America's economy grew at its weakest pace since Trump took office

Tbird19482 said:

You wouldn't be sure why this matters
Fact is Trump took over a slow but recovering economy ( yes it was slow and could have been better but the Republicans didn't give a dang about the American people all they wanted to do was make Obama a one term President and when he was reelected they were trying to make him look as bad as G W was.)
and why it matters is the Republicans and Trump ran on cutting the deficit / debt and all they did was run it up as bad or worse then Obama did and they had what they keep saying is a GREAT economy
so if it is such a great economy why are they running the debt up more then Obama did in 4/5 of the years he was in office
Have a nice day

Click to expand...

Fact is Trump took over a slow but recovering economy

Click to expand...

Funny how everyone I knew back then was doing very well

They key point is"Recovering" economy

Conservative said:

So the 5.9% unemployment rate down from 8% doesn't resonate the African Americans or you? Interesting and wrong!! Seems that Trump's economy is handing out JOBS to African Americans and that is creating more support than Trump ever got in the first election which is bad news for Democrats

Click to expand...

No, you made a claim that was unsupported by reality. You claimed there was a surge in African American support for Trump. There is simply no evidence of that.

MTAtech said:

Exports are 12% of our economy. That's significant. If it wasn't there, we'd have a depression.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is arguing that *all* exports would go away. I don't imagine there are many scenarios where say Canada and Mexico decide to significantly curtail trade with the United States, even if the rest of the world did.

But if all exports were suddenly cut off, hypothetically, yes, there would be a contraction and certain sectors would all but collapse.

Along with that, parts of the world would starve, many countries would spiral into decline and some would cease to function as nations. And that's the rosy side, if in this hypothetical the United States continued imports at a rate relative to current levels. And *still* the United States would be the world's largest economy, by an enormous margin.

Thankfully I don't think this is very likely to happen.

Metric Mouse said:

Seeing as the United States is the *least* dependent upon global trade of any advanced economy in percentage of GDP (and ranks very near the bottom of *all* countries in such metrics) the result could very well be unnoticed.

Click to expand...

I don't doubt your comment, but could you please provide a link to your source so that I can take a look at what data they use and how they do their analysis for myself?

The easiest listing that I found was the "List of countries by trade-to-GDP ratio" and that shows some countries having international trade the is as high as 400+% of their total GDP, which doesn't actually appear to make any sense at all.

That listing also puts the US at having around 25% of its GDP arising from international trade and I seriously doubt that a cut of around 25% in the US GDP would be "inconsequential".

My thinking is along the lines of IF (and to keep it simple I'll limit the example to three countries):

1. "Country A" has a GDP of 1,000,000 units and derives 10% of that from trade with "Country B" and 10% of that from trade with "Country C"; and if
   
2. "Country B" has a GDP of 1,000,000 units and derives 10% of that from trade with "Country A" and 10% of that from trade with "Country C"; and if
   
3. "Country C" has a GDP of 1,000,000 units and derives 10% of that from trade with "Country A" and 10% of that from trade with "Country B"; and if
   
4. "Country A" CEASES trading "Country B" and "Country C"; and if
   
5. "Country B" REDIRECTS the trade it formerly had with "Country A" to "Country C" while "Country C" REDIRECTS the trade it formerly had with "Country A" to "Country B"; then
   
6. the GDPs of both "Country B" and "Country C" remain unchanged; while
   
7. the GDP of "Country A" drops by 20%.

True, both "Country B" and "Country C" are still "dependent" on their foreign trade, but (in the above example) they would hardly even notice the difference. "Country A" on the other hand would most certainly notice the difference.

Thanks.

MTAtech said:

America's economy grew at its weakest pace since Trump took office


New York (CNN Business)The US economy in 2019 grew at its slowest pace in three years, according to preliminary data from the Commerce Department.

The economy expanded by 2.3% last year, its lowest level since 2016, when growth stood at 1.6%.
The economy under President Donald Trump has been consistently strong but not electric. In its best year, 2018, the economy expanded at a 2.9% clip. In 2017, it grew by 2.4%.
The dropoff in 2019 was because personal consumption and exports fell, according to the Commerce Department.

