The economic impact of the Brexit deal: our

@AwBlessYerHeart @Gus_802 Keynesian/demand side economics is what made the Middle Class better off but it was applied at a time when it wasn’t always equitable toward PoC or women. We need to bring back Keynesian policies but that means having Dem Mandates in Congress & WH for more than two short years.

@Gus_802 Ultimately we need to stop having arguments about “capitalism vs socialism” because they are both loaded words and imprecise descriptors of how our economy functions. Capitalism and socialism describe systems which, in their purist forms, don’t exist anywhere in the world

@Gus_802 The developed world and even most of the developing world have mixed economies where elements of what is regarded as socialism and capitalism exist. But the real ISM the drives our economy is consumerism as 2/3 of all economic activity is based on consumer/demand side spending

@Gus_802 When we couch these forces as “socialism” or “capitalism”, we automatically created a conflict and a polarizing zero sum argument which often derails honest discussions about our economic system which stifles discussions on ways to improve it

@Gus_802 We should instead call these forces “public funding” and “private funding” as they are more precise and less heated descriptors. We then make the cogent argument that, to support a consumer based economy, we need both public and private funding to do so effectively

Diminishing Marginal Returns

The productivity of our debt is collapsing and that is creating a major problem.

The problem is here now, and not in the future.

Here is why:

1)

Charted below is the increase in total debt and the increase in nominal GDP in the 8 quarters before each of the last six recessions.

In other words, how much did debt increase, and how much did GDP increase in the final two years of each economic expansion?

2)

As the chart shows, it is taking a larger amount of debt to increase GDP.

3)

Graphed another way, leading up to the 1980 recession it took about 1.94 dollars of debt to boost GDP by 1 dollar.

Leading up to the COVID recession saw debt increase nearly 6 dollars for each 1 dollar of GDP growth.

4)

Flipping the ratio shows the decline in the utility of debt.

We are only generating about 15-20 cents of growth for each dollar of debt.

This becomes a larger problem when we think about "growth rates" instead of nominal dollars.

5)

Today’s GDP release, and in particular how the economy has adapted, a thread.👇

After 6 months of growth, the economy started shrinking again in November as tighter restrictions were in place. (Though there were variations across Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.) (1/n)

The economy shrank by 2.6% in November. In normal times this would be a significant downturn, but it is much smaller than the falls seen with the first restrictions in the spring: April GDP fell by around 20%. In that sense it is good news. But why the smaller fall? (2/n)

Firstly, some industries remain very depressed. Airlines (air transport in the chart) for example, were operating at very low levels in October so there wasn’t much further for their output to fall. This is different from the picture in Mar/Apr. (3/n)

The same is true, though perhaps less pronounced, for bars/restaurants and other parts of the service sector. (4/n)