The Trump Economy

[Tiberius]

4 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

http://www.tomasinmorgan.com/duds-success-predictions-and-markets/

 

 

Yes, our economy has improved. Hold your breath. It may improve more.

Signs that it has improved: Unemployment rates are at record lows in 14 states.  The number of people drawing unemployment is the smallest since 1974.

Not the percentage, but the number. The number is the smallest! We have twice the labor force today. Yet the number who draw unemployment is where it was 43 years ago. Miraculous.

Our GDP grew at 3.1 percent over the last three quarters. Government predicts it will hit a 3.3 rate for the last quarter. That would be the highest in 15 years.

Government also predicts a 3.3 rate over the next year.  Important supply chain figures are annualizing at 7.5 percent growth. This is a strong indication of healthy GDP in the future.

About 93 percent of our manufacturers say they are optimistic.  The highest in 20 years. Last year only 56 percent were optimistic.

Meanwhile, the index of small business optimism is hitting record highs month after month.

The Congressional Budget Office credits Trump’s tax cuts and policies for much of this success. It is hard to avoid that conclusion. It is hard to avoid the reality that Obama’s economic policies were flops.

Thanks Obama!! Remember what it was like when he took over?? 

 

 

Rubio spilled the beans on the tax cuts. He sounded like Nancy Pelosi! 

[DC Tom]

1 hour ago, row_33 said:

Having just buried a dear friend who died of cancer last week, that is a very tasteless and classless comment from Tibs.

 

 

Sorry.  I just have that effect on people.

[row_33]

4 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

Sorry.  I just have that effect on people.

 

Not you, Tibs make the garbage cancer comment.

 

 

[B-Man]

UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 3.9% UNDER TRUMP AND, RIGHT ON CUE, HERE’S SLATE: 

 

“The unemployment rate is meaningless.”

[KD in CA]

4 hours ago, B-Man said:

UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 3.9% UNDER TRUMP AND, RIGHT ON CUE, HERE’S SLATE: 

 

“The unemployment rate is meaningless.”

 

Any chance you can dig up the Slate article from the week unemployment hit 5% under Obama?   

On 4/30/2018 at 2:37 PM, Tiberius said:

Thanks Obama!! 

 

Best performance since GHWB created the economic boom and balanced budgets of the '90s, huh?

[/dev/null]

On 4/30/2018 at 5:37 PM, Tiberius said:

Thanks Obama!!

Repeat a lie enough and eventually it will become the truth 

[ALF]

When  the unemployment rate is at a record low shouldn't  the budget be balanced? I can see big deficits during a recession. 

[DC Tom]

5 hours ago, KD in CA said:

 

Any chance you can dig up the Slate article from the week unemployment hit 5% under Obama?   

 

 

Looked for it.  There's plenty of articles from 2009-2016 extolling 5% inflation as the sign of a healthy economy...but when it actually hit 5%, they were too busy calling Trump a fascist and projecting a Clinton victory (yes, in 2016).

[Azalin]

8 hours ago, ALF said:

When  the unemployment rate is at a record low shouldn't  the budget be balanced? I can see big deficits during a recession. 

 

How does unemployment relate to the fed's ability to balance the budget?

[Doc Brown]

91 consecutive months of job growth is quite astounding.  Can we make it to 100?

[ALF]

4 hours ago, Azalin said:

 

How does unemployment relate to the fed's ability to balance the budget?

 

I would think if more people are working they would be paying federal income taxes, less priming the economic pump needed. After this latest tax cut that theory goes out the window, not to mention  increased defense spending , so never mind .  

[B-Man]

 

 

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that the GOP tax bill is working better than he thought it would and the evidence “seems to be that what the Trump people told us would happen is happening, that companies are reinvesting the money.”

 

Brooks stated, “I was against the Trump tax cuts. But the early evidence is that they’re working better than I thought. And so, in the first quarter, among S&P companies, capital expenditures are up 39 percent. That’s a seven-year high. That’s far higher than a lot of us thought. Stock buybacks, which is just giving people — to shareholders, that’s only 16 percent. So the evidence from just the first quarter seems to be that what the Trump people told us would happen is happening, that companies are reinvesting the money. … And so, it’s important to oppose what’s opposable and what’s reprehensible and offensive. And we’ve been doing that, as I say, for three years. But it’s also important to see reality. And the more serious opposition will, frankly, be on disastrous policies or not disastrous policies.”

 

.

[Azalin]

9 hours ago, ALF said:

 

I would think if more people are working they would be paying federal income taxes, less priming the economic pump needed. After this latest tax cut that theory goes out the window, not to mention  increased defense spending , so never mind .  

 

Don't you think that congress should exercise a little restraint in their expenditures when their receipts are less? That they should balance their budget so that they don't overspend?

[TPS]

1 hour ago, Azalin said:

 

Don't you think that congress should exercise a little restraint in their expenditures when their receipts are less? That they should balance their budget so that they don't overspend?

They don't need to balance their budget, but they should not let the deficit explode near the end of an expansion as they are doing. 

 

As a rule of thumb, if you keep the deficit/GDP ratio under 3%, then the Debt/GDP ratio tends to decline. The near-term problem is that before the next recession hits we will have a deficit near $1 trillion, the Deficit/GDP ratio will be > 3%, so the Debt/GDP ratio will also be rising. All make it difficult for politicians to come up with an adequate response...

[ALF]

2 hours ago, Azalin said:

 

Don't you think that congress should exercise a little restraint in their expenditures when their receipts are less? That they should balance their budget so that they don't overspend?

