Donald Trump has declared victory and will no doubt move on to the undergraduate transcripts — hoping that they either won’t be released, to further the “real” conspiracist line, or will be released, but only in response to his pressure. He can position himself to win either way, whatever their content — even as he claims to want to talk only about the issues.
Okay — the chief one is the present lull before the oncoming storm: Food and gas prices are consistent now with hyperinflation, which seems to be spreading to the general consumer price index — at a time of slow growth, a depression-like housing industry, a pathetic dollar, and high unemployment. It’s hard to see any upside there, inasmuch as in the old days inflation was associated with an overheated economy and, conversely, high unemployment and slow growth at least meant low prices for essentials. Instead, we seem to be entering a 1970s-like stagflationary cycle, whose remedies — higher interest rates, massive energy exploration, entitlement reform, strict budgetary discipline — will seem to this administration the proverbial medicine that is worse than the disease.
Add all this to a new America in which half the population pays no federal income tax and half receives some sort of government check, and we are starting to resemble southern Europe, where the dismal statistics are not so much globally or politically driven but increasingly a reflection of stubborn cultural attitudes about entitlement, work, and consumption in the era of globalization. Anyone who walks through Munich and Athens can see that Germans lend and Greeks borrow not just because the former’s politicians are more transparent and the latter’s more prone to corruption, but for much deeper cultural attitudes about legality, work, and spending that are rarely discussed.