My take on this - the guy's not boasting about accomplishments here, just trying to reassure some young people who will be feeling pretty anxious about their future. Why the hostility?
For one, the US just announced 6.61 million new unemployment filings last week to being their total to over 16 million over the last three. Meanwhile the stock market is on a rally this morning. I can’t emphasize enough how tone deaf that looks to me. I imagine those unemployed would feel pretty invisible and left out today in comparison.
But he's not saying "everything's currently super" he's saying "things are truly crappy right now but they will get better".
I don't see what's tone deaf there. He's pitching a message of long-term-reassurance at a time when many people might find that comforting - specifically the younger folks who've never seen cycles of down/up/down-again/up-again.
The fundamental lesson of the Great Depression was that there are no cycles. Being down does not mean a later upswing with certainty. That we haven’t had a GD since 1929 is in large part due to an ability to constantly grow markets with cheap oil energy and new markets. But more importantly the US had a lot of power and regulatory oversight to keep it from happening. All of that is no longer the case, and we’re in danger of having another GD that could be even bigger from some estimates. Normalization “arguments” are bad arguments that disallow the discussion of deeper and more worrisome arguments. That’s why this article shouldn’t be welcomed too warmly.
> due to an ability to constantly grow markets with cheap oil energy and new markets. But more importantly the US had a lot of power and regulatory oversight to keep it from happening. All of that is no longer the case
Growth: emerging markets have decades of gangbusters growth ahead of them. More people will exit extreme poverty than ever before in the coming decades. China will transition from middle income to rich in our lifetimes, introducing hundreds of millions of new rich country consumers.
Federal power and responsiveness: The fed expanded its balance sheet in a rather incredible and history-making way. The CARES act is one of the largest subsidies ever.
Cheap oil energy: POTUS is currently begging SA and Russia to increase the price of oil. Meanwhile, alternative energy sources get cheaper every year.
