What bad economy?
Some people claim that the U.S. economy under Trump is in bad shape. Combine that with his failure at being a decent human being, his love affairs with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, and his misogyny and racism, and it's a sure thing that he'll lose the 2020 election and be escorted out of the White House in an orange jumpsuit to serve his time in New York's state prison system.
But is the economy really that bad?
Not if you consider standard economic measures such as job creation, unemployment, wages, GDP, the stock market, inflation, and strength of the dollar.
For example, job creation is chugging along at a decent pace and the unemployment rate is dropping.
Employment
Employers added 263,000 jobs in April, another surprisingly strong month of hiring. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expected the economy to add only 185,000 jobs last month.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, the lowest level since December 1969.
Source: CNN Business - May 3, 2019
But wait, some will say. The jobs being created are lousy and wages aren't keeping up with inflation. Uh, no:
Indications of strength of the labor market could be found throughout the report. The average hourly wage was up 3.2% compared to a year ago, well above the 1.9% rise in prices, meaning real gains in the paychecks of average workers.
Ibid.
But but but ... not everybody's benefiting. Yeah, that's the ticket!
Years of steady hiring have sharply lowered unemployment for a range of population groups. The unemployment rate for women fell last month to 3.1%, the lowest point since 1953. The rate for Latinos dropped to 4.2%, a record low since 1973, when the government began tracking the data.
For Asians, joblessness has matched a record low of 2.2%. And the unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars dropped to 1.7%, also a record low.
Source: AP - Unemployment hits 49-year low as US employers step up hiring
Dang it, EdG. Quit using data and statistics to bamboozle us!! Everybody knows the only jobs being created are crummy jobs nobody wants like retail and fast food.
Professional and business services, which include IT networking jobs as well as accountants and engineers, led the gains with 76,000. Education and health care added 62,000 jobs, while a category that mostly includes restaurants and hotels gained 34,000.
Retailers, however, continued to cut jobs, shedding 12,000 in April, the third straight months of cuts. The sector has eliminated 49,000 jobs in the past year even as the economy has picked up.
Ibid.
Stock Market
Now you've gone too far, Mr. EdG!! Didn't the stock market crash in the 4th quarter of 2018, wiping out gains and impoverishing 401K plans?
Stocks in 2019 aren't behaving like fatigued runners. Amid renewed optimism for trade talks between the U.S. and China and accommodative Fed policy, the S&P 500 notched its best start to the year since 1998. The stock market's turnaround since December eased the pain of the jarring Q4 bear market. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite just clawed its way into all-time highs. The S&P 500 notched a new high just a few days later.
Despite the Nasdasq's 32% gain from the throes of the Q4 bear market — and its 545% gain from the March 2009 financial crisis lows — at least one money manager believes the stock market is in the early stages of a new major bull market. What's the basis for that view, and how does it jibe with Wall Street experts' forecast for the current stock market outlook in 2019?
Source: Investors Business Daily
What to make of all this?
Take any prognostication, even mine, with a grain of salt. All in all, the economy is strong and is improving. Jobs are increasing, wages are finally rising, and inflation is low. It won't last forever, but wishful thinking that the economy is going to crash and force Trump out of office is just as fanciful as thinking that Mueller was finally gonna get that wascally Twump on Russian collusion charges.
Comments
I dug into this yesterday
A few people are getting raises. Very few.
And that's largely due to minimum wage hikes and the successes of last year's strikes. And being banksters.
No surprise.
Your essays always focus on gloom and doom while mine are more optimistic. We'll see who's right. My forecasts of when the economy is teetering versus when it will hold steady or grow have always been correct, but you could be right this time and we'll finally get that wascally Twump.
Clarification
I didn't forecast anything. I was curious if you had issues with my numbers?
,
Always correct? That's a very bold statement.
I am not so blessed.
If only the issue was Trump.
Not the numbers per se.
But the periods chosen and the interpretations are a bit dodgy. For example, comparing wage increases by age group from 2007 thru 2019 (a 12 year period) against bank wages since 2017 (a 2 year period). That's a classic way to twist statistics -- change the reporting period.
So so true...
Seldom have I read a more condensed nugget of wisdom:
Wouldn't it be awesome to be worried about one evil-doer rather than an entire global power structure of them?
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Yeah, the economy is great...for the capitalist pigs.
