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The NYT's Catherine Rampell investigates whether the recovery really is the worst since the...
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Sunday, August 12, 2012, 4:49 AM ETThe NYT's Catherine Rampell investigates whether the recovery really is the worst since the Great Depression and finds that on almost every measure she looked at, "there was at least one previous (completed) recovery that performed worse." However, improvements across different metrics are way below the average.
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when the business cycle reasserts the old reversion to the mean...
and the polticians who will take credit for something that wasn't their
doing....
Those who don't pay attention will believe anything that's shoveled their way.
Vote against any politician who engages in politics of pandering, envy, vote buying via spending other people's money, wealth redistribution, and support for corrupt / pork barrel / earmarks spending.
the bigger the spender the worse the politician.
I'm worried that people in America really don't know their arse from a hole in the ground.
Some of the statements are appalling: If we kept hiring and increased our debt-to-GDP through government spending/borrowing we would have reduced the unemployment by millions and be well on our way to recovery... There's a very consistent message from those posting that the answer is: corporations are bad, government is good.
I think this time it really is different. There is a limit to how many times you can treat a hangover via "The Hair of the Dog". With the falling general effects and increasing distortions from QE we are quickly reaching that Bottom.
Exhibit A in why this is indeed the 'worst recovery in 60 years'.
China? Check.
India? Check.
Brazil? Check.
South Africa? Check.
Zimbabwe? Of course.
Russia? Almost as bad as the bad old days.
So if it's so enervating, when will the enervation kick in?
Corporate profits are up only because businesses are loathe to hire with so much taxation and health care uncertainty.
Why risk your money if success will be scorned and punished and is unlikely to result in and reasonable rewards for the business that "you didn't build".
All one needs to know is that "this time" is terrible.
To Bulls and Bears alike...
I really don't think the millions of unemployed and underemployed give a rats ass that statistics show that it "was worse last time".
But they certainly can't stomach more of what's been going on since 2009.
market data for improved performance on investments....Some of the worst
traders I saw in my work life were the ones who based their trading positions on their political beliefs (if that is your drift)....
Thanks to the natural rebound in the economy and QE1/2, I've done well with my investments over these past few years. It takes some effort to divorce political biases from trading selection, but its all about what the market WILL do and not what you think it SHOULD do. Jeff Miller's SA commentary (and others) keeps me balanced.
That said, if Obama wins, expect a possible bear market and recession in 2013, due to fiscal cliff issues. the template is 1948 if Obama wins ... and check out 1949. The result is not pretty market-wise.
And the Dow is up 66% since the day that Obama was inaugurated, not counting dividends. Kindly explain that one to me!
"""if Obama wins, expect a possible bear market and recession in 2013, due to fiscal cliff issues."""
As if the Republicans in Congress have absolutely nothing to do with the fiscal cliff. Or is Fox your only source of "news"? Since WWII, the stock market, and the US economy, have done better under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents. Just the facts, man!
http://nyti.ms/Nsy80o
My suggestion to Ms Rampell: stop breathing the air around Krugman's office.
So help me. Was Obama the cause of the 2008 recession? Is it Obama's fault if consumers are paying back credit card debt and paying off excessive mortgages, taken on during the GW Bush years, instead of going out shopping?
Where does Ms Rampell have her facts wrong? Is she wrong saying that government spending is actually down in real terms since the bottom of the recession? If you think so, would you please point me to a source. I'm anxious to learn.
Federal spending over the past four year ran $1 trillion + deficits.
It is his fault that four years later our economy is still stagnant. It is his fault that there have been basically zero prosecutions of those who were committing massive fraud that led to the crisis. It is his fault that he turned over a stimulus package to Reid and Pelosi to pass out to special interests instead of actually investing in infrastructure. It is his fault that he's kept spending at ridiculous levels. It is his fault that he ignored his own deficit commissions recommendations and basically did nothing. It is his fault that he has not tackled any of our greatest fiscal issues with any type of serious proposal.
The situation he inherited was bad. The situation today is still bad. And unfortunately, the President has exhibited very little leadership in addressing our most pressing fiscal issues.
IMO, he had his chance - he's failed - its time to try something and someone else.
Back off of the kool aid?
