Is Trump doing any good?

[The Colourful Jester]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r/news-story/e601d45394c5d7c4e3e6131997ca1f4e

Not sure if that's behind a paywall or not, so cherry picking some quotes from it:

"The Donald J Trump enigma: No American President in recent US history has so dramatically improved the American economy boosting pay rates, job numbers, retail sales, business investment, profits and, of course, the share market. It’s an astounding transformation that will create a tidal wave of repercussions around the world."

"Its ironic that Trump’s predecessor was exactly the reverse — he was one of the most politically correct presidents in US history hardly putting a word out of place but vast areas of the US suffered from his economic policies."

"And also: “People who go into the White House to have a meeting with President Donald Trump usually leave pleasantly surprised. They find that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweet storms or the media coverage. They generally say that he is affable, if repetitive. He runs a normal, good meeting and seems well informed enough to get by …"

"The White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn’t tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we’d see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our Islamic State policy, the nomination for judgeships and the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade”."

--------------

I've wondered for some time if the man is actually doing some good and I'm just not looking hard enough for signs of this. He certainly brings more trouble for himself then he needs, but does the article make any reasonable points?

 

[untermensche]

Paywall.

It all really depends on what one thinks "the economy" is.

Is it corporate profits? Stock dividends?

Then the economy is good.

Is it opportunity for average people?

Then the economy is not very good.

For average people the cost of college education has skyrocket far above inflation. The price of all items from real estate to cars to insurance to cable TV to child care has risen.

But real wages have been stagnant for over 50 years.

In the 1950's and 1960's most mothers did not work. Families survived and prospered on one salary. Parents easily could see their children doing better than they did. Working people progressed. This had a lot to do with the power of unions in the government.

But today the game is fixed folks.

And the weight of the super-rich is crushing everyone.

 

[Subsymbolic]

The economy is a little like a supertanker. The fact that it is doing so well is a result of Obama's efforts - over the next year or two we will see the effect trump has as his hand on the tiller filters down. Remember the condition of the economy that Obama inherited...

 

[TV and credit cards]

Paywall. Not so much as one freebee.

Trump came in on a damn good economy in spite of the US suffering from Obama's economic policies. He promised deregulation and low corporate taxes. And the market shot up. Initially, the world freaked out at Trump becoming president but at the end of the day greed won. Greed always wins. And the market shot up. Is anyone surprised?

Trump's outlook is short. He needs "it's the economy stupid" to support the GOP at the end of the year. This and a anti-immigrant factor will give support to the Republicans in 2018. Americans may have a soft spot for the Dreamers but beyond that a majority are anti-immigrant. The Dems would be well advised to give Trump money for The Wall in exchange for citizenship for the Dreamers. The Wall is nothing but feel good shit. It's nothing in exchange for not deporting 700k people. As it stands now, 2018 will be good but not great for the Dems. Trump knows closet racism. He knows this does not show up in polling.

His penchant for isolationism will be a detriment to the US. Where we leave, China will fill the void.

What Trump (more specifically the GOP) is doing is just putting a few extra bucks in people's pockets in exchange for further control by the wealthiest.

 

[Malintent]

The notion that Obama inherited a strong economy is laughable. It flies in the face of well known and evidenced facts. That you put a declaration of the opposite of reality in italics, does not make it less verifiably false.

As Obama stated recently to David Letterman, if you get your facts from fox, then you are living on a different planet than those that get their facts from NPR.

 

[southernhybrid]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jan/08/how-trump-obama-compare-stock-market/

For instance, Trump’s comparison falters if you look at the Dow’s performance between Inauguration Day and Jan. 5 of a president’s second calendar year in office, rather than Election Day.

Starting with Trump’s inauguration, the Dow has risen from 19,827.3 to 25,075.1 -- an increase of 26 percent. That’s impressive.

But it’s not as impressive as its performance during the equivalent period under Obama. Under Obama, the Dow increased from 7,949.1 to 10,572 — a rise of 33 percent.

