MY ESOTERIC likes to think of himself as a bit of a polymath with degrees in Statistics, Accounting, Computer Science, & Operations Research

Latest Update

• Debt and Deficit Charts
• Population and Productivity Charts
• GDP Numbers
• Wages

How Do We Stand Today?

Below is what is called a stoplight chart. It is intended depict in one place an easy to read picture of the status of a complex set of data; in this case Trump's America. Beside each measure, e.g. GDP, are a pair of colored circles ... the stoplights.

Below is a stoplight chart for the end of President Obama's term of office. This is what the charts tell me about the state of America at that point in time. The colored circles represent the "goodness" of that measure. For example:

1. Food Stamp Use is Yellow (poor). While food stamp use declined considerably after the Great Recession of 2008 during President Obama's term in office, it was (and still is) way above historic norms.
2. On the other hand, the Unemployment Rate is Blue (great) because at 4.8%, the economy is near or at full employment and is below what is normal.
3. Finally, the National Debt is Red (terrible) because, even though the huge increase in debt was the direct result of 1) the cumulative effect of President Bush's tax cuts and the cost of his wars, 2) automatic economic stabilization measures that kicked in with the recession, and 3) the measures President Obama was forced to take to avert a depression, it is nevertheless historically high.

You will see I take a slightly different approach when we get to President Trump's stoplight chart.

Where Things Stood at the Beginning Of Trump's Presidency

President Trump's Stoplight Chart

We use this management tool a little differently in assessing how President Trump is doing. Instead of looking at how he is doing overall at single points in time, we consider how he is doing relative to how President Obama did. Why this way? Because President Trump and his supporters have made it very clear in words and deeds that they are measuring themselves to Obama's legacy.

Consequently, I organized this chart thusly. There are two sets of stoplights. Both measure whether he is doing better or worse than President Obama for each metric. The one on the left depicts how things stand about ten months into President Trump's term. The right stoplight is how it is in December 2017. The difference between the two colors tells you where that particular attribute is heading. The totality of color changes (or lack thereof) gives you a good idea of how President Trump is doing overall when compared to President Obama's ending position.

For example, take the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I have it rated Blue because Trump is doing much better at the moment than where Obama left it. Likewise, GDP is rated Green because the trajectory of GDP growth has not changed very much between the two administrations. Auto sales are Yellow because they are a little worse than what Obama gave him. Finally, Uninsured Rates is Red because all the turmoil surrounding Obamacare has noticeably increased the number of uninsured Americans.

Stoplight Chart on Trump's America

10/6/2019 - More deterioration is noticeable.

2/8/2019 - Deterioration seems to be setting in regarding Donald Trumps numbers. Several of the stoplights which now show Red-Red, use to be Red-Yellow or even Red-Green for a bit.

A Little History

To put things in perspective, a little historical context is always helpful. This next series of charts provide a look at Public Debt, Debt to GDP ratio, GDP and Per Capita GDP over various periods of time starting with a look at the entire history of the United States.

The first set of charts provide a look at Public Debt as well as the more meaningful Public Debt to GDP Ratio. The reason for the second metric is that it is not very often that a raw number (Public Debt) has any meaning by itself. It is just a number such as the Right throwing around 20 Trillion Dollars as if that was a terrible thing. Well it may be or it may not be. And you won't know until you measure it against some other related metric(s); in this case GDP and Time.

Until you know the size of the economy can you gauge whether $20 trillion is large or small. Because GDP is also around $20 trillion then you can start getting the feeling that the current public debt is pretty big indeed, since it is around 100% of GDP (in other words, it would take the entire American economy to pay off what America owes to itself and others).

Even here, you still don't know if this is situation is "normal" or not until you see what it was in previous years. Again, you can see it is at an all time high (save for WW II). The final piece of context that is helpful is looking back in history at other periods where the Debt-GDP ration was this high and judge if the times were good or bad then. We can't do that here because this is a unique situation in a peace-time economy. So, my conclusion in this case is having a debt this high is not good for economic health.

CHART PD - 1: As of 3/6/2020 - Both Debt and % of GDP are increasing at increasing rates. Accelerating further has the impact of the Coronavirus Recovery is felt.

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2/8/2019 - While it is hard to tell, Public Debt is beginning to balloon from the GOP Tax Cut.