The government cannot create more (real) demand, the economic cycle must correct that itself. The government can ONLY make the cycle more painful and shorter, or less painful and longer. Most of the population (50-80%) doesn't even feel or understand the pain. Those are the ones making irrational comments on how to fix it. Unfortunately, focusing on this issue (THAT THEY CANNOT FIX) and which way is better is keeping the government from getting done what it can actually get done!
The government CAN HELP to reduce the uncertainty of the future! The Fed could stop constantly changing things and having regular news conferences and congressional hearings (they're just now realizing this). The Congress could put aside their philosophical differences and do what is necessary to PREVENT CRISIS, not prolong it (for political purposes). Losing the AAA rating is a good example. Another one is the so called "Cliff". Another one is passing new restrictions that wouldn't have prevented the crises but that introduce unncessesary variables and uncertainty. Another one is having a political goal to discredit a president (and all of the actions that includes) be more important than getting things done. ALL OF THESE THINGS cause the problem of uncertainty that causes businesses to not want to hire or invest in their future. If you agree with ANY OF THEM you are part of the problem!!!!
Sometimes I swear that two-thirds of the population is too ignorant and self-centered to actually think rationally about issues, root causes, and problem solving.
I think your ego is way way too inflated.
You fit the mold of many know it all "consultants" I had the displeasure of working with during my long career.
> ignorant and self-centered to actually think rationally about
> issues, root causes, and problem solving.
ONLY two-thirds??? You need to get out more. :)
Re point number one, Steve Jobs had zero demand for the iPad before inventing it.
Re point number two, 'uncertainty of the future' = TAXES.
You're dismissed.
Nonsense. Steve Jobs tapped into un-met demand, but there was still demand that existed. People wanted a portable device that can perform simple computing tasks that was smaller than most laptops, intuitive to use, and had great battery life. People had and were will to pay good money for such a device.
Go back to class. :)
So, is that how it works... 'Nah, nah, nah its that demand is non-existent UNLESS its UN-MET demand. Well then there's pleeeenty of demand.'
Must be nice to live in Lefty Land, where every argument exists to support a made up point.
C'mon, lib, tell me I'm wrong. I need to hear it from your lips.
But the fact remains that with high unemployment, effectively stagnant wages, and price inflation, people's purchasing power goes down.
Someone who can't afford an iPad today still won't be able to afford Apple's next blockbuster tomorrow. They might buy it anyway due to Apple's cult-like marketing, but they will do it via debt (pay the bank later) or by not spending on other wants/obligations (simply don't pay elsewhere).
The simple reality is that those with significant disposable income are a distinct minority, which is why AAPL is steadily focusing more on international sales, and from a business standpoint who can blame them -- but that's not going to drive a recovery here.
However, if your consistently offensive intent is to imply that VALUE CREATION is a key element of a recovery, I couldn't agree more. :)
Demand does not need government assistance. Demand is not 'created' by government. Because government by trying to 'create it' takes it from someplace else which leaves capital removed from the investment community. The investment community is much better poised to make those decisions about their own money, money they've earned.
Let's stop pretending bureaucrats know better. They don't. They just want to get elected while you nod your head up and down. And understand, they like it when they can make you feel righteous indignation. That is in their best interest too.
This I GOTTA hear.
Creating things people want. Making it appear as though they must have them. The automobile. The television. The computer. After awhile, they ignore their own discretion. They come to believe that they need these things as are formerly converted over from merely wanting them.
Invention.
Where does it come from? It is found only in free societies where personal private property rights are legally protected. Not just patents & royalties, but also land, monies earned, etc. People being left unharrassed by their governments, markets remaining unmolested by top down, command and control powermad glorywhores and masterminds. A free people, left to follow their ambitions and desires.
We are losing all of this. Confiscation is becoming more popular as rhetoric. People are being hated to invent things now as 'corporatist'. People are wanting more than ever to be bailed out and taken care of by governments, who will paternalistically smother you with their 'help'.
And as that occurs, invention wanes. As inventions become less and less, the dreamer spirit dies first prior to this, as government takes that spirit away from him. Look at Cuba. Look at Russia. Look what happens when governments remove the lantern from behind the eyes of their people.
You are right, virgnia. This is something you have to hear. Make sure you tell others also.
And who really intervenes more in markets: governments, or the wealthy elite that own them?
