(This column was published in Forbes on June 6th.) Tesla’s Elon Musk has a "super bad feeling" about the economy. My first cynical reaction: Musk is preparing an excuse for disappointing Tesla sales. As the President pointed out, Ford and other automakers aren’t whining. They’re making major investments (in electric cars!) and hiring tens of thousands of new employees.
It sends that the negative coordination of the economy around inflation is to drive support for the midterm elections. The result of what we face beyond that is far more frightening than a recession. There is a larger crisis pending to our Democracy, and it is greater then MAGA and reeks of the cigar smoke of Capitalists plotting how to control the Great Disruption. In Musks case it may be some other smoke. Every collapse and increase in debt has come with a Republican Administration and corresponding tax cuts. Politics shouldn't be a part of economic discord, but this is what the charts show, along with a belief that the economy is handled better by the party that has not handled it well. If Marx were around to pen Das Capital 2022 his central thesis would be about how the capitalists have the workers convinced to throw their support behind their own demise. You are spot on about where we are. Ignore Musk and Dimon remarks, but not the direction they might take us.
It’s Volcker
Thank you for your sensible analysis.
It sends that the negative coordination of the economy around inflation is to drive support for the midterm elections. The result of what we face beyond that is far more frightening than a recession. There is a larger crisis pending to our Democracy, and it is greater then MAGA and reeks of the cigar smoke of Capitalists plotting how to control the Great Disruption. In Musks case it may be some other smoke. Every collapse and increase in debt has come with a Republican Administration and corresponding tax cuts. Politics shouldn't be a part of economic discord, but this is what the charts show, along with a belief that the economy is handled better by the party that has not handled it well. If Marx were around to pen Das Capital 2022 his central thesis would be about how the capitalists have the workers convinced to throw their support behind their own demise. You are spot on about where we are. Ignore Musk and Dimon remarks, but not the direction they might take us.