The past 30 years of False Prosperity is over
by David Stockman
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity
Periodically, we invite notable outside experts to share their insights exclusively for the Peak Prosperity audience. Today we’re fortunate to publish new perspective from David Stockman, former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, best-selling author of The Great Deformation, and veteran financier. David understands the inner workings and fatal flaws of the DC political machine AND Wall Street better than nearly anyone else alive.
The coronavirus is now exposing a far more deadly disease: Namely, the poisonous brew of easy money, cheap debt, sweeping financialization and unbridled speculation that has been injected into the American economy by the Fed and Washington politicians.
It has turned Wall Street into a dangerous gambling casino while leaving Main Street buried under mountainous debts, faltering investment in growth and productivity and the hand-to-mouth economics of spending more than you earn.
It has also left the American economy exceedingly vulnerable to external shocks. That’s because 80% of households have no appreciable rainy day funds and businesses have hollowed out their balance sheets and artificially extended their supply chains to the four corners of the earth in order to goose short-run profits and share prices.