Trump keeps saying we’re living in the greatest economy ever, but that’s not supported by the underlying statistics. At all.
Here’s the claim, repeated also in the recent State of the Union speech:
Trump: "I'm popular and I've done well. I think we have the greatest economy, actually, ever in history. We have to get the word out." pic.twitter.com/g4xv06sIhZ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2026
By the numbers, a main reason that the headline GDP number is doing as well as it is (which isn’t all that great), is because the government is deficit spending like drunken sailors.
Take away that support and the economy is in a deep recession.Next houses are really wildly unaffordable, making residential real estate one of the largest real estate bubbles in history – larger even than during the GFC.
It looks like gravity has finally caught up to home sales:
GFC 2.0
Meanwhile, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan is suggesting that the same sorts of excesses that led to the GFC 1.0 are now in place for a GFC 2.0 repeat:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, asked about fierce competition across the financial industry, said he’s starting to see parallels to the era before the 2008 financial crisis, when a rush to make loans ended disastrously.
“Unfortunately, we did see this in ’05, ’06 and ’07, almost the same thing — the rising tide was lifting all boats, everyone was making a lot of money,” Dimon told investors on Monday. While JPMorgan isn’t willing to make riskier loans to boost net interest income, he said, “I see a couple people doing some dumb things. They’re just doing dumb things to create NII.”
(Source)
Because history rhymes, this time it looks like the epicenter will be something called ‘private credit.’
Remember, Trump put out an EO last year allowing private credit to be sold into 401k’s and 401k eligible funds. What great timing!
And, just like last time, Wall Street shoveled these defective products out the door as fast as they could once the easy money was stripped out and all that remained was risk.
How it started:
How it’s going:
It’s all just more of the same that brought us the GFC, where no lessons were learned because none of the painful consequences landed on the perpetrators who were bailed out.
All of which is to say, things are looking increasingly dicey out there in the financial world. It’s time to manage risk actively.
Timestamps
00:00 The State of the Economy: A Critical Examination
13:08 Consumer Credit and Economic Pressures
27:20 The Looming Threat of Financial Crisis 2.0
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by cmartenson