Start of a New Housing Boom?

The Mortgage Corner

Calculated Risk

We should be careful in announcing a new housing boom. It can be a two-edged prophesy, since a housing bust followed the last housing boom and precipitated the Great Recession.

But it certainly looks like residential construction is one sector on a tear at present; at the same time as there is a significant housing shortage and housing construction isn’t yet back to historical levels, per the above single-family starts graph.

Housing construction is booming per the latest U.S. Census Bureau report on housing starts and permits, but is far below the peak of some 1.7 million units just prior to the Great Recession.
October starts are at a 1.314 million annual rate, the strongest showing since May last year. Permits are the big positive in today's report, well above expectations at a 1.461 million rate which is the strongest since the subprime housing bubble bust in 2007.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chairman Greg Ugalde said, “Home builders are seeing more building opportunities as market conditions remain solid. Builder sentiment remains strong, and we are seeing an uptick in buyer traffic.”

The October 1.31 million starts is the number of housing units builders would begin if they kept this pace for the next 12 months, explained the NAHB in their press release. Within this overall number, single-family starts increased 2.0 percent to 936,000 units. The multifamily sector, which includes apartment buildings and condos, increased 8.6 percent to a 378,000 pace.

“Led by lower mortgage rates, the pace of single-family permits has been increasing since April, and the rate of single-family starts has grown since May,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “Solid wage growth, healthy employment gains and an increase in household formations are also contributing to the steady rise in home production.”

Three-month averages for the key single-family category confirm the construction and future permits strength. Starts are running at a 923,000 rate on the average which is another 12-year high and up sharply over the last two months. Single-family permits are at an 888,000 rate which is likewise pivoting higher and also the strongest in 12 years.

But longer term, single-family construction has consistently been at or above one million annualized units since the 1970s with a much smaller U.S. population. So there is a lot of catching up from the housing bust and Great Recession.

FRED’s Personal Income graph shows that most Americans are in fact still recovering from the Great Recession. And to even begin to approach the historical starts’ average it needs record-low interest rates to continue, given the depressed earnings picture for most Americans since the Great Recession.

StLouisFed

Personal incomes have been consistently lower because most new jobs created today are in the lower-paying service sector, such as warehousing, health care, transportation, and the like, even in our fully-employed economy.

But the prognosis for interest rates is they could even go lower, which should continue the housing ‘boom’, or whatever we end up calling it. EU countries such as Denmark are already offering negative fixed interest rate mortgages, believe it or not. Can that happen here?

It will be the subject for a future column.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Q4 Economic Growth…Watch Out Below!

Popular Economics Weekly

We might have a problem with economic growth in the fourth quarter, thanks in part to Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts that were to stimulate longer term growth and jobs, believe it or not. The New York and Atlanta Federal Reserve estimate seasonally adjusted Q4 GDP growth to drop to just 0.3 to 0.4 percent, from Q3’s initial estimate of 1.9 percent growth, Merrill Lynch has a slightly more optimistic forecast of 1.5 percent.

This is a terrible number, if accurate. These are so-called early “nowcasts” based on very preliminary data, so much could change by Q4. But there has been a steady decline in growth from last year’s tax cut-fueled surge that is mirrored by the latest retail and industrial production figures.

Why were the tax cuts a bust? Fedex’s 2018 $1.6 billion tax “windfall” is a good example of what happened to that windfall, according to the New York Times. Fedex promised that the U.S. economy would see a “renaissance of capital investment” from the huge capital gains tax cut. But it never happened.

“If anything, the companies that received the biggest tax cuts increased their capital investments by less, on average,” said the Times article. The result was increased CEO salaries and massive stock buybacks, which benefited stockholders, but not their employees that received no salary boosts, or bonuses from the largesse.

“Fedex reaped big savings, bringing its effective tax rate to less than zero in fiscal year 2018 from 34 percent in fiscal year 2017,” continued the Times. The result was more financial engineering, rather than productive investments that would boost growth.