So long as a privileged few funnel all the wealth to themselves through their control of government and of individuals, such freedom as you describe shall never exist.
Increasingly, invention happens, but it rewards the owners, not the inventors. And those owners do everything in their (substantial) power to keep it that way. The reward for inventors to invent is increasingly low, yet the reward for owners to sell inventions is increasingly high -- is this a good balance?
Also, the ones being bailed out by governments the most are indeed the corporations that you claim perform such invention -- how can a nation function like this? The corporations funnel money to the wealthy few, the wealthy few pick the government, and...wait a sec....how's that going to work out?
One solution to this madness is perhaps your favored anarchy. A true anarchistic approach may work, but its cost is high in both time and lives.
Another approach is drastic reform. Get the corporate hand out of the puppet that is government. Government is not ideal, certainly, but the wealthy elite that /really/ rule here, and condition people to think that government is the real source of the problem, are much, much worse.
But let me know how all that inventing goes in your Corporatocracy, or your Anarchy, or whatever you're advocating for. :)
And the only reason Jamie Dimon gave millions of dollars to Obama in 2008 was because(as anyone could have seen) a democrat was going to be elected. He was buying influence. He was buying a politician. Guess what? It didn't work. Sure Obama took his money, but did it have the effect he was looking for?
You can say that government exists as a product of the electorate's decisions, but not when government is buying the electorate outright with programs aimed at shoring up their own power. And not without term limits, when some pond scum like Ted Kennedy can rot his lard ass in the Senate with a lifetime appt. using his brand name as a franchise for the idiots of Massachusetts. And not when his sole goal is to buy those idiots to secure his lard ass there, cradle to grave.
Government power is far, far worse. You can't argue or contest government. The courts are bought. Its circular.
As it stands, I can choose to or not to walk into Best Buy or Radio Shack, RC Willey or HHGregg, and I can choose to buy a laptop from Acer or HPQ or Apple or Dell. Or I can do neither and sit at home. Try doing that on April 15th in re to the IRS.
Is Rondald McDonald going to chase me down at my house and beat me up if I don't buy one of his hamburgers?
Now, try doing that with the IRS. Make a decision not to pay taxes. See what happens. Stay home. Watch TV for a year. How long before you get a knock at your door after ignoring all the phone calls? And finally, when you do get a knock at the door, given enough time, it will be with a battering ram, after the lien has been placed on your property through the court order. No more TV for you. You will be forcibly removed from your home, at gunpoint, head pushed down into a squad car and ferried away.
This happen all the time, not with individuals, but with corporations.
Forcible resistance has been replaced by sinister influence.
Don't want to pay a tax? Lobby for a tax loophole, buy a few key politicians, and there you go, you're not paying that tax anymore.
Don't like a regulation? Enough money will get it removed.
Want to stifle competition? Just buy some laws that do that.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
And governments don't keep you down, the owners of those governments do.
"It doesn't matter if you vote Democrat or Republican, the government always wins."
Or were you referring to Jeffrey Immelt, Obama's mascot, in re to GE not paying any taxes?
Clarify.
Our tax system is riddled with loopholes that have been put there so that corporations can pay less taxes, stifle competition, out-source jobs, cut benefits, funnel shareholder money to executives, underfund pension accounts, and commit general thievery upon the U.S. and its citizens.
Obamacare will be either overturned, waiver'ed into oblivion, or simply passed on to employees and customers.
GE's no-tax year was an exception, any investor knows this; their usual annual rate is more like 20-25%. However, should it have been an exception? Maybe not; I don't recall the details at this point and I don't own the stock.
Sometimes it takes time, but given a few election cycles, big business will get whatever laws passed that they think they can get away with. The recent explosion of undisclosed money in election in the past decade is music to their ears.
Who writes financial regulation? The finance industry. Who enforces it? Future finance industry employees. Same for Big Pharma, Big Food, and Big Telecom. Yes, labor does it too, to the extent that they can, but they can't keep up with the spending anymore, when you count campaigns, PACs, and lobbying, and they haven't been able to keep up in a while.
And yes, both parties succumb to this particular cancer. You don't get to vote for the guy you like, you get to vote against the guy that scare you more. :)
And as someone that fits the above description - taxes do matter - and the overall environment does matter. It does not affect my life in real terms as to whether or not my business grows sales by 2% or 5% or 10% - I live a pretty decent life. So when the environment becomes basically that all I'm really doing is to support the vast array of bureaucrats that harrass me then I'll simply give other things my attention and effort.
