'Dominant, 'Winning' U.S. Economy Is Going Nowhere

Despite the constant drumbeat of proclaimed victories of the Trump Administration over military targets, trading partners, undocumented immigrants, federal judges, universities, and others, the U.S. economy appears to be sliding slowly downwards. Its large and important housing market is frozen in unaffordability. New and existing home sales, pending contracts, and housing starts are now back at two very unenviable levels—that of 2009, after the global financial crash; and that of 2020 in the pandemic panic. America’s GDP annual growth rate was negative in the first quarter, and looks to be quite low in the second. Manufacturing employment is not rising as promised. Productivity in the manufacturing sector is not growing. Continuing unemployment claims are at 2021 pandemic levels. The average personal income of households fell by 0.4% in May. Inflation, by even the most massaged measures, is rising slowly; while underneath, in the sector of inventories, where intermediate-sale goods are not yet goods for final sale, prices are rising much faster—at a 5-10% annual rate according to inventory management firms like ITS Logistics.