Article source: ConstructConnect
As my colleague, Michael Guckes, is wont to say, every economic cycle is different. The study of ‘the dismal science’ (as economics has sometimes been labeled) in school lecture halls pretends otherwise.
Students are taught that actions taken of a certain fiscal or monetary nature will surely lead to predictable specific consequences. Raising income taxes will lower consumer spending; higher interest rates will weaken housing demand; etc. It is the second of these we will concentrate on further along in this article.
Most of these ‘truisms’ retain their power. But as we are finding out every day now, they’re also
being bent and stretched and sometimes even turned inside out because never before has there been three years of worldwide pandemic, accompanied by massive government support spending and a zero interest rate regime that is being followed by intended corrective measures that may not be hitting the mark.
