Meanwhile, our national politics are a dysfunctional mess. Every week, commentators tell me that “last week was the administration’s low point,” apparently unaware of Team Trump’s ability to consistently carve out new lows.

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How can this disconnect exist?

It’s actually not that surprising, and any apparent paradox is borne out of the general misconception that presidents control the economy. Instead, virtuous cycles have their own momentum, as consumer demand — 70 percent of the gross domestic product — leads to increased production and investment, which creates job and income growth, which feeds back into consumer demand.

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Okay, enough happy talk. Before they revoke my dismal scientist card, I must note that at some point this virtuous cycle will hit a shock and that is when President Trump’s chaos and Washington’s dysfunction become a serious economic problem. At that point, political leadership or lack thereof has deep economic consequences.

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Although this wasn’t their central point, it was my big takeaway from a new, must-read survey of what we’ve learned, or should have learned, over the past decade by two top macroeconomists, Olivier Blanchard and Lawrence Summers (hereafter, OL, because BS just makes life too easy for trolls). In economics, macro basically tries to understand the virtuous growth cycle, with attention to the phenomena that help or hurt it.

OL offer some major insights which economists and economic policymakers need to consider, preferably before the next downturn hits. First, we can’t count on the economy to “self-stabilize,” as in automatically get back on track after a recessionary shock, such as the bursting of the housing or dot-com bubbles. Moreover, because interest rates and inflation have been and are expected to remain historically low, the Federal Reserve (along with other advanced economies’ central banks) has a new problem in helping to offset the next recession.

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That problem is that low interest rates reduce the Fed’s firepower. It’s main weapon against downturns is lowering the cost of credit to stimulate investment, but if rates are already close to zero when the downturn hits, there’s less the central bank can do. One way to fight back against whatever forces are pushing down global interest rates is for the Fed to try new approaches to hit its inflation target, or perhaps even raise the target. Since higher inflation leads to lower real interest rates, that could boost investment and make debt easier to service.

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OL suggest smart ways to retarget inflation, as does former Fed chair Ben Bernanke, but even if the Fed were to take their advice and change the way it targets prices, people would have to believe the new plan would work. After missing its inflation target to the downside for years on end, that’s no slam dunk, which means that we cannot count on monetary policy alone to offset the next recession, not to mention the subsequent weak recovery, if recent patterns hold.

This leads OL to emphasize the importance of fiscal policy, and they make an important connection to the previous discussion. Persistently low interest rates create “problems for monetary policy, but opportunities for fiscal policy.” When borrowing costs are low, and there’s a clear need for government spending, the benefits of fiscal expansion outweigh its costs. A recession creates that need, but so does a weak recovery, especially given another emphasis of OL’s: the damage we do to the recovery when we don’t do enough to offset the recession.

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If people stay unemployed for too long, their skills atrophy and some will just give up and leave the job market. As this recent New York Times piece describes, this risk is not merely theoretical, and millions of workers and their families may well be worse off today because of the too-early pivot to deficit reduction by governments reluctant to recognize that the Fed’s weakened monetary policy needed fiscal backup.

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To be clear, though deficit-attention disorder struck at the wrong time back in about 2010, that doesn’t mean raising the deficit now through a big, wasteful tax cut makes sense. We are, as noted, closing in on full employment. To the contrary, our revenue coffers net to be ready for the next downturn, whenever it hits.

Neither I nor anyone else knows when that is. I see no large, obvious imbalances, although equity markets may be leaning a bit over their skis (in a bit of eyebrow-raising speculation, I just got an email asking me to invest in a stock index fund populated by companies that will allegedly gain from the alleged forthcoming tax cut).

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But here’s what we do know, beyond the shadow of a doubt. This administration and Congress cannot be counted on to learn or act on OL’s lessons. Trust me: the Republican majority now chomping at the bit to raise the debt by giving tax breaks to wealthy corporations will turn into fiscal hawks with razor-sharp talons when it comes to fiscal stimulus in a recession or weak recovery. And depending on who Trump nominates to chair the Fed, it’s not clear they’ll be willing to step up either.