Rising prices aside, the United States economy, reports CNN, is starting to resemble that of a third-world country as "American democracy is being undermined in real time."
Following the firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after President Donald Trump's baseless accusations of her manipulating the abysmal monthly jobs reports for “political purposes," attacks on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, tariff wars, and profiteering off private companies, Trump, CNN says, has undermined the economy.
"The stakes are massive for the US economy and the business world," they report.
Economists and CEOs are panicking as a result.
“I have never been this concerned about democracy in the United States,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow of governance studies at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, told CNN.
And while most CEOs remain silent so as not to ruffle the president's delicate feathers, self-described "CEO Whisperer" and Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnefeld says business leaders are "alarmed," to say the least.
“We’ve had a serious erosion of the foundations of democracy,” Sonnenfeld said.
Trump's plans to "subvert a functioning democracy" are poison to a thriving economy, experts say.
"“Democracy is just good for the economy. And autocracy is bad for the economy,” Williamson said. “Autocrats are just not good at managing economies. Policymaking tends to be erratic as democratic institutions decline.”
According to the Journal of Political Economy, a University of Chicago peer-reviewed journal, "the positive effects of democracy appear to be driven by greater investment in capital, schooling and health.”
The American Economic Review agrees, saying, "Populist leaders leave a long-lasting negative imprint on the economic and political pathways of countries."
Williamson says that not only are things dire, but that "we’re trending in the direction of the worst-case scenarios I’ve envisioned," pointing to the recent firing of ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel as another example of the undermining of democracy.
“The erosion of free expression in the media is really alarming,” Sonnenfeld added, who also said that Trump's revenue sharing with companies like Intel are also alarming.
“It’s as if MAGA has gone Maoist, if not Marxist,” Sonnenfeld said.
“That’s what you would expect to see in an unfree country. It’s straight from the autocratic playbook,” Williamson said.
The president refuses to acknowledge any of these determinations, saying in July, “We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world."
And though Disney's former CEO Mike Eisner came out loudly against Trump in the wake of Kimmelgate, Sonnefeld said it's time for others to come out of the boardrooms.
“We’re not seeing those forceful voices come together,” Sonnenfeld said. “But they need to. They are very much alarmed.”