For the rest of us? Not really. Sure, employers added jobs, but are they good ones, or are they just shit jobs for the sake of fluffing the pigs' egos?
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Descartes before Van Horst, Aspie.
(i.e., "the cart before the horse")
I respectfully submit that before we pick statistics, we need to dig deeper. What statistics aren't there at all? Stats for the social layer which was America's economic backbone from 1870 to 1980: those -- we -- who need to convert 40 hours into a paycheck suitable to raise a family on, without a university education (and its concomitant debts). Clean effing missing in action, as if we didn't exist.
For us, things still seriously suck, as they have since 1980.
This, by the way, is the answer to EdG's original question. "What bad economy?" It's us, the farm and factory workers, miners, and industrial technicians' bad economy. The private sector workers who had, needed, and organized unions in order to keep themselves in business. The folks who live and work in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. (And much of the urban working class in my Colorado, I might add!)
Ironically, this actually supports EdG's conclusion point in this essay, as we are the ones who elected Donald Trump in 2016. And we'll do it again in 2020, too. At the end of the day, we remember who ratfucked our livelihoods out of existence while stripping our social class of nearly all its protections. The US President who led and headed that gang of fiends was none other than William Jefferson Clinton. Most, but not all, of Trump's competitors for the office he now holds are clones (or the spouse) of the said Clinton. And we'd rather have a three year old child in the Presidency (as we have now) than elect another Bill Clinton.
edit: I myself am indeed one who "needs to convert 40 hours into a paycheck suitable to raise a family on, without a university education (and its concomitant debts)". And I would never vote for Trump, except possibly to prevent a "President Biden". But the economic class to which I belong did vote for Trump, in droves. And I'll say it again: we'll do it again.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Replay on the way?
This:
I'm one of those too, although I voted Green. I just retired from 35 years working alongside blue-collar men - mostly white, mostly right-leaning. This was along the Gulf coast in Louisiana and Texas. When Bernie Sanders started getting his message out, I was being constantly asked very sincere questions about Sanders and his positions by my co-workers. Every day this happened. They were more than interested in what Bernie was saying. Some of them had never heard this kind of talk in their lives and it hit home and hit hard.
So what did the brilliant DNC do? They screwed over the guy who was filling the stadiums to overflowing and dragged in Miss Corruption. I can assure you, every one of my co-workers who had been ready to join Sanders immediately did an about face, went to the polls (they ALL vote) and voted against every Democrat they saw listed. I don't blame them one iota.
Should the Democrats replay 2016, and I would venture the odds are good that they will, expect a total repeat of 2016 - only worse this time.
I saw a report just
yesterday, or a couple
days ago, saying "the REAL
Unenjoyment rate is closer to
18%.
Depends, I guess, on who's crunching the numbers,
and who interprets them.
There aren't many I know talking about an improved Economy™,
better pay, or better jobs.
But there's also no doubt Dems should put the Economy™ 3rd
or 4th on their list of things to poke tRump with.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
The number you want to look at
is not unemployment rate but labor force participation rate.
A year ago, 40% of Americans couldn't come up with $400 cash. I doubt that that's changed.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Blame
It's because everyone is eating avocado toast for every meal
/s
[Edited] Force
The labor force participation rate for April 2019 is 62.8%, which is just slightly below the 1950 through 2019 average of 62.99%.
[Edited typo. Had an 8 instead of 2 in the values.]
I guess it's gone up pretty good the last couple of years.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
No, it hasn't
Edg's number is, idk, a mistake.
But then he uses an average over 70 years, which includes decades from when women often didn't work.
So the periods chosen and the interpretations are a bit dodgy.
We can all see what the corporate media has been doing
for the last week or so. They're trying to undermine progressive politics by claiming that there's been this huge turnaround and that all is well now. Neoliberalism isn't so bad after all.
It's not about Trump, really, it's about convincing people that no change is necessary.
If you're doing OK yourself you might buy into it. It's all over the mainstream news.
I suspect that the upbeat economic reports are at odds with the lived experience of many millions of Americans.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Last week or so?
Where have you been? Wishing for a bad economy is hardly the way to defeat Trump in 2019. Accept the data and work against his many flaws. Going counterfactual is unproductive.
Where have I been ?
Where have you been ?
If the economy has turned around, if neoliberalism is now benefiting the majority of US citizens, I'm pretty sure I'd see the evidence around me. Do Bezos, Gates and Buffet still own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the population, or has that changed too ?