The Atlanta Fed nowcast said, “The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2019 is 0.3 percent on November 15, down from 1.0 percent on November 8. After this morning's retail trade releases from the U.S. Census Bureau, and this morning's industrial production report from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the nowcasts of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and fourth-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 2.1 percent and -2.3 percent, respectively, to 1.7 percent and -4.4 percent, respectively.”

Calculated Risk

The steady decline in retail and food service sales ex-gasoline—a more reliable indicator of sales volume—is worrisome because it mirrors consumer behavior, which is the main driver of economic growth at present. Consumers have been saving more and spending less this year. Sales slowed to a 3.9 percent annual increase from what has historically been in the 5-6 percent range since 2011. This is even though consumers have remained optimistic about future prospects in the latest consumer sentiment surveys.

Calculated Risk

Industrial Production is also declining. Total industrial production was 1.1 percent lower in October than it was a year earlier. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.8 percentage point in October to 76.7 percent, a rate that is 3.1 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2018) average.

Small businesses that answer the National Federation of Small Business survey are still upbeat. “The small business optimism index showed modest but wide improvement in October, at 102.4 which is at the high end of expectations and up 6 tenths from what was an unexpectedly weak September. Eight of the index's 10 components improved in October led by plans to increase inventories and including increased plans to make capital outlays. Earnings trends, however, fell sharply and current job openings edged lower. And continued earnings decline is a problem."

Industrial production and consumer spending are really the two main components of growth.

Earnings have begun to decline, in a word, and who knows how much more earnings may fall with declining capital investment, which is the seed corn of future growth?

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Where Are the Leaders?

Answering the Kennedys’ Call

surveymonkey.com

The congressional impeachment hearings illustrate one overwhelming fact; America has a leadership problem. President Trump is a very weak leader. He asked the newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (extortion or bribery are the legal terms) to publicly announce that the Ukraine would investigate Joe and son Hunter Biden for potential conflicts of interest; in order to aid his reelection campaign.

Multiple sources reported he did so reportedly at the suggestion of former Campaign Manager and convicted felon Paul Manafort’s former business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian operative.

Where is an American leader that will stand up to Russian oligarchs and Putin, instead of Trump’s open support of Putin’s foreign policy objectives; such as Trump’s reluctance to enforce sanctions first imposed under President Obama for Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, or the weakening of our foreign alliances, including NATO that protect the peace?

This has further endangered a young democracy invaded by a Russian-backed army that has cost some 13,000 Ukrainian lives to date, and weakened their position in any negotiated peace settlement.

It is a perhaps disconcerting fact that America’s greatest leaders only came forward at the time of our greatest perils; whether it was George Washington winning the Revolutionary War, or Abraham Lincoln leading us through the Civil War, or Franklin D Roosevelt who led us through the Great Depression and World War II.

It is an even sadder thought to imagine what would have happened to the United States of America without these and other leaders that have grown American democracy? Our best leaders have always attempted to keep us united and the world at peace.

In a recent essay, Thomas Caruthers, Sr. Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace write how the U.S. has kept the peace:

“In the late Cold War and early post–Cold War years, the United States took the lead in projecting a vision of global democracy and making it a core foreign policy priority. Successive U.S. administrations devoted significant diplomatic capital to supporting the spread of democracy, often building coalitions among governments and within multilateral organizations to help mobilize support for democratizing governments or pressure backsliding ones.

This is while our weakest leaders—from Lincoln’s successor Vice President Andrew Johnson to Donald Trump—have intentionally or inadvertently increased our divisions. Johnson was impeached by allowing cronyism and the corruption of his officials that prevented implementation of the post-civil war Reconstruction effort, or Trump’s outright appeal to the worst of our natures that has divided Americans.

It is therefore no coincidence that Johnson was impeached, and Trump is about to be impeached for the abuse of their Presidential powers. Whether Trump will be removed from office depends on a very partisan, Republican Senate that doesn’t see such weak leadership right in front of them that will weaken the Republican Party as well.

