Trump II

[Alan Klein]

With due respect, it is really unclear to me whether the President has any ideas.  He seems to flit around depending on what is on Fox and Friends each day.  He has said on several occasions both during the campaign and after that his health insurance plan will cover everyone with lower deductibles (thanks to television, we have documentation of this).  This is nigh to impossible and the current proposal being considered by the House falls well short of this.  Furthermore, I think what you state is quite worrisome if the Cabinet secretaries are going to blindly follow what the President says.  Yes, of course they are there to execute his policy but they are also there to offer their best advice. 
The Reagan tax cut was followed a couple of years later by a huge tax increase; you can look it up.  Clinton actually raised taxes and there were a lot of Republicans who said this would cripple the economy.  there was more economic expansion under Clinton than under Reagan.  Here are the jobs created numbers under the Presidents starting with Carter in 1976:
Term           Private Sector Jobs Added (000s)
Carter   9,041
Reagan 1   5,360
Reagan 2   9,357
GHW Bush   1,509
Clinton 1   10,883
Clinton 2   10,085
GW Bush 1   -811
GW Bush 2   414
Obama 1   1,937
Obama 2   9,867

You cannot argue against the data.

Trump has a grand strategy.  Read my earlier post on the things he's already done to implement it.  Like any good CEO, he takes day-to-day advice from his advisers and Cabinet Secretaries.  He's given broad directives and let his Secretaries implement them on their own.  He's not going to micro-manage them.  They will have a lot of authority.  He also has to adjust to changing political winds.  But he's keeping his eye on the ball.  While he's distracting us with his tweets, Russia and tapping phones, he's executing his policies.  The hatred of Trump is blinding many to what's he's done and will do.  While we're arguing whether CO2 is good or bad for corn production, he's shutting down spending for climate change and taking power away from the EPA. 

Job statistics including unemployment rates are not the best measure of the economy.  While Obama did add millions of jobs, those were only replacements of the millions of jobs that were lost under Bush due to a recession.  A better yardstick would be the Labor Participation rate which measures how many people are working as a per cent of the population.  It kept dropping during the entire 8 years of Obama to the lowest percentage since 1972.  Less people were working at the end of Obama's administration than at the beginning. 
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force-participation-rate

Regardless of labor rates, lower taxes always helps an economy.  The stock market is already increasing in value anticipating reduced taxes. More money in the hands of people and business allows for more investment.  Expanding business adds jobs and more wealth to the country.  Of course, other things can happen that could dampen growth such as a recession or war.  Let's hope we only get the good. 

[Alan Klein]

AP Exclusive: Manafort had plan to benefit Putin government:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_RUSSIA_MANAFORT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I've mentioned before that Paul Manafort could be a game changer in the Trump campaign, but this is getting more concrete now.

Cheers,
Bart

The article states that Manafort worked  on a Russian business project 10 years ago.    So? 

The article also states: "Manafort worked as Trump's unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August. Trump asked Manafort to resign after AP revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine's ruling pro-Russian political party."

Nothing in the article indicates any collusion with the Russians by Trump or Manafort to swing the election.  Just more fake news by the liberal press. 

[Alan Goldhammer]

No, but one can surely argue about attribution (of data) and correlation vs. causality.

For instance, given that the Obama "recovery" is the longest recovery in the history of recoveries, the question is how much of it can be attributed to his (in)actions and how much of it would have happened anyway. You know, recessions and recoveries happen cyclically, and government policies can either help or hurt either or both. I failed to notice a single Obama policy measure that significantly contributed to the recovery.

He did do the stimulus but then nothing was possible legislatively after 2010.  He appointed the members of the Federal Reserve who with their quantitative easing and purchasing of bonds kept interest rates at a historical low.  This is why you saw housing which was in the crapper after the meltdown rebound nicely during the Obama time frame.  The key point is that I was responding to Alan Klein's point about tax cuts and correcting a couple of errors.  One cannot argue that tax cuts alone spark massive economic growth.  there is no correlation in this regard.  Arguably one might argue that the tax cuts under Bush 2 inhibited economic growth based on the job statistics that I posted.  However, that would be a foolish argument as well. 