This next set of charts looks at the Debt and Debt-GDP ratio in more detail by taking shorter snapshots in time. Here, to add context, I show some major events that drove changes to public debt. Then, by looking at an even shorter time frame, we can analyze public debt in yet another way—by seeing how it changed from administration to administration and comparing it to the rhetoric of the day.

In that last regard, much has been made of how much President Obama has driven up public debt. Well, you can see from Chart PD-3, that is not really the case because after you get past the terrible effects of the Great 2008 Recession (Obama took office in 2009 and was able to have direct influence on the 2010 budgets and beyond), you see that Obama, at 2.7%, has the second lowest rate of debt growth of the four presidents before him. So when you hear the hyperbolic rhetoric on this subject, you now know what the truth is.

The Scariest Chart You Will Ever See

Chart POP-1 is a bombshell for anybody who cares about a growing American economy. It says that if something doesn't change regarding population growth then the future for sustained economic growth is bleak. And, that is not the hyperbole mentioned above.

It is a simple chart for sure, just one line heading south, but what a line it is!! You see, as I explain in other hubs, economic growth is intimately intertwined with population growth (plus productivity growth). In the mid- to long-term, economic (GDP) growth is basically equal to the population growth rate plus the productivity growth rate¹ plus an error factor that reflects current pressures on the economy. It is no more complicated than that.

Yes, in the short-term other factors (the error term) hold sway which cause monthly, quarterly, and yearly variations in GDP; things like the business cycle and inflation. But after they run their course, what happens with population (creates demand) and productivity (ability to satisfy the demand) take over control.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of why, what must happen to keep the population stable, not increasing or decreasing (like Russia is) is that, on average, each female must produce two offspring during her lifetime in order to replace her and the father. If that doesn't happen, then population (and therefore demand) must decrease over time. Consequently, in order to grow the population one of two things must happen (or a combination of the two); 1) more than two offspring must be produced and/or 2) immigrants (it doesn't make any difference which type) must come into the country. There is no other way.

Look at the note in the middle of the chart pointing to the line at about the 2009 point. It is in this period when native born births fell below the replacement level or 2.08 births per woman. Therefore, it was here when immigration became critical to a growing population because immigration is necessary to replace the babies that aren't being born in sufficient numbers. To put it bluntly, around 2009, the US population started falling. The only reason it is growing now is all the immigrants that arrive and stay in America. Yet that is exactly what President Trump and many other conservatives are trying to stop from happening.

The reason I introduced you to this concept is to keep everything else that follows in context.

^{1 Today that would be .72% plus 1.2% = 1.97% predicted annual long-term growth. Since the Great 2008 Recession the economy has grown at roughly 2%. For comparison, population growth for the 1990s was around 1.2% and productivity growth was 2.2%. So GDP growth should be around 3.4%. In fact, it was about 3.8%.}

Population Growth Rate - The Key to Economic Growth.

CHART POP-1 The Downward Sloping Growth Rate Curve Indicates a Population in Trouble

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The History of GDP

Let's look at Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it is explained a little later. But just let me say it is a 20,000 foot view of how well the economy is doing. If it is growing, the economy is good, if it is flat, then the economy is under-performing, and if it is decreasing, the economy is in recession. The first chart looks at the whole history of GDP, from 1794 to 2017. In this, and the charts that follow showing finer and finer detail of GDP, I suspect most of you are in for a shock.

The most popular myth held by our conservative friends is that the economy was much better, relatively speaking, than it is today. If you believe that, get ready to have your bubble burst. You see, included on each chart are the major recessions, depressions, and panics that have marred our growth and caused unimaginable suffering and hardship on all but the wealthiest Americans.

The bottom line is that after the Great Depression of 1929 and until the Great Recession of 2008, the quantity and severity of recessions were small by comparison to what came before them. Before 1929, it seems that every time you turned around, America was in another major economic downturn. It is rather "depressing" when you think how one side of the political spectrum paints what has been a pretty good run of prosperity from 1950 to 2007 and 2010 to 2018.

CHART GDP-1

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Trump by the Numbers

The following set of charts and graphs will describe the ups and downs of Trump's America over the length of his term. He has made many promises regarding how well various sectors of the economy will do, e.g., huge increases in coal jobs.

What this hub is about then is presenting and discussing data that tells us how well he is reaching his goals. Almost all of the data comes from official government sources although a few things such as consumer sentiment come from non-government but nevertheless industry-trusted reports. The sources will be provided.

The charts and graphs will be organized in what I hope are logical groups, starting with Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a general measure of the health of the economy, Included with the GDP are other related measures that provide more insight.

