Do Record High Stock Averages = A Healthy Economy?

Is a "record" stock market a sign of a healthy economy? Maybe. Maybe not. First, let me direct you to some pervious blogs about the stock market:

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/search?q=stock+market

"The economy" is not just one thing, but a number of interconnected things, some of which effect our daily lives and some which have more long-term implications. We're not going to look at every aspect of the economy, but we're going to zero in on what the stock market tells us about the overall stability of the overall economy and what it doesn't. 

The first thing that it's important to know is that there is no "Stock Market", as in a unitary entity that we can point to and say "that's the stock market". There are several organizations in the United States which exist to facilitate the trading of stocks, The New York Stock Exchange is the most well known, as is the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), there are also exchanges in other US cities, as well as in other countries. Think of these exchanges as marketplaces where stock can be bought and sold. 

The second important fact to know is that when a politician or economist refers to "the stock market", they are not referring to the totality of traded stocks, but to a narrow slice called the Dow Industrial Average. The Dow Industrial average is a weighted average on 30 stocks. Yes, just 30. And weighted by what? Price. Stocks that are higher priced are weighted more heavily than lower priced stocks, which skews the average. (See further explanation in the link above)

The third important thing to realize is the increased stock valuation of the Dow, or even of just individual stocks, is just paper profits. If you hold a stock certificate you don't actually have any money in the bank. You may have 100 shares of stock worth $1000 each, but all that means is that if someone buys that stock from you for $100,000, you have $100,000, until you sell that stock you merely have the potential for $100,000. It is entirely possible that some event will cause the stock valuation to plummet and your stock will be worth nothing. Even assuming that the value goes up, you're just moving money around. You're often not even contributing operating capital to the underlying company unless it's an initial public offering. Wealth isn't really being created, it's just being moved around. 

So, what determines the value of a given stock? A combination of a company's profitability, supply and demand, and most importantly, perception. A company's stability and profitability will be a factor if an investor is looking to make long-term investments. Supply and demand come into it, since, like anything else, if a certain stock has a lot of people clamoring to but it, then the sellers will be able to increase the price. The biggest contributor to a stock's value, however, is perception. If a company is perceived to be on the road to greater profitability, then more people will be interested in buying its stock and the laws of supply and demand will drive the price up. 

What influences an investor's perception? A technological breakthrough, a new product, or a change in leadership might lead an investor to conclude that profits will rise, as will a government administration that tends toward fewer regulations. The upward trend in stock prices during the Trump presidency was fueled in part by his antipathy toward regulations, as well as by the 2017 corporate tax decrease. But the bottom line in investment decisions is that it's all a gamble. Investors are gambling that the price they paid for stocks will continue to increase. 

So, back to our original question: Is a "record" stock market a sign of a healthy economy? In the first paragraph I tentatively answered "Maybe or maybe not". There are aspects of the economy which are reflected in the stock market. Rising stock price averages generally reflect confidence, but confidence in what? Confidence that a given company will continue to be profitable, inspiring more people to want to buy its stock, therefore causing the stock price to rise. The assumption then, is that the confidence will be rewarded and that the companies that represent the stock market will be profitable. The further assumption is that a profitable company will increase investment and employment, spreading the wealth around so to speak. But is that the correct assumption to make? 

Not necessarily.

The goal of anyone running a large company isn't to create jobs, although that may be a side effect. Any company that can increase profits without increasing, or even maintaining, employment levels will do so. Anyone who has been involved in planning at any level in a capitalistic endeavor knows that the first area that is cut if profits are threatened is labor. And it doesn't take a threat to the profit margins for jobs to be eliminated, even a desire to maximize the amount of profit can result in a reduction in the workforce if other methods don't easily present themselves. Of course, in some industries, expansion will require additional workers. If you're going to open another factory, you'll need additional factory workers, but if you're just going to increase output, it might be done just by increasing productivity - pushing people harder or by automation. 

Theoretical considerations aside, what does the stock market's (i.e. the Dow Jones Industrial Average) record high valuation tell us about the economy in general? Very little. The official unemployment rate is still close to 7%, around twice the level it was at the beginning of the pandemic (although around half its nadir of 15% a few months ago); we are still looking at a huge net loss in jobs compared to the first of the year; many small businesses have closed and whole segments of the entertainment and service industries have shut down; evictions are at an all-time high. 

It's obvious that these stratospheric stock prices are not translating into better conditions for people who aren't in the top 1% of the country. They're not even necessarily translating into increased profits for the companies issuing the stock. What they represent is a gamble, not on the prospects of these companies increasing employment and investment, benefitting broadly, or even their long-term profitability, but that stock prices will increase enough to guarantee a profit to the gambler when the stocks are sold. 

"The Stock Market" is an illusion of economic health, not the reality.

Still A Cult

The Trump Cult. I've written about it before, and I'll write about it again. It offends those who are part of it. But every day I find new reasons to believe that Trumpism is indeed a cult, no different than any religious cult you care to name. 

Cults share several common characteristics. The most obvious is that a cult possesses a charismatic leader. Let's not get confused about what "charismatic" means. It doesn't mean "likeable", and certainly doesn't mean in possession of any of the traditional leadership abilities. In this context it means that the leader has great confidence, despite any evidence to the contrary, that he is always right, and has all the answers. He is somehow able to convince his followers that this true. This is manifestly true of Trump. How many times has he uttered some version of "I alone can fix it"? When pressed for a rationale for his actions, or for any basis for his plans and policies, he often answers with some variation of "because I know best". And his followers accept that answer. 

One of the clearest indicators that Trumpism is a cult is how quickly his followers pivot to a new position when Trump changes his mind about something. During the 2024 campaign the most common rationale Trump voters gave for supporting him was that they thought he would be better for the economy. They pointed to low inflation during Trump's first term compared to the high inflation of the first half of Biden's term, conveniently forgetting the economic chaos during Trump's last year in his first term. Democrats, including myself, pointed out how the 2021-2022 inflation was largely due to factors outside of a president's control (with some of the causes originating during Trump's tenure). Attempts to explain this to Trump voters got no traction -- they usually just repeated their position that Biden caused inflation. But when Trump was elected and his promise of not only ending inflation (which had by this time receded to normal levels) but rolling back prices had now come due, he said that it "was hard" and that there was little a president could do to control prices. And his people barely blinked before reciting the new mantra. 

Trump Cultists' acceptance of Trump's view of "the stock market". During Trump's first term the various methods of tracking stock market activity showed a steady increase in value, resulting a "record high" around every month. Trump and his followers ignored the fact that the trend simply followed the trend that had begun in the Obama administration, but claimed that this was evidence of how great the "Trump economy" was. When the trend continued into Biden's term, Trumpists generally ignored the stock market, until, following Trump's re-election, he claimed that the newest record high was due to anticipation of his soon-to-be second term. Not content to spew a little bit of nonsense, when the stock market fluctuated and lost value in the wake of his nonsensical and inconsistent tariff "policy", suddenly it was "Biden's stock market", or the stock market wasn't a reliable gauge of the strength of the economy. Now, since Trump stopped talking about tariffs and has paused just about all of them, the stock market has steadied and we're seeing record highs again. And once again, Trump is claiming the stock market as his, as are his sycophants. And none of them see the contradiction in any of these statements. 

