It's the economy, stupid. Trump wins!

I'm not an economist, many of the fancy words used by financial wizards go over my head but sometimes common sense works just as well. Let's take the US and UK economy. On the face of it America and Britain are going to be paying huge debts for so long that we will all be crippled with higher taxes and reduced public spending for decades, unemployment will stay in the multi-millions, businesses will go bankrupt, airlines will struggle to survive and the tourist industry will collapse. As a result the balance of power in the world will dramatically change, with the US down in the doldrums, China reigning supreme and Britain finally losing its Great tag, reduced to a mini-mini power begging for trading partners. I hope you're still with me because none of this will take place. Yes it's true that the US and UK goverments have borrowed beyond prudence to prevent the biggest slump since the 1930s, but if my common sense thinking is anywhere near correct, those huge debts will be paid off sooner than people think and both the US and UK economies will go from down in the depths to high high jinks in a relatively short timeframe. As I think I have written before, this is not like a real shock financial crash, this is a government-administered financial crash, all carefully orchestrated and manipulated. But you can see from the gradual and not so gradual lockdown-lifting that income-generating is going to climb a steep curve very rapidly. People and businesses are rushing back to work. Here in the UK most shops are going to reopen from June 15. People will go out and spend money. Furloughs will be ended, the government will stop having to pay billions in unemployment benefit. Slowly slowly then quick quick the economies in the US and UK and elsewhere will bounce back so fast you will wonder why we were all so worried when this wretched pandemic began. First of all it must be said that not every business is going to suddenly go into the black after borrowing beyond any sense to survive. Many small businesses will not come back at all and remember all the restaurants and pubs which still cannot open their doors and here in the UK there is still no date yet for them, and times are going to get harder and harder. They may not survive. But generally speaking, there is every chance, provided there is no second surge of the virus, that the economic news in, say, two or three months time will be very favourable. If that happens in the US, and suddenly the millions claiming unemployment benefit are earning money again, and paying taxes, then the political advantages for Donald Trump will be massive. As an Obama economist says today in the Politico news website, Trump will reap the benefit of a dramatic change in the country's economic fortunes. He is right. Even if voters are concerned that Trump's handling of the pandemic has been all over the place, if the economy is bright and shining for most people by the time they go to vote in the November election, Trump will win because there is nothing Joe Biden can do or say to persuade voters that somehow in his hands the economy would be even better. It's going to be a tough time for the Democrats between now and November. Biden knows that famous phrase, "It's the economy, stupid". It's always the economy, stupid. So if Obama's former economist Jason Furman and my common sense are right, Trump will be reelected.