With a competent president in the Oval Office, meeting the challenge of an economic slowdown would be difficult enough. With an ignorant, impulsive narcissist in the Oval Office, well, hold onto your hats.
Paul Waldman expects typical Individual 1 behavior in response to bad news, and just hopes he and his Republican enablers don't take us all down with them:
... [S]hould a recession come, he’ll act as though the entire thing was planned and executed by his enemies to prevent him from receiving the adulation that is his due. He will make it intensely personal, just as he does everything else.
As for any policy changes he might make to address a recession, the best we can hope for is that Trump doesn’t make things worse. His Republican allies in Congress will say the only answer to our economic problems is another round of tax cuts, particularly for the wealthy, which will probably sound to him like a great idea. We know that because no matter what the problem is, that’s their solution. The bubonic plague could return, and Republicans would propose that we stop it with a cut to the capital gains tax.Waldman's colleague Catherine Rampell looks at "the Keystone Cops" in charge of our economy, specifically the way Individual 1 and his foreclosure king Treasury Secretary handled the increase in the Federal Reserve's interest rate by Fed Chairman and Individual 1 appointee Jay Powell:
Over the decades, the Federal Reserve has cultivated a hard-won, well-deserved reputation for political independence — and with it, a credible commitment to stable prices. The entire worldwide financial system depends on that independence.
With one fell swoop, Trump could destroy it, and set off a global panic.
None of that has stopped some of Trump’s economic advisers, such as Heritage Foundation fellow Stephen Moore, from encouraging Trump to fire Powell, plus everyone else at the Fed, too. That’s ultimately what would be necessary for Trump to get the looser money he wants: He appointed four of five sitting Fed board governors, and last week they all voted unanimously for a rate hike.
Fortunately, some Trump officials know how disastrous such developments could be. Unfortunately, those officials also appear to be incompetent.
First, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tweeted a quote purportedly from Trump himself, declaring that “I never suggested firing Chairman Jay Powell, nor do I believe I have the right to do so.” [snip]
Then Mnuchin decided to make things worse.
On Sunday, he released a seemingly panicked statement urging the public not to panic. From his Mexican golf vacation, Mnuchin had called heads of our biggest banks and then told the world that these banks had enough liquidity to continue lending. He also announced an emergency Christmas Eve convening of the “Plunge Protection Team,” which includes heads of the Fed, Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
I cannot sufficiently stress how amateurish it was for Mnuchin to make this announcement.Or, in other words, when you elect clowns, you should expect a circus.
Fortunately, we just elected a House full of competent Democrats who will try mightily to steer the circus clowns away from the rocks. For our sake, not Individual 1's, we need them to succeed.