The US economy is complicated and has lots of moving parts.  Unintended consequences are quite common and unpredictable.  A grand experiment such as the border adjustment tax that is being discussed has both proponents and opponents but it's safe to say that we really do not know what the impact will be.  ONe can do all kinds of economic modeling but as one famous economist once said ".... our profession is really good at predicting the last recession."  One needs to sift through a lot of data to make informed decisions and it's tough being an investor these days.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Regardless of labor rates, lower taxes always helps an economy.  The stock market is already increasing in value anticipating reduced taxes. More money in the hands of people and business allows for more investment.  Expanding business adds jobs and more wealth to the country.  Of course, other things can happen that could dampen growth such as a recession or war.  Let's hope we only get the good.

How can you say this in light of the Reagan and Clinton tax increases?  Do you not remember that in the final two years of the Clinton administration there were even budget surpluses that were worrying to Fed Chair Greenspan?  Using the stock market as any kind of barometer is foolish.  I've been an independent investor all my adult life and don't put any faith at all in what the market tells us.  One has to dig deep into 10-K filings to understand what a companies prospects are, not the stock price.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...This is why you saw housing which was in the crapper after the meltdown rebound nicely during the Obama time frame...

My house, as well as the whole Chicagoland area, is still about 10% down, compared to the purchase price in 2004.

[Otto Phocus]

The problem with Trickle Down Economics is that after a while, the middle class gets tired of being trickled on.

[Alan Klein]

He did do the stimulus but then nothing was possible legislatively after 2010.  He appointed the members of the Federal Reserve who with their quantitative easing and purchasing of bonds kept interest rates at a historical low.  This is why you saw housing which was in the crapper after the meltdown rebound nicely during the Obama time frame.  The key point is that I was responding to Alan Klein's point about tax cuts and correcting a couple of errors.  One cannot argue that tax cuts alone spark massive economic growth.  there is no correlation in this regard.  Arguably one might argue that the tax cuts under Bush 2 inhibited economic growth based on the job statistics that I posted.  However, that would be a foolish argument as well. 

The US economy is complicated and has lots of moving parts.  Unintended consequences are quite common and unpredictable.  A grand experiment such as the border adjustment tax that is being discussed has both proponents and opponents but it's safe to say that we really do not know what the impact will be.  ONe can do all kinds of economic modeling but as one famous economist once said ".... our profession is really good at predicting the last recession."  One needs to sift through a lot of data to make informed decisions and it's tough being an investor these days.

You don't have to convince my wife.  She always thinks spending is good. 

[Alan Klein]

The problem with Trickle Down Economics is that after a while, the middle class gets tired of being trickled on.

Which reminds me of when the British Prime Minister said that socialism works great until you run out of other people's money.

[DeanChriss]

The wildly liberal Wall Street Journal is saying Trump's repeated lack of "respect for the truth" is putting him in jeopardy of being viewed as "a fake President".

[Alan Goldhammer]

My house, as well as the whole Chicagoland area, is still about 10% down, compared to the purchase price in 2004.

I was only considering new home building and not regional specific real estate prices which as you unfortunately know can be quite fickle.  In contrast to your experience, our home never lost value and has increased each year.

[Alan Klein]

Sorry about the dead in London. I wonder what the parliamentarians think of Trump now? I guess we'll find out after they come out of hiding from under their chairs.

[Robert Roaldi]

Sorry about the dead in London. I wonder what the parliamentarians think of Trump now? I guess we'll find out after they come out of hiding from under their chairs.

?

[Alan Klein]

I was only considering new home building and not regional specific real estate prices which as you unfortunately know can be quite fickle.  In contrast to your experience, our home never lost value and has increased each year.

My resale house that I bought 3 1/2 years ago supposedly went up 15% in value.  But you what?  None of this means anything.  There's another bubble in real estate.  Not as great as 2008 but large enough to see a big decrease if we're hit with a recession.  The problem is people have been putting their money in real estate and stocks because you can't make anything anywhere else.  So too much money chasing these things have  pushed the prices up causing a distortion in the market.   Of course it will be worse in some areas and better in others.  This is a retirement place for us so I'm not going to worry about it. 

[LesPalenik]

My resale house that I bought 3 1/2 years ago supposedly went up 15% in value.

15% increase in 3 1/2 years is pretty good, or not so bad - depending how you look at it. However, the recent home prices in Canada, especially in the big cities, are insane.
- The average price of a single-family home in suburban Toronto jumped by $108,000 in a month
- Average price of a detached home in Toronto is now more than $1.5 million
- Average price of homes sold in the Greater Toronto Area last month rose 27.7 per cent over last year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/news/toronto-house-prices/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/03/09/foreign-buyer-tax-ontario_n_15268576.html

[Schewe]

However, posting such crude, simplistic and inaccurate Internet memes does not do justice to your cause.

