Thursday, January 28, 2021

The Economy Was Broken Before the Pandemic Hit — Robert Urie


Graph: Following WWII, the U.S. had the only industrial economy left standing. The relative prosperity that this produced isn’t replicable outside of those historical circumstances. Neoliberalism is the capitalist response to diminished relative prosperity as global economic competition re-emerged. It brought capitalist competition home through deregulation, deindustrialization, and financialized looting. This produced a series of intermediate crises before the crash of 2008. As detailed below, the crash was never adequately addressed, and therefore it hasn’t ended. The pandemic is excluded from the graph to capture the state of the pre-pandemic economy. Units are 10 year rolling average percentage changes in inflation-adjusted GDP. Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve....
The US had two huge boosts. First, the frontier, and secondly, emerging in a preeminent position at the close of WWII. When those exceptional conditions ended, decline set in, especially with decolonization and the rise of the emerging world, Asia in particular.

4 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Units are 10 year rolling average percentage changes in inflation-adjusted GDP.

Is this adjusted for population growth?

US pop. 1957 = 172 million

Peter Pan said...

e.g. gdp per capita goes from $1000 to $1100 is a 10% increase.
From $50000 to $50100 is a 0.2% increase.

Normally you'd plot this on a logarithmic scale to obtain a consistent % (temporal) growth.

Matt Franko said...

Interest rates too low and Reserve Balances at Depositories too high since 2008... creates a lower financial growth environment...

Matt Franko said...

Doesnt have anything to do with the vast "neoliberal conspiracy!" Art degree fantasy...