I've got bad news for folks - there are many like me. I'm not about to take a chance on a new business that requires a large investment. Why would I? About 50% of my earnings already make their way to the government coffers. Maybe its because I have simple tastes and live a simple life, but once your living comfortably the government can't force you to work harder! Why should I get up at 5am and work till all hours of the night? So that half the reward can go to bureaucrats that believe they should live just as well as I do? So that half the reward can go to bureaucrats working flex time, taking two hour lunches, that can't be fired?, that can show up at my businesses and treat me like a criminal?
No thanks. I'll relax a little more. I'll enjoy my family. And unfortunately for those that are unemployed - those idiot bureaucrats aren't going to create a single private sector job that they or their children might earn a living at.
If the government were just Andy Griffith and Barney Fife, there wouldn't be enough resources to lobby them to stifle your business competition. Got it?
If the power over the government is the problem in every example you cite, then government is like a dog, potentially tame, potentially rabid. If the dog is a chihuaha, it really doesn't matter, does it?
Let's shrink government to a chihuaha, then the special interests wouldn't accomplish anything by siccing it on us. Enough power to fight violence and fraud, but not enough bite to make it worth training for dog fighting.
Careful about that, if they or their children work for Lockheed Martin, or Northrop Grumman or General Dynamics. They're about to find out how secre their jobs are when the bureaucrats turn off the taps.
The threat of unknown taxes = uncertainty
Known taxes = certainty (by definition)
2. Why do you think the banks are victims of anything?
3. Why do you think the government is the main beneficiary of banks?
4. Why do you think anything is fundamentally different now than in the last 30 years?
5. Why do you think that changing political party will change anything when it hasn't done so in the last 60 years?
See, the SIZE of government is a red herring. What we should be focusing on is the EFFICIENCY and EFFECTIVENESS and the SCOPE of government. This may or may not coincidentally reduce size, but size is the effect, not the cause. If government needs a million people to keep Wall Street in line, and those million people are doing it efficiently and effectively, then so be it.
And a small government is just as easy to corrupt as a large one, probably even easier -- there are less people to bribe, less people to pay buy elections for, and less people to enforce the few remaining sensible laws.
Specifically:
> If the government were just Andy Griffith and Barney Fife,
> there wouldn't be enough resources to lobby them to stifle
> your business competition.
This is a nonsensical assumption. The businesses drive the lobbying, not the government. Andy and Barney would just be that much MORE inundated by big business influence.
Benjamin Franklin
From what I've read, given the causes of our current recession, it is most comparable only to the recession (and double dip) of the 1930's. If this is true, doesn't it dilute the results (and the lessons learned) to compare otherwise?
Why to help pwoor wittle old Obama, of course.
Your view is the rational way. However, politics and politicians are not known for being rational. Politics is both exciting and most dirty. The travail of politics is most bountiful indeed.
My bet is that things would run its course. It has a mind of its own. It goes where it wants to go.
Isn't that obvious? America is perhaps the greatest country and culture for self-promotion. But that is why Shakespear's tragedies sell so well though.
Cheers
TK
The history of civilizations shows that democracies go through a curve, the latter downward slop of decline based on "rights and privileges" (free stuff), and less of contributions and obligations. Once so corrupted, it is almost impossible to reverse. At this stage, the socio and psychopaths rise to dominance. They are always waiting in the woodwork, like cockroaches to control, subjugate, and consume the fruits of past labor and virtue. LIke rates, they despoil several times more than they actually consume.
America is-if not already-is close to becoming a mere place, not an ideal anymore or set of ideals apart from other historical dead ends and failures, i.e., socialism, statism, corporatism, communism/progressivism, etc. They are all the same, concentrating power in the hands of the few to control the many. People vote and empower their own enslavement.
For an economy, such a tendency toward oligarchy and elite control always spells doom for economies, as the governing elites make and implement decisions for their class and cronies, not for the Great Unwashed "knuckleheads" (Moochelle Obama's name for voters in a recent appearance).
