globalism. Tariffs are a tool to get there. And it is working as the US trade deficit, after rising significantly under Biden, has fallen to a five-year low under this second Trump term. And this reduction in the trade deficit was not just because imports fell as a result of tariffs. Imports increased during this period, but EXPORTS INCREASED AT A GREATER LEVEL.
Foreign buyers are buying more US products and the US is producing more exports. This is exactly what Trump was elected to do.
And with respect to the other fatal predictions over the Trump tariffs from the corporate establishment, none of them are actually happening. Although we have not seen any significant economic revival yet (as expected by all the honest and accurate economic predictors as the problems have been decades in the making and cannot be fixed overnight), the economic collapse has NOT materialized. GDP is continuing to grow at a record clip. Overall job creation is strong even with the headwinds of job destruction from AI advances.
But it is the flood of investment in domestic manufacturing and industrial business growth that is the precursor to even greater economic recovery that should be getting media and voter attention. Ignoring this, and thus getting angry with Trump for not getting price reductions on beef and coffee immediately, is really stupid in throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and repeating the same mistakes that caused all the inflation... that is electing economically destructive Democrats back to power.
>>The number of people employed part time for economic reasons was 5.5 million in November, an increase of 909,000 from September. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)<<
Meanwhile, manufacturing and industrial production have been continuously shrinking since ‘liberation day’, since blanket tariffs don't work on modern supply chains, and changing tariff rates every two seconds adds to business uncertainty, which is a disincentive for production. What we are experiencing is more properly described as a flood of industrial *dis*-investment:
And while the trade deficit decreased last month, the exports were all in services. In terms of durable goods (the stuff we're supposed to ‘beating’ China on) we're exporting *less*:
Exports edged up 0.1% to $280.8 billion, reflecting services. Goods exports dropped 0.3% to $179.0 billion, with shipments of consumer products sliding $1.5 billion amid a $1.2 billion decline in pharmaceutical preparations.
Exports of industrial supplies and materials, which also include crude oil, eased $0.6 billion. They were pulled down by a $1.1 billion decline in nonmonetary gold. <<
You really must get outside whatever bubble you are in. Trying to twist economic realities into pretzels to sustain some weird hero-myth about Trump will not lead to happy places when it inevitably collides with the real world, where hero-myths die very quickly.
LOL. Yeah, go vote for fucking Democrats again as certainly the previous four years before Trump were such a brilliant and fantastic economy.
The idiot Democrats unilaterally printed $5 trillion to pump into the pockets of big corporations and lazy ass non-working people to consume... thus creating a fake economic growth situation that was never sustainable. They also created massive "transitory" inflation that is down to reasonable levels under Trump. Trump's actions are not causing the mess caused by the Democrats, he is fixing the mess caused by Democrats.
AI is hitting employment. So is DOGE. Government jobs are down, private sector jobs are up. More importantly capital investment in industry and manufacturing has exploded.
Trump and Bessent cannot fix the economic rot caused by decades of your favored political ilk in a year. But the fix is happening.
“More importantly capital investment in industry and manufacturing has exploded.”
Again, it’s disconnects like this I’m talking about. The facts say industrial production has contracted for nine straight months, you can look at the numbers yourself:
In 2025, investment in U.S. industry and manufacturing surged, driven by AI, supply chain resilience, and government incentives (like the CHIPS & IRA Acts), with significant capital flowing into semiconductors, EVs, biotech, and infrastructure, even amidst trade policy concerns. Key trends include massive tech spending (AI, data analytics), reshoring efforts for self-sufficiency, and a pivot from "triage" to growth, with substantial private and public funds targeting advanced capabilities and workforce development.
Show me a metric that shows that investment in those sectors has risen faster in 2025 than they did from any point between 2020-2023, (remember who was president then?) and you’d have a point. But, again, the numbers don’t agree: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/C307RL1Q225SBEA
As it were, the numbers show a historically sluggish growth rate in manufacturing investment since 2025 began.
