The Coming Republican Depression: How the GOP Turned America Into a Powder Keg, and Is About to Light the Match

[erronis]

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-coming-republican-depression
Thom Hartmann

Housing bubbles, financial scams, and political sabotage are converging into a historic, preventable disaster.

Republicans may be fixing to crash the economy again — Republican presidents oversaw 10 of the last 11 recessions and the Republican Great Depression — and they’re doing it to satisfy the greed of the billionaires they serve.

Today, for example, is the day that some of Trump‘s worst tariffs are supposed to go into effect, and many folks on Wall Street are deciding where they want to hide when the ceiling starts falling in. The horrible jobs report just released hours ago highlights not only how bad things were in July, but they had to “revise downward by 285,000 jobs” previous reports; it looks like Trump’s people have been cooking the books.

The Financial Times is on it; they published an article this week titled, “The US economy is more fragile than it appears.” It’s author, Tej Parikh, points out that our housing market is in trouble and starting to look like it did around the time of the Bush Housing Crash in 2008, that spending patterns are changing in alarming ways (my phrase, not his), and that both the labor and stock markets are vulnerable. The article is frankly alarming.

And former labor secretary Robert Reich titled his brilliant newsletter yesterday: “Be Warned: The Financial Bubble Will Soon Burst.” The former Clinton cabinet member writes:

“The financial economy — stocks, bonds, and their derivatives — is in for a big reality check, and I think it will happen soon.”

. . .

[Hornedfrog2000]

1. Im pulling my 401k this week

The writing is on the wall. This bubble will pop, and i expect a much larger penalty/loss to me than 35% if i try to do it when everyone else does.

Everyone will try to pull stocks, and pull their money from banks. The dollar is about to become worthless. I have said that was the game plan for almost 10 years now. China, and other fascists hate the power the dollar gives us.

[Susan Calvin]

3. So you don't think having it in cash and CDs is safe enough?

That's where I have mine, and I am terrified that it's not enough. May I ask what you are doing with yours?

[Hornedfrog2000]

18. In the 20s

Banks restricted people taking money, and it was worth way less with the inflation, so im not sure what is safe... gold?

[IbogaProject]

8. Do not give extra tax revenue to this administration !!

Find ways to move your money to countries with sane policies

You can do a rollover to a self directed Rollover IRA place it at a large brokerage and move your exposure to countries with sane policies that will actually generate true good growth.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. The convergence is due to tRump doing everything all at once everywhere

If he had a plan for imposing tariff taxes in stages, business could plan. But it is all on and then partly off and on and off and on.

If he didn't do mass deportations at the same time, ....

If he didn't do reduction in government spending and jobs all of a sudden, ....

If he didn't do a massive increase in the deficit and US gov debt at the same time as everything else, ....

If he didn't crush the tourist and educational system on top of everything else, ....

But he doesn't think except to indulge in magical thinking. "We have billions and billions of dollars coming in!" "We have trillions of new investments!"

[erronis]

4. Or: If he doesn't want the country to survive.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Incompetence most often explains better than malfeasance

I do not think tRump wants to "destroy the country", as so many people on DU seem to think. It is lazy thinking on the part of many.

tRump truly wants to make America "great again" (it didn't stop being great until tRump 1.0 and especially 2.0). He truly does because he harks back to the "Gilded Age" (that he calls the "Golden Age&quot . He does because he thinks he's in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize. He does because he thinks his legacy is going to be his face on Mount Rushmore.

The problem is that tRump is stupid and RepubliConners and the RepubliConned have drunk the koolaid. They are short-sighted, focused on quarterly corporate earnings reports and completely dismissive of long term effects like the decimation of science and universities and tourism and much more.

tRump is ignorant and stupid and his regime is incompetent and short-sighted.

[LiberalArkie]

10. I do think he wants to decimate the U.S. economy like the U.S. did to the Soviet economy.

Always been their plan to destroy the U.S. from within. The Soviets were always very pissed that they did not get to keep France Italy and all the other countries they had during WW2. They want Ukraine and Poland and the others back.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Putin is the easy go to, but that over-empowers Putin and dismisses tRump's stupidity

As if tRump is intellectually capable of running an anti-American conspiracy on a massive scale and convincing his cabinet to actively support that agenda.

tRump is not that stupid.
Putin is not that powerful.

[erronis]

15. Nice rebuttal: "it is lazy thinking"

Actually, I think this has been carefully crafted to achieve the maximum benefit with small, perhaps seemingly bumbling, steps. I don't think trump has the intellect or even the cunning, and I don't think putin is the only entity behind this operation.

This whole process has been worked on for decades. Sometimes trying one thing or another to dismantle democracy. Project 2025 is another better thought out attempt. Still with its apparent flaws.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. "dismantling democracy" is a different agenda from "destroying America"

It is possible to do one without the other and vice versa, although it is hard to see how dismantling democracy would not destroy America.

I think tRump kinda does want to dismantle democracy and Project 2025 is certainly along those lines.

"No Kings!"

[Vogon_Glory]

6. 45+471929 n/t

[erronis]

7. Yeah. DU doesn't allow the equal sign in titles......

[Wicked Blue]

9. I know a recession is coming because: skirt lengths

The dresses and skirts I see in stores now are very long, mostly down to the ankles.

I know the Hemline Index theory has many critics, but from personal experience I'd say it has some degree of validity.

[llmart]

12. We'll be lucky if it's "just" a recession.

On some level I believe the country deserves this.

[Wicked Blue]

14. The hemlines are extraordinarily long

and I agree with you that it may be worse

[flashman13]

13. I want to make two comments. I live in a small town in a large red state with a long history of boom and bust.

I have been caught up in several busts in my years here that severely impacted my finances.

Locally, since covid hit, we have been riding a major boom (I'll skip details on the reasons). I now definitely smell a bust in the air. Real estate prices are still unrealistically high. Sellers are still trying to sell into a 2.5% interest rate market. Now at 7%, payments on that high priced real estate are untenable. We rapidly went from not seeing for sale signs anywhere, because you could sell damn near anything, at any price within days of listing. Now there are signs everywhere while sales have collapsed. A nearby larger city has been undergoing a massive commercial and housing building boom with rent and sale prices at absurd levels. I see the same thing there now with for rent and sale signs on much of the new floor space everywhere. The place is grossly overbuilt. That is a clear sign of pending crash. The whole shit show shows signs of the Dot-com crash, the 2007 housing bust and the Great Recession. IMHO we are absolutely on the edge of a crash.

The other side of the coin is that I see Now Hiring signs everywhere as well. Businesses are all short handed even while Dairy Queen is advertising jobs at $20 an hour and laborers at the saw mill are being hired at $22 an hour with full benefits on day one. Anyone that is even remotely capable is now working construction. My son who works in a construction service industry says that some of the construction he is seeing is exceptionally shoddy. Go figure. I also know that the county Clerk and Recorder's office has been advertising two positions since April. It's a steady government job. The wages can't compete with construction work, but the benefits are extremely generous. I mention this because in all the years I have been here I have never seen a labor market remotely like this. The implications that I see is that the local boom has caused many people to over spend on housing and toys. When the bust hits they are going to be seriously over extended and will take a very painful hit.

Good luck everyone. We are going to need it.

[erronis]

16. Seeing that same happening in our mixed metropolitan/rural area. Houses are now sitting on the market

at least long enough for the signs to stay up in the front yards.

It's going to be a feast for the venture capitalist types as houses go underwater and go into forced sales.