The US economic expansion which began in 2009 was unusually prolonged but relatively weak. Profitability and investment strengthened between 2010 and 2015 but then began to falter. After Trump took office in 2017 there was a minor recovery in investment but the proceeds of major tax cuts were...

Since the prolonged recession in 1980-82 which laid the basis for the emergence of financeled capitalism in the US there have been four phases of economic expansion. The first three ended with increasingly severe recessions in 1990-91, 2001 and 2007-09. The most recent expansion, which began in...