I’ve been writing these columns sporadically for several years. I haven’t claimed to have any information beyond that available to the public, of which I am a card-carrying member. But even with this limitation, there are ironies out there if you take the trouble to look.
Take, for example, the 2024 election, and the odds of what is to follow over the next four years.
Consider the different economies.
One of them is the “macroeconomy.” This is the world of national and international economic statistics, hedge funds and arcane numbers calculated and disseminated by the modern-day equivalent of the medieval alchemists and soothsayers. Today, we call them “economists.”
By this yardstick, as 2024 dawned, the United States was doing well. Very well, by some accounts. Unlike most of the other countries with whom we uneasily co-exist on this fractured planet, the United States had an economy that was still expanding. Unemployment was at historic lows. Even the bête noire of economies everywhere, the dreaded inflation monster, showed steady signs of coming under control as supply (severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic) caught up with demand.
Massive infusions of federal dollars into an economy crippled by COVID helped stave off a recession (or worse), but at the price of increased short-term deficits that were projected by the economic gurus to show longer-term dividends, ironically enough, beginning in early 2025.
Democrats chose to run a campaign based on these positive economic signs. In doing so, they were not deceiving the American people. What they were saying was true, at least in terms of macroeconomic reality.
There were, however, other economies in play. One is far away from the realm of the elite acolytes found in the temple of macroeconomics. It is where the economy interfaces with the consumer daily — and that interface is often difficult.
Microeconomics isn’t concerned with grand macroeconomic trends, theories or academic projections. Its major question is how does Joe Citizen fare when he daily interacts with the macroeconomy.
One among many points of interface with the larger economy, each one having the potential to become a source of discontent, was how did Joe Citizen fare at the local grocery store?
The reality? No amount of reasoned explanation changes the fact the prices had risen, justifications or explanations be damned. The widespread resentment in the middle and lower classes, which include most of us, created a potent political opportunity for anyone willing to take advantage of it.
As the 2024 election played out, Democrats ran based on macroeconomics because that is where they could make the strongest case for their stewardship of the economy, with the promise that this success would, well, trickle down to consumers over time (apologies to Ronald Reagan). The not-surprising result was that many consumers felt neglected, or maybe even betrayed.
The opposition didn’t talk much about the big picture, first because it didn’t have much new to say about it, and second, it sensed the public didn’t care about the “why” as much as they wanted to hear who to blame and “what” the politicians were going to do about it. Dissatisfied voters would tolerate much in return for a promise of a reduction in the price of everything they needed to consume daily.
Macroeconomics or microeconomics. Which should have priority? The answer to the question has much to do with understanding the results of Nov. 5, 2024.
And what about the future?
The only honest answer is “who knows?”
But there are early signs.
The president-elect has already made it clear the prime qualification for a place on his team is loyalty. Loyalty to him personally, above all else, apparently including the Constitution, despite the fact his appointees must first swear to defend the Constitution, not the president, from all enemies “foreign and domestic.” Well, not all his appointees, because he is carving out a new powerful position for the wealthiest man on Earth that does not appear to require Senate confirmation or, for that matter, any oath other than the unsaid, but understood, loyalty to the leader himself, and (by happy coincidence) the opportunity to make even more money.
There is nothing that disqualifies an individual from public service simply because of wealth. If, thanks to the porous nature of our federal campaign finance laws, someone chooses to donate $270,000,000 of their personal funds to their favorite candidate, surely the Founding Fathers would not take offense. A compliant Supreme Court certainly hasn’t.
Among the balance of the president-elect’s appointees, there is more than a sprinkling of millionaires and multi-millionaires who will assist the new president in formulating and executing public policy. With whom are these folks more likely to align? Whose interests are they more likely to prioritize? Those of similar background and life experience? Or Joe Citizen buying his pound of bacon at the local Piggly-Wiggly?
The supreme irony would be if, having come to power on the backs of the dissatisfied little guy, the new administration leaves office having served the interests of the elite at the expense of the little guys who got them there in the first place. As allegedly occurred in the prior administration, macroeconomic considerations would trump, no pun intended, the microeconomic concerns of most of the American people. Which is precisely what president-elect railed against through the 2024 campaign.
Or as The Who put it back in 1971, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Only time will tell if we have been fooled again.
This post was originally published on here
