In the Aesop Fable, “The Fox and The Monkey” the monkey was made king by the other animals for entertaining them with his dancing. The Fox didn’t agree with the other animals, because he thought the monkey was unworthy of the title. So, he took advantage of the monkey’s incompetence by tricking him to go for a piece of meat he placed in a trap. The monkey went for the meat and trapped his self.

Trump may have found his self in a similar situation by gloating over the state of the current economy. An interesting stat to take note of is that the national deficit has not seen any significant reduction even in the midst of a 10 year “growth” period. This so called “growth” period took place during extremely low interest rates. But now the fed has begun to raise interest rates again, and the days of the country “balling” off of credit may be coming to an end soon.

In our 2018 projection, we talked about how Trumps tax cuts on large corporations would most likely not result in more jobs. The companies will most likely invest those resources into innovating their way into less employees. We also brought up a possible economic slowdown that could be the beginning of mass worker displacement as well.

In 2019, the national deficit is expected to climb to $1.2 trillion from $660 billion[1] currently. These numbers are not encouraging in an economy where we’ve experienced record stock market performance and corporate profits for the past 10 years. This means that this growth is mostly artificial. The real “fake news”. It’s like when a rapper gets signed and spends his “advance” on a new Bentley. The wealth isn’t real, and if they are not smart, the unfortunate truth will reveal itself.

[1]

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, "The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027," CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, Washington D.C, 2017.