The Greatest Hoax Ever

Every time I hear Trump allude to his economy being the greatest ever, my first thought is “ever” is a long time. My second thought is, his economy was never the greatest, period.

He talked a lot about the stock market when it was going up, not so much now that it’s going down. In the first place, the stock market doesn’t measure the economy so much as it measures wealth. 

Wealth in this country is doing very well, if you happen to be wealthy. The wealthy are buying and selling the way the wealthy have always done business—without leaving their mansions and certainly without wearing masks. When the market goes down and then starts to go up, it means someone sold high and bought back in low. When it’s over, they’ll be even richer than they were before.

The other thing Trump talked a lot about was job creation and unemployment. Job numbers were the highest ever, while unemployment were the lowest ever. The smartest president ever concluded that he must be the greatest president ever.

So, what did the first month of the corona-virus shelter-in-place policy look like? Well, jobs vanished and unemployment went up. No great surprise there. Congress worked quickly to ease the pain by directing money to businesses and affected workers. Of course, it wouldn’t happen overnight, but compared to the way most things go in government, it was moving along damn fast. The problem was, it was not moving fast enough.

Seems that greatest-ever number of workers, working in the greatest-ever number of job weren’t making enough money to hold them over one week.

Investors had seen the stock market go down from highs in the 29,000s to lows in the 17,000s, but after a month, it was already bouncing back into the 23,000s. Of course, it didn’t really matter because those people, the wealthy, are not living day-to-day, week-to-week. When you’re a billionaire, or even a lowly millionaire, you probably don’t even own a calendar. You might own a $10,000 watch—actually $10,000 is the really, really, really low-end for luxury watches—but they are only for show. Just like they don’t care what month or day it is, the wealthy don’t care what time it is. Every time is a good time.

Apparently, the people who work for the super-rich are, by necessity, a lot more time conscious. There’s the day the rent or mortgage is due, the day the car payment is due. Utilities don’t have a specific date when they’re due, but they have to be paid every month, as do credit cards.

All those jobs—the greatest number ever—didn’t give workers—again, the greatest number ever—enough money to get through the week. When 25-million laid-off workers—don’t tell Trump this is the highest number ever—can’t last a week without a paycheck, I think it calls into question whether we had the greatest economy ever, or was someone, I’m not naming names, promoting the greatest con job ever.

It wasn’t a con job on the workers. They have been demanding better pay for decades. Fifteen states are still sticking to the $7.25 number, while others shroud their statistics in secrecy—one can only assume because releasing them would be embarrassing.

This con job was unleashed on voters, especially the ones who, for some reason, didn’t believe the president would lie to them.

If seeing the word “greatest” makes one feel good regardless of the context, there is some good news to report,

While the greatest number of workers, working in the greatest number of jobs, in the greatest economy, under the greatest economy president—now doing double duty as the greatest war-time president—are learning that their emergency funds won’t get them through the week, Forbes Magazine announced earlier this year that there are 671 billionaires in America—the greatest number ever.

In 1970, there were only two billionaires. The minimum wage back then was $1.60, which was the equivalent of $11.00 in 2020. Effectively, many workers today are making almost three dollars less than workers in 1970, which essentially puts most workers in debt.

Here’s a question: Where did those 671 billionaires come from?

Answer: Out of the pockets of the greatest number of workers, working the greatest number of jobs in the greatest economy ever.