In fact, the Dow’s rise was even more impressive under Obama if you start measuring at the market’s low point, on March 9, 2009, during the depths of the Great Recession. That day, the Dow closed at 6,547. Between then and Jan. 5 — a 10-month period — the Dow rose by a stunning 61 percent. That’s more than three times faster than Trump’s rise over the same period in his term.

It’s also worth noting that Trump is not alone among presidents in presiding over a bull market.

Most recent presidents have seen significant stock market increases over their terms. Presidents Obama, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, for instance, all oversaw three-digit percentage increases over their eight year terms. The one president who lost ground was President George W. Bush, whose final year in office coincided with the onset of the Great Recession.

I'm not even convinced that any president has that much influence over stock prices but considering that Obama inherited an economy that was in a deep recession, if you do give a president credit for rising markets, Obama did an outstanding job when compared to Trump, who inherited a bull market. I am concerned that we are past due for a market correction, as prices are starting to look more irrational than usual. If we are in a bubble and we have a serious correction, will Trump take credit?

And, as has been noted in this thread, the average person doesn't own any stocks, although those workers that contribute to 401K plans are vested in stocks to some extent. At this point, any economic gains are at least partly due to the economy that Trump inherited.

The tax legislation, bad as I think it is, may have a positive impact in the near term, but it's hard to predict how it will impact things in the long run. Some companies are claiming the tax plan is influencing them to give raises and bonuses, but to me, it appears that raises are finally coming, due to the low unemployment rate and the difficulty of finding qualified people to fill jobs. For example, Walmart claimed they are raising the starting rate for new employees to 11 dollars per hour due to the tax legislation, but Target already raised their hourly rate to 11 dollars an hour back in the fall. So, is Walmart honestly increasing wages due to the tax law or are they raising the rate to compete with Target, since qualified employees are becoming harder to find? Of course the raise is still not enough, but I am skeptical that the new tax law has much if anything to do with higher entry level hourly rates. It's more likely that companies will do more stock buy backs and increase the salaries to those at the top, while giving pittance to those at the bottom. Time will tell.

Regardless, I don't agree that Obama caused terrible economic problems for people. The man actually helped the economy move forward, so the claim that his policies hurt the economy is pure bullshit. He inherited one of the worst recessions in the history of the US.

Finally, I think that many of the regulations that Trump has ended during his first year, will come back to haunt us. When you give the green light for mining companies to dump debris into streams etc., you eventually have a price to pay for the environmental destruction that will come in time.

I don't see a single positive thing that Trump has done, unless you're an extremely wealthy social conservative person who loves to see the environment getting mucked up due to the elimination of regulations that were carefully put into place, and you love ultra conservative judges. Don't get me wrong. There are regulations that are probably not necessary, but Trump is killing regulations without considering the long term impact of his decisions.

And, if I missed something positive that Trump has accomplished, I think it's fair to say that his negative impact on the country has been far more damaging than any achievement he may have made.

 

[RavenSky]

The economy is a little like a supertanker. The fact that it is doing so well is a result of Obama's efforts - over the next year or two we will see the effect trump has as his hand on the tiller filters down. Remember the condition of the economy that Obama inherited...

^^^ that

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've wondered for some time if the man is actually doing some good and I'm just not looking hard enough for signs of this. He certainly brings more trouble for himself then he needs, but does the article make any reasonable points?

He got elected because he said all the things lots of people wanted to hear. Saying and doing are two different things. He's making the wealthy wealthier, that's for certain, but he isn't making education or medical insurance more affordable. He isn't creating good paying jobs. He isn't being fiscally responsible.

