FEDIT POLITICS Thread

During Obama's time in office the unemployment rate dropped from a staggering 9.9% to 4.7%. That's a 52% drop in unemployment.

During Trump's time in office it has dropped from 4.7% to 3.5%. That's a 26% drop.

Both are positive, I won't argue that, but you can't scoff at the improvement that happened during Obama.

 

The Dow did better under Clinton and Obama then it has done under Trump. The fear mongering that things will go south just because a Democrat is in office is unfounded.

 

Trump numbers include that too by now
It's the game.

 

Analytics would say that at the very least you would have to weigh the cheapness of the rates between 5 and 10 percent as compared to the higher value of the rates between 3 and 5.
That would get you a truer representation of the impact being done.
In other words 26 percent that Trump got is worth 67% compared to Obamas standard 52.

 

Geez I wonder what would be a good investment if someone had the money to invest in something right now.

 

To be fair, in the Obama administration, unemployment fell from 9.9% (Dec 2009)...after it jumped from 7.3% (Dec 2008)

Let's also compare early term performance to early term performance:

While the Democrats had the WH and congress with huge majorities and they could do anything they wanted (Jan 2009-Jan2011) unemployment was 7.3%, 9.9%, and 9.3%. S&P 500 gains during that period were 23%, 13% and 0%...after having fallen 38% the year before...one of the slowest recoveries from any recession. That same period also saw the injection of trillions of dollars of QE "money" into the very top of the system, representing the single largest transfer of wealth from people to institutional investors in American history.

Taking an economy that was at the bottom of the worst recession in 80 years and dragging the recovery over 3 years with historically high unemployment, and transferring unfathomable amounts of cash to investment banks certainly doesn't feel like something to be proud of.

I think taking a relatively healthy economy in 2016 and delivering good S&P returns and bringing the economy to full employment is a much more significant accomplishment.

I don't like Trump, but it's really hard to argue with the economic performance.

One thing he's really fucked up was ballooning the debt, continuing the policy of the last two administrations. Oddly enough, he's rarely criticized for that. This is probably the most serious issue in the economy going forward, and now that things are good, it's probably time for austerity.

Really, this whole discussion is an argument about correlation without examining causality.
Fed monetary policy over the last 40 years has probably had more impact than President or Congress.

 

This is only anecdotal, but I work a a company that has been growing steadily over the last 20 years. From a hiring perspective, it was really, really easy to hire people (all disciplines...from unskilled to PHD engineers and scientists) from 2008 to 2018--there were a lot of job seekers. It's been really hard to find people the last couple years, and you have to offer really attractive compensation packages. I'm also seeing massive internal wage growth over the last few years compared to the previous 10.

 

They would do austerity if they believed they could save.
They already in to deep with all the QE and foreign debt.
Credit is the only way forward for every single president.
They know something we don't want to believe.
Or they believe the country will win the next war.
Wiping all debts and topping off the coffers.
Either way its a matter of faith.

 

Anyone that creates a coalition to come to you in peace = fishy.
The UN always seemed like a nice way to group up a lot of nation votes as a bully pulpit for one or an oligarchy of a few powerful nations to try and one day knock off the champ.
Slowly building up a tower of babel to climb up little by little before the US notices that whats inside is a giant warhead with our name on it.
I know im a dreamer and I say a lot of stuff.
But maybe im not wrong.
I grew up with that man on my wall.