Economic Indicators

Gross Domestic Product

The most common indicator of economic health is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and how it is changing over time. The GDP measures the value of all of the services and end products manufactured in the US. It may seem so, but not coincidentally, this is the same value of all of the wages and taxes paid plus profit earned in the US.

GDP is related to recessions (and depressions) in that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) uses it to determine when the economy is in recession. As a rule-of-thumb if GDP goes negative for two quarters in a row, the economy is in a recession. So Chart GDP-1 is our first gross indicator of Trump's America because we have three quarters under Trump's leadership.

What do we see? Basically no change (therefore a Green stoplight) from the path President Obama charted although if the last two quarters continues (over 3% in both the 2nd and 3rd quarters), he may soon be outperforming Obama.

CHART GDP-4 Annual GDP (2012$)

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GDP Components

The next level of detail is look beneath the gross GDP numbers. The GDP is calculated by adding the value of:

1. Consumer Spending
2. Business Investment
3. Government Spending
4. Exports minus Imports (trade balance)

These components are do not necessarily work together. For the longest time, the trade balance has been negative, meaning it has a depressing effect on GDP. Much is made in today's rhetoric about how bad it is to have a negative trade balance. If fact, as you will see graphically, net trade plays almost no role in determining GDP because it accounts for roughly -3% of total GDP.

It should be a surprise to no one that Consumer Spending accounts for the lion's share of GDP, about 69%. What probably is surprising is that Government Spending is as important as Business Investment, about 17% each.¹

It should be easy to tell from Chart GDP-2 below why President Obama's stimulus was needed. If you look at 2007 you should noticed that Consumer Spending and Business started declining while Government Spending and Net Exports improved. You might also notice that the increase in Government Spending (the Stimulus) is about equal to the decrease in Consumer Spending. That was the point of the stimulus, to replace depressed consumer spending with government spending until the consumer spending took off again.

What made this recession drag on so long wasn't President Obama's fiscal policy, but businesses deciding not to invest; in past recessions, business picked up pretty quickly. In this recession, it took consumer spending only 2 years to get back to pre-recession levels, it took business investment an astounding five years just to get back to 2008 levels. If I showed you a graph of corporate cash reserves, which were and still are huge, you would see the explanation of why business took so long to get back on track.

_{¹ Of course, this busts another myth that government spending plays no part in economic growth.}

CHART GDP-5 GDP by Component

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Federal Deficit

The federal deficit is another common measure of how things are going. The deficit is simply the difference between how much money the government gets in and spends. If income exceeds spending, then the "deficit" is a surplus, a very rare occurrence (the last time was in 2000 under President Clinton). More often, spending exceeds income then it really is a deficit. To make up the difference, the government borrows money which is called the National Debt; which today exceeds $20 trillion, a historically high number.

Chart GDP-3 looks at the federal deficit through the Bush 43 and Obama administrations, plus the first three quarters of Trump's. This period of time is unique in the it shows a budget surplus and the effects from an economy that almost fell into a world-wide depression, the worst in history.

If you extend the timeline back to 1980 you will see that average deficit was about $300 million in 2009$. Prior to that it was running around $100 million.

The explanation for the huge spike in 2009-2010 is the 2008 Recession. Much of that spike is the result of automatic stabilization payments (e.g., unemployment benefits) that kick in when the economy tanks. The remainder comes from the Obama stimulus program that replaced depressed consumer spending with more government spending; it worked.

It is also of interest (Chart GDP-4), given today's political rhetoric, that using a little more meaningful metric, Deficit as a percentage of GDP, President Obama is doing quite well when compared to the conservative gold standard, President Reagan.

It was known that the deficit will increase starting in 2016, partly due to higher interest payments brought on by that spike. As you can see, they continue into Trump's administration. Most economists think that the 2018 GOP tax plan will sharply drive up the deficit beginning in 2019. Only time will tell.

CHART FD - 1 Federal Deficit (2009$): US Deficit is approaching that reached in response to the Great 2008 Recession.

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Dow Jones Industrial Average

The next chart, GDP - 3, is related to the previous GDP charts in that the outcome of a growing GDP is a growing stock Market as well as the reverse. The DOW is often considered a "leading" indicator because the stock market in general reflects investors "expectations" of how the economy will be doing sometime in the future.

