Seems to me we’ve outlawed recessions this century. Whenever there’s a market plunge, the government floods the zone with “liquidity” (money printing in various forms) conjured from thin air, and interest rates are cut drastically to stimulate lending and investment. “Put it on the credit card.”
Of course, there are prices to be paid later in everyone’s decreased purchasing power caused by all those additional dollars in the system, followed by higher interest rates for everyone and for the government to make debt payments, all in an effort to mop up the excesses of the prior emergency liquidity injections.
It would probably be healthier to allow periodic, cleansing recessions, but then elections come along more quickly than recoveries, so officials decide it’s better to inject liquidity now, longer term consequences, like mushrooming national debt, be-damned. After all, those are future officials’ problems.
The Keynesian model has worked well for 100 years, helping make America prosperous, and the dollar the current global reserve currency. One price is debt payments that now exceed defense spending. Another is $22 for a plain breakfast a diner, which, soon enough we’ll look back on as having been cheap.
The political class isn’t known for long-term thinking, so I expect we’ll keep it up until we can’t.