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Interesting.
It's interesting how you keep changing the goalposts. You claimed wages weren't rising. I showed that wasn't true. Now suddenly a few billionaires are the problem? Your measure of success is when the rich stop getting richer? Huh. Don't hold your breath.
Interesting that you want to stick
solely to the official unemployment rate as a measure of the economy just like the corporate media, which has been trumpeting that number since it was released. As though that number alone will convince the public that things are going great under Trump. I don't think it will work out like that.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Not really.
I don't want to just stick to the unemployment number. But I like to keep sub-threads to a single topic. Otherwise, it's hard to follow the conversation.
I think low wages are still a problem.
I think inequality, "a few billionaires", is still a problem.
I don't think corporate media propaganda will succeed in convincing most people that happy days are here again. The economy still sucks for most people and I think a progressive, populist economic program is a winner.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
I don't disagree with most of your response.
Hell yes.
Absolutely. But consider this: Say we took away all the money of a person with $50 billion and distributed it equally among 150 million working Americans. Each of those Americans would receive a one-time payment of $333.
But consider the trade deficit. If the current $500 billion deficit were erased and that money went to workers, each of tho 150 million would receive $3,333. But it would be every year, not just a one-time payment from impoverishing a billionaire. [Disclaimer: I'm simplifying this example, of course, and not accounting for other consequences and trade-offs.]
The problems we face are systemic and far exceed the "few billionaires" problem.
I disagree on two out of three points. First, even the NYT and WaPo are grudgingly admitting the economy's improving. They're not exactly fans of Trump. Second, I don't think the economy still sucks for most people. The number adversely affected has radically decreased in the past few years.
I agree on the third point. A progressive, populist economic program (within reason) is a winner.
I almost hate to do this.
But you asked for it and you make it oh so easy to show your lack of knowledge.
1. The 1950 to 2019 Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate period is from FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, official arbiter of that statistic. See: Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
2. Labor force participation is expressed as a rate, which means it's independent of composition. It doesn't matter when women became included because it's measuring a percentage of a total.
Definition: The labor force participation rate. This measure is the number of people in the labor force as a percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years old and over. In other words, it is the percentage of the population that is either working or actively seeking work. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Edg, I'm afraid you're gonna have to eat crow,
particularly given your rather smug condescension to gjohnsit.
First, I just checked, and the most recent published LFPR was 62.8% (exactly what it was a year ago, BTW). So, I think you've got a typo, [EDIT, sorry] 68.8 versus 62.8. 62.8% is well off the peak numbers in the 67% range from 20 years ago.
I haven't any idea where you got that average rate, but I'm guessing it was probably 62.99. Granting that, you're nonetheless mistaken about the significance of women entering the workforce. Your average includes numbers from an era when most middle-class women didn't work. As gjohnsit's chart shows, the rate changes quite dramatically from 1965 to 1989. This is presumably a result of two things: Women joining the workforce, and the demographic bulge of the baby boom (i.e., a much lower ratio of retired to unretired folks). Without seeing the decomposition of those numbers, we can't infer very much from that precipitous drop from 2009 to 2015 -- but since the boomers continue to "age out" and the rate stopped dropping in 2015, i think we can infer something at least.
Regardless, you're simply flat-out wrong to assert that it doesn't matter that the average includes numbers from before the big shift towards middle-class women working. To see this, imagine a society in which everyone who wants a job is guaranteed one. Imagine for a moment that NO women performed paid employment from 1950 to 1975, and that 100% of women did so from 1975 to 2000. Imagine that in the same time, 100% of men performed paid employment. If that were the case, the LFPR from 1950-1975 would have been 50%, and from 1975 to 2000 would have been 100% -- and the average would be 75%. Now, imagine that due to some sort of cataclysmic social and economic shift, 25% of all men and women leave the workforce in 2001. The LFPR would be 75% -- exactly the same as the historical average. However, that historical average is meaningless, because it is calculated across two completely distinct cultural scenarios. It doesn't matter that the LFPR is "calculated as a rate", and I'm not sure why you think it does.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
You're right.
I had a typo in my comment so I'll eat a baby crow. 68.8% should have been 62.8% and 68.99% should have been 62.99%.
