How Sound Is the American Economy?
Paul Craig Roberts
I am as tired as readers might be of reporting on Washington’s subservience to Israel, the declining rights and prospects for white ethnicities, and the generalized collapse of Western civilization.
I looked for good news and found none.
So I returned to the latest jobs report knowing that it would be more bad news, but at least on a different subject–the American economy.
In previous years when I analyzed the monthly reports I made known the problems in the informational content. None of that in this column. The BLS data is institutionalized and will remain the official narrative regardless of problems.
So, what does the data tell those whose decisions are based on it?
It tells them that employment fell by 23,000 in July from June. It other words, there was job loss instead of gain. Yet the unemployment rate fell! How was this possible? The labor force participation rate declined which absorbed the unemployed in the decline in the labor participation rate.
What explains the fall in the labor force participation rate? Based on the July job numbers it could be the absence of jobs. Or possibly there is more money to be had in the scam economy, the alternative economy that the digital revolution has created.
You have to go through these steps to see the weakness in the consumer sector of the economy. Increasingly the American economy consists of someone looting someone else.
Despite this weakness, AI investment is going gang-busters. Nvidia is borrowing a half trillion dollars to build AI infrastructure. There are suspicions that circular deals are inflating the boom beyond its basis.
Data centers are being built in locations prior to the increase in the capacity of the electricity system to support them, implying higher consumer costs as the data centers bid away the energy supply to their purpose.
Imagine the impact on American energy costs if Trump’s subservience to Israel continues to keep the Hormuz Strait closed.
The United States government obviously lacks the competence and the independence to put American interests first and to regulate economic activity to avoid energy squeezes that can threaten mortgage payments.
As a result of American economic mismanagement in the 21st century Americans have nothing to fall back onto during stressful times. Those times are now upon us.