Investment in, is not measured by productivity contracts. Jesus, you people are dopes. How long does it take to build a factory, etc., and then get it operational? You do know that it was less than a year that your geriatric autopen potted cabbage puppet POTUS was removed to a care facility.
There's no such thing as a 'productivity' contract lol. Productivity is a measure of labor efficiency--it relates output (production) to hours worked. It rises when you get more production out of the same amount of labor. You can't write a contract for it anymore than you can write a contract for GDP.
Nevertheless, if your thesis is that declining industrial production is a sign of rising industrial investment, you need to look into how said investment works a little closer. Capital doesn't chase declining returns; it chases rising returns.
I own a manufacturing business. After the initial investment it took 2 years to build, open and start producing. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Our economic malaise for the bottom quintiles has been decades in the making and the discontent won't go away quickly either. The second and third lowest quintiles are exactly the ones that have felt the pinch, forever. It's going to take a heck of a lot more than short term small gains of income to make up for 35 years of decline.
I think tariffs are a lot less damaging to joe lunch box than they are corporate America, but the constant mention in the media is a great way to make people blame them for a general sour economy. The bottom quintiles spend almost nothing on imports. When you are short on money to pay the bills, and you hear the government is going to make anything more expensive, you get pissed at the government.
Corporate America however has taken some pain.
Last week the Fed announced they'd be buying bonds again, an easy way to pump liquidity into our economy without lowering rates. $40 Billion a month. The market every day is at or close to record highs. Hedge funds aren't happy but everyone else is.
"I think tariffs are a lot less damaging to joe lunch box than they are corporate America, but the constant mention in the media is a great way to make people blame them for a general sour economy."
Agree completely. Companies don't have the pricing power to pass them on, so they are getting absorbed in lower margins.
One of the most useful contributions of this piece isn’t the “K-shaped” metaphor itself, but the distinction you draw between a wage-based economy and what you describe as a risk-based one. That framing gets closer to how the system actually functions. It shifts attention away from whether growth or employment looks healthy in aggregate and toward where volatility and shock absorption really land. For understanding what people are experiencing, that distinction feels more informative than the K-shape alone.
If this is truly a systemic shift, though, it likely didn’t originate with any single administration or event. Systems of this scale usually change much earlier and reveal themselves later. The post-2008 period already hinted at this: despite aggressive stimulus and a strong recovery in asset prices, wages and household security didn’t respond the way prior models would have predicted. That suggests the transmission mechanism had already weakened.
One way to sharpen the hypothesis would be to look further back (1960s–present) and let a small set of long-run curves speak for themselves. For example: real equity market returns alongside median real wages, paired with some measure of household risk exposure, fixed costs as a share of income, reliance on credit for necessities, or emergency-expense fragility. If those curves begin to decouple in the 1990s (which I suspect), that would point to a structural shift rather than something driven primarily by Covid. Systems don’t change quickly, and one as fundamental as this likely has several significant structural drivers. Identifying them matters if we want to fix them.
Seen that way, Covid may be less the cause than the stress test that made the system’s design visible. Your wage-based versus risk-based framing points toward a genuinely useful diagnostic. Anchoring it more explicitly in long-run, data-based system behavior would make it even clearer where, and how, the economy changed
As a GOP partisan I urge, nay, IMPLORE Democrats to run with the "economy sucks." Betting against the U.S. economy, over time, is a losing proposition. Meanwhile, Trump has nearly completely restructured the U.S. government financial system to be tariff based on foreigners, not tax burdened based on Americans. I predicted 6-8 mo back in 2024, but I had no idea judges would temporarily block so many elements for about six months. So, like the Reagan Recovery of 1981-82, the Trump Boom will hit in the next 2-3 months. If Ds are focused solely on that, game over.
I think it far better for GOP partisans to take the blinders off. No one blocked much of anything as it pertains to the economy--Trump got his tax cuts through more or less frictionlessly, he let Musk run roughshod over Congress's right of appropriation to make his spending cuts, and he's been given free rein in terms of tariffs.
