And don't forget the stimulus to manufactuing in Upper Midwest swing states from the falling dollar. Although I see no commentary on this list about that, the falling dollar is the really big player here. It can either guarantee Bush's reerection, if it goes down slowly, or crash the whole scene if it crashes as foreigners panic and dump dollars en masse. Then the stock market tanks and the Fed will be forced to jack interest rates up and Europe and Japan will also tank.
Joan Robinson accurately called what Snow and Bush are trying to pull, "beggar thy neighbor policy." Barkley Rosser ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 8:02 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Markets and Reality: What, If Anything, Is the Linkage?
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >Color me pessimistic, but it looks to me like we're rolling into
> >an extended Japanese-style economic stagnation. How much more
> >home equity can people float to keep the economy kicking?
>
> There are stimulative forces afoot. "Childful" families will soon get
> checks in the mail - $400 per kid. Some $150 billion in stimulus will
> hit the U.S. economy in the coming months. That will be countered to
> some degree by budget cuts at the state and local levels, but it's
> still a pretty big number. Oil prices are off a bit, and consumer
> spirits have picked up a bit. And the Fed is likely to cut rates
> again soon. That's not to say we'll see a boom by Xmas, but there are
> antidotes to the falling apart problem.
>
> Doug
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