Recession, Heck. It’s A Regression

Experts are having a hard time pinning a label on the present American economy. It still has a few too many positive elements to fall into the traditional recession category. But it’s far too weak to be just a very mild expansion. And it doesn’t have the requisite combination of recessionary and inflationary markers to be tagged stagflation.

Perhaps we need a new name for this strange beast. Perhaps when all the factors are considered, it might best be called “a regression.”

What’s happening to our national economy today isn’t just another one of those inevitable economic dips in the business cycle that always come along after an expansion that has gone on too long, a recession. What’s happening now is a symptom of something far more fundamental and worrisome—an expression of genuine economic decline. A regression.

We’re regressing vis-a-vis the rest of the world in many crucial respects. These include infrastructure growth and maintenance regressions compared to countries such as Japan, and the development and implementation of new technologies such as solar compared to a country such as Germany.

Compared to the dragons of Asia, we’re also regressing in terms of education. And when it comes to the best-health-care-for-dollars-spent, we’re regressing compared to dozens of other countries around the world. Our national debt situation makes us ever more dependent on foreign lenders. While our currency, long foolishly manipulated to increase exports, is regressing in value compared with sounder currencies, and this in turn has led to a regression in our influence with petroleum suppliers such as the Saudis.

Respect for our Federal Reserve is regressing compared to other central banks because of the Fed’s short-sighted policies to promote economic growth at the expense of long-term fiscal responsibility. The reputation of our private banking institutions is similarly regressing because they have come to be viewed as slick peddlers of derivative products that their foreign customers now regard as little better than shell games.

We’re not only regressing vis-a-vis the rest of the world in economic terms, we’re rapidly regressing in terms of our own economic past. Our people owe more and pay more on old debts than ever before. We work longer and harder than any other people on the planet and still have seen an overall slide in average standards of living in recent decades. The benefits of added productivity haven’t trickled down, they’ve flooded up, generating an enormous equity regression.

You can grow out of a recession with interest rate cuts and one-time government giveaways. You can only begin to redirect a regression with fundamental policy changes at the government level that reflect a better understanding of economic realities among Americans generally.

Are such changes possible in today’s America? Yes, but they will take time to take hold. And until then, the great slide, our national economic regression, will continue.