Yet job growth is *worse* than it was when he got in office. And if you (and Trump) had taken the time to understand how modern supply chains work, and reckoned with how changing tariff rates every ten minutes effects business certainty, you could've seen that coming, too. '81-'82 came courtesy of Volcker, not Reagan, and happened at the height of dollar hegemony, when interest rates were at 20% and had a generation to decline--we're at 3.5% with nowhere to go, and the dollar's on its way out. Stagflation in the 70s went from '72-'82--if you'd have bet against the U.S. economy during that time, you would've won. In the long run, surely, you don't bet against it, because it will always grow--but, as Keynes said, in the Long Run We Are Dead, and so are all the returns you may reap by investing.
From 1972-1982 a ton of money was made in parts of the economy that benefits from inflation; oil stocks, oil services, mining, etc.
When President Carter appointed Paul Volker, the fed chair drove a stake through the heart of inflation. It was time for investors to sell the inflation play stocks and move into businesses that would prosper the old fashion way, by increasing productivity. Add in tax reform that broadened taxable income and reduced the tax rate and stimulated savings with IRAs, making anyone with earned income eligible to saving with one, and the great bull market began.
Looking at the history of US balance-of-payments deficits, I'd say the more accurate view is that after the U.S. obtained over half of the world's gold supply during WWII, prolonged postwar U.S. military spending produced consistent balance-of-payments deficits and by extension gold outflows that eventually reduced its bullion stock to such a degree that it had to de-link from gold and collapse the Bretton Woods system during the 70s. Aside from causing a huge inflationary devaluation of the dollar--inflation that arguably prevented a financial crisis, at the cost of reduced production and higher unemployment, i.e. stagflation--this transformed the world economy from one in which trade was financed essentially by gold, to one in which trade was financed by U.S. treasury debt. (thence the post-1970s fiat dollar standard) This allowed the U.S. to functionally take the surplus savings of the world's major economies and recycle them back into Wall Street, which inflated a massive debt bubble. This *looked* like a 'bull market', and was advertised as such, but the 'bull run' was largely concentrated in finance, insurance and real estate, i.e. the extractive parts of the economy. The underlying industrial economy and the wages of labor actually stagnated post-1975, (and the high unemployment destroyed the unions) a fact which was not made undeniably clear until the debt bubble imploded in 2008 and took all the financialized gains with it. Reagan--and after him the two Bush's and Clinton--was really only helping to prop up this debt bubble and these unsustainable debt-financed gains, alongside the guidance of Greenspan. And then Obama and the rest of the G20 made the huge mistake of forgiving the debts of their economy's creditors and the extractive sections of the economy through financial bailouts, while leaving the debts of debtors and labor intact. That enfeebled the recovery by diverting the spending of debtors from goods and services into debt payment, and we've really never recovered. After the pandemic there seemed to be a momentary resurgence in labor's fortunes due to shortages providing them with labor power--remember the 'Great Resignation'?--but capital quite effectively neutered this by jacking up the price level to devalue all the wage growth that followed. All as the algorithms came along and slowly turned a huge proportion of the population into angry paranoiacs. It's a mess--largely of our own making--but hopefully one that will eventually be cleaned up. I wouldn't look to present political leadership to do it, though.
Interesting to read about those times. I lived them but as one more piece of labor flotsam tossed about by unseen unpredictable economic factors. I loved the Great Resignation, short though it was. The BLS says that the only time they have higher numbers for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) is in the mid 60s to the mid 70s.
One always wonders if that the feelings one has about the economy are due to one's own situation, or prejudices, or reflect actual economic factors. Looking back via statistics from economists gives perspective.
How much of the rich's outperformance in income over the past 45 years is due simply to asset appreciation? I am guessing most of it. I think the government played a role in that.
One of the more insidious pieces of legislation from the 1970s is the Fed's dual mandate, which tells the Fed it must control inflation and minimize the unemployment rate. Well-intentioned, it sounds good in theory. In practice, it has driven this increase in inequality.
