The populist pathology is incredibly simple; no one ever takes the blame. Things continually go off-track and officials merely shrug their shoulders and point their fingers. The very idea of accountability is anachronistic.

Now that dark clouds are gathering, in the IMF’s words, the fingers are out again.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he does not like the Federal Reserve’s decision to continue to hike interest rates.
He also said that the United States economy does not have an inflation problem and that the central bank is moving too quickly in trying to curb price increases.

This escalates into public what had happened about two months ago, before the last “rate hike” in September. I wrote then:

I suppose it’s only fair. After all, they started it. Earlier in the year, Federal Reserve officials including Chairman Jay Powell suggested it was all Trump’s fault. The abrupt difficulties presented by the dollar were, they said, the result of tax cuts swelling the deficit and thereby threatening capital markets with a “deluge” of Treasury bills to digest.

If that hasn’t been enough, every single mention of renewed risks and dark clouds includes the words “trade” and “wars.” Everyone is jockeying for their scapegoat. And none of them have the first clue what’s really undercutting economic progress for the fourth time. It often seems like they don’t really care whatever it might be.

The issue isn’t GDP growth but the lack of it over a long period of time. Economists in the White House, as well as those working for the Federal Reserve, have very likely warned each side that this decoupling fantasy is just that. If there are very real economic risks out there in the world, the US hasn’t been able to overcome them yet.

Even if the US economy manages to avoid a recession next year, which is as likely as any other possibilities at this point, an additional stumble only piles further wreckage on the considerable proportions already achieved. It might, in fact, end up being worse. An outright recession at this stage after eleven years of this might finally wake everyone up; particularly following so much hype and drama over this year’s massive, biblical, indescribable economic boom.