One of the few Trump positions that I agreed with was his pledge to end "forever wars". He was very much against foreign involvement when he was campaigning. During his second campaign he doubled down on this, even though "not starting any new wars" didn't prevent him using the military to bomb Syria, assassinate an Iranian general, and keep us mired in Afghanistan. With his eye on a second term he made no secret that he wanted us to end our support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, claiming that, the consummate deal maker that he was, he could end the war in 24 hours -- even before he took office. We all know that that did not happen, yet his cult seems to have no problem with that. Just as the followers of the "peace president" suddenly became concerned about an Iranian nuclear weapons program and were all for a war with Iran when just a few weeks before were against any foreign military involvement. 

It's no secret that Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize. It galls him that President Obama received one (although I have no idea why they gave it to him) and his constantly hinting that he should be so honored. He is always on the lookout for conflicts where he can insert himself and claim to have solved. But he failed to get a result in the Russia-Ukraine war. He failed to get a result in Israel's destruction in Gaza. He exaggerated his role in India's and Pakistan's latest saber rattling. Who knows if he had anything of substance to contribute to the paper cease fire between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- which apparently has already ceased to cease. Trump's cultists take Trump's claims at face value, even when it's obvious that it's not factual. Let's not forget that the peace loving, noninterventionist MAGA clan had no trouble morphing into cheerleaders for dropping bombs on another country in someone else's war, and accepting Trump's claim to be a peacemaker as the dust from the airstrike that he ordered had yet to settle. 

One of Trump's most insidious goals was to undermine any trust in mainstream media. I won't try to claim that legacy media always gets it right or are never biased. But Trump has succeeded in convincing his cult that mainstream media is totally biased against him and prints or broadcast virtually all negatives about him. He has conveniently taken the organizations that have the experience and resources to shine a light on his words and actions out of the game. Replacing them for Trumpists are a spider web of podcasters and bloggers who are Trump cultists themselves. Any media coverage that isn't backing up whatever Trump is doing is suspect in their eyes -- and usually just assumed to be lies. 

Finally there's the politicians and the billionaire class. Many of them know that Trump lies, and that his "policies" are at best the ramblings of a lunatic. The politicians also know that due to his cultish influence over his followers, he can easily end the political career of anyone who stands against him. Wealthy business owners know that cozying up to him will make them more money. Both categories know that opposing Trump has a cost that they're not willing to pay and they enable his actions. 

What's ironic is that the Trumpists think that we're the cultists. They call us deluded. They call us deranged. They say opposition to Trump means we hate America.

They're willing to cheer on the flowering of authoritarianism.

Trump and the Stock Market

What is "the stock market"? Simply, it's the aggregate of all of the buying and selling of stocks. A stock is basically a partial ownership, or at least a financial stake, in a given company. The price of a stock, while influenced by how profitable a company is, can also be influenced by outside events that have nothing to do with the actual running of a company. The main determinant of a company's stock price is supply and demand. High demand for any stock will cause the price to rise while low demand will push the price down, just like a physical commodity. One of the factors that contributes to increased demand for a stock is the perception that things will get better: ideally that the company will become more profitable and the future price of the stock will increase when the buyer decides to become the seller. Some consider it gambling!

Some of the reasons that investors are optimistic can be attributed to President Trump; one is his antipathy to regulations that, in his estimation, cost companies money. Another is the tax bill that was just passed, which was extremely favorable to large corporations, at the expense of middle income Americans. Investors are betting that these changes will result in more profits which will in turn spur more demand and therefore higher resale prices down the road. The other side of the story is that the stock market has been rising steadily since 2008, so a portion of this increase in stock valuation can be attributed to an eight-year, now nine-year, upward trend. In fact first year percentage increase was greater under President Obama, despite the fireworks of record after record.

But what exactly is "up", when we say "the stock market" is up? The Dow Industrial average is a weighted average on 30 stocks. Yes, just 30. And as I mentioned, it's a weighted average. Weighted by what? Price. Stocks that are higher priced are weighted more heavily than lower priced stocks, which skews the average. For example, Boeing's stock, the most expensive, increased by 50%, contributing to 25% of the increase in the Dow average. As you can see from the chart, four companies contributed to 60% of the increase!

Another thing to consider is that the increased stock valuation of the Dow, or even of just individual stocks, is just paper profits. If you hold a stock certificate you don't actually have any money in the bank. You may have 100 shares of stock worth $1000 each, but all that means is that if someone buys that stock from you for $100,000, you have $100,000. It is entirely possible that some event will cause the stock valuation to plummet and your stock will be worth nothing. Even assuming that the value goes up, you're just moving money around. You're often not even contributing operating capital to the underlying company unless it's an initial public offering. Wealth isn't really being created, it's just being moved around.

So, while a rising "stock market" isn't necessarily a bad thing, it doesn't actually tell us as much as some people think it is.

Trump's Economy

Until a few months ago, Trump's strongest argument for his reelection was the state of the economy, which from some angles, looked pretty good. He really didn't have anything else:

• Despite his bragging and his arguably unconstitutional redirection of funds, his "Big, Beautiful Wall" wasn't getting built. As of January 1st, 93 miles of barriers had been built, 90 of them replacing or upgrading existing structures. 
• Despite his pledges to "bring our troops home", and occasional announcements that he was in fact withdrawing from Afghanistan, all of our troops are approximately where they were when he took office. 
• His one-on-one "diplomacy"with Kim Jong-Un hasn't resulted in North Korea's denuclearizing, the official end to the Korean War, or really anything other than some claims of great friendship and "love letters". In other words, North Korea's leader is playing us just like his father and grandfather did. 
• I'll grant that he has appointed a huge number of federal judges, but this can be attributed to eight years of obstruction by Mitch McConnell than anything else, and is something that any Republican would have accomplished. 
• He brags about his tariffs, not only on China, but on our own allies, which have done nothing but increase costs for American consumers. 
• While there have been sporadic plant openings in the manufacturing sector, coal and steel are in virtually the same place that they were in 2016

So it's not surprising that Trump has emphasized things like the stock market, unemployment percentages and job creation. 

Anyone who can Google "Trump economy" and can read a simple line graph can see that all three of those metrics are simply extensions of the trends that began during Obama's administration.

• Job creation has risen in most months, but at a rate that is no different, in some instances, worse than during the previous administration
• We hear a lot from Trump when manufacturers open a new plant, or forgo moving to Mexico, but he's pretty quiet when the opposite happens, other than accusing the owners of hating America
• Unemployment numbers (until March 2020) were, it is true, often record, or close to record, lows, but again, an extension of previous trends. 
• The stock market in a lot of ways is high stakes gambling. Here's a link to some of my previous blogs about the stock market https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/search?q=stock+market
• Stock prices follow simple rules of supply and demand, when investors think that a given stock's value will increase they will buy more of it, the greater demand causing the price to increase
• Investor behavior in the stock market reflects confidence in future events
• One of the things an investor looks for in a stock is the company's value per share of stock. For example, if a company is worth 20 million and has 1 million outstanding shares, the value per share is $20 (the actual price of the stock may be different). If there are only 500,000 shares, then the value per share doubles to $40 (simple math). What many companies have done is buy back outstanding shares with their windfall from the recent tax rate decreases. The result is that their company's value per share looked more lucrative. 

The Covid-19 pandemic and the measures taken to contain it have exposed just how shaky the supposedly great economy actually was, Unemployment numbers have equaled or exceeded those of the Great Depression. A graph showing unemployment claims for the last century is almost unreadable due to the astronomical spike for the last two months. That red line on the right side of the chart is not a border, it is the spike for the last two weeks of March. Stock prices plummeted, wiping out any gains realized during the last three years.  Whole swaths of the economy may be erased in the wake of this crisis. While some "essential" businesses have stayed open, many operations, large and small may not survive having no revenue for several months. Even large corporations are struggling, partly because they have no cash reserves due to their orgy of stock buybacks. 

