Today’s jobs report was bad for July and worse for the previous two months. In the meantime, inflation has ticked up a bit. In other words, the evidence now shows that stagflation is here.
Trump won’t acknowledge that his tariffs and deportations are responsible for this, of course. He will blame Jerome Powell and Biden, because that’s what he does. If that doesn’t work, he can bring back the argument that the hypothetical long-term economic gains justify the short-term pain or go back to saying our kids should just learn to live with fewer imported dolls.
The tariffs are just beginning to bite. Things are going to get worse before they get better. Your job is to remember what the baseline was on January 20 and respond accordingly.
UPDATE: Trump is firing the employee who is responsible for compiling the bad employment numbers. I didn’t think of that alternative. I probably should have.