It’s not a question of if there will be another major recession, but of when that recession will be.is theAnd what President Donald Trump will do about it, if he is still in office at the time.
The National Bureau of Economic Research is already saying that the current economic boomlet is the longest since the 1950’s. If the current economic climate continues past next summer it will be considered the longest running economic recovery in American records.
Although the American economy is not a house afire, it has been steadily growing in strength for the past several years. Annual growth rate during 2017 was a healthy 2.5 percent, and it looks as if that will increase by a few percentage points this year. Last month’s downturn in the stock market, blamed on new minimum wage legislation, was merely a hiccup, and was soon addressed by the Federal Reserve with new interest rate adjustments. Increasing the interest rate in small increments is how the Fed indicates that the economy is in growth mode. But with the new tax law starting to fiddle with the current hot economy, the odds are good that the Fed will be adjusting the interest rates to something much more uncomfortable for banks and consumers alike. And that could easily burst the current economic bubble for the middle class and those who teeter on the poverty line.
The conservative consensus in Washington is that if and when the next recession hits, it won’t be the current administration’s fault, and it will require a continuing overhaul of the Federal safety net by requiring all able-bodied adults to be working before they can apply for any kind of government relief.