Our economy, which seemed to be chugging along nicely, was the equivalent of being one paycheck away from bankruptcy. 

How great could it have been before this virus crisis if it all fell to pieces so quickly?

I'm of the opinion that, for the most part, presidents have little effect on the economy, so I'm not blaming him for the way the economy tanked so quickly, however, since he took the credit when things went well, he should take the blame when it goes south. Of course he won't. It's someone else's fault. 

But if you support Trump "because the economy" (and not his racism, xenophobia, incompetence and narcissism), well, you don't have that excuse anymore.

Trump and Business

In the last post I discussed Trump's position on the environment and how his decisions regarding it are made. One of the main points was that policy is set, not on how it effects the environment and by extension Americans' health and well-bring, but on bottom-line costs and supposed job creation. I say "supposed", because rollback of various regulations will likely cause costs to the affected corporations to decrease, but that this doesn't necessarily translate into more jobs. Companies, especially large companies, do not automatically pass on increased profits to their employees. The only legal responsibility of any board of directors or management team is to maximize profit for their shareholders. Employment levels at any company will be set according to the minimum needed to produce their product in quantities that meet the demand. Jobs will be created only if an additional demand for the product materializes, not because the profit margin increases. The coal industry is a great example. The demand for coal is down due to competition from other energy sources; in addition, fewer workers are needed due to increased automation. Scrapping regulation isn't going to resurrect coal industry jobs.

Trump knows this.

Trump, despite his history of bankruptcies and stiffing his contractors, knows how business works. His Mar-a-Lago golf club hires temporary workers on immigrant visas because it would cost more to pay local people.  I'm sure that he's never advocated hiring extra people just because the balance sheet was looking good that year. So what is his motivation for talking as if repealing regulations that cost companies money is a good thing? It can only be that he is working to make life better for, not the coal miner or assembly line worker, but for the owners of the coal mines and the factories. This is an updated version of the trickle-down economics of the eighties. Which didn't work in the eighties.

But what about the "record job creation" and the stock market setting new records every week? Surely that means that Trump knows what he's doing. Right?

Let's look at jobs. During Trump's first six months in office, 1.1 million jobs were created. Is that a record? Is that a good number? Any increase in employment is good, but not exactly a record; approximately the same amount of jobs were created during Obama's last six months in office, so we're essentially still coasting along on  2016's economy. Obama's  first six month of his second term had an increase of 1.2 million jobs - other presidents had similar numbers. (Obama's first six months of his first term saw a loss of 3.4 million jobs - coming off a nationwide recession).

How about the stock market? Here we see a similar trend. Trump likes to brag about record setting Dow Jones numbers, and technically he's correct. We are continually setting new records, however, since 2010 the stock market (based on the Dow) has been on a steady upward curve that has continued into Trump's term. To be fair, many economists predicted that Trump's unpredictability would cause the market to drop, which hasn't happened. But is the precipitous rise in stock prices indicative of a healthy economy? Maybe. It's at least an indicator that the people who are buying stocks think that the economy is going to continue to be healthy for a while. But before we get too excited about Trump's stock market savvy, remember that just this week he talked about the increase in value of the Dow Industrial Average stocks as if they negated part of our national debt.

Trump has no real knowledge of economics, or at least doesn't care about the rules of economics. He's all about talking about helping American workers and bringing jobs back, but his actions thus far have been, by chance or design, have benefited other billionaires, with scant evidence that the lot of working Americans is improving.

But slogans, we have good slogans - the best slogans.

The Economic Idiot

It has become almost impossible to keep up with how off the rails our government, led by President Trump and the Republicans is. I have also surrendered myself to reality that most Trump supporters would continue to support him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Every day brings a new outrage, a new lie, a new scheme for lining Trump's pockets and the pockets of his friends. And it's not as if he actually accomplishing anything. There's only been one significant piece of legislation that he has managed to get through Congress, the corporate tax giveaway of 2017 - and that's with a compliant and complicit Republican Congress. He hasn't built his Wall or put a stop to Muslim immigration, two things his racist base loved him for. Our military is still in Afghanistan.

One thing that is doing well, is the economy. "Doing well" that is, for a certain value of "doing well". It is undeniable that unemployment continues to go down. Usually low unemployment goes hand-in-hand with rising real wages. Employers, competing for a smaller pool of qualified workers, compete with other employers by raising pay rates. But this hasn't happened. Average hourly  pay has gone up a paltry 2.7% while cost of living has risen by 2.9% - a net loss in purchasing power. Trump highlights the unemployment numbers (which he described as fake when he was a candidate, insisting the "real" percentage was closer to 40 than the actual number) and the "stock market". (see this blog post about the stock market:
https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/01/trump-and-stock-market.html )
So, while the owners of many stocks, on paper, have increased their wealth, it's not at all evident that this wealth has translated into better conditions for most Americans.

And it's not at all evident that the good things can even be attributed to Trump. Granted, nothing that he has done so far has caused the economy, as a whole, to tank. But for the most part gains in employment, investment, increased stock value etc, are merely a continuation of the trend that began early in Obama's first term. Whether or not you agree with Obama's policies, or attribute the growth to anything that he did, it's undeniable that all the positive trend that Trump cites are continuations of what had been happening for six - seven years before he was elected.

Since we're talking about the economy, Trump talks a lot about fairness in international trade and imposes tariffs and tears up trade agreements without any clear idea about what trade actually is. Trade is not a zero-sum game where if I win you lose. It's complex and there can be many winners. He seems to think that a trade deficit means that we are literally losing money or that reducing a trade deficit results in a smaller budget deficit, paying down the national debt. His ignorance was on display in his recent imposition of tariffs that had the result of closing overseas markets to American farmers, causing them economic hardship. He suggested that American farmers were patriotic and wouldn't mind taking the hit for the good of the country before approving a $12 billion bailout.

Getting back to corporate tax bailout, it was initially suggested that ordinary Americans would see "raises" in the thousands of dollars, and there was a flood of people talking about their bigger paychecks. More often than not, the math did not add up. Then the story became that the lower corporate taxes would trickle down to the workers as companies used their windfall to give their people raises. A small number of companies appeared to do that, although it was usually one-time bonuses, not raises, while even more companies used the lower tax bill to buy back stock, increasing the value per share and giving top corporate people bigger bonuses.

And finally, the hallmark of Donald Trump, not only as president, but for his entire life: lying. A large number of Trump's economic claims, when checked independently, turn out to outright lies, or at the very least, exaggerations.

Trump claims to have jump started the economy and made life better for all, but at best he has simply avoided bringing the whole thing crashing down.

Bonuses, Jobs and the Tax Cuts

Let's start off by pointing out that the Republican so-called tax reform, that was supposed eliminate countless loopholes and deductions, succeeded only in eliminating a few individual income tax deductions and no corporate deductions.  The eliminating of deductions was supposed to offset the reduction in corporate rates. Let's also point out the one-time repatriation of foreign funds rate reduction. It may have had the immediate effect of bringing some billions of dollars into the country and therefore subject to United States tax, but it did nothing to prevent the practice of "offshoring" cash from continuing. Trump and his Congressional toadies have been selling this as a middle-class tax cut and trumpeting supposed benefits to working Americans, but is it true?