 

If Congress can't reduce the deficit when unemployment is this low something is very wrong.  

 

BTW Republicans have control of Congress and WH.  I'm Independent so I dislike D and R  but support bipartisan fwiw. 

Edited May 6, 2018 by ALF

[/dev/null]

16 minutes ago, ALF said:

 

If Congress can't reduce the deficit when unemployment is this low something is very wrong.  

 

BTW Republicans have control of Congress and WH.  I'm Independent so I dislike D and R  but support bipartisan fwiw. 

 

Republicans are fiscally conservative when in the Minority.  As the Majority they're Democrat Lite

[Azalin]

3 hours ago, TPS said:

They don't need to balance their budget, but they should not let the deficit explode near the end of an expansion as they are doing. 

 

As a rule of thumb, if you keep the deficit/GDP ratio under 3%, then the Debt/GDP ratio tends to decline. The near-term problem is that before the next recession hits we will have a deficit near $1 trillion, the Deficit/GDP ratio will be > 3%, so the Debt/GDP ratio will also be rising. All make it difficult for politicians to come up with an adequate response...

 

You know a great deal more than I do with regard to economics, so I'm not inclined to argue with you. That said, do you not find it inexcusable that our national debt has reached the level it has? At what point do we stop looking at our debt as a ratio to GDP and start looking at it as actual debt that needs to be repaid (or at least avoided), and agreeing across partisan lines that congress ought to act more responsibly with the national purse strings?

 

 

2 hours ago, ALF said:

 

If Congress can't reduce the deficit when unemployment is this low something is very wrong.  

 

BTW Republicans have control of Congress and WH.  I'm Independent so I dislike D and R  but support bipartisan fwiw. 

 

If congress can't reduce the deficit annually regardless of unemployment, then something is very wrong.

 

You're right - Republicans are in control, and they continue to prove that they only preach fiscal restraint when they're in the minority. When they have the majority, they have a habit of leaving their testicles back in their home districts.*

 

Something I've always wanted to ask you: if you don't like Rs or Ds, then why on earth do you support bipartisan legislation? By definition, "bipartisan" means that both parties are involved - there's nothing "independent" about it, and is nearly always some ineffective, middle of the road "compromise" designed to do little more than make everyone feel good.

 

1 hour ago, /dev/null said:

 

Republicans are fiscally conservative when in the Minority.  As the Majority they're Democrat Lite

 

 

* see above.

 

[3rdnlng]

51 minutes ago, Azalin said:

 

You know a great deal more than I do with regard to economics, so I'm not inclined to argue with you. That said, do you not find it inexcusable that our national debt has reached the level it has? At what point do we stop looking at our debt as a ratio to GDP and start looking at it as actual debt that needs to be repaid (or at least avoided), and agreeing across partisan lines that congress ought to act more responsibly with the national purse strings?

 

 

 

If congress can't reduce the deficit annually regardless of unemployment, then something is very wrong.

 

You're right - Republicans are in control, and they continue to prove that they only preach fiscal restraint when they're in the minority. When they have the majority, they have a habit of leaving their testicles back in their home districts.*

 

Something I've always wanted to ask you: if you don't like Rs or Ds, then why on earth do you support bipartisan legislation? By definition, "bipartisan" means that both parties are involved - there's nothing "independent" about it, and is nearly always some ineffective, middle of the road "compromise" designed to do little more than make everyone feel good.

 

 

* see above.

 

Part of our problem was the lack of funding for the military over the last several years. In order to fund it properly the dems had to be given some of their priorities too. Both added to the deficit.

[keepthefaith]

1 hour ago, Azalin said:

 

You know a great deal more than I do with regard to economics, so I'm not inclined to argue with you. That said, do you not find it inexcusable that our national debt has reached the level it has? At what point do we stop looking at our debt as a ratio to GDP and start looking at it as actual debt that needs to be repaid (or at least avoided), and agreeing across partisan lines that congress ought to act more responsibly with the national purse strings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's my question, the giant principal and the rising cost to service the debt.  I haven't looked at the numbers in a couple years or so but when I last did the average rate at which our debt was financed was something like 1.6%.  However, as those bonds roll off we're now financing debt at about 3% and even if those rates stay flat (which seems doubtful) we could be looking at an annual interest cost of over $750 billion in 7 or 8 years.  That will likely be a larger expense than Medicaid or possibly Medicare then.  It's ridiculous and potentially very problematic.  How do you cut that expense? 

 

Neither party appears to have the will to make the adult decision to right-size spending (which is mostly entitlements) and keep this annual cost from becoming one of the largest in the budget. 

Edited May 7, 2018 by keepthefaith

[3rdnlng]

5 minutes ago, keepthefaith said:

 

That's my question, the giant principal and the rising cost to service the debt.  I haven't looked at the numbers in a couple years or so but when I last did the average rate at which our debt was financed was something like 1.6%.  However, as those bonds roll off we're now financing debt at about 3% and even if those rates stay flat (which seems doubtful) we could be looking at an annual interest cost of over $750 million in 7 or 8 years.  That will likely be a larger expense than Medicaid or possibly Medicare then.  It's ridiculous and potentially very problematic.  How do you cut that expense? 

 

Neither party appears to have the will to make the adult decision to right-size spending (which is mostly entitlements) and keep this annual cost from becoming one of the largest in the budget. 

I think you might need to add some zeros to that number.