[quote=EconProf]
[quote=svelte][quote=EconProf]In terms of accomplishing liberals’ goals, Trump should be applauded. On many fronts–not all–he is succeeding. A booming economy, record low unemployment, wages picking up steam, state tax revenues exceeding all predictions…
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Well, you’re giving him a bit more credit than he deserves. The economy was improving every day when he took office, which brings lower unemployment and higher wages with it. Unless you can show me a definite spike in those figures after he took office, tend not to credit him with those.
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OK, here’s the spike: The growth rate during Obama’s 8 years averaged under 2%. This despite the historical tendency for deep recessions to be followed by strong recoveries. Under Trump the annual growth rate is approximately 3% per year, a difference that has a big long run impact over time. [/quote]
I notice you switched horses from unemployment, wages, etc to growth rate. Seemed to me that might indicate those numbers don’t tell the story you wanted to tell, so I checked. They don’t.
[img_assist|nid=26645|title=2017 US Unemployment Rate|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=399|height=180]
[img_assist|nid=26646|title=2017 US Wage Growth|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=400|height=280]
Even the growth rate story doesn’t really pan out so far. If you look at this graph, Obama’s first year growth rate is roughly equivalent to Obama’s. If you want to compare Obama’s best growth rate year to Trumps, Obama wins. I think it only fair that we wait a few years before we declare victory/failure on Trump’s policies.
[quote=EconProf]
BTW, I’m not saying Trump is a nice guy. His tweets are adolescent, his comments gross, his personal history shameful, and his tweets damaging even to his supporters. But ironically, by doing the opposite of what Obama did for 8 years, he is accomplishing some surprisingly good things.[/quote]
I think his unpredictability may have a good side too…we all know the bad side of it. The good side is it keeps other countries on edge…what tariff / embargo will he implement next? That gives them motivation to give us a great deal that he’ll like.