Starting with the actual tax rates and brackets, I did the math on this in another post a few weeks ago:  http://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2017/12/massivebelieve-me.html, so I won't replay my points, but basically some Americans will see modest decreases in federal taxes, while many, especially those with two or more children, will see increases. The elimination of individual deductions was supposedly offset by an almost doubling of the standard deduction, making it unnecessary for some married couples filing jointly to avoid the paperwork involved in itemizing. (A married couple filing jointly who had between $12,700 and $24,000 in deductions would see this simplification). But households itemizing more than $24,000 would lose some deductions. The almost doubling of the standard deduction doesn't look so good when you factor in the loss of the personal exemptions ($4050 per person). Even those seeing tax cuts aren't seeing that much of a tax cut.

Since Trump and his sycophants can't really brag about the increase in take-home pay, especially after Paul Ryan was caught tweeting about how great a $1.50/week bump was (my take home increased by $5.97/week) they have started crowing about the companies that have been paying bonuses and giving out raises. The main question that I have for the companies that have legitimately given out bonuses (the figure of $1000 per worker has been thrown around a lot) is how a tax cut that takes effect in the 2018 tax year, is causing companies to give out bonuses in 2017, since most of these bonuses were year-end 2017. How many were in the works before the tax bill? Of course, since this tax change benefited large businesses, it would be in their best interest to claim that the bonuses, as well as additional investment and hiring, were a direct result of the corporate tax cuts.

Aside from the tax cuts, what is the overall state of the economy? Pretty good...for big business. We've been on a positive trend since around 2010, in general we recovered fairly well from the recession. Demand for goods and services is up and unemployment is down. Trump's excision of many regulations is good news for the bottom line watchers in corporate towers. Businesses are making money. But I mentioned unemployment. While low unemployment is usually considered a positive, especially by those who are looking for work, it is not necessarily positive for employers. When unemployment is low the job seeker has the upper hand in the labor market. It becomes harder to find qualified employees. Companies have to raise wages in order to stay competitive. The company that I used to work for realized in 2014 that the reason their locations were understaffed wasn't incompetence on the part of their Human Resources Managers and Store Directors, or an insidious plot to keep labor costs in bonus territory, it was because, due to extremely low unemployment, the pay scale was not competitive. ( Human Resources Managers and Store Directors knew this a year earlier, but it's only a good idea when the big boys think of it). They raised their pay scales, not because they cared about their employees, or because they altruistically wanted to share their profits, but because that was how they were going to find and retain good employees.  I can't believe that every other company in the country doesn't think the same way.

What about bonuses? Why are we hearing so much about bonuses and not more about pay increases? Bonuses are a one-time payout. They aren't "the gift that keeps on giving", like a pay increase. They look impressive. A $1000 per person bonus appears to have a bigger impact than a 50¢/hour raise, even though the raise will result in $1040, and will carry through to the next year...and the year after. A one-time bonus with no guarantee of future bonuses protects the company in the event that revenues decline. According to USA today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/01/11/list-companies-paid-bonuses-boosted-pay-since-tax-bill-passed/1023848001/ "more than 125 employers" have announced plans for bonuses and pay increases". Not really a huge amount.

Factor in Trump's penchant for taking credit for all the positives and ignoring or blaming someone else for the negatives. While a lot of companies are paying out bonuses, some companies, sometimes the same companies are engaged in layoffs and plant closings. This article in Money & career Cheat Sheet lists some:  https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/these-companies-started-firing-employees-right-after-getting-tax-cuts-from-trump.html/?a=viewall

Through all of this, it's evident that Trump does not understand the economy and what he does understand, he lies about. His happy dance about the stock market betrayed an abysmal ignorance http://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/01/trump-and-stock-market.html and his recent tweet that "the stock market" was "wrong" when the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped several thousand points after supposed good news.

As the November elections get closer we're going to hear a lot about how well the economy is doing and how Trump's tax cuts are the reason.

Don't be fooled

Trump's Economy

James Carville, a strategist for Bill Clinton's successful presidential campaign versus George HW Bush, coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid". And indeed, the state of the economy, for better or for worse, is usually credited to, or blamed on, the sitting president. A tanking economy can doom an otherwise successful president to one-term status, and a booming economy can boost an otherwise unpopular president to re-election. So, what's good about our economy and what did Trump do, if anything to contribute to it?


Before I get into that, let's agree that Trump doesn't know anything about economics. He doesn't know anything about trade, trade deficits or how tariffs work. Much was made about what a successful businessman he was during the 2016 campaign. What Trump is good at is self-promotion. As a real-estate developer he was good at squeezing cash out of money-losing businesses by having his lawyers arrange things so that he got paid even if no one else did; he was good at saving money by not fully paying his contractors; he was good at convincing the world (partly due to The Apprentice) that he was genius; he was good at convincing banks to keep loaning him money. As good as he was at all these things, it's obvious he didn't understand the underlying economics, nor did he care to understand, as long as he got paid. Unfortunately, when your the president of the United States, the goal isn't to enrich yourself, but to make decisions so that everybody prospers.

One of the economic indicators that Trump likes to talk about is the stock market. In particular he cites the Dow Jones Industrial average. The following link takes you to a few posts that I wrote about how the stock market works and how it might not be an unambiguously good thing: Stock Market Posts

Another statistic that Trump points to is the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is unusually low, and in some months records have been set. It's funny how, during the 2016 campaign, Trump derided unemployment numbers as "fake" and suggested that they might be as high as 40%, but once he was elected, the numbers were as good as gold. One thing that unemployment numbers don't take into account is the number of people who are underemployed, that is, they have a full-time job, but still can't make ends meet and often have to take a second job to pay the bills. This is tied into an increase in manufacturing jobs, which on average pay well, but the manufacturing sector is a relatively small percentage of total jobs and it's far from the future of employment in America.

Speaking of manufacturing, much is made every time a company decides to expand a plant or expand or do some additional hiring, but we're not hearing about it as much lately, and the incidents of closings and of companies moving overseas is downplayed, and when made public, Trump blames it on lack of patriotism or some such.

There are reasons to credit Trump for some of the good that is occurring in the economy. He ran (as most Republicans do) on an anti-regulation platform, and he has followed through, by appointing cabinet heads whose pre-government careers involved fighting against the departments that they now head. Unfortunately, the lack of consistency, including the ill-informed use of tariffs as a bludgeon to get his way, has undermined whatever confidence business may have had in him and his "policies". The big corporate tax giveaway of last year, while it resulted in a flurry of bonuses (that looked better than they actually were) has largely resulted in nothing more than a more gigantic deficit & national debt.

What we have is an economy that:

• May or may not be doing well, depending what indicators you look at
• Any positive results are not distributed equally
• The trends, good and bad, are merely continuations of trends from the previous administration
• Actions taken have had an extreme negative effect on our deficit & debt

So, for all of you Trumpists who cite the "great" economy as a reason to support Trump, your support is resting on extremely shaky ground. 

Who REALLY Was The Bad Guy During The Pandemic?

This was originally posted on April 10th, 2020 under the title No, No, No...He's NOT "Doing a Great Job" With the Coronavirus. With the hysteria over Dr. Fauci asserting his constitutional rights, I thought I'd look in the rear view mirror at Trump's response. 

I could go on all day about different reasons that Trump should have been removed from office following his impeachment, and why he should be voted out of office in November, but his response to the Coronavirus crisis should highlight his incompetence. I know I wrote "should", but for his sycophantic, idiotic, cultic followers, they'll still think he's doing a great job and blame Obama, Pelosi, the Chinese, the media and whoever else ticks him off.