But to get things back on track. This was Azazello's comment I was responding to that kicked off this thread:
Two points here. 1. Azezello brought in labor force participation. (BTW, here's an exhaustive analysis of the composition by BLS - Labor force participation). All I did was state that the current rate is not much off the historical average. In fact, if you switch the chart I linked at FRED to the 5 year view, you'll see it's hardly changed at all in the past 5 years. Since Trump became president, there is a slight positive effect of a 0.1% increase. So if the initial point about looking at participation was to show damage by Trump, data doesn't support that.
2. Azazello changed the goal posts to $400 from participation. There's no current data on that so we don't know if it's changed. Overall, as more people find work, that number should rise over time.
yeah, i'm not disputing your general point,
just noting that when gjohnsit said your number was wrong, he was right.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I leapt too quickly.
If he'd done what you did, said it should be 62 not 68, I'd have known about my typo right away. That being said, the relationship holds, just .19 difference between the current and the average.
Just to clarify:
Women were always included in the labor department's statistics. It's just that a much larger fraction of them joined the labor force from the mid-60s onward.
That is why your assertion about rates doesn't hold water.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Rate
I maintain that it doesn't matter. My reasoning is that while the composition has indeed changed over the measured 70 years, the average rate adequately reflects both gains and losses of particular components and was thus a valid choice to illustrate my point.
Maintain as you will.
The arithmetic is straightforward, and you are wrong.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
It's stuff like that that tells the story
The obvious question is if things are so wonderful then why are people so broke?
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
That is the right question.
If things are so wonderful, why do people feel so broke? That's worthy of deep examination. I suspect that people still haven't psychologically recovered from the 2008 Great Recession and its aftermath. Things were rough for many years afterwards.
Using myself as an example, between 2009 and 2014 my business lost 90% of its sales, I nearly filed for bankruptcy, things were so bad I sold my wedding ring so that we could buy a few more weeks of food and our house was headed for foreclosure. We sold our cars in 2014 and went without a car for the next 3 years, which is kinda tough out here in rural Arizona.
But things have been improving over time. Is everything perfect? Of course not. Are more people in a better situation now than in the aftermath of the Great Recession? Undeniably so. You can quibble around the edges but the overall picture is brighter.
you suggest that people may not have recovered
psychologically, but your own story details how many of them may not have recovered financially. Lots of people lost pretty much everything they had, including emptying their retirement savings to make ends meet through periods of unemployment.
Folks might have jobs again, which might or might not pay as much as the jobs they had in 2008 -- but do they still own their own houses? (We know that rents in the places with abundant jobs are soaring, not least because the robber barons who bought up the defaulted houses -- Blackstone, especially -- are holding housing off the market -- while simultaneously doing luxury upgrades of some properties -- in order to boost rents.)
Are their retirement plans just now getting back to whatever they were in 2008, rather than reflecting 10 more years of time in the work force? Or worse, are they not even close, because during the Great Recession they had to rack up credit card debt that they then spent several years paying off, rather than contributing to retirement plans?
I ended up getting lucky, in that after 15 months of unemployment (August 2008 to October 2009), I found a job that I've kept ever since, with a remarkably generous employer. Notwithstanding that generosity, my starting salary was 20% below what I had been making; even with a one-time boost I got after my first year, and our (uncharacteristic for most US workers over the last decade) annual raises, it was about 5 years before I was back to my nominal 2008 income. As of this coming October, I will finally be back to my inflation-adjusted 2008 income. These were supposed to be my peak earning years, when I would be able to salt away lots of money for retirement. And again, I need to emphasize, I am not whining about my circumstance: I was (I am) extraordinarily fortunate, when all is said and done.
In summary, although things may be relatively "okay" for a lot of people in terms of their cash flow, things might really suck maximally in terms of their financial security.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I agree with you.
I'm just pointing out that the valid points you're raising were years or decades in the making. Clinton's 1999 signing of the repeal of Glass-Steagall took 9 years to come to fruition in the 2008 Great Recession. Reagan's busting the air traffic controller's union led to decades of union decline (actual membership cut in half in real terms despite the number of workers increasing by 35%). Etc.
I don't think tarring Trump's few years in office with things that took 50 years to develop is a winning strategy, especially when things look good on the surface during his tenure. Perhaps I'm wrong. We'll find out next year.
i think your basic thesis is dead on.
trump will win the numbers argument on jobs and economic outlook.
the dems will need to fight on specific issues, not broad economic arguments: single payer health care, living wage, affordable post-secondary education, marijuana legalization, shutting down the endless wars, and of course the elephant in the room, climate change.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Excellent list of issues we should be fighting on. n/t
Which has had damn
little to do with tRump.