In the end he isn't doing any of the things he said he was going to do. He made those poor, forgotten, highly taxed, and persecuted joe six-pack voters give him the nod, but their wages are still stagnant, their jobs are still migrating away, their kids will never see higher education, there will never be fiscal change. In short he made them feel better about being mad at big government that was keeping them downtrodden, but nothing changed, or will change.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r/news-story/e601d45394c5d7c4e3e6131997ca1f4e

Not sure if that's behind a paywall or not, so cherry picking some quotes from it:

"The Donald J Trump enigma: No American President in recent US history has so dramatically improved the American economy boosting pay rates, job numbers, retail sales, business investment, profits and, of course, the share market. It’s an astounding transformation that will create a tidal wave of repercussions around the world."

"Its ironic that Trump’s predecessor was exactly the reverse — he was one of the most politically correct presidents in US history hardly putting a word out of place but vast areas of the US suffered from his economic policies."

"And also: “People who go into the White House to have a meeting with President Donald Trump usually leave pleasantly surprised. They find that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweet storms or the media coverage. They generally say that he is affable, if repetitive. He runs a normal, good meeting and seems well informed enough to get by …"

"The White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn’t tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we’d see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our Islamic State policy, the nomination for judgeships and the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade”."

--------------

I've wondered for some time if the man is actually doing some good and I'm just not looking hard enough for signs of this. He certainly brings more trouble for himself then he needs, but does the article make any reasonable points?

The article is full of shit. Trump hasn't improved anything. That was the economy he inherited.

 

[Elixir]

Thank God for Trump. It was bad under Obama, with the sun rising in the west and setting in the east. Finally, Trump got that straightened out, making the sun rise in the East and set in the West with an executive order. We are all so much better off now!

 

[Opoponax]

"The White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn’t tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we’d see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our Islamic State policy, the nomination for judgeships and the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade”."

I giggled my way through most of it and then burst out laughing as a I read the bolded comment.

 

[Patooka]

Robert Gottliebson is very much a "privatize everything and the free market fairy will make it all right" kind of economist, just to put things in a bit of context. His current talking point is that the Trump tax "reform" passed late last year was a massive success and Australia must emulate or risk falling behind or something. He's not very clear on the consequences just but things will happen to Australia if we don't fuck over the middle class and give the wealthy golden parachutes. But to address the quotes:

"The Donald J Trump enigma: No American President in recent US history has so dramatically improved the American economy boosting pay rates, job numbers, retail sales, business investment, profits and, of course, the share market. It’s an astounding transformation that will create a tidal wave of repercussions around the world."

Correlation. Causation. They are spelt differently because they mean two different things

"Its ironic that Trump’s predecessor was exactly the reverse — he was one of the most politically correct presidents in US history hardly putting a word out of place but vast areas of the US suffered from his economic policies."

Not being a cunt is not the same as worshipping the altar of political correctness. And when/where did all this economic suffering occur? From an outside perspective, the US recovery out of the GFC was pretty admirable, I think.

"And also: “People who go into the White House to have a meeting with President Donald Trump usually leave pleasantly surprised. They find that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweet storms or the media coverage. They generally say that he is affable, if repetitive. He runs a normal, good meeting and seems well informed enough to get by …"

I'm just going to leave this here:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgWyc-iAw8Q[/youtube]

"The White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn’t tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we’d see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our Islamic State policy, the nomination for judgeships and(5) the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade”."

"The White House is more professional if you ignore Trump's tweets' is like saying "Arby's is a healthy choice for meals if you just ignore their food". The rest of the quote is just bullshit, Trump has accomplished none of those things.

As to whether or not Donald Trump has done any good since he has been in office, the South Korean President credits him for bringing North Korea around for talks.. But as a guess, I think Trump's legacy will be showing how resilient a nation the US is; and because of its values and institutions, no one person can completely fuck it up and burn it to the ground.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r/news-story/e601d45394c5d7c4e3e6131997ca1f4e

Not sure if that's behind a paywall or not, so cherry picking some quotes from it:

"The Donald J Trump enigma: No American President in recent US history has so dramatically improved the American economy boosting pay rates, job numbers, retail sales, business investment, profits and, of course, the share market. It’s an astounding transformation that will create a tidal wave of repercussions around the world."

