Honest question: Why hasn't the economy collapsed?

[Takket]

Drumpf seems to have done everything he can to blow up the economy....... tariffs, the tax scam, the shutdown, the stock market drop late last year...... all while there has been no meaningful increase in wages. If anything with cost of living rising and wages flat, people are making less than they were two years ago. But the economy just keeps humming along........ why? They economy just keeps adding more jobs.

I guess to me the question comes down to "are you better off". So companies are making money for their investors and board of directors but the other 99% of us are still struggling.

[shockey80]

1. It takes time to see the results of corruption, bad policies.

It does not happen over night. It will rear its ugly head in time.

[ooky]

12. I think this is right.

Its the lagging effect of a slowdown in spending making its way through the economy. Overall, people are still spending enough to keep the business cycle going. When all the bad policies start to have the effect of slowing personal spending in the majority of the population recession will follow. We're just not quite there yet.

[Volaris]

16. Agreed, and I would guess by summers end we will see the result...

Peeps processing they got fucked on their taxes, plus normal 'sunmer spending' (planned vacations and the like), and then a contraction in adjusting for the holiday season.
August/September, the recession will start, if not before

I am not an economist. But that's my sense

[watoos]

2. The market should be doing fine,

Trump gave it 1.5 trillion dollars on our credit card. Most of that money corporations used to buy back their own stock. The rise in the market was artificially created. Remember, however, the market for 2018 lost 6% during a boom time, did it not? That's where Trump's tariffs and comments on the Fed had a bad reaction.

I think I saw where only 25% of Americans are invested in the stock market.

[Squinch]

3. This is a good question. Every time I see the stock market climbing, I wonder how

people can still be buying into it.

I do think tax season will open many eyes to the scam they have bought into. But who knows what that will do?

[empedocles]

11. Corporate buybacks subsidizing executive stock option profits are a big factor.

Saw something about Dems highlighting this scam, by introducing legislation in the House.

[Squinch]

15. But I would have thought that would have played itself out by now.

[Caliman73]

4. Our economy is massive.

There are trillions of dollars moving around out there. People have money to buy essentials and use credit to purchase luxuries. We don't hit crisis until the money starts drying up and the Fed has done a great deal to keep the flow going, which is why Trump is constantly whining when the Fed is meeting and considering rate increases to head off inflation. He know's or the people around him know that the economy is hollowed out and any relatively major disruption can send it back into recession. He just wants it to be after he is out of office.

[customerserviceguy]

17. You're quite correct

Even though rates are higher than a few years ago, it's not by much. When the Fed starts jacking the rates to near the 10% level, the sharpies will sell off before the big crash, then the economy will go to hell in a handbasket.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. We are

constricting weekly. Doubt me,compare your 401's and IRA's to last October. The trend lines are South bound. Those who do the "Dow" talking points are not telling you the truth,you have maybe 5 or 6 Tech related Stocks that are driving that number. Take those out of the mix and baby it is reality check time.

[Mike Nelson]

6. Very wealthy people are...

… still doing well. They will continue to grab money until it falls apart... like Hoover and Bush eras.

[MrGrieves]

7. ecause we measure the economy by how well rich people are doing?

I don’t think poor and lower middle class think its anything to write home about.

[allgood33]

8. We are collapsing. Until the wage payers ascribe as much importance to workers as stock holders

we will continue to downward with a continuous reduction in the standard of living for evryone. Workers are spenders who actually pay the dividends to stockholders. If the wage payers do not soon understand this and make some structural changes...maybe even profit caps.. the downward spiral will continue. When the clamps are soon placed on credit issuers, are economy will be headed toward the crapper. It happened before. It can and will happen again.

[lunatica]

9. When it gets to the point when credit card companies

are unable to gauge more out of people by raising their interest rates and their “fee” rates and their “penalty” rates they will then deal with people by freezing their access to any more purchases while demanding to still be paid monthly then you’ll know the economy is destroyed.

Thanks the way it happened in 2008.

[LuckyCharms]

10. There is a significant but predictable time delay...

between economic policy and economic impact.

[smirkymonkey]

21. Fiscal, or inside, lag.

It will take some time for the economy to realize the impact of Trump's irresponsible and foolish policies. We are in for a big shock once the full force of his stupidity and greed settles in.

[brooklynite]

13. Honest Answer: it's hard to do

Absent immense corruption (and no we're not seeing that in the economy), or radical policies such as nationalization of industries or hyperinflation, it's actually rather difficult to "wreck the economy".

Consider that in the worst days of the Depression, 70% of the working population had jobs. That's still a lot of economic activity.

[Awsi Dooger]

18. Exactly

Fortunately the economy is designed to withstand assaults from all directions, including self-inflicted from above.

It reminds me of a line from a true crime show I watched recently: "It's difficult to kill the human body. Lots of safeguards in place."

I'm heavily in the stock market but won't mind a nicely-timed downturn in 2020.

[Takket]

19. good insight. thanks!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. Corps got their taxes cut - they now want to expand and make more money and

they need people to work.

[PeeJ52]

20. I don't have a clue..

I'd never take the risk to finance a new house if I could afford one. I'd never be stupid enough to finance the insane amount of money a new car costs now days. We just get by, week to week and save as much as we can, waiting for the next mini catastrophe to hit and take our saving back down. It's just a roller coaster that you hope keeps inching upwards. However, for eight years there, it was inching upwards, for us, the last two years have been showing a decline in our savings. Whether that's just a function of mini events hitting now by coincidence, I don't know. Maybe tRump is just bad luck on our cash flow graph...

[eShirl]

22. the last straw hasn't broken the camel's back, yet.