There’s really isn’t that much the Trump has to brag about with his White House crumbling internally right beneath his feet in the wake of the Bob Woodward's "Fear" and the NYTimes anonymous op-ed.
The aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico with almost 3,000 dead American citizens, which is more than Hurricane Katrina and more than were killed in the World Trade Center, Pentagon and in Shanksville Pennsylvania on 9/11 is a total horror. The comically clumsy rollout of the original travel ban, his immigrant family separation policy which has more than 500 children stolen from their parents who were legally seeking asylum, he called alt-right neo-nazis who killed someone “very fine people”, his national security advisor, campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, foreign policy advisor, and personal lawyer have all been convicted of various crimes in federal court. His internal staff are falling apart with Jarvanka attacking his Chief of Staff John Kelly claiming that he’s being the infamous NYTime’s anonymous letter of “Resistance.”
The single solitary shiny light of positivity for Trump has been the not yet crashed economy which continues to chug along nicely. However today former President Obama revealed the truth that the Trumpsters have been rapidly shoveling moist merde to hide for 18 months — the strong economy is a mostly product of the Obama administration’s efforts.
And this of course, has the right-wing media livid with outrage and denial.
Obama SNAPS, Lashes Out at Trump for Getting Credit on the Booming U.S. Economy.
Yeah, definitely merde.
First, they do at least accurately quote the former President when he correctly argues that the good jobs figures that were just released for this month aren’t really any different than the good jobs numbers that occurred pretty much during the last 7 years of his administration. But not without framing it in a whole lot of disbelieve and rude snark.
Obama has hit the campaign trail, to help depressed Democrats drag the vote out for the 2018 midterms.
And while he’s on the trail, he’s doing what he does best…
LIE.
Now, Obama is trying to take credit for President Trump’s soaring economy.
Ha ha ha ha!
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“Millions of people were losing their homes. Many were worried we were entering into a second Great Depression. So we worked hard to end that crisis but also to break some of these longer-term trends,” Obama said, “And initiated the longest streak of job creation on record. We covered another 20 million Americans with health insurance and we cut our deficits by more than half, partly by making sure people like me who have been given such amazing opportunities by this country, pay our fair share of taxes, to help folks coming up behind us.”
“I mention all this just so when you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started,” Obama then said, “I’m glad it’s continued but when you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, suddenly Republicans are saying ‘It’s a miracle.’ I have to remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016.”
Now the core of Obama’s claim is the job growth this year isn’t about the same as they were 3 years ago and 2 years ago when he was still President.
These are the current jobs numbers for the last year.
If we go back to 2016 as Obama suggests, we get this:
And if we go back to 2015, we get this:
Generally speaking, these jobs numbers are in fact largely the same just as Obama said but in a certain sense, Obama was actually lowballing his own success because although he may have had more peaks and valleys during his last two years, his overall average job gains were greater than Trump has yet been able to achieve.
“Nobody would have believed these numbers if I said them during the campaign,” Trump told a cheering crowd of members of the National Federation of Independent Business on Wednesday.
But when it comes to jobs, Trump is like the wealthy heir who, as the saying goes, was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
Unemployment rates for blacks, Latinos and all Americans began a steady decline in late 2009 that has continued since Trump took office. The same with the plunge in first-time claims for unemployment benefits.
And the 3.4 million jobs created in the 18 months from December 2016 through May of this year isn’t such an unbelievable number. The U.S. economy added 3.7 million net new jobs in the 18 months immediately before that.
Over the same period of time, Obama’s job gains at the end of his Presidency are still 300,000 above what Trump has done while he’s been in office. Those are the facts, that is the truth.
This has been and still is, Obama’s recovery and Obama’s economy.
Right media doesn’t like that idea, they hate that idea, they can’t stand that idea. So naturally, they have to use sleight-of-hand and basically shiny bullshit to make what is simply true not seem true.
Case in point, this is the first chart they presented to make their argument that Trump’s economy is awesome.
The data shows that the Trump economy is one of the greatest in American history. According to a recent CNBC report:
This shows Trump economy is one of the “greatest” in American history?
Well, looking back over the last 5 years — which includes both 2015-2016 — the full DOW Jones record looks like this.
Generally speaking, the DOW has been on an upward trend during this entire period. Besides a couple dips in late 2015 and early 2016 the real exception has been the last six months where things took an even larger dip which we still haven’t quite recovered from back to where they were at the last peak early in 2018. And that seems to have happened most likely because of Trump threatening tariff wars with China, Mexica, Canada and the EU all at once.
President Trump seized global headlines again recently after threatening a massive trade war with nations that the United States has a trade deficit with. The incendiary tweet that ignited a flurry of headlines sent the U.S. dollar plunging, and has many analysts concerned about the future of U.S. stocks.
Investors holding their breath can relax;the president almost certainly won’t start a massive, international trade war. That doesn’t mean his tariff plan won’t affect US stocks, however; the genie is out of the bottle, and the U.S. market will continue to feel the reverberations of President Trump’s tariff terror for months, and possibly years, to come.
Again, things were already going fine just as President Obama stated then Trump caused some problems with his tariff threats and the DOW lost it’s upward momentum becoming more volatile and more conservative because he himself generated uncertainty.
But then the Trumpers weren’t done with this one chart. not hardly.
