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In the past few weeks, Americans learned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. canceled half a billion dollars of government investment in the development of mRNA vaccines, Las Vegas saw a 7 percent drop in visitors, residential electricity prices shot up by an average of 6.5 percent, the number of housing permits issued hit their lowest point in half a decade, employers quit adding workers, the manufacturing sector shrank, and inflation rose.
These bleak figures depict an American economy slowing and its labor market weakening. A recession isn’t guaranteed, but it’s becoming much more likely and the stagflation that forecasters described as inevitable when President Donald Trump began prosecuting his global trade war is now a lot closer. Americans, now and in the future, will be paying more and buying less. Trump’s second-term economic ideology is not only one of protectionism, mercantilism, atavism, and cronyism. It is also one of degrowth.
Trump, who entered the White House promising to slash prices on household goods and supercharge the American economy
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