American wages have barely moved in decades, resulting in less expendable income for purchasing. The US economy revolves around the American consumer spending. Estimates vary from 2/3 to 70% of the overall economy is from consumers. With less money to spend, the GOP Congress worked with fancy-schmancy financial people on Wall Street to make credit easy. Credit cards for everyone and never pay them off. When that gets maxed out, make it even easier to buy a house (no proof of anything required) and then lower interest rates (thanks Alan!) so consumers can borrow against the value of their house because real estate will *always* go up.
Slight hiccup and some bank we never heard of overseas has a run and needs to be bailed out. No problem, lower interest rates again. This weakens the dollar so oil - which every good American needs for their gas guzzler - becomes more expensive. Hmmm, better help Wall Street make loans easier, so give them billions to make loans at below inflation rates. What? They don't want to give away loans? They want to hunker down and deal with their own funny money deals? Well, lower them again. And again. And probably again. We need consumers to buy, but since they don't save, it needs to be on even more credit. Oh, they don't have any credit or money left because their retirement accounts are crashing and they're afraid to spend more because of the warning signs in the economy and maybe they will lose their jobs?
Well? Cut rates again, maybe that will help. At least it will help Wall Street and that's all that matters. Just tell people that inflation is low, even though it's higher than wage increases. See if that works.