There is also a growing danger that democracy is in decline in many other parts of the world. Chess Grand Master Gary Kasparov and Thor Halvorssen of the Human Rights Foundation detailed the current sad state of participatory democracies in a recent Washington Post article:

“At present, the authoritarianism business is booming. According to the Human Rights Foundation’s research, the citizens of 94 countries suffer under non-democratic regimes, meaning that 3.97 billion people are currently controlled by tyrants, absolute monarchs, military juntas or competitive authoritarians. That’s 53 percent of the world’s population. Statistically, then, authoritarianism is one of the largest — if not the largest — challenges facing humanity.”

Are we now approaching another period of greater peril for America and participatory democracy in general? It has called forth great leaders in the past. What about today? We know the requirements of great leadership from our history—the requirement above all that to survive as a democracy and not become an autocracy ruled by the few, we are all in this together.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

What’s Happening To Interest Rates?

Popular Economics Weekly

StLouisFRED

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.4 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis after being unchanged in September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.8 percent before seasonal adjustment.

There is still no inflation to worry about, in other words. This is why the Fed hasn’t succeeded in pushing inflation higher to combat deflationary expectations with its interest rate cuts. Prices are barely rising for everything but the daily fluctuations of energy prices—gasoline, in this case.

The energy index increased 2.7 percent in October after recent monthly declines and accounted for more than half of the increase in the seasonally adjusted all items index. The gasoline index in particular rose 3.7 percent in October and the other major energy component indexes also increased. 

So don’t look for increasing interest rates anytime soon, even though the 10-year benchmark Treasury yield has topped 1.9 percent, up from its 1.55 percent recent bottom. It's only happened because market investors are selling safe-haven bonds and buying stocks at present, in anticipation of a tariff agreement with China.

But Trump just announced that he hasn’t agreed to reducing or eliminating any tariffs just yet, though they “are close” to a deal.

This tells you just how uncertain are predictions of a phase I tariff reduction agreement. It seems both sides are playing to the press rather than coming up with anything substantial. Why else would talks be dragging on with all the starts and stops along the way? It says to me that nothing substantial will be achieved until after the 2020 election, when China can be more certain which administration they will be dealing with.

There’s also more we can read into today’s inflation data. Fed Chairman Powell just announced no more Fed rate cuts are contemplated at present. This has to be because the Fed is now fearful that record low short term rates have pushed stock prices to record highs, thus causing a potential asset bubble.

And Americans just endured a Great Recession because of a busted housing asset bubble.

We mentioned last week that irrational exuberance seems to be creeping back into the stock market with price-to-earnings ratios above historical norms—usually a sign that stock buyers are counting on stocks continuing to rise; yet corporate profits are declining from their recent highs.

I quoted a Forbes Magazine article thusly: “On a cautionary note related to the earnings skid,” says Forbes, “the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio has been on the rise and now stands near 18 times projected earnings over the next 12 months. That’s way above the 14 level where we started the year, and it exceeds the long-term average of around 16. Remember, it’s harder to grow the “P” side of that equation when the “E” side is on the decline.”

Although consumer spending is keeping economic growth from falling too far below 2 percent (Q3 GDP initially estimated up 1.9 percent), consumers are also saving more for a rainy day with a personal savings rate of +8 percent.

It is a sign that many consumers are sitting on the fence, waiting to see which way the political winds will blow next year. Consumers will keep spending as long as interest rates remain this low.

Federal Reserve Chair Powell in his latest report to Congress worried about future growth:

“…However, noteworthy risks to this outlook remain. In particular, sluggish growth abroad and trade developments have weighed on the economy and pose ongoing risks. Moreover, inflation pressures remain muted, and indicators of longer-term inflation expectations are at the lower end of their historical ranges. Persistent below-target inflation could lead to an unwelcome downward slide in longer-term inflation expectations. We will continue to monitor these developments and assess their implications for U.S. economic activity and inflation.”

And the 30-year conforming fixed rate mortgage rate is still below 3.50 percent for the most credit-worthy borrowers, which is keeping residential construction and sales at their current highs. The Mortgage Bankers Association just reported November 8 week applications jumped 13.0 percent for refinancing and 5.0 percent for the purchases, with purchase applications up 15 percent in a year.

