Dr. Rasmus reviews early policy directions of newly elected French President, Emmanuel Macron, that focus on anti-labor reform, business tax cuts, and privatization and how that set of policy priorities is similar in many ways to Trump’s. How recent reports on unemployment in Europe show jobless rates at 18% (not 9.5%) while the US rate is really 9%-12% and not the official 4.5%. While free trade and automation (capital replacing labor) have been identified as two major causes of job loss and wage compression, Rasmus argues that insufficient attention is being given to lagging wage and income growth due to the destruction of full time jobs and their replacement with ‘contingent’ (part time, temp, contract, gig) labor, creating a ‘new normal’ of low paid, no benefit, underemployment in France, the US, and throughout the advanced economies. Jack explains how anti-labor reform is about reducing full time jobs to compress French wages to achieve an ‘internal devaluation’ to stimulate French exports, and why Macron’s (and Europe’s) ‘export-driven’ growth strategy is a dead end. The show concludes with commentary on Trump’s recent firing of FBI director, Comey, and what it represents, and why Trump will not be driven from office until, at the earliest, after the 2018 midterm elections, if then.