During his time in office, the economy has achieved feats most experts thought impossible. GDP is growing at a 3 percent-plus rate. The unemployment rate is near a 50-year low. Meanwhile, the stock market has jumped 27 percent amid a surge in corporate profits.
Friday brought another round of good news: Nonfarm payrolls rose by a better-than-expected 201,000 and wages, the last missing piece of the economic recovery, increased by 2.9 percent year over year to the highest level since April 2009. That made it the best gain since the recession ended in June 2009.
Yes, corporate profits are up largely due to stock by backs prompted by his tax cuts, but wages increasing by only 2.9% still put them below the rate of inflation.
Wages aren’t growing when adjusted for inflation, a new report released Tuesday showed.
According to the Labor Department, median weekly earnings fell 0.6% in inflation-adjusted dollars in the second quarter, compared to the same time period of 2017.
As you can see, wage growth relative to inflation during the last years of Obama’s Presidency was better than the early part of his term, and also better than during Trump’s last 3 quarters.
When it comes to GDP the Right claims the latest rating of 4.2% growth is “the greatest Evah!”
But that’s not true either, because there were several points where GDP under Obama not only reached above 3% growth many times, it also reached above 4% growth multiple times, specifically once each in 2009, 2012 and 2014.
Trumpsters like to say that Obama only averaged 2% GDP growth during his presidency but that includes the huge -6% dip that occurred during the great recession of 2008-2009 which certainly wasn’t his fault.
4.2% is not magic or a “miracle” that has never happened before. Yes, sure, 4.2% growth is nice, but as noted on both charts prior to this latest quarter Trump’s average GDP has only be about 2.2% — just as they wrongly claim about Obama — and it only went to 4.2% as shown on both charts recently largely because of panic sales in soybeans in anticipation of his tariff war.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in nearly four years in the second quarter as consumers boosted spending and farmers rushed shipments of soybeans to China to beat retaliatory trade tariffs before they took effect in early July.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in nearly four years in the second quarter as consumers boosted spending and farmers rushed shipments of soybeans to China to beat retaliatory trade tariffs before they took effect in early July.
And some auto trade groups have said that tariff trade war could potentially lead to thousands of job losses.
A coalition representing major foreign automakers including Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG, BMW AG, and Hyundai Motor Co, said the tariffs would harm automakers and U.S. consumers. The administration in May launched an investigation into whether imported vehicles pose a national security threat and President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to quickly impose tariffs.
“The greatest threat to the U.S. automotive industry at this time is the possibility the administration will impose duties on imports in connection with this investigation,” wrote the Association of Global Automakers representing major foreign automakers. “Such duties would raise prices for American consumers, limit their choices, and suppress sales and U.S. production of vehicles.”
The group added: “Rather than creating jobs, these tariffs would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs producing and selling cars, SUVs, trucks and auto parts.”
So that would not be great for the economy. Not hardly.
For those who say Obama had the advantage during his time of the stimulus package to spur the economy that’s true, but it's also true that the banks ultimately paid back the majority of what they were loaned with some interest.
Speaking before a crowd of about 6,000 voters in Manchester, N.H., Obama assured supporters that of all the fiscal issues facing the nation, the bank bailouts are no longer among them.
"We got back every dime used to rescue the banks," he told the crowd gathered Oct. 18 in Victory Park. "We made that happen."
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Now, four years later, lawmakers have thus far distributed $466 billion of that total, according to the Treasury, and, of that total, about $370.4 billion has been returned, including $41.9 billion from interest and dividends, among other income sources.
But, of those the totals, the bank payments that the president referenced are only a portion. Of the $466 billion distributed, about $245.2 billion have gone to banks, both national and local. And, as of Oct. 18, the day of the president’s speech, the government had taken back about $266.7 billion, according to the treasury count-- about $21.5 billion more than the initial investment.
And the automakers paid back nearly all of what they were loaned back when the U.S. auto industry nearly collapsed into dust.
"Last month, the rescue of the auto industry officially came to an end," Obama said Jan. 7 in Detroit. "The auto companies have now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration invested in."
In December, the Treasury Department announced it sold the remainder of its 54.9 million shares in Ally Financial — formerly, General Motor’s financing service, GMAC — for $1.3 billion. With the deal, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the United States was "winding down the Auto Industry Financing Program," the federal program that saved the auto industry— or bailed it out, depending on your view.
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All told, the Treasury Department reported that the program cost taxpayers $79.7 billion, of which $70.4 billion was recovered. Under that estimate, the program lost about $9.3 billion. In April, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the program would end up costing about $14 billion.
If you take the $21 Billion surplus from TARP and the $14 Billion deficit from the auto bailout, instead of “spending $1 Trillion in stimulus” the net result is actually a surplus of about $7 Billion, which is a net positive.
Also, the fact is that during .Obama’s time the deficit came down by $900 Billion dollars starting at over $1.3 Trillion in 2009 and reaching a low of $400 Billion in 2015, however with Trump it’s likely to top $1 Trillion again around 2019.
Although many righties argue “Obama was a big spender" the truth is the pork barrel wasteful debt busting spending is coming from Trump from which here really is an argument to be made that if you look at all the previous numbers noted above Obama received a much more beneficial economic return on his investment with TARP and the Auto Bailout than Trump has so far with his tax and regulation cuts.
The simple fact is that Obama was telling the truth and the right-wing attempts to distract, deflect and distort that truth is a pathetically executed, and easily proven lie.
But then again, lies are pretty all they have to depend on anymore.