"Its ironic that Trump’s predecessor was exactly the reverse — he was one of the most politically correct presidents in US history hardly putting a word out of place but vast areas of the US suffered from his economic policies."

"And also: “People who go into the White House to have a meeting with President Donald Trump usually leave pleasantly surprised. They find that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweet storms or the media coverage. They generally say that he is affable, if repetitive. He runs a normal, good meeting and seems well informed enough to get by …"

"The White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn’t tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we’d see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our Islamic State policy, the nomination for judgeships and the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade”."

--------------

I've wondered for some time if the man is actually doing some good and I'm just not looking hard enough for signs of this. He certainly brings more trouble for himself then he needs, but does the article make any reasonable points?

If your definition of good = golfing, then yes he's doing a lot of 'good'.

trump-advocates-for-public-service-on-mlk-day-but-spends-it-at-mar-a-lago-resort

But at least he's telling everyone else what they should be doing on MLK day.

aa

 

[Horatio Parker]

For an opposing view...

(not Trump-centric)

The Dow DJIA, +0.44% is not a serious indicator of the condition of the economy. What we’ve had is a long but fairly slow expansion and a lot of reduction in the effective size of the labor force. Employment ratios have risen a little, but they are still way below where they were 10 or, for that matter, 20 years ago.

I think there are really major changes in the structure of the economy going forward. The share of business investment has been quite low, share of construction has been very low, and that means the economy is being driven increasingly by the consumer. The consumer is dependent upon the access to debt, auto loans, consumer loans and student loans. Those things will build up over time until such time as there is a crack and households decide that they no longer wish to access the credit — at which point this phase of the expansion will end.

[...]

Trump came in with the idea that we should be investing heavily in infrastructure. He got no traction from the Republican Congress. Why is that? Because the immediate beneficiaries of an infrastructure program are people who live in cities, people who live in the expensive coastal areas of the country — and these people don’t vote Republican. So a political obstacle that prevented the one sensible or necessary element of Trump’s political framework from getting any traction at all.

[...]

There is a huge need to cut the size of the financial sector, to have smaller banks that have more autonomy from each other, that serve smaller businesses, and that are not concentrations of political power and obstacles to effective regulation [as] the present banking system is. You cannot have a functioning economy, let alone a democratic government, if the banks are running the government. You have to have a situation where banks, which are publicly chartered institutions, serve a public purpose with some common objectives. Some banks blew out the mortgage market, [and] they blew out technology investment two decades ago. What are they doing now? They are financing energy investments, and they are financing consumer debt. This is an almost brainless approach.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/economist-james-k-galbraith-isnt-celebrating-dow-25000-2018-01-08

 

[Ford]

We're 20 years out from the breaking story that the President had gotten a blow job from an intern. It was the biggest scandal of that time.

Today, we're finding out that the President cheated on his third trophy wife with a porn star. Because she reminded him of his daughter. And then he paid her hush money.

If nothing else, Trump has finally got the religious right to let go of their death grip on the idea that their chosen candidates must have "family values."

 

[Elixir]

If nothing else, Trump has finally got the religious right to let go of their death grip on the idea that their chosen candidates must have "family values."

Yeah, credit where it's due. But if your candidate isn't a racist, they need Family Values and a whole lot more to curry favor with these faux Jesus freaks.

 

[Opoponax]

We're 20 years out from the breaking story that the President had gotten a blow job from an intern. It was the biggest scandal of that time.

Today, we're finding out that the President cheated on his third trophy wife with a porn star. Because she reminded him of his daughter. And then he paid her hush money.

If nothing else, Trump has finally got the religious right to let go of their death grip on the idea that their chosen candidates must have "family values."

