First depressing graph of the week, courtesy of Your Lying Eyes.
Our growth in the boom times from 1961 into 1969 gave us 5 percent annual growth. The truncated boom last decade featured a pathetic 2.7 percent rate of growth. The trend of GDP growth shows a clearly declining trend line – at this rate we can expect growth this decade to average under 2 percent. I doubt we’ll be able to climb very far out of debt at that growth rate.
The river of Western prosperity has silted up. To dredge it will involve breaking a lot of public-sector rice bowls, facing down a lot of angry mobs, breaking a lot of promises, managing some major public disorder.