---

Critics of Obama said his economy was mediocre because he never had GDP growth at 3% or higher. Neither has Trump, with low unemployment and a trillion dollar deficit that's basically fiscal stimulus.
Trump promised on the campaign trail that he'd bring in 4, 5, and maybe 6% growth. Didn't happen. His tax-cuts were supposed to be the economic miracle to boost growth. It didn't happen. His tariffs were supposed to help exports. Exports fell.

Click to expand...

What this demonstrates more than anything else is that the choices one makes in life and how hard one works is the overwhelming reason for where you get in your life as opposed to who's ass is in the White House.

Airyaman said:

No, you made a claim that was unsupported by reality. You claimed there was a surge in African American support for Trump. There is simply no evidence of that.

Click to expand...

If the support for Mr. Trump amongst "Buddhist Vegans" goes from 2% to 4.1% then it is 100% "factually correct" to say that "The support for President Trump amongst 'Buddhist Vegans' has MORE THAN DOUBLED." - doesn't it.

And it would also be quite correct to describe a more than doubling of support as a "surge" - wouldn't it?

Metric Mouse said:

I don't think anyone is arguing that *all* exports would go away. I don't imagine there are many scenarios where say Canada and Mexico decide to significantly curtail trade with the United States, even if the rest of the world did.

But if all exports were suddenly cut off, hypothetically, yes, there would be a contraction and certain sectors would all but collapse.

Along with that, parts of the world would starve, many countries would spiral into decline and some would cease to function as nations. And that's the rosy side, if in this hypothetical the United States continued imports at a rate relative to current levels. And *still* the United States would be the world's largest economy, by an enormous margin.

Thankfully I don't think this is very likely to happen.

Click to expand...

Roughly 77% of the US GDP falls into the "services" category.

Very few people eat "services", hence a termination of American exports of services isn't likely to cause a whole lot of starvation - especially since "services" don't require any actual resources (other than people) to provide and there ARE people in other countries than the United States of America.

There are few (if any) things that the US exports that other countries either do not already export or which they could not produce for export.

There are lots of key things that the US imports that the US cannot produce for itself.

There are few (if any) things that the US imports that other countries might well not find a use for.

Yes, the US has the world's largest SINGLE nation economy, however, not all nations are involved in a SINGLE nation economy (and I refer, specifically, to the EU).

I list the above NOT to disparage the American economy, but simply to point out that the US economy is NOT operating in isolation from the remainder of the world's economies.

Kushinator said:

Your post does not negate the fact that the deficit is still larger than GDP growth. Again, this isn't a bad thing, as we are a post-industrial economy dealing with an aging population, low replacement rate, and anti-immigration policy. However, the excuses you've come up with (because a deficit driven economy makes you angry) are just pathetic.

Click to expand...

Why is that even an issue since it wasn't tax cuts that created it? Name for me the year during the Obama term that the Deficit wasn't higher than the GDP growth? I make no excuses and support the American people keeping more of what they earn, why does that bother you so much??

There are two kinds of deficits, one that is boosted by gov't spending and one that is boosted by interest rate expenses and entitlement growth. You keep posting information that doesn't resonate with anyone other than people like you. The American people get it, when will you? Gov't spending is going to always cause deficits and dependence, personal spending takes power away from bureaucrats

RealClearPolitics - Election Other - President Trump Job Approval - Economy

Metric Mouse said:

Seeing as the United States is the *least* dependent upon global trade of any advanced economy in percentage of GDP (and ranks very near the bottom of *all* countries in such metrics) the result could very well be unnoticed.

Click to expand...

Here is the reality that most progressives, liberals, and radicals want to ignore, the U.S. economy isn't based upon gov't spending whereas most other countries of the world is. Ours is a consumer generated, private sector driven economy whereas the European economy for example is gov't funding with high taxes.