Eight years after a recession, the Economy™
is bound to pick up!
When has it not, eight years after??
As for most of us not being able to come up with $400,
I bet that still holds true. Az right about that.
This bump in the Economy™ would have happened
even if Hillary or O'bummer were prez.
Has nothing to do with MAGA or tRump.
Unless of course that $1.5 Trillion tax cut for The Rich ia actually
beginning to trickle down.
yeah, right. Imagine.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
No.
The U6 rate, commonly referred to as the "real unemployment rate", is currently about 7%. U6 includes people that aren't actively seeking work while U3 is only those actively seeking work.
That's just it...
If there are so many
jobs out there, why is
that 7% figure so high??
Seems everybody should be working.
Alas...
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Jobs with the greatest labor shortages....
Here are the 30 jobs that will add the most workers in 2008-2018, according to the BLS.
This is where the growth is, most low-wage, part-time, with no benefits. If you work two full-time 40 hour a week jobs at $10.00/hr, you too an earn a whopping $41,600 a year with no pension and no benefits.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
You can't blame Trump for much of that.
You're citing 2008 to 2018. He didn't become president until 2017, so the majority of those years were under Obama. As for nurses, health aides, home care -- that's thanks to the aging of Baby Boomers. They're gonna need that type of care.
fuck Trump
I'm saying the economy sucks for everyone but the top. It is Bill Clinton's fault, Bush's fault, Reagan's fault, Obama's fault, and Trump is marching right in tune. So Trump can put his "greatest ever economy" where Obama and all the rest put theirs. The system is rigged.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Wish they'd tighten up H1B visas
Employers in technology like to pad job qualifications, making the jobs ultimately impossible to qualify for. Then they use the excuse that no one in the country qualifies, so gotta import some people from India, and other Asian countries. No benefits, and paying them a sallary that no one in the US who's qualified (for the actual job, not the fake requirements in the job posting) would accept, but working them well over 40 hrs/week.
I wonder how many of the jobs in the quote below are H1B visa holders:
I got a $50/mo raise last year, but I'd still qualify for foodstamps if I had a kid young enough to live with me.
Glad it's booming on paper. You're not going to get a lot of love because you're not calling for Trump's head on a platter, though.
I know.
People will hate my essay because I'm not calling for the crucifixion of Trump. Meanwhile, Democrats will nominate someone like Biden who'll try to make the economy an issue and we'll be stuck with 4 more years of Trump.
Biden
Unless the Dems give us either Sanders/Gabbard or Gabbard/Sanders, we will be stuck with 4 more years of Trump. Take it to the bank!
This goes double for Joe Biden, who did serious, deliberate damage to America's sub-collegiate working class.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
You are so wrong.
You must be thinking of DailyKos. People here are equal opportunity haters. We don't care about party of personality. If you actually believe what you said, you don't know us at all.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Sorry.
I'm so sorry I don't know people on c99 at all. Please forgive me.
We've seen this before
Reagan, Clinton, Bush the usurper, and Obama all outed positive economic numbers. all turned out to be either bogus or meaningless. Personally I just go a call from my investment manager crowing about the great job he's doing. He can't get away with lying on that - numbers are numbers, and the May 1 number is larger than the Jan 1 number. But there may be an explanation, and you might not like it when we find out why the numbers are what they are.
Possibilities:
1. The tax cuts are crating short term positives but are unsustainable. Reagan pulled that trick.
2. Trump's numbers are just plain lies. Again a Reagan trick. Also remember how Obama added 200,000 jobs a month but the unemployment rate stayed the same because immigrants added 200,000 people a month who needed jobs?
3. Someone (yeah, guess who) could be playing with methodology. Examples: Carter and guess who? - Reagan recalculated the inflation rate, Reagan to stop including housing costs. Obama recalculated SS COLAS.
4. Some bright boy saw which economic stats people looked at and got his capitalist masters to allow them to rise. (until after the election)
Ultimately we don't have all the data and we can't trust the data we have, so let's stop debating the data.
On to Biden since 1973
No.
I'm agnostic as to the reasons. However, the economy is in fact doing well using traditional metrics, and Trump gets credit for not crashing the economy as so many predicted he would. There are many valid reasons to despise Trump. The economy thus far is not one of them.
