Now that he’s in the White House, Donald Trump has decided that official unemployment numbers are no longer bogus but signs of his own greatness. However, as NPR points out this morning, the economy, for better and for worse, is chugging along about the same as it did prior to Trump’s occupation of the White House:
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, says some good things are happening these days, such as the surge in stock prices. Holtz-Eakin, who served under both Bush administrations and was an adviser to Arizona Sen. John McCain, likes Trump’s focus on deregulation, which he thinks could help businesses.
But Holtz-Eakin says that on the whole, the economy isn’t really performing all that much differently than it has in the recent past.
“By and large, we still have the same strengths. We continue to see the unemployment rate fall. We continue to see jobs created. We continue to have the same weaknesses. We don’t see wages rising rapidly enough to greatly raise the standard of living,” he says.
It’s true that consumers and businesses are expressing more confidence in the economy. But so far there is no evidence they are spending any more than they were last year, he notes [Jim Zarroli, “Now That He’s President, Trump Is Sounding More Positive About the Economy,” NPR: Morning Edition, 2017.08.09].
Remember, assigning Presidents credit for economic outcomes is largely fallacious. But even if you can identify a causal relationship between Presidents and economic outcomes, the President has to enact policy to cause those outcomes, and Trump has enacted no meaningful economy-boosting policies.
Trump’s words appear to be boosting some companies. Missile-makers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are outperforming the market this week; so is Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, which makes iodine, which we use to treat radiation poisoning.
My little town of 41,000 rocket scientists and mostly white, upper class folks is home to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Trump and the Korean weiner-waving manifestation of testosterone are definitely good for the town. Thanks for the plug … now, get out there and buy some missiles.
interesting how trump tweeted the trans-gender military ban right after frmr campaign dir. manafort’s home was raided for evidence. change the subject. just like he raises the specter of a “fire and fury” nuclear war with North Korea. Mueller must be raising trump’s temperature. what will trump’s ultimate distraction be?
this ‘shot’ leopard won’t be changin’ his spots.
Key figures in Trump’s inner circle were among eight known attendees of a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, which wasn’t disclosed until more than a year later. (Meetings with foreign agents must be disclosed during the security clearance process.)
Trump Jr. agreed to host Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya under the belief that she would provide him with harmful information on Clinton. In an email from an agent Goldstone to the president’s son, Goldstone described the intelligence as “part of a Russian government effort” to help the Trump campaign. Trump Jr. responded by telling Goldstone, “I love it.”
In a speech shortly after Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting, his father teased a “major speech” that would attack Clinton the following week. And, while the president said he had no involvement in the meeting, the Post reported in July that he personally dictated his son’s “misleading” statement responding to the controversy, including claims that the meeting was about adoption policy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-tower-meeting-russia_us_596e586ae4b0000eb196710d?p4
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