Tbird19482 said:

You wouldn't be sure why this matters
Fact is Trump took over a slow but recovering economy ( yes it was slow and could have been better but the Republicans didn't give a dang about the American people all they wanted to do was make Obama a one term President and when he was reelected they were trying to make him look as bad as G W was.)
and why it matters is the Republicans and Trump ran on cutting the deficit / debt and all they did was run it up as bad or worse then Obama did and they had what they keep saying is a GREAT economy
so if it is such a great economy why are they running the debt up more then Obama did in 4/5 of the years he was in office
Have a nice day

Click to expand...

So did Obama but the fact that it was the worst recovery in history doesn't resonate with you. Another subject you know nothing about is civics, Congress thus the purse strings and legislative polices were controlled by the Democrats. We don't elect a King and when you want to credit Obama for a declining deficit you ignore the Congress was controlled by Republicans.

Trump ran on growing the economy and implementing pro growth policies, he has been successful. Keep ignoring the following results

DP and Dollar change
2008 14712.8
2009 14448.9
2010 14992.1
2011 15542.6 +550.5
2012 16197.0 +654.4
2013 16784.9 +587.9
2014 17527.3 +742.4
2015 18224,8 +697.5
2016 18715.0 +491.0
2107 19519.4 +804.4
2018 20580.2 +1060.8
2019 21734.3 +1154.1
Notice the drop from 742.4 to 697.5 to 492.0 then the surge. Trump inherited the 18.7 economy that is now 21.7 trillion in 3 years

Then there is this which Trump inherited and the comparison today. Anyone that claims the GDP growth now is similar to what Obama had is the true hack and totally has no credibility

Unemployment Rate 4.7% January 2017 vs. 3.5% today

Employed 152.2 million January 2017 to 158.8 million today so 6 million job growth from 2008 to 2017(146 million to 152 million) is celebrated but 6.6 million growth I the last two years isn't!! LOL

U-6 in January 2017 9.3% vs 6.7% today? Wow!! 2.6% better U-6 obviously meaningless to you

Part time for economic reasons, 5.7 million January 2017 vs. 4.3 million today? Looks to me that incredible job growth you claim was boosted by part time jobs

African American unemployment 8.0% vs. 5.9% today? That explains the surge in support from African Americans for Trump

Luther said:

Funny how everyone I knew back then was doing very well

They key point is"Recovering" economy

Click to expand...

Here's the fact that you want to ignore, the economy was recovering when Obama took control and the "worst recession since the Great Depression" had the worst recovery in modern American history when the economy should have been more robust. You try generating Obama type results in the private sector and see what happens and how long you would be employed

Airyaman said:

No, you made a claim that was unsupported by reality. You claimed there was a surge in African American support for Trump. There is simply no evidence of that.

Click to expand...

You aren't very good at research are you?

New polls show black support for Trump surging | Newsday

Conservative said:

Here's the fact that you want to ignore, the economy was recovering when Obama took control and the "worst recession since the Great Depression" had the worst recovery in modern American history when the economy should have been more robust. You try generating Obama type results in the private sector and see what happens and how long you would be employed

Click to expand...

and the "worst recession since the Great Depression" had the worst recovery in modern American history when the economy should have been more robust

Click to expand...

Perhaps WWII didn't follow the great recession like it followed the great depression?

Conservative said:

Here is the reality that most progressives, liberals, and radicals want to ignore, the U.S. economy isn't based upon gov't spending whereas most other countries of the world is. Ours is a consumer generated, private sector driven economy whereas the European economy for example is gov't funding with high taxes.

Click to expand...

The United States certainly is unique in the world. The governments of many countries certainly take a more active role in directing and supporting their country's economy, but I'm not sure it's accurate to generalize in the way that you did.

Luther said:

Perhaps WWII didn't follow the great recession like it followed the great depression?

Click to expand...

Perhaps but WWII isn't economic policies. There obviously is a loyalty to liberalism that for some reason cannot be explained in actual results, that speaks volumes

Conservative said:

You aren't very good at research are you?

New polls show black support for Trump surging | Newsday

Click to expand...

When I see more than a few polls and a trend, then I'll accept a surge. Until then, and not knowing the margin of error for those groups in the stated polls, no surge in my view.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nat...change-in-approval-rating-since-taking-office

A Washington Post/Ipsos poll released last week found 83% of black Americans believe Trump is racist and 90% disapprove of his job performance. Only 20% said Trump deserves significant credit for the low black unemployment rate and 76% believe he is doing things as president that are bad for African Americans.