One more term for Obama and the country will have crossed the threshold where the parasites and takers will overwhelm the host corpus and the makers. For your portfolio, an election win for Obama, and the retention of the Senate by Democrats, will be a waterfall drop off in the equity markets worldwide.
> Democrats, will be a waterfall drop off in the equity markets
> worldwide.
This is a wildly ignorant prediction in light of the more than 60% gain in equities since President Obama took office.
At a minimum, he is now a known quantity. The markets may have sold off after election day in 2008 due to the baseless straw man claim put up by the wing nuts, but the uncertainty factor is now gone in terms of market reaction to a second term for Obama.
Of course, if Romney wins, financial stocks will double overnight and real businesses will tank, as everyone knows he will not stop until 99% of corporate profits go to the financial sector -- just so they can say they're "the 99%". :)
"Of course, if Romney wins, financial stocks will double overnight and real businesses will tank, as everyone knows he will not stop until 99% of corporate profits go to the financial sector -- just so they can say they're "the 99%". :) "
Not that is ignorant.
Under Romney's policies, financial shenanigans would drastically eclipse the adding of real value, all in the name of the "free market" and "small government".
This is not to say that Romney will be free to execute his policies unrestrained, as there is still congress and the supreme court -- both mostly jokes at this point, but at least there is hope.
I'm surprised at you Wyo, you yourself have admitted is more so the financial elite pulling the government strings than the other way around -- why would you campaign for their obvious chosen champion?
I agree the financial elite are way way too powerful.
However, where were you when all the Wall Street money went to Obama in 2008? That was OK?
Besides, the unions all give millions to Obama and the democrats which seems like an offset to me.
Who is the top Presidential candidate in terms of fundraising from the Wallstreet elite that you are disparaging?
Barack Obama by a country mile.
http://bit.ly/nnhtuS
Perhaps this explains why Wallstreet has done so well under this President and no one has gone to jail.
How about that Jon Corzine guy?
The fact that he is such a fundraising champion for the President might explain why he isn't in jail right now.
Too bad you don't use the same standards on your own candidates.
It is rare for criminals to turn around aberrant behavior. The more likely pattern is recidivism.
It is the same for empires and by extension empire denouement.
You see, what is rarely understood is that when things get worse, people also do not 'turn around'. Pain more times than not, is not a teacher at all.
You can see this principle at work most clearly in the fact that the Obama stimulus did not work and Krugman wants to triple down on it. The worse it gets, the more pain they desire. The worse it gets, the more they blame the other guy. And our media helps this as well.
Financial stocks will do well if we can get rid of Dodd-Frank, which we should. Its a disaster. They will also begin to heal if we can somehow reduce the size of the govt. and at some point in our lifetimes allow interest rates to rise.
If you don't want any of the above and wish to remain in a Japanese coma for the next 100 years, vote Obama.
Not at all. But they have since become clearly disenchanted with him and his "anti-business" policies (that have led to record corporate profits). Any enemy of high finance is a friend of mine! ;) But of course, they still give a nontrivial amount of money to the Obama campaign too -- they'll buy them both off as best they can.
> the unions all give millions to Obama and the democrats
> which seems like an offset to me.
I know it seems that way, but when you add up the lobbying dollars, not just campaign contributions, big business blows away labor by orders of magnitude:
http://bit.ly/Nr9Q8Z
http://bit.ly/Nw5udt
US Dollar ($DXY) from 86.38 down to 82.64, -4.3%... bad for all.
Gold (GLD) from $84.52 up to 157.18, +86%... people scared to death.
US 10-yr yield ($TNX) from 2.345% down to 1.649%, -29.7%... great for savers, huh? Oh, and people scared to death.
WTI crude from 38.74 up to 93.36, +141%... Great for us consumers, eh?
Gasoline from $1.85 up to $3.67, +96.3%... Energy prices nearly doubled but hey, at least my portfolio is up 60%.
All things are relative.
Indeed:
Dollar down: good for domestic equity holders
Gold up: good for commodity investors (in gold)
Treasuries down: good time to borrow
Oil up: good for commodity investors (in oil)
Gas up: good for gas companies and their investors
A lot of things things, however, are bad for "most Americans", if that is what you're getting at, yes. However, as Fox News will tell you, the president has very little control over these things:
http://bit.ly/HQyOg7
Much of the fear is not rational, and often pumped by people looking to goose their own investments (a la Glenn Beck for gold).
