Completely aware of President Trump's failures (and his successes which are worse because they endanger people), Republicans running in the 2018 midterms are touting the "great economy."
It's all they have to tout to sway independents from participating in the anticipated blue wave.
And most pundits who are critical of the administration grudgingly concede that Trump is doing wonders for the economy. There are also those that argue that Trump merely inherited the soaring economy from Obama and is unjustly taking credit for it.
However, as is often the case with the American media, they are wrong.
Let's start with the obvious. Trump has cut taxes on the rich, as the Republicans love to do, but increased spending in categories such as the military. Deficits are mounting up at unprecedented levels.
The Trump administration also is constantly deregulating, they incorrectly brag that for every regulation put up they get rid of 22. Deregulation of financial institutions is what causes the instability of capitalism. Deregulation caused the Great Depression and the Great Recession in 2008.
Another recession, on par with that of 2008 caused by massive deficits and deregulation of money-controlling institutions, would lead to more corporate bailouts paid for by the American workers. The burden of rebuilding a destroyed economy would be on the backs of the working and middle classes, as it always has been because, in America, rich people always find ways to escape paying back what they owe to society for their success in the form of taxes.
This brings me to my next topic, the American class system. It is my belief that the success of Wall Street is not an adequate measure of the economy. The true measure should be the absence of poverty.
Despite the Trump memo that was sent out that claimed the war on poverty was "over, and a success," poverty rates and income inequality are rising in the West. The "economic pie" is being eaten by a small elite while 7 billion people fight for scraps.
Since the 1980s (ask yourself: who was elected president then?), the middle class has seen no income growth and the richest 0.1 percent have become grotesquely more wealthy.
This is essentially why Western electorates have lost so much faith in establishment politics. After all, inequality is not an inevitability, it is a political choice. The previous administrations have decided to accelerate the growth of inequality.
It is not the result of an ever-changing market like many economists have declared, it is the result of policy choices.
That is why I find it painfully ironic when the people who yearn for the 1950s speak up. The "great" in "Make America Great Again" refers to the post-war economic boom in the 1950s before the instability of the 60s and 70s. It was at this time that income inequality was at its lowest in America.
This was only because of the end of World War II, an event that destroyed major parts of the world and ended with the use of an atomic bomb, created new markets.
And let's not forget… the rich were taxed 90% of their income. And nowadays, when a candidate suggests Eisenhower-style policies of infrastructure spending and high taxes on the wealthy… lose elections.
Bernie Sanders was America's chance for capitalism with a conscience. Free public college and public healthcare would have invigorated a new generation to want to go out and participate in the free market. However, one could argue that if my generation had the opportunities the Baby Boomers had, we would become the new Boomers; hoarding our wealth and creating a system to exclusively protect our interests.
Which brings us to the understanding that capitalism is exclusively exploitative and chaotic. The only way to create a fair and equal system is democratic ownership of the means of production.
