General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMost people do not realize how massive cuts to the Federal workforce will ultimately affect them.
Too many ways to go in depth here. Many people do not realize how many Federal workforce live among them, support their businesses and community programs. Spending by Fed employees is a HUGE chunk of at least 15 state's economies. VA, MD, DE, NC, CO, CA, IL, MT, MA, NY, PA, NM, TN, GA, NV.
Industries affected: Housing and all related industries, Office furniture and supplies, auto, airline (Fed travel is usually the first hit) anything related to small businesses in communities where there are large populations of Fed workers.
It never works, never has worked before but suspect that only those families well invested in stocks and inherited wealth will not care or be affected.
Have at it Trumpsters!
LonePirate
(13,386 posts)They understand almost nothing about our complex economy, modern society, our Constitution and pretty much any other topic. They have no idea how dangerous and damaging their ignorance is and worse yet, they do not care.
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)the more they get hit with reality, facts, reason, the more they constrict into hard right thinking.
3 decades of right wing media complex brainwashing them, they fully believe their own bullshit.
There really is no way to talk them back.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)death spiral to commence in earnest, maybe 20% unemployment by Nov. '18.
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)I think the market is on a serious sugar high, Trump gives a lot of these types of people wood, and is reaching that point the tech bubble of the 90s reached.
Not sure how much a serious readjustment would effect employment.
But, the idiot is playing with a LOT of fire - his heavy handed deportation targeting our neighbors to the south, that is dangerous in terms of the labor market for agriculture.
His dicking around with China, or any other major economy country, he is so simple minded, we are in serious trouble if they decided to give us a poke, he won't see it coming and they will NOT react well to it.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)now the Fed is raising interest rates. Add in Trump's tinkering with the general macroeconomic equation and a general slow down is all but inevitable. Republicans do not believe in the general macroeconomic equation, preferring widely discredited monetarist theories or even more crackpot theories, like goosing aggregate supply.
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)would it not be normal to have consumer spending slow down in February?
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)is that when you add a slowdown in spending (cyclically normal or otherwise) to increases in interest rates (via the Fred) and cuts in government spending (the 'G' in the general macroeconomic equation), you will see a decrease in GDP (or a slowing in its rate of growth). Since the Republicans believe the general macroeconomic equation is false, they do not peg their politics around it. They will wait until unemployment reaches 25% or more -- IOW, a general economic collapse -- before even considering action to increase spending.
I should note that, reprehensible though they are, Trump proposals like hiring an additional 10,000 CBP officers and building a wall along the border would serve to maintain the 'G' in the general macroeconomic equation, thereby partially or wholly compensating for spending cuts elsewhere (like the Meals on Wheels program or NEA funding).
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)I have been telling people for months now, and they just roll their eyes, the "wall" is a vanity based economic sugar boost to deficit spend to pay for building it, only to serve no functional purpose once it is up.
45 is a moron, but he knows that about it, IMO, borrowing to pour that money into the economy so he can point the boost.
Same with the "infrastructure" scam he wants to tee up.
BTW - do you reply back with the "formula" you are referring to?
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)"Keynesian equation" :
GDP = C + G + I + (Ex-Im)
where GDP = Gross Domestic Product
C = Consumption
G = Government spending
I = Investment (by businesses)
Ex = Export
Im = Imports
So, going back to earlier posts, growth in 'C' is slowing in February and Trump is proposing to cut 'G' (but maybe expand it in other places). If C and G both do decline, GDP must also decline, unless "I" increases (possible, but with increasing interest rates less likely) or we Export more and Import less (hard to envision given the currently strong dollar which makes our exports relatively more expensive and makes imports less expensive). Recipe or formula for a recession or, given Republican douchery, even depression.
nikibatts
(2,198 posts)C and G. Those equation parts should be arranged in a circle.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)necessarily. If the increase in I results in additional hiring and payroll, then there may well be an increase in C. But if the increase in I is only to improve productivity, i.e., your robotic workforce, then C will either stay the same or decline (since a larger amount of goods from the increase in I is being pushed at a smaller C, in the form of fewer workers-consumers).
C and I are best thought of as independent variables, not dependent variables, in my opinion.
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)thanks, good stuff!
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)than not.....we have 2018 to take back our country
wishstar
(5,267 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)Historic NY
(37,449 posts)especially at tax time.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)Where I work, federal grants support a lot of the work we do. My job may not directly be affected but hundreds of others will.
We are talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of job losses at the state level alone. That's money not going into buying stuff, so add more losses on top of that.
And of course, lack of scientific progress do to the loss of those grants will be incalculable. No drug development (industry does not do much of this, but rides on academic research), no progress in almost any STEM field.