The dual mandate in practice tells the Fed to keep the pedal to the metal as long as CPI inflation is behaving and we are below full employment. While the Fed recognizes the risk of "too much money chasing too few goods," it has no problem with "too much money chasing too few assets."
Indeed, since the dual mandate has been in place, we have seen serial asset bubbles in commodities (early 80s), stocks (late 90s), and residential real estate (mid 00s). If you own assets like the rich, it is great - it increases your wealth and income. If you are middle class or lower, it just raises your cost of living.
There aren't many policy levers to address costs. Energy is probably the easiest since many of its costs are artificially imposed by the government: taxes and regulation which can be reversed.
Maybe there is something that government can do to increase housing construction, but I doubt it - we just completed a boom in multifamily construction and it has led to only slightly declining asking rents, but nothing major.
It is clear government doesn't have a clue how to lower healthcare costs, if Obamacare's effect on the bending the cost curve is any indication. All it knows how to do is add more subsidies, and as any econ 101 student knows, when the government subsidizes an inelastic good, the subsidies accrue to the producer.
Does Trump have the answer? I think his instincts are correct. Lowering energy costs and re-shoring manufacturing are probably going to have the most bang for the buck.
Interesting commentary. From a simplistic perspective, I just filled my oil tank and saved enough, from last year’s price, to fill my car with gas 4x or to comfortably pay for Christmas gifts. It looks like, when the dust settles, the economic data will show record setting Christmas sales.
It takes a long time to wring out inflationary expectations, but it looks to me like the economy may be improving with the price of oil continuing to drop. If it is recognized as an improving economy, how does the Democrat party want to frame their agenda? Is there an optimistic Democrat plan?
The people are generally very ignorant about the long-term health of their economic situation. The corporate "buy this" media is only too happy to keep enhancing this ignorance.
Trump was elected primarily to fix the long-term destruction of working class economic opportunity from globalism. Tariffs are a tool to get there. And it is working as the US trade deficit, after rising significantly under Biden, has fallen to a five-year low under this second Trump term. And this reduction in the trade deficit was not just because imports fell as a result of tariffs. Imports increased during this period, but EXPORTS INCREASED AT A GREATER LEVEL.
Foreign buyers are buying more US products and the US is producing more exports. This is exactly what Trump was elected to do.
And with respect to the other fatal predictions over the Trump tariffs from the corporate establishment, none of them are actually happening. Although we have not seen any significant economic revival yet (as expected by all the honest and accurate economic predictors as the problems have been decades in the making and cannot be fixed overnight), the economic collapse has NOT materialized. GDP is continuing to grow at a record clip. Overall job creation is strong even with the headwinds of job destruction from AI advances.
But it is the flood of investment in domestic manufacturing and industrial business growth that is the precursor to even greater economic recovery that should be getting media and voter attention. Ignoring this, and thus getting angry with Trump for not getting price reductions on beef and coffee immediately, is really stupid in throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and repeating the same mistakes that caused all the inflation... that is electing economically destructive Democrats back to power.
Man are you in la-la-land.
Overall job creation has been so anemic that unemployment is now higher than when Trump took office.
And the ‘job creation’ we *have* had looks like this:
(https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm)
>>The number of people employed part time for economic reasons was 5.5 million in November, an increase of 909,000 from September. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)<<
Meanwhile, manufacturing and industrial production have been continuously shrinking since ‘liberation day’, since blanket tariffs don't work on modern supply chains, and changing tariff rates every two seconds adds to business uncertainty, which is a disincentive for production. What we are experiencing is more properly described as a flood of industrial *dis*-investment:
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/u-s-manufacturing-contracts-for-ninth-straight-month-88485b94?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqc1NbVzruppr6Geudo8PssGzw98-5DIQ7OObcBUn604M6B8OmlRBLL280HBzDA%3D&gaa_ts=6942406c&gaa_sig=rtAqOjwS-s6FePhd-1qU1AawEPaoPttA2qgSe9bQeeZl_n36s66FieJ_5W_jbxo03UHzq1QsfTAlL9vuln-UDQ%3D%3D
And while the trade deficit decreased last month, the exports were all in services. In terms of durable goods (the stuff we're supposed to ‘beating’ China on) we're exporting *less*:
https://www.reuters.com/business/us-trade-deficit-narrows-sharply-august-imports-fall-2025-11-19/
>>EXPORTS OF GOODS FALL
Exports edged up 0.1% to $280.8 billion, reflecting services. Goods exports dropped 0.3% to $179.0 billion, with shipments of consumer products sliding $1.5 billion amid a $1.2 billion decline in pharmaceutical preparations.
