Actually the Economy is the Best It Has Ever Been*

*Yes the economy probably is the best it’s ever been, except for the deficit piling up. That’s a very serious problem, as is the foundation of most of the economy on non-sustainable ecological principles.

Though the economy has arguably the best statistics ever, the quality of life was better from a natural point of view before 1970. Too many people packed in and the closing of the wilderness, decline of fisheries etc.

Before 1960 the Jim Crowe south made much of the workforce underemployed or working for unnaturally low wages. Women were not nearly as employed outside the home before the invention of the birth control pill. The economy was good in the 1950s and 60s for those that were working.

After complete integration and equalization of wages was mostly reached in the U.S.A. by 1980 approximately, wealth began concentrating for the rich. Though more Americans were working they took a smaller portion of the national income. The portion of society new to the workforce demanded equality with white men and took their eye off of the disparity increasing between the middle class and the richest citizens.

After the Vietnam War ended there was a recession in the United States that never really turned around to robust economic growth until the Reagan era. Reagan gave tax cuts to the rich, deficit spending for military and government growth, and in a sense practiced Keynesian economics. That policy never ended after his administration. What should have been short-term policy to stimulate the economy became permanent government method. Deficit spending, resource exploitation and military spending kept economic growth going.

President Clinton’s deregulation of Wall Street and banks led to the 2008 financial and banking crash (along with President G.W. Bush’s tax cuts and deficit spending doubled down). A slow recovery with vast left-wing federal deficit spending by President Obama adding trillions to the public debt brought the nation to the Trump era and continuing Keynsean-Lafferian economics with military spending and vast centrist public debt increase.