Spare Me the 'Soft Landing'

Bidenomics is in shambles and so is the American Dream.

Federal Reserve officials and their friends in the business press are busy patting themselves on the back for what is euphemistically known as a ‘soft landing’ from higher interest rates meant to quell inflation.

Wall Street, too, is optimistic that the central bank tightening will soon subside, paving the way for more ‘stimulus’ spending to which they are so haplessly addicted. They call it the Goldilocks economy—monetary policy that’s not too hot and not too cold.

As if the central bankers would know.

The dirty little secret of economics is nothing can start going up until it’s done going down. Letting markets clear, however, means political pain for the those who engineered the mess. And Washington likes easy solutions.

So we’ve all been trained to believe that there’s no such thing as a downturn or even a business cycle that more government spending financed by fiat money won’t cure. Of course, for the financiers and government contractors who get the money first, this inflationary bias is indeed no problem. For those starting out who have to endure a lower standard of living than their parents, the results are tragic.

As the 94-year old co-founder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, recently opined in an appropriately scathing critique of Bidenomics, “Working men and women are struggling to provide for their families and must raid their retirement funds just to feed, clothe, and take care of their children.”¹

You bet they are.