Low inflation and low interest rates are good news for housing, given the endemic under supply of affordable housing, and growing homeless population. But it isn’t good news for overall economic growth, if it leads to falling prices—i.e. actual deflation and another recession.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

The Historical Decline in US Growth

The Mortgage Corner

@GregDaco

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2019, first decline in 5 years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, as output increased 2.1 percent and hours worked increased 2.4 percent…From the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2019, productivity increased 1.4 percent, reflecting a 2.3-percent increase in output and a 0.9-percent increase in hours worked.

This almost arcane statistic followed by professional economists is one of two major reasons US economic growth has slowed to a crawl, as seen in the graphs. Individual workers are no longer producing as much per worker as they did through 2000, even with a fully employed economy and the introduction of modern technologies that boost production.

Another reason is declining population growth, as American mothers no longer produce enough replacement babies. A main contributor to the falling population growth rate is the decreasing fertility rate. The fertility rate has fallen from 3.7 in the 1960s to 1.9 today, when 2.1 births per mother is the natural replacement rate, leading to a lower increase in the US population (excess of births over deaths).

In fact, the national birth rate (12/1,000) still remains higher than the national death rate (8/1,000), which means more people are being born in the U.S. each year than are passing away. Additionally, the arrival of immigrants with larger families, has kept the U.S. population steadily increasing, albeit slowly.

I suggest that lower fertility is just the tip of the melting economic iceberg, because populations also increase with new immigrants. So we shouldn’t be cutting back on immigration quotas as the current administration is doing—to some 700,000 last year from the 1.3-1.4 million per year in recent decades.

And combined policy missteps—such as spending less on capital investments that would increase labor productivity and not introducing policies that would enhance birth rates; also better health care, family leave, more liberal vacation and sick leave policies are a start—as European countries have been doing.

This has kept U.S. GDP growth averaging 2 percent since the Great Recession, but no higher. EU countries have declining birth rates, unfortunately, which has knocked down EU GDP growth rates to around one percent.

But they also have greater longevity and better healthcare outcomes than the U.S., which is ranked 37^th in health outcomes by the World Health Organization. As in example, French residents now live an average 4 years longer than Americans, says Nobel economist Paul Krugman in a recent NYTimes Op-ed. “Why? Universal healthcare and policies that mitigate extreme inequality are the most likely explanations.”

There is much more that can be done to boost economic growth and income equality, in other words. Fixing schools would boost educational levels, switching to alternative energy sources would inject $trillions into new technologies and bring down pollution costs, fixing our infrastructure would boost productivity immediately by cutting down on commute times and lost work hours, and better enforcement of environmental regulations would decrease healthcare expenses as well as job losses due to ill health.

The list goes on and on. Maybe we do need a Green New Deal to make all this happen?

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Do We Want to Save the Planet?

Answering the Kennedys’ Call

SF Chronicle

President Trump just announced the U.S. will withdraw in one year from the Paris Accord of almost 200 countries that have agreed to significantly limit Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions.

This happened within a day of a report from the Alliance of World Scientists endorsed by more than 11,000 scientists that says the world is facing a climate emergency.

“Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.”

Is it a coincidence Trump announced the withdrawal from the Paris Accord on the same day satellite data shows that last month was the warmest October on record ?

I think not. Trump’s announcement took the headlines, thereby preempting the far more important climate news to back pages. The withdrawal is to take effect one day after the 2020 Presidential election.

His administration is full of lobbyists and former executives of the fossil fuel industry in what will ultimately prove to be a vain attempt to further enrich themselves in the face of looming environmental disasters.

The total of 11,253 scientists from 153 countries affirm that” if we do not act or respond to the impacts of climate change by reducing our carbon emissions, reducing our livestock production, reducing our land clearing and fossil fuel consumption, the impacts will likely be more severe than we've experienced to date," said lead author Dr Thomas Newsome, from the University of Sydney.

In fact, "That could mean there are areas on Earth that are not inhabitable by people," said the report.

