Kudlow Deluded, Wants ‘Technological War’ To Be Won on Wall Street!
Aug. 18, 2019 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump is presently getting indefensible advice from his economic team, based on “Fox News Sunday” interviews with National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and trade advisor Peter Navarro. Both thought that lower and lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve, plus winning “technological war” with China, were all the “booming” U.S. economy needs to keep booming—when it is actually already in industrial and manufacturing decline and 2018 wage gains have disappeared in 2019.
“I don’t see a recession at all,” said Kudlow. Why? He repeated several times: “Economic growth forecasts on Wall Street were marked up last week.”
His speech seeming somewhat slurred, as if he might have fortified himself for this early Sunday morning performance, Kudlow said “We’re in a kind of technological war with China,” and that “winning” it—along with trade deals with North America and Europe—was the way to “keep the boom going.”
But Kudlow made no mention of what rapid technological progress requires: Strong investments in science- and technology-driver crash programs in frontier areas, space exploration, nuclear and fusion energy, laser and plasma technologies, hypersonic flight and high-speed rail travel, and so forth. China has not only invested heavily in these breakthroughs, but offered to work jointly with the United States on them.
The Hill on Aug. 17 published a “Manufacturing Shrinks” article, noting what is plain for most people to see. “The risks of an economic recession are on the rise, but the country’s manufacturing sector is already there,” was its opening. “The manufacturing sector [by this, the author meant factory and mine output—ed.] shrank by 1.9% in the first quarter of the year and another 1.2% in the second quarter. In July, it is estimated that it contracted another 0.4%.” The Hill quoted the head of the National Association of Manufacturers, Chad Moutray, “It’s pretty clear, not just in the U.S. but globally, that the manufacturing sector is contracting right now.”
The Commerce Department on Aug. 15 reported the figures on industrial production and manufacturing output. U.S. industrial production dropped −0.2% in July and is now up just 0.4% over the past year. Manufacturing output dropped -0.4% and is down −0.5% from a year earlier. Mining, auto/parts production, and machinery were the sectors that fell. The CASS Freight Shipments Index for the United States had dropped −5.9% in the year to July.
And the Sunday Washington Post lead article on “waning” American consumer power points out that current consumer debt, at $14 trillion, is “more than a trillion dollars above the prior peak, reached just before the 2008 financial crisis.” Just what will hold that debt up much longer?