Exports of industrial supplies and materials, which also include crude oil, eased $0.6 billion. They were pulled down by a $1.1 billion decline in nonmonetary gold. <<
You really must get outside whatever bubble you are in. Trying to twist economic realities into pretzels to sustain some weird hero-myth about Trump will not lead to happy places when it inevitably collides with the real world, where hero-myths die very quickly.
LOL. Yeah, go vote for fucking Democrats again as certainly the previous four years before Trump were such a brilliant and fantastic economy.
The idiot Democrats unilaterally printed $5 trillion to pump into the pockets of big corporations and lazy ass non-working people to consume... thus creating a fake economic growth situation that was never sustainable. They also created massive "transitory" inflation that is down to reasonable levels under Trump. Trump's actions are not causing the mess caused by the Democrats, he is fixing the mess caused by Democrats.
AI is hitting employment. So is DOGE. Government jobs are down, private sector jobs are up. More importantly capital investment in industry and manufacturing has exploded.
Trump and Bessent cannot fix the economic rot caused by decades of your favored political ilk in a year. But the fix is happening.
“More importantly capital investment in industry and manufacturing has exploded.”
Again, it’s disconnects like this I’m talking about. The facts say industrial production has contracted for nine straight months, you can look at the numbers yourself:
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/u-s-manufacturing-contracts-for-ninth-straight-month-88485b94?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqf-UKcPA8x9phxl4eC0jEONgeknFA3MBBe4UKm_4_ZIe7ft28ZTFPQQcCZaypA%3D&gaa_ts=69434a32&gaa_sig=nrimcxBZDqKxyFBRueTnV4kQR3VlgMAQcV9xvlnQPOFl1Tl9ccfM6Blawkr-jx9N91cVwz76KaOH4tnVhx_fYw%3D%3D
If you’re just going to ignore reality when it suits you, then what is the of even bothering learning facts about the world around you?
In 2025, investment in U.S. industry and manufacturing surged, driven by AI, supply chain resilience, and government incentives (like the CHIPS & IRA Acts), with significant capital flowing into semiconductors, EVs, biotech, and infrastructure, even amidst trade policy concerns. Key trends include massive tech spending (AI, data analytics), reshoring efforts for self-sufficiency, and a pivot from "triage" to growth, with substantial private and public funds targeting advanced capabilities and workforce development.
Show me a metric that shows that investment in those sectors has risen faster in 2025 than they did from any point between 2020-2023, (remember who was president then?) and you’d have a point. But, again, the numbers don’t agree: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/C307RL1Q225SBEA
As it were, the numbers show a historically sluggish growth rate in manufacturing investment since 2025 began.
Investment in, is not measured by productivity contracts. Jesus, you people are dopes. How long does it take to build a factory, etc., and then get it operational? You do know that it was less than a year that your geriatric autopen potted cabbage puppet POTUS was removed to a care facility.
There's no such thing as a 'productivity' contract lol. Productivity is a measure of labor efficiency--it relates output (production) to hours worked. It rises when you get more production out of the same amount of labor. You can't write a contract for it anymore than you can write a contract for GDP.
Nevertheless, if your thesis is that declining industrial production is a sign of rising industrial investment, you need to look into how said investment works a little closer. Capital doesn't chase declining returns; it chases rising returns.
I own a manufacturing business. After the initial investment it took 2 years to build, open and start producing. Why is this so hard for you to understand?