How so? Because it is already happening. We know great swaths of North Africa and the Middle East have experienced mass population exoduses from an increasing frequency of droughts that are causing outright civil wars (Syria), and anti-immigrant xenophobia in many countries.

BBC News summarized the report’s recommendations:

• · Energy: Politicians should impose carbon fees high enough to discourage the use of fossil fuels, they should end subsidies to fossil fuel companies and implement massive conservation practices while also replacing oil and gas with renewables.
• · Short-lived pollutants: These include methane, hydrofluorocarbons and soot - the researchers say that limiting these has the potential to cut the short-term warming trend by 50% over the next few decades.
• · Nature: Stop land clearing, restore forests, grasslands and mangroves which would all help to sequester CO2.
• · Food: A big dietary shift is needed say researchers so that people eat mostly plants and consumer fewer animal products. Reducing food waste is also seen as critical.
• · Economy: Convert the economy's reliance on carbon fuels - and change away from growing the world's gross domestic product and pursuing affluence.
• · Population: The world needs to stabilise the global population which is growing by around 200,000 a day.

But there’s more. It can cause irreparable economic damage that results in geopolitical unrest; even wars, as countries compete for limited resources. The U.S. Pentagon has been warning of this outcome for years, because it has labeled climate change a direct threat to our national security.

A summary of its latest January, 2018 report to congress showed that it was also harming military preparedness in future conflicts, so much so, that a US News & World Report in a 2017 report said,

 “During his confirmation process for the post as secretary of defense this spring, Gen. James Mattis wrote in the question/response period: "Climate change can be a driver of instability and the Department of Defense must pay attention to potential adverse impacts generated by this phenomenon."

From shifting temperatures to desertification, environmental changes have the potential to significantly affect the movement of populations, the availability of resources and the stability of governments. The results can be famine, drought, disease and a rise in global conflict.

Then the question must be asked: Why on earth is the Trump administration denying climate change and withdrawing from the Paris Accord when we now know it is causing  the suffering of millions, and is a threat to our national security?

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Irrational Exuberance Is Back!

Financial FAQs

Wrightson-ICAP

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said in a memorable 1996 speech, “…how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?”

He was then talking about the penchant for investors to act irrationally in ignoring very high stock valuations accompanying very low interest rates that could show a stock market, and maybe the overall economy, about to enter a down cycle.

Does that sound familiar? We have today the S&P index of 500 top stocks with a price-to-earning ration above 18—i.e., it’s price is 18 times annual earnings, after expenses (EBITDA---earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) when the historical long-term P/E earnings ratio is 15, according to Nobel economist Robert Shiller in his 2000 best-seller, Irrational Exuberance; and which increases the odds of a recession.

For instance, the irrational behavior that Greenspan was warning about in 1996 wasn’t manifested until the Dot-com bubble bust of 2000 and following 2001 recession, when the P/E ratio reached 44 times earnings. In other words, stock prices were way out of whack with earnings that had been declining—so much so that stock prices had flattened and corporations were barely issuing any dividends at all—a sign that their earnings were depressed.

And what depresses an economy more than depressed corporate earnings, which then depress job formation, consumer incomes, and overall economic growth?

Professor Shiller gave the 100-year history of stock market P/Es in his book. The last time it had reached great heights was in 1929, and the beginning of the Great Depression.

So irrational exuberance is something to worry about when looking at stock valuations. We are in similar, but not identical circumstances today. The S&P P/E ratio is 18, according to Forbes Magazine.

“On a cautionary note related to the earnings skid,” says Forbes, “the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio has been on the rise and now stands near 18 times projected earnings over the next 12 months. That’s way above the 14 level where we started the year, and it exceeds the long-term average of around 16. Remember, it’s harder to grow the “P” side of that equation when the “E” side is on the decline.”

Why such irrational exuberance today, after past history tells us what happens when investors act irrationally in the face of reality?