Hum...what checkmarks were inaccurate in your eyes? I agree it was crude and simplistic but I think it's appropriate since Trump is, himself both crude and simplistic...right?

So how's this for an internet meme?

Guess who is under an active FBI Counterintelligence investigation...

Let’s Revisit All Those Times Trump Surrogates Said You Can’t Elect Someone Under FBI Investigation

And so it came to pass on Monday, during the House intelligence committee’s hearings, that FBI director James Comey confirmed the veracity of the most-speculated-upon rumor in Washington: The agency is ― as numerous anonymous insiders have insisted to the press over the past few months ― investigating Russian-led efforts to “interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” And what’s more, this probe “includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

Ironic that America ended up electing a candidate who was and is still under FBI investigation and the candidate who lost is no longer under investigation. That kinda sucks, huh?

[Schewe]

Following up on the internet meme theme comes this...

Trump Lawyers Swipe at Teen Over Cat Website

"I really just want people to be aware that this is a president who's clearly more concerned about what people think of him than doing things of substance," says the 17-year-old behind the site.

From viral videos to scores of memes, it's no secret cats dominate the internet — but President Donald Trump's legal team apparently wasted no time bearing its claws for a fight with a teenager over one kitten-centric website.

Lucy, the 17-year-old behind kittenfeed.com, tells The Hollywood Reporter she's received a cease and desist letter over the site — which allows users to virtually scratch at four photos of Trump's head using a cat's paws. The website launched in February, and within its first few weeks only had about 1,200 visitors, but it was enough to catch the attention of the White House.

I played it last nite and it was fun to put realistic looking scratches on Trump's faces...therapeutic it was. Sadly, kittenfeed.com isn't working now :~(

[Schewe]

One more for the nite...

Belief in conspiracies largely depends on political identity

(and before you ask, the YouGov/Economist Poll was sponsored by The Economist is rated as a Least-Biased media source according to Media Bias/Fact Check)

Belief in conspiracy theories depends largely on which side of the spectrum you fall on

Sometimes it seems that Americans will believe anything.  And what we know as true or not true these days can depend on our political point of view.  But there are many of us who are willing to give at least some credence to the possibility that a claim might be true. 

At least that seems to be the case in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll.  One of the most notorious internet rumors of the 2016 presidential campaign, that there was a pedophile ring in the Clinton campaign, with code words embedded in the hacked emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, is seen as “probably” or “definitely” true by more than a third of American adults.  The poll was conducted after an armed North Carolina man tried to “self-investigate” the claim by going to the District of Columbia pizza restaurant that was alleged to be the center of the ring earlier this month and found nothing.  But even afterwards only 29% are sure the allegation is “definitely” not true.

(Sorry, the sizes are pretty big)



So, 87% of Clinton voters thing Russia hacked emails to help Trump while 80% of Trump voters don't.

Once a story is believed, it also seems to stay believed.  Donald Trump may have proclaimed that President Obama was born in the United States (having doubted that for years), but half of his supporters still think that it is at least probably true that the President was born in Kenya.  And in the U.S. as a whole, a majority believes that in 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. never found.

Wait, 36% still think Obama was born in Kenya, 53% thinks there were WMDs in Iraq and about 1 in 3 still think vaccines have been shown to cause autism.



Yeah, 75% of Clinton voters don't think millions of illegal votes were cast but 62% of Trump voters still do.

You can read the entire The Economist/YouGov Poll PDF. Note: this is from December 17 - 20, 2016 - 1376 US Adults before the recent news...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...I played it last nite and it was fun to put realistic looking scratches on Trump's faces...therapeutic it was...

Realistic? You mean blood flowing down his face? Yeek! That's violence.

Ok, let's try something less violent: During Obama presidency, someone builds a web site with four Obama images and a basket of bananas, so that site visitors can feed him. Cute, no? No violence. Would you equally enjoy playing it, with therapeutic effects? Or lament a cease and desist order?

[stamper]

Realistic? You mean blood flowing down his face? Yeek! That's violence.

Ok, let's try something less violent: During Obama presidency, someone builds a web site with four Obama images and a basket of bananas, so that site visitors can feed him. Cute, no? No violence. Would you equally enjoy playing it, with therapeutic effects? Or lament a cease and desist order?

 

[Schewe]

Cute, no?

Hitting Trump's face with a car's paw isn't racist...