March 2, 2020

There is enough criminality in fake employment propaganda to make the Mafia blush. So I'll use numbered points.

Point one: Fakery is used to claim a hot economy, while the economy is deteriorating drastically. The method of promoting the cause is propaganda. Rational arguments are not made that way.

Discussion of the economy is supposed to discuss the economy. It doesn't anymore. Every imaginable side issue is used to claim a hot economy. The number one point is to use the stock market as an indicator. Even in the best of times, the stock market would only respond to good and bad news while being independent of the rest of the economy, particularly since "irrational exuberance" became noticeable. Now days, much more so, as the stock market has become nothing but a gambling casino for the 1%ers who have nothing else to do with their trillions of dollars.

Point two: The economy has been in such a decline that ocean vessels are being scrapped for metal, and the trucking industry is shrinking with businesses going under. A reduction in the trade deficit is a result of consumers buying fewer products, not an increase in U.S. manufacturing which has not been occurring.

Point three: Low unemployment numbers are said to be an indicator of a hot economy with no explanation of cause-and-effect relationships. The opposite is true. There is an employment problem causing the low numbers.

The unemployment numbers have not been going down as fast over the past three years as they were during the last three years of the Obama Administration. Which means unemployment numbers are not an indicator of an improved economy.

One of the factors is that there are fewer Mexicans coming across the border to do low class work, because the economy of Mexico improved. U.S. workers cannot easily do the same work. There are also fewer other foreign workers, because the Trump administration has not been allowing as many foreign workers in, since conservatives started with the claim that foreigners are taking away "American" jobs. Regardless of the truth, the unemployment numbers shrink due to policies without an improvement in the economy.

Point four: Whenever conservatives take over the government, conservatives in general start partying, which largely means spending more time in the cafes. There is an actual uptick in the economy as a result. But there is also a much more significant force in the opposite direction. When conservatives are in power, they hire like-minded persons as a source of psychological security and power, which drags down the economy rather than improves it. It means more persons are hired to do less work, which reduces efficiency and competitiveness. Usually, a lower productivity number shows less efficiency. But automation is correcting for the reduced productivity, which masks the result. And the excessive hiring primarily occurs at the professional and subprofessional levels where productivity is not easily quantified

Point five: Businesses of all types are shrinking including the steel and aluminum factories, because tariffs disrupted the process. Shortages of supplies take down marginal businesses and shrink the output of others.

Point six: Using a happiness index has been a major point of propaganda. Such subjective criteria are a fraud, because pollsters get any subjective result they want due to the manner in which the questions are asked.

Ignoring all of these economic forces while claiming the economy is hot couldn't be more fraudulent.