That means if the stock market (as represented by the DJIA or DOW) is heading south for a significant period of times (or collapses in a short period) then the economy is probably going to get worse as well. Likewise, as in March 2009 after Obama announced his stimulus, the plummeting stock market reversed itself rather spectacularly simply based on the optimism generated by the stimulus.

What you see in this February 2018 GDP - 3 chart is a continuously growing stock market in concert with a GDP heading the same direction. With the election of Donald Trump, stock market growth accelerated based on his promise for huge corporate tax cuts¹ (which became a reality at the end of 2017).

You will notice in this update is that there is a sharp decline. That may or may not be there the next time I renew this chart, but at the moment it represents the largest sell off in the market (numerically) in its history; 1175 points on Feb 5, 2018 and over 7% in the five days preceding that. Because this is a monthly chart (although I make changes throughout the month) we won't know until March whether this is the beginning of a trend or just a blip (a very big blip indeed).

It is now Dec 2018, and the market is definitely headed in the wrong direction. The two parallel lines represent the channel of prices established during the Obama administration. While spending most of the first two year of the Trump administration above that channel, it has now moved into the middle of it¹ . Those light tiny lines about the high point is a technical indicator. The pattern that has been established (head and shoulders) is almost the same pattern we say before the 2008 stock market crash.

If stock prices continue to fall below the bottom of the channel, then chances are high there will be a major retreat to follow.

_{¹ Which means this is where the market would be if it followed the pattern set up previously.}

DJIA

Income Metrics

We will consider two of these. One is Real Median Household Income and the other is Real Disposable Income: Per Capita. The former tracks gross income for the average household and the latter considers average per person disposable (after-tax) income.

They both give the reader an idea of the overall standard of living in America. The theory being, the greater the income, especially after-tax income, the more there is to spend on finer things in life.

This first chart looks at Median Household Income.

CHART INC - 1 Real Median Household Income (2015$)

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What is Real Disposable Income-Per Capita really mean (Chart INC - 2)? Let me offer a definition I found on-line that is much more understandable than any I could come up with. In part:

"Personal income in the U.S. consists of all income that is received by U.S. residents in a given year, originating from all sources. Thus personal income is the sum of wage and salary disbursements, other labor income, proprietor's income (rental income), dividend and interest income, and transfer payments to individuals (welfare, unemployment insurance, etc).

Disposable personal income is the portion of personal income that is left after personal taxes are subtracted, and thus is the amount of personal income available to people for consumption spending and saving.

Per capita disposable personal income is found by dividing a country's total disposable personal income by its population.

Finally, real per-capita disposable personal income is found by adjusting per-capita disposable personal income for inflation.

Changes in real per-capita disposable personal income over time indicates trend in a country's material standard of living. Real per-capita disposable income will usually rise when economic growth rates exceed population growth rates[, like it is in the US].

Real per-capita income tends to follow the business cycle, rising in the peaks and falling in the troughs. The greater percentage of real per-capita income in most countries is used for consumption spending rather than saving ...

All else equal, a rise in consumer confidence will tend to increase the percentage of real per-capita income that is allocated to consumption, and decrease the percentage allocated to saving."¹

Another term you may see is "Discretionary Income". This is Disposable Income less all of the necessities of life are subtracted, e.g. rent, insurance, alimony, food, etc.²

So what is Chart INC - 2 currently telling us? First, look at each of the yellow triangles which represent a recession. In each case it appears growth in disposable income slowed or declined. Also notice that growth was somewhat better during Democratic administrations - until you get to President Obama's presidency. In 2012, disposable income growth goes into reverse for a quarter; this coincides with a marked slowdown in the economy in the same quarter. The other factor leading to what is an atypical growth record is that unlike all previous recession recoveries, increased GDP and job growth did NOT translate in to income growth for the working class. Instead, the upper class was the only income group to benefit from the growth in America's economy.

President Trump's first year record is on the low end of Republican administrations, but, since at first glance, it looks like growth might be flattening out, it remains to be seen if that can be maintained.

_{¹ Courtesy of https://www.swlearning.com/economics/econ_data/percap_income/percap_income_definition.html ©2004 South-Western. All Rights Reserved}

_{² Since the government does not track what I think is a very important metric, one must rely on 3rd party sources. If you are interested try this one from Motley Fool}

Wage Growth

CHART WG-1

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Employment Metrics

Another set of measures that tests a different segment of the economy is employment, or more specifically, unemployment numbers. These numbers represent where the rubber meets the road, people. People supply the demand and people supply the workforce to satisfy that demand. It would seem then, how well people are able to create demand becomes very important to the economy as a whole. And what do they have to have to satisfy their demand, a job of course. Therefore, employment and unemployment statistics come to front of the class.

