I doubt it; that seems like it would be a pretty risky strategy. The GDP gains we’ve experienced over the past couple of years, while nice enough, are nothing remarkable and are basically in-line with what we’ve been seeing since late 2010:
Further, these GDP gains (and employment gains, for that matter) haven’t been influencing incomes in a broad way, continuing the wage-stagnation trends going back to the mid-1980s. It strikes me as risky to start bragging about “how great the economy is” with so many people continuing to struggle to make ends meet, year after year; you just come off as tone-deaf. The GDP growth over the past several years just isn’t benefiting the majority of households in a signficant way.
This is where I think the Democrats should be focusing their message. You’re not going to convince anyone that the economy isn’t doing great (it is) and you’re not going to convince many that it’s all thanks to Obama (it’s not).
What they should be doing is focusing on the fact that the economy is doing well because the Republicans are borrowing money from the future and injecting into today’s economy. Trump’s first full deficit is $200 billion larger than the 2015 deficit, more than $120 billion over Obama’s last deficit. His tax cuts, which are undoubtedly a large part of why the economy is booming, will increase the deficit $2.3 trillion over the next decade. The Democrats need to attack the Republican’s economic message by showing that all they’re doing is stealing money from tomorrow’s workers to pay for today’s corporate profits.
Hey knock yourself out defending Trump and the Trump Economy! Soak it up! It really is his and it really is something everyone should be talking about. The Trump Economy. Talk it up-- “it” being the Trump Economy, of course. Which is apparently the main thing, and possibly the ONLY thing, by which Trump is to ever be judged. The Trump Economy. And it is AWESOME! It’s *so *awesome, there’s no possible way it could ever tank. The Trump Economy, that is.
But, incidentally, if I had a shitbird as shitty as the Shit-Gibbon-in-Chief at the top of my chosen party, you’re fucking-a right I’d be above partisanship. Too bad more of you Republicans can’t say the same. But as long as the Trump Economy is humming, who cares about anything else, right? Nothing could go wrong with the Trump Economy, and that’s good news because strong economic growth & a bull market & low unemployment numbers are the ONLY things that matter. So tout your Trump Economy! Tout away! No need to be above partisanship here, folks! A STRONG economy is the MOST IMPORTANT THING by which Trump must ever be judged!
It’s Trump’s Economy, folks! Let’s always and forever give him all the credit he’s fully due!
The current growth numbers are illusory. The largest corporate tax reserves in history combined with even more tax cuts lead to a significant period of stock buybacks which inflated their prices and P/E ratio. There are also companies doing their best to either dump exports onto the market now or buy up a lot of materials before the tariffs affect them, which is trading a current surge for depressed future demand under the expanded tariff regime. The bubble is going to burst pretty soon, but unfortunately probably not before the election.
But there’s another important election in 2020, and it’ll still be the Trump Economy then. However, I suspect some nefarious partisans in the run-up to the 2020 election will try to blame a Democratic House on any turmoil we might experience in the Trump Economy between now and then, but let’s be clear: it’ll still be a 100% Trump Economy.
I’m referring to individual Republicans who say things that directly contradict what they just said a minute ago; not politicians who have substantive disagreements with others in their party.
That must be some sort of weird timeline you’re from where the Dems are unified and the GOP can barely pass anything through Congress because they’re always arguing amongst themselves.
I think it must’ve split off from the one I’ve lived in sometime before Will Rogers (“I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat”), but I’m having a hard time finding it. You’ll have to tell me more about it in order for me to locate it.
The 3.5% annual growth rate is very close to the long-term average of 3.2%. I’ll guess that if you condition the comparison to reflect only periods when the government is running a huge deficit, the present growth rate would appear dismal.
Looking at the GDP growth by sector: personal services and non-durable goods are up. Durable goods are down; construction is down; agriculture is down; exports are down — this last isn’t surprising since bilateral trade wars are part of the MAGA “strategy.” How about the miners? Have they gone back to work?
The S&P500 stock index recently fell 11% to hit a 6-month low.
The yield on Corporate AA bonds is 3.73% right now, compared with 2.7% a year ago, or even 3.39% a month ago. For BBB bonds the current yield is 4.6% vs 3.5% a year ago. For B bonds, the current yield is 6.8% vs 5.4% a year ago. Part of these rises are due to fears of the Trump inflation; but part is fear that the business cycle is in its last innings despite Trump’s attempted bubble.
The Trump inflation has helped me, though! My SocSec will get a big 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment in 2019, despite that I don’t pay the inflated prices of U.S. goods. This is the biggest SocSec hike since I retired several years ago.
Trump tried to get the budget shot down, both by trying to force Congress to include funding for the wall and by threatening to veto it, once the news came through that the Democrats had gotten all their programs funded.
That only explains half the equation, but would explain that half admittedly.
Trump campaigned on small government and solid budgeting and was almost certainly hired on the expectation that, as a “successful businessman”, he’d fix the government budget. Similarly as Obama campaigned to close Gitmo, everyone on his side genuinely voted with the expectation of how he’d go, but quietly ignored the failure to actually do that. The quietly ignoring part doesn’t change what they were voting for, though.
I agree with WillFarnaby for once. The only difference is that I hate to dignify this by calling it “the business cycle.” This is just another willfully created bubble from the party of boom and bust.
I want to remind you all that USA GDP was rising in 2016 as well. Trump played to parts of the country that weren’t doing well in that period. A big question is how those parts of the country are doing now.
I’m not seeing the irony, nor was any intended. The economic recovery that took place under Obama (after the huge mess left by the Republican predecessor) enabled the gains that Trump is now coincidentally in office for.
If Trump had taken office with the economy as it was in 2009 and could now report a 3.5% growth, I’d be happy to credit him for it.
The fun begins next year when American businesses truly begin to feel the impact of a reckless trade war, and more significantly, when we begin to feel the squeeze of trillion dollar deficits.
But this isn’t just the Trump economy; this is the GOP economy in which going back to 2010, the GOP refused to help Obama make the economic recovery - caused by their policies - a more balanced recovery. The fact is that since 2009, most of the gains have been for the wealthy and for corporations, which was part of Trump’s messaging strategy. Now that employment is finally nearing its capacity, wages are finally picking up - but for many it’s too late. Moreover, this won’t last forever. When the economy slows down, we’re going to repeat the same cycle. Banks and investors will look for ways to beat the market, to beat earnings. And they’ll make risky investments. The middle class will pay for their losses.