Economic Smoking Mirrors and Leverage: Why This Feels Like Groundhog Day

What we’re seeing right now is being mislabeled and giving us another Ground Hog Day.

Layoffs are not evidence that machines suddenly replaced people. The numbers don’t line up, and they never have. There is no credible connection between the scale of recent job cuts and any comparable increase in automated output. That explanation is convenient—but wrong.

What actually happened is simpler.

During COVID, stimulus distorted demand and money…