For most of Trump's presidency things have gone fairly well for the economy, at least for some parts of it. Even though not everyone was benefiting, Trump could brag about record high stock market numbers, record low unemployment and regular job creation. Even though anyone who could read a line graph of economic trends since 2008 could see that the positive numbers were simply extensions of Obama-era numbers, and in some cases worse than Obama numbers, his base was satisfied. Despite his belligerence toward our allies and threatening war with both North Korea and Iran, worst case scenarios never came to pass. To many, Trump's incoherence, incompetence and ignorance was simply background noise that didn't affect their daily lives in any meaningful way.

Now we have a problem that can't be bullied into silence by Trump: the Coronavirus. Trump's response to this pandemic has been erratic from the start.

• He played it down as a "Chinese problem" and bragged that it wouldn't effect the United States.
• The CDC was already responding to the possibility of infections in the U.S. in early January and was including warnings about the virus in Trump's daily security briefings. 
• HHS Secretary Azar is finally able to meet with Trump about the virus on January 18th, but Trump wanted to talk about vaping instead. 
• The daily security briefings contained warnings about the danger of a pandemic via the Coronavirus throughout January
• In Trump's first public statement on January 22, he claims that we have it under control and everything is fine. 
• On January 31st Trump finally institutes a partial travel ban on people coming from China. (He later brags that this shows that he took the virus seriously — this was after several airlines had already shut down flights to and from China). 
• Advisers call for a more forceful response; Treasury Secretary Mnuchin objects because of the possible effect on the economy. 
• Throughout February Trump is still insisting that "everything will be fine"
• In late February Trump is still saying it's under control and brags about the stock market
• On March 10, Trump tells the nation to "stay calm, it will go away"
• Trump claims that with only 15 people infected, soon down to zero, "we're doing pretty good"
• Finally Trump declares a national emergency on March 13th
• On March 16th he begins his revisionism and gaslighting by claiming that he never said the virus was under control, but that our response was under control
• Trump starts doing daily doing daily press briefings in the White House Briefing Room (they must have had to clear out the dust and cobwebs first) - despite social distancing concerns, he has his team standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the stage.
• Trump uses these briefings to:
• Promote unapproved treatments for Covid-19
• (One anti-malaria drug that he was pushing later turned out to be harmful when not used for its intended purpose)
• Although he didn't technically promote ingesting bleach, he did seriously suggest that doctors "look in to" injecting disinfectants
• Lied about who he was talking to about injecting disinfectants, incredibly suggesting that he was "sarcastically" addressing reporters "to see what they would do"
• Contradict the few experts on his team
• Lie about airport screenings
• Lie about availability of ventilators and other medical equipment
• Complain about governors who don't sufficiently praise him
• Threaten to refuse to help governors who are mean to him
• Recently he threatened to withhold Covid-19 support from states that had sanctuary cities or did not cooperate with ICE
• Blame Obama for having a "bad" treatment for Covid-19 in storage (Covid-19 did not exist 3 years ago)
• Blame the media for blowing the situation out of proportion
• Also blame the media for not taking the situation seriously enough
• Blame Obama for pretty much every shortcoming of his team
• Claim that he is doing a great job and rates an A+ for his handling of the crisis
• After his supporters blame Democrats for the slow response by distracting him with impeachment, he claims that he couldn't have done a better job, even if there hadn't been an impeachment
• Blame the Democrats for holding up relief bills
• Brag about how well he is doing responding to the challenge
• Turn the briefing into campaign rallies, complete with attacks on the Democrats and the media
• Lie about his daughter's job creation record
• Insult reporters who ask him questions
• Rewrite history by claiming to have done things he had not in fact done and denying saying things for which there is clear video/audio evidence

In short, this is an enormous fuck-up. Certainly there are things that Trump and his team have done right, but the whole goal of his plan for responding to this crisis seems to be making Trump look good and stroking his ego.

In times like this we don't need someone who puts themself at the center, someone who craves adulation and who lies about his shortcomings and failures, we need a leader who will selflessly and compassionately lead. 

From The Politicizing of Public Health, September 4, 2021

In the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak, the medical community was flying blind. No one really knew the best ways to prevent transmission or to treat an infection. Guidance regarding masks and social distancing changed frequently, as new facts came to light. This could have been a moment when politicians of all parties came together for the good of the country, but it was not to be. 

The incompetency of the Trump administration dominated the approach to the pandemic and doomed its execution. Rather than getting all his experts in a room and agreeing on a strategy, Trump simultaneously abdicated any responsibility for a federal response and narcissistically took on his usual "only I can fix this" persona.  Infectious disease experts and epidemiologists were trotted out to make public statements and shortly undermined by ignorant pronouncements by Trump. Rather than lead by crafting a consensus, he sowed doubt of medical experts' views among his followers. At the same time, he insisted that the on-the-ground response be left to the states, who he undermined as well by suggesting that his followers "liberate" states where governors issued mask mandates or shutdowns of businesses. All the while he took credit when things went well and excoriated others when they didn't. By giving his own ego and image priority over public safety he set the stage for the widespread skepticism of the main "win" in the fight against Covid-19: the fast development of a Covid vaccine. 

The damage had been done. Rather than elation that a vaccine was now available, enabling businesses to open and make people safer, disinformation about the vaccine itself began to circulate, with ridiculous claims about how the vaccine was more harmful that the virus itself. While the last time I checked, a majority of adults had been vaccinated, it's a slim majority, less than 55%, with some states significantly less than 50%. And many of the anti-vaxxers are not content to quietly pass up a vaccination, but loudly and obnoxiously rage against vaccinations and those who champion them. And because infections and deaths are rising, predominantly among the unvaccinated, masks mandates are back, concerts and other large events are being cancelled, and businesses are suffering. The skeptics are now insisting that masks don't work, when the use of masks coupled with social distancing and hygienic practices corresponded with the reduction in infection and deaths. How different would things have been if then-President Trump had actually lead, by expressing confidence in his experts and coordinating with the states instead of knee capping them? We'll never know, but I strongly suspect that many of those politically opposed to the vaccine would be first in line for the needle. 

Added August 10, 2026:

With all the focus by the Republican Congressional majority and by anti-vaxxers in general, on Dr. Fauci, it somehow escapes them that Dr. Fauci was just an advisor. Whatever opinions could be dreamed up about the quality of his advice, the buck didn't stop with him. I give Trump credit for pushing to get a vaccine ready and available in record time, but most of what he did and said worsened the problem. Senator Rand Paul and his conspiracy theorist fellow travelers aren't looking for the truth, they're looking for a scapegoat.

Is the Economy REALLY Doing Well?

There's always debate regarding whether economic conditions, good or bad, can be attributed to actions taken by the government. Politicians like to take credit for the good things and lay blame for the bad things. But it seems like the tendency has escalated under the current president.

It's true that there are certain economic indicators that are unambiguously positive right now; there's argument whether they are a direct result of the current administration's policies or a continuation of the previous administration's or have nothing to do with either. So let's say that I'm happy that the positives are positive.

There's an accusation from Trump supporters that those who oppose him want to see harm come to the country in order to see Trump look bad. Periodically the Facebook meme comparing the national situation to an aircraft pilot appears. In this meme, it is suggested that wanting Trump to fail is like wanting the pilot of the plane that you are on to crash. It's not that we want the country to go to hell, war to break out and a second Great Depression, it's that we don't agree that Trump's policies are good for the country and we want him to fail to implement those harmful polices.

