Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich also calls it the "wrong diagnosis" and the "wrong remedy."
If he's right, the ensuing recession be a crisis for Democrats, as well as a windfall this year and in 2024 for Republicans. And when the US catches a cold, the world often gets pneumonia.
As Paul Krugman notes in The New York Times:
"Policy and events are seriously putting the brakes on the rapid expansion the U.S. economy has experienced since the pandemic recession."
Imagine the combineation of soaring inflation, fuel and food shortages, and a worldwide market crash: demagogues in every democracy in the world will crawl over each other to get in front of a TV camera and proclaim that they, alone, have the solution to their nation's problems.
And that doesn't begin to count in the possible shortage of consumer goods in the US and across Europe because of China's Covid policies.
That nation had opted for a "zero-Covid" program that depended heavily on lockdowns and quarantines, causing many in China to ignore or forego vaccinations. And even those vaccinated have used a Chinese vaccine that doesn't provide the protection of the mRNA vaccines available in the Western world.
As a result, when Omicrom hit China this week they had to shut down Shanghai - China's biggest city and a huge export port - along with a few other cities, raising the specter of another "supply chain crisis" of consumer goods like we saw during China's big lockdown last November.
From the point of view of rightwing parties around the world, goods shortages will be another hammer to take to democratic governments, including the Biden administration.
In summary"Hang onto your hat: things are going to get wild.
This coming crisis of war, refugees, food, fuel, a dysfunctional Fed, and a worldwide pandemic could rival anything the world has seen since the 14th century.
Worldwide adoption of neoliberal "reforms" over the past 40 years have thrown in an additional factor: an explosion of consolidated monopolistic businesses and the billionaires they create, who bring along their very own brand of authoritarian and oligarchic political activism and media control (including the social media they own).
Republicans here (and their conservative oligarch-owned colleagues inside other democracies) will exploit every piece of it. They'll scream about the deficit, yell about the price of fuel and food, howl about crime and immigrants: all to try to frighten people and support their claim that government is their private possession and we therefore never again need to have genuinely democratic elections.
I don't see any easy answers here. Great wealth and hard-core authoritarians have embedded themselves deeply in the fabric of the Republican Party and in many similar European parties, particularly in Hungary and Poland.
That said, it's important to remember that the last time we faced a worldwide depression and war - roughly 80 years ago - we and Europe came out of it far more progressive and democratic. Although the toll, in both wealth and blood, was horrific.
Forewarned is, to the extent it's possible, forearmed. They're preparing, and we must, too. Spread the word.
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