Professor Shiller explains it thusly: “(President) Trump has for decades touted a glamorous narrative of his life by “surrounding himself with apparently adoring beautiful women, and maintaining the appearance of vast influence,” Shiller said in a recent op-ed in Britain’s the Guardian newspaper. “The end of confidence in Trump’s narrative is likely to be associated with a recession,” Shiller warned.

Shiller goes much deeper into human behavior in Irrational Exuberance. Human beings have a natural inclination to listen to hearsay and word-of-mouth stories when they make financial decisions, such as buying a home, or stocks. This is in part because of the complexity of modern financial markets, but also because such research is difficult and requires some expertise.

The busted housing bubble is the best example of irrational exuberance, when consumers believed that housing prices could never fall, because they hadn’t in modern history—at least since WWII—so they kept elevating housing prices with the aid of so-called liar loans, because interest rates had fallen far below inflation rates at the time.

Inflation was so far above interest rates that there was a zero cost to borrowing mortgages, in particular, since rising inflation devalued loan principal faster than the actual loan payments over a 15 or 30-year mortgage.

This could happen again today, in other words. Although corporate profits are still at record highs, they may have already begun their descent to more historical levels, and maybe even lower, if consumers become disillusioned with the Trump ‘success’ narrative, as Professor Shiller has said.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

October Employment No Big Deal

Popular Economics Weekly

MarketWatch.com

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 128,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in food services and drinking places, social assistance, and financial activities.

But most were not the good-paying jobs that will support a household, or buy a home. Restaurants and bars led the way in hiring by adding 48,000 jobs. Professional jobs rose by 22,000, social-assistance providers added 20,000 jobs, and financial companies increased employment by 16,000.

Payrolls fell by 36,000 in manufacturing that mostly reflected the GM strike, and government employment slipped by 3,000.

Just the 22,000 Professional jobs are considered middle-class, white collar jobs. In fact, most consumers and jobs are stuck with low-paying service sector jobs in retail, warehousing, and even healthcare.

This is a major reason U.S. economic growth is gradually slowing, as many economists reported last week. Hence the uncertainty about an upcoming recession, since consumers are still optimistic about job prospects and flush with earnings from the very low unemployment rate.

But ‘very low’ unemployment has been masking the real problem with this recovery. Wages and salaries have not been rising fast enough, in jobs that support an adequate standard of living, to bring back anything close to boom times again for most Americans.
Why not? We have to look at the history of economic recoveries.

The Obama administration’s one-time American Recovery and Reconstruction Act of 2009 (ARRA) put some $850 billion back into governments to end the Great Recession, which boosted a flurry of infrastructure improvements, and helped to balance some state budgets, but it didn’t even begin to catch up to the $2 trillion plus shortfall in outmoded infrastructure that included not only roads and bridges, but airports, the energy grid, water and sanitation facilities (e.g., Flint, Michigan and Newark, NJ), and a K-12 elementary education system ranked at the bottom in the developed world.

This is what any responsible governance policies should continue to do. The current economic recovery has benefited just the top 10 percent in income-earners, which is the reason for so much discontent among blue collar, working folk.

It was called the New Deal when we had a leader capable of answering the call, as did a President named Roosevelt, who said just prior to his reelection in 1936: "the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism…are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred." 

Livingnewdeal.org

In fact, President Roosevelt did falter in 1937, when Republican’s won a congressional majority and he agreed to attempt to rebalance the federal budget while the Federal Reserve reduced the money supply as it had in 1930; which helped to precipitate the original downturn. The U.S. economy then dropped back into a second recession, which is why it was called the Great Depression; before Roosevelt reinstituted New Deal spending programs that brought growth back to pre-Great Depression levels.

“The New Deal ushered in a Golden Age for public works, as Washington at last took a leading role in funding infrastructure,” said one study of the New Deal. “The federal government, working hand-in-hand with state and local agencies, financed (and provided relief labor for) a huge array of projects. These emphasized the newest forms of technology and infrastructure, including highways, airports, dams, and electric grids, as well as more traditional public works, such as libraries, schools and parks.”

Those same policies need to be enacted today to bring back this recovery from the Great Recession, and keep it from becoming another Great Depression.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen