Tom Toles for September 17, 2018

Trump is still riding the wave of Obama economic prosperity.

1. Employment is a LAGGING economic indicator; it responds slowly (employers are slow to invest in new hires, but also slow to lay off staff they have invested in). At this point in the Obama prosperity, the rate of job losses from the Bush economic meltdown had been reversed into job gains (which would continue for an unprecedented 84 months), but unemployment was still hovering around 10%, which of course Obama would bring down to under 4%.

2. The first nine months of the Trump administration were operating under the final fiscal year budget of Obama, so prosperity, stock market gains, etc., continued. Since the first Trump fiscal year kicked in, stock market gains have leveled off, the rate of annual growth (while continuing) has slowed, the rate of job gains has slowed (and we had the first month with job losses to end the record Obama streak) and the Obama steady reductions in the budget deficits to ONE THIRD of the record deficits Obama inherited from Bush are now being exploded by Trump back to Bush era levels.

Obama v Trump on jobs added:

2012 (Obama) — 2.2 million jobs added

2013 (Obama) — 2.2 million jobs added

2014 (Obama) — 2.6 million jobs added

2015 (Obama) — 2.9 million jobs added

2016 (Obama) — 2.5 million jobs added

2017 (Trump) — 1.7 million jobs added (riding the Obama momentum)

But CONservatives said the Obama economy was a disaster but say the Trump economy is “booming.” Sick and tired of CONservative two-faced, double-standard, hypocritical RACIST spin.

A self-made African-American success saved the economy and gets denigrated; a spoiled rich WHITE heir who inherited EVERYTHING from Daddy, failed at everything he ever did on his own, and falls far short of his predecessor, and here comes the white privilege applause.

Trump family profits at all-time highs! Emoluments! Bribes!

Excellent summary, DD.

Unfortunately, no Trump Disciples will even read what you have written.

Not that it would matter, since they cannot comprehend posts that exceed the length of a Trump tweet.

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Look for a Pee-Wee Herman type response from one of them, that will be about as long as a bumper sticker.

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#TraitorTrump

Obama turned around the mess Bush left. Trump is working hard at reversing that progress.

That is the nature of politics. Whatever happens while you are in office, you get the credit or the blame. It’s not always fair or accurate, but it’s how things work.

Meanwhile in this great economic boom according to a May report this year by CNBC, 40% of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense, or did the Trump tax cut change that?

You’re letting facts get in the way again!

“ … If I told you that workers weren’t getting bigger raises despite the fact that the economy had added 150,000 to 200,000 jobs last month, you wouldn’t be able to tell if I was talking about 2011 or 2018, or any time in between. …”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/07/06/the-recovery-is-just-as-strong-as-ever-trumps-trade-war-might-change-that/

Keep this up Tom, and someone is going to give you another of those Pulitzer thingies.

Ha ha! Please! Lol! Yes, please bring back high taxation and strangling regulation and let’s have a ‘new normal’ of sub 2% GDP again. No thanks. Keep drinking the Koolaid though! Your cartoons are always a good example of the left’s delusions.

Actually, I’m starting to appreciate you writing stuff earlier than I do, gives me time to go plant bulbs, and still get everything I want said said.

Trump owns the rise, he’ll palm the fall off on ANYONE else.

Just to inject a little reality in here: American taxes were NOT high, compared to other modern industrialized countries, even before the Corporate Welfare Queen and National Debt Explosion Act of 2017. And, though Trump’s primary reason for running for president was so that he and his cronies could loot the national treasury, part of the reason was that Obama ridiculed him way back when. And, of course, poor Li’l Donnie’s fragile ego just could NOT deal with that.

Such a hoot. So, the Reagan economy was really the Carter economy. And the JFK economy was really the Ike economy.

The 2007-2008 financial crisis is the most valid starting point for evaluating today’s economy. A point is made by Johnson and Soros here (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/crisis-response-fueled-rise-of-trump-by-rob-johnson-and-george-soros-2018-09) that both the Bush and Obama administrations made a significant miscalculation in shoring up the Banks (which did need to be done somehow) without directly addressing the mortgage foreclosure crisis, thus placing the major weight of the crisis on the debtors, even though the creditors bore a good deal of the responsibility. Iceland did it differently, putting the onus on the bankers (done by democratic vote of the people), and although it is not a good comparison to the US in size and wealth, the outcome for Iceland, one of the most severely hit in the crisis, was a faster and more complete recovery than any other nation. It is also worthwhile to look at the fiscal multiplier of government spending, i.e., how much the economy gets back for every dollar of spending. The estimated multiplier for the corporate tax cuts is 0.5, that is, 50 cents back per dollar spent. On the other hand, spending on health care, education and job training has a multiplier of about 3, 3 dollars back for every dollar spent. That’s what social capital, the real wealth of a nation, is all about.

Who does THIS sound like???

Sociopaths are people who have little to no conscience. They will lie, cheat, steal and manipulate others for their own benefit. They know exactly what they are doing, they just don’t care because they don’t think that way. If you are naive enough, they will brainwash you into doing exactly what they say and what they want which is the only time a sociopath is truly happy.Sociopaths can hide this well if you haven’t known them for long. They’re really nice and charming at first, almost too nice, but it’s extremely fake. The niceness will last until a problem occurs in which they are at fault however, you will be manipulated to believe that you are in the wrong. There is no reasoning with this person. Things have to be their way or it’s the highway. They will blame you for hurting them (even if they’re the ones who hurt you) or blame the world for all their problems (knowing full well they do sh***y things in general). They are compulsive liars and even if they do apologize, it’s never genuine. Most are anti social and have few to no friends because most people around them don’t want to associate with them. However the sociopath will again tell you that “people hate me for no reason/the world is against me”. The only person who will put up with a sociopath is someone who is off their rocker or someone who has absolutely no self respect, or both of those two combined.

Piece of advice: Once you realize that you are dealing with a sociopath, RUN.

Is Trump’s tie an extension of the graph of the economy?

Here what’s going up. The deficit already back up to a trillion dollars annual next year.