But is the economic health of the United States unambiguously good? Certainly the unemployment rate is so low as to be effectively considered full employment. There have been a few months of record lows, but we're hovering around 4%. Trump likes to take credit for that, but when he was running in 2016 he derided the official numbers as "fake" and suggested that the official government published unemployment rate was much lower than the "actual" figure. He may have been right, since the official percentage does not take into account people who have given up looking for work, but if he was honest (ha!) he'd be consistent in the figures he uses. But the problem with unemployment being so low is that many jobs go unfilled, which affects productivity and growth. When I was in retail management this trend caused us untold problems servicing our customers and spent a large percentage of our time hiring and training. An aspect of the low unemployment rate that is seldom discussed is the lack of real wage growth. Usually low unemployment causes wages to rise, since employers are now competing for employees, but for various reasons, this isn't happening.

The rise in stock prices, which regularly set new records, is also seen as an indicator that the economy is doing well. High stock valuations can be an indicator that the economy is doing well, but there's more to that than meets the high (and Trump seems to think that an increase in net stock valuation somehow erases the national debt) See my earlier blog post for my take on Trump & The Stock Market

Another thing that gets emphasized by the administration is that manufacturing jobs are on the rise. It's certainly true that job growth as been healthy, at least as far as raw numbers go. But it's not clear whether there has been a net increase in high-paying jobs, in manufacturing or elsewhere. Reports of new jobs never seem to materialize and plant closings continue, despite bluster and threats by Trump.

And finally we have the "massive, historic tax cuts", which were neither massive, historic, and for many Americans, not even tax cuts. Initially advertised as tax reform that would eliminate corporate tax loopholes in exchange for lower marginal rates, as well as tax cuts for American workers that would effectively give us all an average annual "raise" of $4000, the "reform" gave corporations a huge windfall while raising the tax bill of many individuals. Lower withholding gave the illusion of more money in our pockets, an illusion that was shattered when tax time came around.

If you voted for Trump, or continue to support him, for economic reasons, you might want to reconsider.

Donald J. Trump is a Serial Liar

Some people feel that they are making an informed choice to support Donald Trump. I regularly engage with people on social media regarding politics. While there are definitely the name-callers and the conspiracy followers, there is also a large number of people who adopt a rational tone and present information in a calm reasonable manner.

The problem is that the information that they are presenting ultimately comes from what Donald Trump is telling them. 

And Donald Trump is a serial liar.

I'm not going to wear down my typing fingers (especially since there only two fingers that I use to type) listing all the lies Donald Trump has told over the last four years. There's plenty of sources enumerating them. Now Trumpists and Trump himself will point the finger at "Fake News" and claim that the reporting on the lies are themselves lies. But you don't have to depend on traditional mainstream media for your facts. Virtually all of Trump's lies can be checked against publically available websites, including U.S. government websites. An early lie that Trump told was that his Electoral College win was historic, or unprecedented, except that a Google search of Electoral College results of  every presidential election shows that his winning margin was more like the 45^th best. Trump's claims about the economy are also based on lies. He claims that our economy, including job creation, the stock market and unemployment numbers are "the best ever", when even a cursory look at economic trends indicate that all the positive numbers are simply a continuation of the trends that started during the previous administration. It goes on and on. The information is out there and easily accessed. 

Donald Trump likes to claim that he has gotten more done "in 47 months than Joe Biden got done in 47 years" and that Biden is "all talk and no action". Biden's legislative accomplishments easily discovered, and he was by all accounts an active Vice President and a trusted advisor to President Obama. Trump, for all his bragging and boasting, has had only one significant legislative achievement, the tax change that was a giveaway to corporations and the rich; his numerous executive orders are empty barrels. 

So take a look, Trumpists, at the facts. Facts, not Trumpian assertions. Because if you're basing your support of Trump on what Trump says he has accomplished, then in all likelihood, you're basing your support on a lie. 

Trump Chaos

Trump supporters live in a fantasy world. A world where Trump was an effective, competent president. A world where 2017-2020 were idyllic years. Maybe I spend too much time reading Trumpist posts and tweets, and the pro-Trump cult isn't as numerous as it seems, but in the Republican primaries so far, he has garnered the support of at least half of voters in the primaries and caucuses, and the ones who voted for Haley or DeSantis will likely vote for Trump in November. 

Trumpists are adept at rewriting history. Trump's term in office ended with him undermining trust in the electoral system for half the year, capped off with over two months of efforts to overturn the results. Just weeks before the inauguration a crowd of his supporters violently stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the Electoral votes affirming Biden as president. Despite no credible evidence to support these claims, Trumpists, led by Trump himself, are still insisting that the election was "stolen". And they've been gearing up for this year's election by insisting that the Democrats will attempt to "steal" this election as well. 

Trumpists often assert that he was the only president in 20 years (or 30, or 40, depending on the day) to not preside over our country being involved in war. While it's true that he didn't start any new ones (neither did Obama, Clinton, Carter or Reagan) we were still enmeshed in Afghanistan throughout his whole term. We supported the Iraqi Army and the Kurds in the fight to eliminate ISIS. (If we weren't at war, how could he brag that he defeated ISIS?) His sycophants also claim that the world was a safer place and there weren't wars breaking out all over, like in Ukraine, when he was president. Russia had attacking eastern Ukraine in an attempt to annex two majority Russian-speaking provinces; there had always been unrest and violence in Israel regarding Gaza (although not to the current scale). He had a high-ranking Iranian general assassinated. Special Forces operators were killed in Niger. 

Trump, despite his inauguration speech featuring "American carnage" inherited a mostly peaceful, prosperous nation. Employment was rising, the stock market was climbing, inflation was low and there were no threats from without for three years. Metrics that had been climbing steadily as we recovered from the recession that Obama inherited continued to climb. For three years there was no significant crisis for Trump to deal with; he could concentrate on devising insulting nicknames and rage tweeting. When a significant crisis finally arrived on the scene in early 2020 he downplayed it, blamed his predecessor (who had left him a detailed plan for dealing with a pandemic) and, as was his habit, made it all about him. Instead of confidently leading he refused to take any role in attacking the problem, leaving implementation of any Covid strategy to the states, and then criticizing states' actions. He undermined his own team of experts and constantly made rosy predictions (15 cases and it will be gone; when the weather warms up - it will be gone by Easter) and his ignorant suggestion that injecting disinfectant was a possible cure. (Critics often mistakenly misquote him as saying "inject bleach, his supporters jump on this as proof that critics don't know what they're talking about. As if disinfectant injections are somehow better than bleach). To his credit he worked with the pharmaceutical companies to fast track the creation of a vaccine, but set the nation up for ant-vax hysteria by not forcefully promoting vaccinations. He was more focused on the fact that the post-election release of the vaccine meant that he couldn't benefit from it in the November voting. Always about him.   

To be fair, the pandemic was a situation where it would have been virtually impossible to steer a course that would have simultaneously protected public health, children's education and business. No one knew what was going to happen next, and add to the chaos the eruption of protests (and some riots) in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Do we keep businesses open and risk more transmission, or close them and risk people losing their livelihood? There was no right answer, and in retrospect, some of the answers turned out to be harmful. But when you have a narcissist in charge, the public relations optics of solving a problem become more important than actually solving the problem. 

Trump, despite his insistence that he always hired the best people, has a long track record of characterizing people who left his administration as "losers". One thing I noticed about his selection process was that it resembled more a regular job interview, or even a contest, than selecting public servants who will be best for a very important job. In previous administrations you didn't "apply" to be a Cabinet Secretary. You might signal some interest, or your chief of staff might put together some promising possibilities for you. Trump process looked more like a cross between "The Apprentice" and a job fair at the local high school, with him talking about finalists and one again..."losers". The most obvious disability in Trump's process was that he selected for loyalty to him above all else. Of course you want your team to have a sense of loyalty. You can't have your top people trying to undermine you. But the loyalty should be primarily to the country, and to the office of the president. He wasn't the first president to overvalue personal loyalty, but he was so utterly transparent about it, and the loyalty only went one way. 