The tax cuts
produced a huge stimulus to the economy as well as a large deficit increase.
The increase in economic growth in the context of tax cuts and a compliant fed are quite modest. But they make great propaganda for people who don't know any better. It's possible that people who can't afford a $400 emergency know better.
If you're always right on the economy you must make a fortune shorting at the right time. Have you passed Warren Buffet yet?
Sure.
On the other hand, predictions were that Trump would result in financial Armageddon [NY Post (sorry bout that)]. Yet things are still slowly improving. Are the $400 emergency people better off now? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know. They haven't been re-interviewed.
I'll pass Buffet just as soon as I accumulate a few more 10s of billions.
doing well for whom?
Every sad ending is a new happy beginning unless you're the one dying.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Nor should he get credit.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Of course not.
Nor blame. You should point that out to other essayists on c99, too.
bing! exactly.
I don't have much faith
in numbers coming out of Washington.
Regardless of which party is in the WH.
Especially when my eyes tell me differently.
Half the country couldn't come up with an extry
$500 from their pocket or from their bank account.
We're just that broke.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
And the most terrifying posibility
Trump might be a better president than we think, while it's the democrats that are the liars. I deny that wholeheartedly, but it may be true economically. It certainly isn't true in many other ways. Certainly Obama was a far worse president than he was believed to be at the time. (Black man good, orange man bad. The Democratic Party says so, and they never lie, don't they?)
On to Biden since 1973
What have Democrats done to us since the 1960s?
Jimmy Carter - deregulation of trucking, airlines, railroads
Bill Clinton - NAFTA, normalization of China, repeal of Glass-Steagall, groundwork for the Iraq war
Barack Obama - bailed out instead of punished big banks, ACA (mixed results), pushed TPP
And now Trump is rolling back even more banking regulations
as well as regulations in every industry. He has appointed 100 right wing judges that will be very bad for the country down the line. He's opening up even more areas for drilling and rolling back the Obama
errorera regulations for countless issues.But he is getting lots of help from the democrats as usual. The republicans held their line on working with Obama, but Chuck and Nancy are playing bipartisanship to the hilt.
Agree 100%.
Regulation, judges, environment -- all things Democrats should be fighting Trump on. Instead, they're busily holding hearings about whether or not Barr's summary of Mueller's report was tough enough on Trump.
If you are interested in the right wing judges
and the damage they are doing
Of course democrats are helping republicans to confirm these judges which to me say it's a way for the judiciary to roll back any decent policies democrats have passed back when they were halfway sane. I haven't noticed democrats speaking out about the damage that Trump's judges are doing. And of course the reason there were so many vacancies on the federal courts was because McConnell refused to allow them to be filled and Obama and the democrats just went along with it including Garland for the SC. Democrats could have done many things to force McConnell to bring him up for a vote. The republicans can always block legislation going forward when they are the minority party, but the democrats never do that. One party. Both just as corrupt.
By revising NAFTA, Trump improved things for workers in Mexico
Workers in Mexico just won the right to organize real labor unions. Trump helped. (Vox)
Also:
https://www.ecosophia.net/present-at-the-death/
thank you Joe Biden
Thank you, Joe Biden!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
That would be me
.
I did that. My income based payback agreement, whatever it's called, is up for renewal soon. My $50/mo raise from last year will probably raise my payment. I did what I thought would get me out of manufacturing, which took a toll on my health and body, and it eventually did. I sit on my ass now. On the rare occasion I put in overtime, I bring home $13.75/hr. At least it's not cold anymore. Winter electric bills are $200+/mo if I keep it at 63f. Thermals under sweats, but better off than some! (I got a decent tax refund this year despite other people owing, so I've tucked away $1000 for next winter's heat.)
Side note: I started off making $13.50/hr as an industrial machine operator in 2011, prior to getting my baby associates degree. Got laid of coincidentally after hurting my back. Applied everywhere. Eventually registered for college classes in 2012 and worked part time. Graduated in 2015. Finally landed a job that is almost in my field of study where I can bring home a quarter per hour more if I get OT. I make less than Starbucks baristas.
it's kind of funny reading these comments, and reading
edg's responses. Folks try to find some alternative interpretations of the data, edg shoots them down, yadda yadda. Apparently, everyone has forgotten their basic Keynesian economics, as well as the well-established, well-documented, well-understood patterns of Republican vs Democratic governance.
