Skip to main content
NEU job vacancy
Where is the US economy headed?
Trump's populist promises for national economic recovery ‘by us, for us’ is about to crash onto the rocks of reality, writes ZOLTAN ZIGGEDY

HEADLINES such as “World stocks fall to two-year low” that appeared in the Wall Street Journal recently have many wondering if the tepid recovery from the 2007-8 crash is finished.

Since midsummer, the Shenzhen Composite, FTSE 100, Stoxx Europe 600 and other benchmark exchanges have steadily declined, with the US Standard and Poor’s joining them over the last few weeks.

As author Akane Otani notes, “After a punishing October, major indices in Europe, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Argentina and Canada are languishing in correction territory — a drop of at least 10 per cent from a recent high. The US is teetering on the edge of joining its peers …”

Like gross domestic product (GDP) and the unemployment rate, composite equity performance is a limited measuring stick of the economy’s health, though it is favoured by popular mainstream pundits and celebrity economists. As such, all three become the grist for the bourgeois political mill. Invariably, they soon obscure more than they enlighten.

So what do the markets tell us?

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
President Donald Trump talks about transgender weightlifters as gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, May 1, 2025
Trade / 3 May 2025
3 May 2025

Washington’s tariff policies become explicable in light of the US economy’s relative decline and the astonishing rise of China, argues MICHAEL BURKE

US President Donald Trump speaks at a reception celebrating
Features / 21 April 2025
21 April 2025

The US president’s universal tariffs mirror the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Act that triggered retaliatory measures, collapsed international trade, fuelled political extremism — and led to world war, warns Dr DYLAN MURPHY

Features / 3 November 2024
3 November 2024
In the first of two articles, ROBERT GRIFFITHS argues that despite a parliamentary majority, Labour’s timid Budget fails to seize a historic opportunity and lacks the ambition needed to address Britain’s deep social and economic crises