Poll: Black voters, women continue to disapprove of Donald Trump

When combined with those who say they somewhat disapprove of Trump, that accounted for 57% of the women polled and 87% of blacks.

Metric Mouse said:

The United States certainly is unique in the world. The governments of many countries certainly take a more active role in directing and supporting their country's economy, but I'm not sure it's accurate to generalize in the way that you did.

Click to expand...

Nothing to generalize, the facts speak for themselves

General government - General government spending - OECD Data

Conservative said:

Perhaps but WWII isn't economic policies. There obviously is a loyalty to liberalism that for some reason cannot be explained in actual results, that speaks volumes

Click to expand...

Perhaps but WWII isn't economic policies.

Click to expand...

Well it kinda is no?

Who was in the factories building the war machine?

Airyaman said:

When I see more than a few polls and a trend, then I'll accept a surge. Until then, and not knowing the margin of error for those groups in the stated polls, no surge in my view.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nat...change-in-approval-rating-since-taking-office

A Washington Post/Ipsos poll released last week found 83% of black Americans believe Trump is racist and 90% disapprove of his job performance. Only 20% said Trump deserves significant credit for the low black unemployment rate and 76% believe he is doing things as president that are bad for African Americans.

Click to expand...

You made the claim that there were no polls so I posted one, in addition I posted the 5.9% African Unemployment rate which is going to make it hard for liberals to defend policies. It is amazing how those great results indicate racism

TU Curmudgeon said:

Roughly 77% of the US GDP falls into the "services" category.

Very few people eat "services", hence a termination of American exports of services isn't likely to cause a whole lot of starvation - especially since "services" don't require any actual resources (other than people) to provide and there ARE people in other countries than the United States of America.

There are few (if any) things that the US exports that other countries either do not already export or which they could not produce for export.

There are lots of key things that the US imports that the US cannot produce for itself.

There are few (if any) things that the US imports that other countries might well not find a use for.

Yes, the US has the world's largest SINGLE nation economy, however, not all nations are involved in a SINGLE nation economy (and I refer, specifically, to the EU).

I list the above NOT to disparage the American economy, but simply to point out that the US economy is NOT operating in isolation from the remainder of the world's economies.

Click to expand...

Of course much of the economic output of the United States *could* be sourced from other places; but the timeline is pretty ugly. Without the agricultural exports of the United States, people would starve. Of course, once those people that *couldn't* survive without the exports of the United States died off, those that *could* survive would indeed source their needs from other places. It would be self correcting; but certainly not seamless and certainly much more painful for those outside the United States than inside. Maybe that's what you meant.

To your last point, you are correct that the United States does not exist in isolation. But if it did, it would still be the world's largest consumer base and the world's second largest manufacturer, with some of the most favorable demographics of the advanced world, the most secure borders (from outside invasion), the largest connected swathes of arable land and some of the richest interconnected navigable waterways on the planet. The United States would still be the world's only Superpower.

Conservative said:

You made the claim that there were no polls so I posted one, in addition I posted the 5.9% African Unemployment rate which is going to make it hard for liberals to defend policies. It is amazing how those great results indicate racism

Click to expand...

I did not say there were no polls, I said evidence. When I look for evidence, I look for trends, not a few polls with unknown margins of error for the particular group cited. For all I know, they might have polled 10 black people.

Conservative said:

Unemployment Rate 4.7% January 2017 vs. 3.5% today

Click to expand...

You people have been shown the following unemployment data every time this topic comes up and still the lies (by cherry-picking) that this is all due to Donnie Dirtbag keep coming:

Average annual reduction in unemployment from 2000 to 2109:


During Obama's 8 years in that table looking at the September number which would be the end of the FY, the unemployment rate dropped an average of .63% annually. Under Trump it's been just .35% per annum. Here's a graphic rendering of those numbers:



Note the much steeper decline in the Obama years compared to Trump's. The drop in unemployment follows a steady decline all through the Obama administration which continued but slowed under Trump. I know you'll probably try to come up with some dishonest way of spinning this in the opposite direction but it will be so blatant and clumsy so we can laugh at it.

