Fitrst Quarter Economic Growth Improves

 Financial FAQs

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.0 percent in the first quarter of 2026 (January, February, and March), according to the advance estimate released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2025, real GDP increased 0.5 percent.

BEA.gov

“The U.S. economy has just powered through shock after shock,” was Fed Chair Powell’s summation of the state of the U.S. economy at his last press conference as Federal Reserve Chairmen.

First quarter 2026 real (inflation adjusted) GDP growth picked up +2.0% in the government’s first estimate, following +0.5% growth in Q4 2025, thanks to the $billions being spent in AI energy center build outs.

Kevin Warsh will take over as the new Fed Chairman in May, so there is speculation that he will push for easier monetary policy as President Trump’s pick for the new Fed Chairman by lowering the Fed’s interest rates and a more hands off management style.

Trump badly needs easy credit to maintain growth because of his economic mismanagement. A barely functioning government is either tied up in congress with the various shutdowns (last fall and current DHS funding), while illegal tariffs have choked supply chains.

Meanwhile, to Powell’s consternation, economic growth is picking up “through shock after shock”, from the Great Recession, COVID-19 pandemic, the 37-day fall government shutdown, tariffs, and the various wars that have caused energy prices to skyrocket.

The AI build out was predicted to boost growth, consumers continued to hold up their end, and government spent more on the Ukraine and Iran wars. The Defense Department reported the Iran war has already cost $25 billion in just the first two months.

And the financial markets continue to rally to new highs, so we are seeing some irrational exuberance, despite the game of chicken by Iran and Trump over the Hormuz Strait blockade. It’s obvious market investors continue to believe that Trump with his TACO policies will find a way to extricate American out of his latest war sooner rather than later.

But it also means $4 plus gas prices and soaring inflation for months to come. Even if the Iran war is settled sooner, predictions are that Middle East energy production won’t be restored to previous levels for at least one year.

The real problem is the Trump administration’s economic mistakes have taken us back to a Cold War economy—more military spending, fewer government social services, while endangering the good faith and credit of the U.S. federal government as the debt continues to balloon.

Something has to give, in other words. The financial markets won’t rally forever on the AI investment bubble, and consumers won’t keep shopping until they drop without an ensuing downturn.

The question is when on so many fronts. When will the wars end? When will enough consumers realize prices won’t come down and elect a congress that will control Trump’s extravagance and greed before he bankrupts the American economy?

When will it be one shock too many that drives us into another recession?

Harlan Green © 2026

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

The Bully Mentality--III

 ANSWERING the KENNEDYS' CALL

Why has the bullying behavior of one political party intimidated some of our most powerful men? Reports say that billionaires like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and JP Morgan’s Jamie Diman won’t publicly endorse Kamala Harris, even though they have donated to her campaign and say privately they will vote for her?

Timothy Snyder in his latest book, On Freedom, tells us what is necessary to actively preserve and expand freedom, rather than remain quiet, which is the choice for American voters in this Presidential election. One must put their body, not just their money, on the line to successfully oppose authoritarians, as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelens’kyi has done in opposing Putin’s invasion of his land.

Snyder meant one must take a public stand, however dangerous it might seem, because freedom itself is on the line. When Snyder asked Zelens’kyi why he didn’t flee when Russian first invaded the Ukraine as many thought he would do, Zelens’kyi replied, “I could not have done otherwise.”

“He was in the company of others who were also taking risks,” said Snyder. “He understood the situation, he said, because of what it meant to represent others. A president, he said, was only the first grain of sand in a turning hourglass.”

Reuters-January 6

The news that some of our wealthiest men won’t publicly endorse Harris highlights the stakes in this Presidential race, and how fearful even powerful men can be before someone who threatens retaliation, including bodily harm, against anyone who opposes him.

These men don’t understand what underlies the bully mentality of one political party that has no regard for election outcomes. Trump’s own niece has called Trump a coward, and in fact bullies do pick on the weakest who will stand down when opposed by those who stand up to them, say psychologists and psychiatrists.

I first wrote about a certain political party’s Bully Mentality in 2012. “Why do Americans have such a problem with bullies? Whether in schools, in politics, or on Internet social media? The result has been teenage suicides, horrendous school shootings by students who felt bullied or belittled, and now a whole political party that opposes anything that smacks of aiding the poorest, seniors, and less educated.”

Donald Trump’s threats of retaliation have only intensified so close to November 5. Trump aides such as General John Kelley, his Chief of Staff, says he is acting like a fascist who openly supports Russian’s Putin in his Ukraine invasion and has said he wanted “Generals like Hitler had” to put down demonstrations.

The real lessons Americans should take from such tactics of a wannabe dictator was first spelled out in Timothy Snyder’s best-seller On Tyranny:

• #1) “Don’t obey in advance—Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.”
• #2) “Defend Institutions—It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. So choose an institution you care about—a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union—and take its side.”
• #3) “Above all believe in truth,” as without truth there is no trust, and without trust there are no effective laws, which leads to tyranny.

Candidate Donald Trump, has made a point of blatant lying, meaning he wants his followers to believe whatever he says rather than objective facts such as global warming, or size of the audience that attended his inauguration.

What better example is there of real freedom and the preservation of our democracy than President Zelens’kyi and the Ukrainian people who are literally putting their own bodies on the line in opposing the Russian bully next door; for those Americans who remain silent?

Harlan Green © 2024

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