Trumpists like to mock Democrats by claiming that our main objection to Trump is "mean tweets". It's true that Trump's prolific tweeting was a focus of the opposition. Not because they were simply "mean", but that his tweets, along with his rally rants, were a clear indicator of his mindset. It was in his tweets where he targeted his enemies, literally calling groups like the media "enemies of the people". It was in his tweets where he turned on his former appointees in a storm of insults. It was in his tweets where his thin skin and his inability to admit that even his most far fetched assertions could be wrong. (The storm path Sharpie wasn't on Twitter - but the principle is the same) The tweets told us who he was. He somehow claims that he was a uniter, while his tweets and other public statements indicate clearly that to him, being a unifier means categorizing those who disagree with him as not "true" Americans, so that what he considers the real Americans are united behind him. 

One of the areas where Trump can claim better results than Biden is immigration through the southern border. It is inarguable that the number of illegal crossings and asylum claims is significantly higher now than it was under Trump. It is a fact that our system is wholly unprepared for the number of people who want to move here and we simply don't know how to process them. This, however, is not simply a Biden problem, it is a government problem, which currently includes both Democrats and Republicans. Trump and the Republicans seems more interested in the problem continuing in order for it to remain a campaign issue. 

Let's not forget the 91 indictments against Trump and the civil cases he has already lost. Trump voters want you to believe that the various cases against him are a political hit job. That he is being targeted in order to take him off the ballot. This ignores (1) the fact that, even if convicted and in jail he could still be elected president and (2) should we ignore criminal activity just because he's running for president? His defenses in some of these cases give you tremendous insight into his thinking. He thinks he can declassify documents  just by thinking about them, that he has immunity for any otherwise illegal acts, that overturning an election is part of his official duties. The things he has been indicted for are actions that he committed in broad daylight, there's no question that he did what he did, meanwhile the Republicans are searching frantically, with no success, for anything that Biden did that would warrant impeachment. 

The battle cry of the Trump camp, lifted from Ronald Reagan, is to ask "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" I am. For one I'm not concerned that I'm going to catch some deadly disease and die. I'm aware of inflation, but I'm spending around the same amount for groceries every month than I did 4 years ago. Rent has gone up, but so has my pay rate. Personally, things are about the same. I'm not confident that Biden makes the right decisions all the time. But I'm more confident that he thinks about what is best for the country, while Trump only thought about what was best for Trump.

Cults Love Dictators

Trumpism is a cult. I've written about this before, but I believe that the cultish aspects of the MAGA base have expanded since his inauguration last month.

As I wrote about my own cult experience, no one who is in a cult thinks they're in a cult. No one sets out to join a cult. Once you're in, you rationalize behaviors that would have horrified you pre-cult. You make excuses for your cult leader and either deny that you ever believed differently or you portray yourself as an enlightened convert. The goalposts representing success change along with the cult leader's moods. Trumpism is no different. 

Trump was re-elected in large part due to a widespread belief that, despite any of his other defects, the economy was in better shape with him in charge. This makes sense if you squint and cover one eye. The traditional measures of economic health were all good from 2017 -- 2019, including low inflation, low unemployment, and robust stock market performance. During Biden's term two out of three of those were still true, but high inflation gave the understandable impression that the economy was in free fall. There were reasons for inflation that had nothing to do with any presidential action (and some that did), but people's short memories apparently wiped out all of 2020 as Trump's bungled Covid response, lack of coherent leadership, and undermining his own team had equally terrible effects. These effects naturally carried over into the early parts of Biden's term. It was hard to argue that Trump wasn't better for the economy with people who didn't understand basic economics. 

Maybe some people actually believed what they were saying, but I have concluded, for the vast majority, the talk of economics was mere cover for their cultish support for Trump, right or wrong. They were going to vote for him no matter what he said or did; pointing to the economy was no more than a way to make it sound as if they were making a reasoned decision. Hand in hand with this faux reasonableness was the demonization of anything associated with the Democratic Party. Trumpists and other Republicans have convinced their people that Democrats are communists and pedophiles. They have convinced their base that Joe Biden, a moderate, middle of the road, plain vanilla politician, was a raging dictator. 

But the economy was what Trumpists pushed as the rationale for re-electing Trump. I doubt anyone listed siding with Putin over Ukraine and systematically dismantling the government as good reasons to put him back in the White House. But here we are. People who were calling Biden a dictator for trying to cancel student loan debt are cheering on Trump for governing by fiat. People who loudly claimed to be Constitutional absolutists (at least when it came to the Second Amendment) are perfectly fine with an attempt to repeal part of the Fourteenth Amendment by way of Executive Order; those who were losing their minds over a years-old clip of Harris wanting to hold social media companies accountable, claiming it was a First Amendment infringement, are happy with Trump suing media companies, freezing out the Associated Press and deciding what news organizations can cover him; the people who screeched about Trump being held accountable for his alleged crimes were now drawing up lists of "enemies". 

The rank and file of the Trump base sees nothing amiss with an unelected "special government employee" rampaging through the government, firing people with no due process, bypassing both the union and their immediate supervisors. They shrug as whole agencies are gutted; agencies whose mission and funding had been authorized by Congress (and incidentally approved by whoever was president at the time). There's no process, no oversight, and certainly no "auditing for fraud and corruption". They don't blink when Trump claims that only he has the authority to decide what the law means or when his appointees testify that some court rulings can be ignored. There's a word for an individual who takes all government power and authority unto himself. 

The Trump Cult is not interested in facts or logic. The claims by Trump that he would solve inflation and lower prices has been abandoned, so they have acted as if that were never "a thing". They act as if now rooting out "fraud and corruption" are the most important issue facing the nation, despite zero evidence that anything other than the defunding of programs Trump doesn't like has been accomplished. They have convinced themselves that cozying up to Putin, a brutal dictator, aligns with our national values. 

It's always been a cult. Now it's a cult that supports a dictatorship.

Are We In A Recession?

Are we in a recession? That question reminds me of the punch line to the the question: "What is the difference between ignorance and apathy?" - " I don't know and I don't care". 

The reason that I don't know is that economists, who are the ones who come up with these terms, don't agree on what defines a recession. In most cases they assign the label to a time period retroactively. One definition that you hear a lot about is two consecutive quarters of negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. It's the definition that the party that's out of power (currently the Republicans) likes to use because it's easy to point at and say "Look, those idiots in charge have got us into a recession!". The problem with that definition is that hardly any economists use it. Mainly because, by itself, it doesn't really give us a clear picture of what is going on. The more popular, and more nuanced and therefore more vague and hard to pin down definition is "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." There's a lot of moving parts that could contribute to the big economic picture. It's not one moment in time that can be pointed at as "THAT'S the recession". 

So are we in a recession? I stand by "I don't know and I don't care". "I don't know" because the definition is so nebulous and "I don't care" for more complex reasons.

The state of the amorphous monster known as The Economy is going to affect different demographics in different ways. The stock market was setting new records every week for several years, but for the most part this had no effect upon the average American. This year it slid down a little a had investors sweating - but did that same average American notice? I'd wager not. The unemployment rate is another measure of economic health; the rate has been ridiculously low the last few years, but if the majority of the employed are working multiple jobs to get by, the news isn't so good. Wages are going up, but so are prices. Whether we are in good economic times or not is an individual thing. It's also highly subjective. Studies have been done that indicate that most people believe that the economy is bad even when they personally are doing well!