Federal Deficit (billions $):
10/15 - 9/16 585
10/16 - 9/17 665
10/17 - 9/18 779 (First Trump budget)
10/18 - 9/19 1091
Trump cut taxes and boosted spending. By doing so, he was able to sustain the same employment trends that had been observed for the previous several years under Obama. Sure, he's probably cooking the books, and I find the U6 numbers unfathomable, but here's what U6 does not include: People who have withdrawn from the labor force completely -- people who are not only not looking, but not interested in having a job. This includes millions of boomers who found themselves unemployed, and after fruitlessly searching for a while, threw in the towel and decided to live off their meagre social security and whatever they might have saved up.
The number of full-time employees has been increasing
lylinearly for about 9 years now -- the trend is startlingly consistent. At the same time, a much larger number of people have been leaving the labor force, mostly boomers retiring or dying. So yeah, unemployment is staggeringly low. It's worth pointing out that this drop in unemployment has coincided with rising minimum wages, which the austerity blatherers insist will kill jobs, but which sensible people understand will boost employment.So, yeah, Edg is right that attempting to attack Trump on the economy is likely to be a political disaster, because he is going to be able to roll out these numbers that show a great jobs picture. It's also true that standard leftish economics predict that higher deficits and increased minimum wages will decrease unemployment. It's also true that if the Democrats manage to regain the White House, the Republicans will immediately set about undermining employment by demanding austerity. We know this, we know their political santa claus theory.
I do suspect that most of the jobs are probably pretty crummy, though.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Great comment.
I fully agree that the quality of current American jobs is insufficient. Destruction of the middle class and decent jobs began with Jimmy Carter's deregulation push and accelerated with Reagan's union busting (notably air traffic controller's union) and shot into the stratosphere with Clinton's globalization trade policies and his execrable banking deregulation that led to the 2008 crash.
But what can we do? Unions are unlikely to stage a comeback. Manufacturing will never be what it once was. Three generations of Americans have sought college degrees and ended up with either massive debt, jobs beneath their education and skills, or both.
We need a massive change. What it is and how to achieve it are still undetermined.
Stock markit is where it's at
only cuz of stock buybacks which were illegal until
the 80's and the tax cuts which allowed more buybacks
and dont forget tRumps tweets which then put the PPT to
work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Financial_Markets
Under tRump I haven't hear a peep about the "cash offshore"
theory. And the GDP is one grossly over rated metric at measuring
whatever it is they want to measure.
Hedonics added by Greenspan/clinton
https://mises.org/library/illusions-hedonics
Basically while the economy might be ok, all the BS metrics
that are pushed upon us by WS/DC and the analysts is all
a bunch of crap
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Here's Michael Snyder of the Economic Collapse,
a fervent Trump supporter and conservative:
The following are 19 facts about our current economic performance that should deeply disturb all of us…
#1 In April, U.S. auto sales were down 6.1 percent. That was the worst decline in 8 years.
#2 The number of mortgage applications has fallen for four weeks in a row.
#3 We just witnessed the largest crash in luxury home sales in about 9 years.
#4 Existing home sales have now fallen for 13 months in a row.
#5 In March, total residential construction spending was down 8.4 percent from a year ago.
#6 U.S. manufacturing output was down 1.1 percent during the first quarter of this year.
#7 Farm incomes are falling at the fastest pace since 2016.
#8 Wisconsin dairy farmers are going bankrupt “in record numbers”.
#9 Apple iPhone sales are falling at a “record pace”.
#10 Facebook’s profits have declined for the first time since 2015.
#11 We just learned that CVS will be closing 46 stores.
#12 Office Depot has announced that they will be closing 50 locations.
#13 Overall, U.S. retailers have announced more than 6,000 store closings so far in 2019, and that means we have already surpassed the total for all of last year.
#14 A shocking new study has discovered that 137 million Americans have experienced “medical financial hardship in the past year”.
#15 Credit card charge-offs at U.S. banks have risen to the highest level in nearly 7 years.
#16 Credit card delinquencies have risen to the highest level in almost 8 years.
#17 More than half a million Americans are homeless right now.
#18 Homelessness in New York City is the worst that it has ever been.
#19 Nearly 102 million Americans do not have a job right now. That number is worse than it was at any point during the last recession.
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/i-dare-you-to-tell-me-the-economy-i...
Existing Housing
Using a single month as a measure is not the best way to spot a trend.