If Trump were to die or resign this afternoon, they'd weep with the dramatics of the North Koreans when Kim Jong Il croaked. Then, when the next Democratic POTUS was in office, they'd be back to screaming bloody murder about tan suits, coffee salutes, and how sleeveless dresses symbolize the moral degradation of America. And they'd never reflect for a moment on how it compares to Trump.

There are tens of millions of Americans who would rather see other Americans die than be able to get medical treatment, even when it could and does happen themselves and their own families.

Their disdain of immigrants is at a 1930s Germany level.

"Family Values" was never a sincerely held position (whatever its claimed tenets were) by those who most loudly propounded it. It was a sham slogan to appeal to Christian supremacists; ironically, an appeal to their darker nature. That is, it was a concept that inadvertent or not, allowed the targets of it to feel not only good, but outright morally superior and with a duty to discriminate against The Other.

And when faced with someone who is without question the sleaziest person in anyone's living memory to run for POTUS, let alone attain the office, they support him without question.

Sorry about the rant. I'm procrastinating before starting work.

 

[ronburgundy]

Robert Gottliebson is very much a "privatize everything and the free market fairy will make it all right" kind of economist, just to put things in a bit of context.

If the article actually presented any supporting facts, we could evaluate those, but it only makes baseless causal assertions. Thus, evaluating the source of the article itself is the only way to judge the likely reasonableness of its conclusions.

Not only is the author a right-winger, but the entire paper, The Australian, is a far-right rag created by Murdoch (IOW, the Fox News of down-under). It is aggressively pro-corporate and anti-regulation and most its articles related to climate change either deny its reality or argue against doing anything about it. It is also filled with racist screeds and homophobia.

 

[The Colourful Jester]

Not only is the author a right-winger, but the entire paper, The Australian, is a far-right rag created by Murdoch (IOW, the Fox News of down-under). It is aggressively pro-corporate and anti-regulation and most its articles related to climate change either deny its reality or argue against doing anything about it. It is also filled with racist screeds and homophobia.

That's pretty much right. and here's more by Henry Ergas. Paywall again unfortunately. And cherry picked quotes again.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...t/news-story/efa8180f7c0663b8f39636a713cdaca3

"With Donald Trump’s first year as 45th President of the United States drawing to a close, America’s economy is growing strongly, the unemployment rate is at an 18-year low (and that for black Americans is lower than at any time since data began to be collected in 1972), consumer and business confidence are high, and the stockmarket has reached new peaks."

"As for America’s democracy, which pundits claimed would collapse into authoritarianism, it is as vigorous as ever; and although the world remains a dangerous place, the administration’s foreign policy, which avoids the errors made by Trump’s immediate predecessors, seems focused and credible. However, none of that is showing up in the opinion polls."

"But the commentariat’s obsession with the President’s persona is profoundly misleading. What it ignores is the longer-term trend of which Trump’s rise to the presidency is itself a symptom: a trend in which Americans, as they become increasingly dissatisfied with the choices on offer, turn ever more quickly and savagely on their elected officials."

"The congressional Republicans’ problems are obvious: although they delivered on tax reform, PolitiFact reports that they have stalled 32 of the 101 specific promises Trump made in his campaign and simply ignored many others, leaving most of those promises unfulfilled."

"Nor have the Democrats fared much better. Yes, they scored significant wins by running centrist candidates in recent by-elections; but they remain captive to an activist base that — according to James E. Campbell, a leading scholar of American public opinion — has moved them, on a 10-point scale, two points further out to the left of the median voter than the GOP has moved to the right."

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The comments section under it, is much the same too.

 

[jonatha]

We're 20 years out from the breaking story that the President had gotten a blow job from an intern. It was the biggest scandal of that time.

Today, we're finding out that the President cheated on his third trophy wife with a at least two porn stars. Because she at least one reminded him of his daughter. And then he paid her them both hush money.

If nothing else, Trump has finally got the religious right to let go of their death grip on the idea that their chosen candidates must have "family values."

FTFY