Comments
ALPERN AT LARGE - Economics, business, and investment are all interrelated, and for those who are familiar with these topics it’s quite clear that we’re going through a hellish, cruel, painful exacting associated with right-sizing our budget not only post-COVID but post-9/11, post-Cold War…and even post-World War II.
This is just the horrible, terrible beginning, and Wall Street is just fine with that.
If President Biden used the public spending spigots to “ON” more than any other president in recent history (arguably Republican presidents from Reagan to both Bushes did the same, as well as Democratic president Obama), President Trump is aggressive turning those spigots OFF.
And President Trump is both business-oriented, and willing to voluntarily invest only in a strong military and a return to domestic/foreign investment in the nation, with short- and long-term employment and a full-throttle war against inflation clearly on his mind.
This is a scorched-earth campaign, to which only libertarians will enjoy while they scream “about time!” and “still not enough!” while the public sector and socialists (or social democrats, or progressives, or whatever name you choose) rightfully protest in fear, anguish, and fury.
But economics, business, and investment are as cold and merciless as Hades, and are indifferent to the concerns that so many reading this will have in earnest. In short, and we can summarize my piece right here if you want:
FORGET THE FINGERPOINTING AND THEATRICS: PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTED THIS SHUTDOWN, DEMOCRATIC LEADERS AND STRATEGISTS ARE IN A NO-WIN TRAP, AND THE DOW AND S&P 500 JUST RESPONDED BY HITTING NEW RECORDS HIGHS.
I assure you that—as a physician/dermatologist who has worked harder and harder and harder his entire 30+ year career to provide access and improved care to the middle-class of all neighborhoods and regions throughout SoCal, from Culver City to Temecula, the terror, misery, exhaustion, and pained forebodings are all justified, appropriate, and warranted.
Wall Street is NOT responding to this new shutdown with fear and trepidation, but rather with confidence it will both be short-lived and probably lead to necessary things (LINK: Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500 notch records as Wall Street shrugs at shutdown, amps up rate cut bets).
And I don’t mean “good things”, although perhaps long-term good will come from short- and long-term pain.
But the era of winning the lottery financially, politically, and culturally from endless deficit/debt spending (not letting either party off the hook, because both sides are just AWFUL in their own ways, but it’s not hard to figure out which side of the political aisle is more OK with deficit spending) is pretty much coming to an end.
The era of COVID-era spending is coming to a close.
The bill for the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”, if you will) is coming due.
The numbers game of “let’s have more people in our district or state, regardless if they’re employed and/or self-sustaining, to get more federal funds” isn’t going to work anymore.
The “flee to the public sector strategy of safe employment and secured retirement” is being fought and shut down hard by the Trump Administration, with its efforts bleeding into state and local public sector budgets throughout the nation.
The benefits of having MORE homeless Americans, and MORE undocumented immigrants, in one’s city, county, and state were evaporating before the Biden Administration, and despite a brief surge of support from the Biden/Pelosi/Schumer era from Washington, are now in full disarray if not extinction.
Medicaid/Medi-Cal/Medicare are under attack for sustainable accounting from Washington, but Wall Street and the private sector are OK with downsizing and rightsizing.
Undocumented immigrants, the homeless, and the swelling numbers of underemployed in the cities and counties overseen mostly by Democratic political leadership, but not without Republican collusion as well, are no longer assets to be exploited in Washington/federal budgeting—they’re liabilities.
Hence we see mega-blue states such as California, Illinois, and New York, which operate consistently on political philosophy over cold numbers, endlessly scream and raise their fists against Trump and his administration, but more purple states such as New Jersey, Nevada, and North Carolina are now mired in a long-overdue debate of WANTS vs. NEEDS, and the need to achieve new leadership.
Accusing Wall Street and red state/Republican leaders of being cold, cruel, callous, and tone-deaf is not without justification, but those entities are responding with a “YOU are the cold, cruel, callous, and tone-deaf by spending endlessly on unsustainable policies and priorities” to those on the farther Left who probably are preventing moderate Democrats from working with the GOP on budget issues.
Trump will use this shutdown to do what he wants—a major Reduction In Force to fire tens if not hundreds of thousands of federal workers who he feels we cannot budgetarily keep on board.
This Reduction In Force will be like swallowing one’s own vomit to many Americans, both directly and indirectly affected by the shutdown and trillion-dollar-per-year deficit spending that Wall Street deems necessary.
But this Reduction In Force is probably one that many—including Center-Left Democrats, wants in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and most of our cities, and throughout blue states as well.
Ditto for any city or state dominated by GOP leadership—if the numbers aren’t working out, it’s time for PAIN.
BIG PAIN.
PAIN that is years overdue, and decades overdue since the end of the Cold War and the Reagan Era (and Reagan was quite the deficit spender and trend-setter, was he not?).
Economics and balanced budgeting is just AWFUL.
But Wall Street is OK with it…and for those of us with 401(k) and IRA accounts at record-high numbers, we may have to begrudgingly be OK with it as well.
For those of us with jobs, but need more…get a second job!
For those here illegally—find a sponsor, follow the law, or face expulsion.
And for those not saving 10-15% a year on their own retirement…then expect future poverty and misery.
Economics just does NOT care about our feelings or politics.
Time for us all to adapt—don’t stop the good fight…but adapt we must, nevertheless.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