How you look at current economic conditions is going to be colored by your partisan leanings. Of course if you didn't vote for the party that's currently in power you're going to focus on inflation, in particular gas and grocery prices; if you're a supporter of the incumbent administration your focus will be on continued low unemployment, continued record job creation, as well as record corporate and retail sales and profits.  

Parties in power claim credit when things are going well and make excuses when things are going poorly; parties out of power point the finger of blame when things are going badly and defect attention some other thing when the economy is doing well. So how things going now? Some good, some bad. Just like always.

Hail Caesar

Yes, it's a cult, as I have said many times, but there are aspects of Trump's agenda where he has been consistent about his intentions, and his supporters have been consistently for those policies. Unlike his changeable war vs. peace policies, or his view of the stock market -- these policies were no surprise. One of them is immigration.

There's no serious argument being made that our immigration and border security was "just fine" under President Biden, or for that matter under any previous president. People are highly motivated to leave the dangerous situations in their home countries, and they're going to come here. If the hoops are too high, too numerous, too expensive, they're going to find ways to come here outside the system. Instead of finding ways to balance controlling the border with expediting an immigrant's request to stay here, Trump's simplistic answer was to "close the border" and attempt to deport all non-citizens, whether they were here legally or not. A large percentage of his supporters were in favor of this before voting for him, and are still in favor of it now that they see how it's being carried out. 

Deporting people who are here illegally is perfectly legal. An argument can be made that they took a chance by entering illegally or overstaying their visa and that they brought the situation upon themselves. Of course, this isn't the moral, or even practical argument, whereby many people who do not have legal status have been contributing members of their communities for decades, working hard, paying taxes and are indistinguishable from anyone who was born here. The legal vs. illegal absolutists, however, are not interested in morality, they come down firmly on the side of the law, and have no sympathy for those who are breaking it, no matter the mitigating circumstances.  You don't have to be a racist to hold this position, but there is considerable overlap between racists and law and order absolutists on this issue. But are they really concerned about following the law?

Of course the fact that they voted for a convicted felon who was under indictment for more serious crimes than the one he was convicted for -- who saw all his legal troubles go away after being elected -- cast doubt upon their respect for the law. The methods that the administration is using to deport non-citizens (and in some cases, citizens) is itself illegal. Contrary to what Trump would have us believe, not every person being deported is here illegally. Most of the people who have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have had some kind of legal status which allowed them to remain here. Some were awaiting adjudication of their asylum claims, others were permitted to stay under a program called Temporary Protected Status. Even Permanent Legal Residents (holders of Green Cards) have been detained and deported. ICE is picking up legal residents as they reported for their annual ICE check-in, or at the courthouse where their asylum claim was being heard. Few if any of these people are receiving any kind of due process before being disappeared into an ICE facility. None of this is legal but the Trump supporters don't care. All they care about is that deportations are being done, that Trump's agenda is being carried out, and legality is irrelevant. 

The whole "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) purge is another example. Trump supporters tend to believe that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are discriminatory against white people and are a waste of taxpayer money. It was no surprise that DOGE targeted these programs as part of their assault on government. There's certainly arguments to be made that these programs as well as foreign aid and numerous other programs shouldn't be taxpayer funded. However, all of these expenditures, all of these gutted agencies were established and funded by law. Trump has embarked upon a mission to unilaterally remake government. The role of the president is to implement and execute the law, not to decide what the law is. But is the Trump base concerned about the Constitution being ignored? It sure doesn't seem that way. 

The political philosophy of the Trump base is evidently "the end justifies the means". They are willing to abandon the law, the constitution, and democracy in order to see Trump achieve his goals. 

It's The Economy, Stupid (Or, It's Stupid's Economy)

I suppose the good news after last night's whiney rant is that the lunatic in the White House hadn't decided to invade Venezuela (yet). But even if you somehow believe that Trump is an effective leader, what specifically, did last night's rage fest accomplish?

I think you know the answer to that: not a thing. 

It's a characteristic of our political climate that the electorate will blame any bad news on whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office. During the last half of President Biden's term there were two major things that reflected badly on him and his administration. 

1. Immigration: there was a record number of people entering the country at the Southern border. Not all of them were coming in illegally, but the immigration system was being overwhelmed and the not-unreasonable assumption was that things were out of control. 
2. The economy: inflation had risen to near-record levels in 2022, and although the inflation rate had dropped to close to normal levels by 2024, the higher prices it had engendered hadn't gone away.

Trump capitalized on these two weaknesses. I'll save immigration for another day, but Biden did himself no favors by trying to convince the voters that their perceptions about the state of the economy were wrong. As far as the big picture went, he had a point. Average wages had risen as prices went up. The higher prices were never going to go back down—and we don't realistically want them to. Deflation can be just as bad as inflation. Wholesale reduction in prices means that profit margins go down—and when that happens the first thing that business owners do to compensate is reduce staffing—people lose their jobs. Then we have unemployment rising. But most people don't think about the big picture, they look at their own situation. For some, they haven't benefitted from the average increase in wages, so their paycheck doesn't go as far. For most, there is a perception of what a reasonable price for something should be, and even if their wages went up to help them afford the higher prices, they still think the old price is the right price. 

The economic situation, real and perceived, gave many voters the cover they needed to ignore all the many things that made Trump an unsuitable president. After all, wasn't the economy humming along nicely when he was president?

Yes and no. Most economic indicators were positive during Trump's first term. Unemployment was low, the stock market was rising, job creation was robust, inflation was within normal, low levels. Of course, all of this was simply a continuation of the trend that started during the Obama administration. But it made for an effective campaign point: Biden > high inflation/bad economy; Trump > no inflation/good economy. Simplistic, but effective...as long as you didn't have the slightest understanding of economics. Because if you did understand economics you'd realize that the inflation of 2022 was mostly due to the supply chain disruptions that started in 2020 (who was president in 2020?) and Econ 101 supply and demand when the world mostly opened up in 2021. It was unavoidable. 

By 2024 things were starting to settle down. Prices were never going to go back down, but neither were wages. Even minimum wages were up in most states. Inflation was slowly dropping. Trump could have coasted, doing nothing and subsequently taking credit as the economy righted itself. He could have still campaigned on what a mess that Biden had made of the economy, and comparing Biden's economy to his first term. Instead he implausibly promised to end inflation and to roll back prices on "day one". He could have pointed out that "fixing the economy" would be a year-long project and set a goal of returning inflation to a normal level, increasing job creation, and keeping unemployment low, to be accomplished at the one year mark. He could have sat back and done nothing, other than perhaps his tax credits for tips and overtime, and taken the credit as the economy adjusted. 

But not only did he make unattainable promises, but he took action to make the situation worse. There is no question that his tariff actions (I can't bring myself to call it a policy) exacerbated the problems, keeping inflation higher than it would have otherwise been due to the tariffs being paid by consumers. What makes it worse is that there's no logical reason for most of the tariffs (See my blog on tariffs from April). While normally inflation rises and falls without any contributing action by the president, in this case, it's inarguable that this president directly caused the economic mess that we're currently in. 

But, as usual with Trump, it's never his fault. He blames his predecessor. He throws money at the problem (or says he will). He whines about the unfairness of it all. He invents statistics that are often mathematically impossible. That's what you get when you elect an ignorant, incompetent, moron.

And, unless he dies first, we're stuck with him for another three years