There a lots of problems (LOTS of problems), but the world is not about to end the ways some speculators (and political ideologues) try to make it sound like it is.
And thanks for the empirical breakdown of the relationships and beneficiaries of price movements.
Regarding treasuries, it is an excellent time to borrow, but many simply cannot... from lack of a decent job (or a job at all) or lack of creditworthiness, for example.
You may be right that the fear is irrational. Nevertheless, perception is reality. If people think it's rough out there, they'll plan and act accordingly.
No, the world isn't about to end (not December yet :) ). But again, if people feel like it is - regardless if it's logical, rational, or justifiable - they will act like it is.
Then short gold. if your not short gold your all hat no cattle.
In fact, the gold play is reasonable given the Fed's money pumping operations.
Also, the degree of globalization today 1) is an order of magnitude greater than all previous recoveries and therefore 2) makes the analysis of U.S.-specific data much less relevant.
Some reasonable conclusions:
1) Government spending growth is down compared to the average. This indicates a different approach from most previous recoveries. Whether or not this approach is "better" remains to be seen. (Also, context matters; is spending growth down because it was so high already? Does this growth rate account for Fed money-printing? The data does not say.)
2) Corporate profits are up compared to the average. Corporatists really should have nothing to complain about -- yet complain they do! How much wildly preferential treatment do corporations and financial companies in particular need to get before it's "enough"???
3) Low demand is clearly the primary driver of high unemployment and low private investment. Any child would know this intuitively, but many people are simply not as logical as most children, and prefer instead to argue for utterly failed policies that do nothing for unemployment but continue to funnel benefits to themselves. :)
How's that, child?
I'd like to say the government gave a crap about its citizens, but you know that that just isn't true. We work for them. They don't work for us.
Something has truly gone horribly wrong.
However, if often seems that think corporations DO give a crap about people? If so, I claim that you are sorely mistaken.
Just as the government will lie, cheat, and steal from its citizens to the Nth degree, corporations will do the same to the N^Nth degree.
Something has gone horribly wrong indeed.
Reminds me of the fictitious "hockey stick" curve for global warming that Al Gore so famously tried to bamboozle people with.
> of the data and conveniently ignore the vast amount of other
> data that supports the truthful " worst since the Great
> Depression" data.
Do you have links to this "vast amount of other data"?
Or are you just talking out of your backside? :)
I suspect the latter, however I can think of at least one factor that was conveniently ignored: average length of time unemployed.
There, I gave you one in the interest of good sportsmanship, so please provide the rest of the "vast amount".
The majority of the people want to raise taxes to the rich, cut defense spending and increase investments in education. Sorry but the majority rules. Look at the polls, ask the people in the street if they want their social security, Medicare funds cut.....they would say no.
From 2009-2012 the S&P 500 is up more than 60% From 2001-2004 it was nearly flat. That shooshalist.....
Actually it doesn't. We aren't a democracy. We are a representative republic with an electoral college so that the entire course of our nation's direction isn't dictated by New York and Los Angeles.
And while mob rule sounds great, like in Somalia, this republic was instituted to protect all people, even minorities.
You may want to look it up.
Two wolves and a lamb voting on "What should we eat for dinner?"
A majority decision doesn't mean it's moral or acceptable. The entire Obama strategy has been to get more than 50% of the voters (dead and alive) to be dependent on the government for their incomes.
Some people work for a living while others vote for a living.
Sad but true.
Or two lambs and a wolf?
It's all a matter of perspective.
The Top 10% in America pays the greatest share of HOUSEHOLD taxes of any of the OECD countries. (Household taxes including SS, Medicare, etc). http://bit.ly/R67Qq5 (THe European middle class pays a boatload in value-added taxes).
If you think the level of taxes should be raised, then they should be raised on everyone. The US already has the steepest tax curve.
I see, we're comparing the metrics of the current anemic recovery to the All-Star team of metrics from all prior anemic recoveries. Got it.
Ironic that the only measure that this one does better on in average is corporate profits.
You act like 'good corporate profits' is a bad thing.
The opposite is true. America is much better off if business is good than if it's not.
I'm only pointing out the inconsistencies of the narrative that the original author is trying to advance.