Airyaman said:

When I see more than a few polls and a trend, then I'll accept a surge. Until then, and not knowing the margin of error for those groups in the stated polls, no surge in my view.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nat...change-in-approval-rating-since-taking-office

A Washington Post/Ipsos poll released last week found 83% of black Americans believe Trump is racist and 90% disapprove of his job performance. Only 20% said Trump deserves significant credit for the low black unemployment rate and 76% believe he is doing things as president that are bad for African Americans.

Poll: Black voters, women continue to disapprove of Donald Trump

When combined with those who say they somewhat disapprove of Trump, that accounted for 57% of the women polled and 87% of blacks.

Click to expand...

By all means keep calling Trump a racist in the face of actual results that don't support your comments or those of polls that you want to tout. Your credibility is being destroyed by actual results as Americans all over the country are recognizing that the liberal rhetoric doesn't match the results they are seeing

Very few people eat "services", hence a termination of American exports of services isn't likely to cause a whole lot of starvation - especially since "services" don't require any actual resources (other than people) to provide and there ARE people in other countries than the United States of America.

Click to expand...

Since one of the biggest service industries are restaurants wouldn't agriculture be a major source?

digitusmedius said:

You people have been shown the following unemployment data every time this topic comes up and still the lies (by cherry-picking) that this is all due to Donnie Dirtbag keep coming:

Average annual reduction in unemployment from 2000 to 2109:
View attachment 67272939

During Obama's 8 years in that table looking at the September number which would be the end of the FY, the unemployment rate dropped an average of .63% annually. Under Trump it's been just .35% per annum. Here's a graphic rendering of those numbers:

View attachment 67272942

Note the much steeper decline in the Obama years compared to Trump's. The drop in unemployment follows a steady decline all through the Obama administration which continued but slowed under Trump. I know you'll probably try to come up with some dishonest way of spinning this in the opposite direction but it will be so blatant and clumsy so we can laugh at it.

Click to expand...

What you show is complete ignorance to data context, yes the OFFIICAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE(U3) went down but context shows it went down because part time jobs for economic reasons were created. Do you know what those kind of jobs are?? You focus on slope and not official data as the public will always vote their pocketbooks and Obama was the only President in history that won re-election with fewer votes than he got in the original election. Reagan got 10 million more, Obama got 4 million less. That is what you want to ignore, why such loyalty and so much ignorance to data? U-6 is a much better judge of economic policies and performance

Here is what Obama created that you want to ignore

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Original Data Value

Series Id: LNS12032194
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Employment Level - Part-Time for Economic Reasons, All Industries
Labor force status: Employed
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over
Hours at work: 1 to 34 hours
Reasons work not as scheduled: Economic reasons
Worker status/schedules: At work part time
Years: 2008 to 2019

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2008 4846 4902 4904 5220 5286 5540 5930 5851 6148 6690 7311 8029
2009 8046 8796 9145 8908 9113 9024 8891 9029 8847 8979 9114 9098
2010 8530 8936 9233 9178 8845 8577 8500 8800 9246 8837 8873 8935
2011 8470 8464 8645 8652 8576 8427 8281 8788 9166 8657 8447 8171
2012 8305 8238 7775 7913 8101 8072 8082 7974 8671 8203 8166 7943
2013 8151 8178 7722 7964 7937 8103 8099 7816 7764 7936 7718 7827
2014 7296 7299 7435 7509 7254 7422 7402 7177 7020 7025 6898 6856
2015 6808 6671 6629 6608 6628 6383 6249 6423 6043 5811 6174 6084
2016 5941 5978 6066 6006 6467 5748 5926 5995 5918 5971 5738 5621
2017 5753 5603 5455 5279 5234 5266 5281 5237 5179 4912 4866 4986
2018 4982 5115 4969 4952 4920 4736 4588 4368 4656 4630 4781 4657
2019 5147 4310 4499 4654 4355 4347 3984 4381 4350 4438 4322

Click to expand...