Let's start with an overarching metric of how many work eligible adults are willing to work. This measure is called the Participation Rate (Chart EMP - 1), a number one side of the political debate tried to bash President Obama over the head with to show how poorly he was doing. Actually, as we will see, they were wrong.

The historical Participation Rate (PR) has quite a story to tell including how this nation thought about women. First, consider all of the yellow triangles, they mark the various recessions that have occurred since WW II.1 You should notice that the PR either flattens out or declines during most, but not all, recessions. Another thing that should be obvious is from 1948 until the late 1960s, the PR remained relatively constant and at, by today's standard, low. What happened in the early 1970s? Women joined the workforce (before 1948, they weren't even counted). More and more women joined which explains most of the increase.

But starting in 2000, other demographic changes (we are getting older folks) have taken over. Recent analysis has demonstrated that changes in demographics (gender, age, etc) are the main driving factors for the downward changes in PR and not the forces behind changes in unemployment.

2/9/19 - After two years into the Trump administration we can see that the upswing begun in the Obama administration has continued at about the same rate. Hence the Green Stoplight

CHART EMP - 1: Historical Participation Rate 1948 - 2021

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Employment Rates

The next chart, Chart EMP - 2, consists of three metrics, the Participation Rate, which we have already discussed, the Unemployment Rate, and the U-6 Rate. Next. let's consider what is thought of as an "alternative measure". Many people the "official" unemployment rate (U-3) doesn't tell the whole story, that it is missing many people who have stopped looking for work. That is what the U-6 does.

The U-6 adds to the official unemployment definition all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons. If you look at the two metrics, U-3 and U-6, in Chart EMP - 2 you should see that the two lines mimic each other, the only difference is one of magnitude. Eye-balling the chart would appear to show that the U-6 runs roughly 4 percentage points higher than the U-3, consistently over time. That is why it is sort of pointless to use both metrics since you can draw the same conclusions from each. That is why most people use only the U-3. Nevertheless, if you like the more inclusive U-6, it is there for your use.

What does the official (U-3) unemployment (UE) rate figure tell us? The first thing it tells us is that average unemployment, at least since Reagan, has run at about 5%, which most economists consider "full employment"¹. We also see that as President Obama left office, the UE rate fell to lows seen in both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Since Trump took office, UE has fallen to 4.1% from.7%. Job growth, on the other hand, is still good but nevertheless somewhat lower than the previous administration.

2/9/2019 - After two years into the Trump administration, like the Participation Rate, the declines in both the official Unemployment Rate and the more inclusive U-6 continued the downward trend established under President Obama. But do notice, the broader U-6 index has ticked upwards recently. That is something to keep an eye on to see if the official UE rates grows as well.

I also added the multi-job holders. If that percentage goes up, that is a sign of weakness as people must hold more jobs to stay out of poverty.

Employment Numbers

^{(this may be more detail than you can bear)}

For those who enjoy analytical pain, Chart EMP - 3 is right up your alley. It provides you a look at the trends of all of the measures that make up the employment picture.² The percentages are the growth (or decline) in that measure. The ones in the center are for President Obama and the others are for President Trump.

Now, one needs definitions if one can understand what they are seeing, so here they are:

• Civilian Non-institutional Population - Individuals, 16 years or older who are not in the Armed Services or are not in institutions such as prisons, mental hospitals, or nursing homes, (not on Chart EMP - 3)
• Civilian Labor Force - Individuals, 16 years or older who are not in the Armed Services or are not in institutions such as prisons, mental hospitals, or nursing homes, who are employed or unemployed and actively seeking work.
• Employment Level - Persons in the Civilian Labor Force during the reference time period that did any work at all as paid employees; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family.
• Full-Time (FT) - Persons who work 35 hours or more per week.
• Not in Labor Force - Persons in the Civilian Labor Force who are neither employed nor unemployed due to lack of desire or lack of availability (e.g. in school)
• Part-Time (PT) - Persons who work less than 35 hours per week.
• Willing (Marginally Attached) - Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for work, and who have looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Discouraged workers are a subset of the marginally attached.
• Discouraged - Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for a job and who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but who are not currently looking because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they would qualify.

I know there are a lot of numbers on this very busy chart but the story is in each set of three horizontal numbers which represent each president's result for that measure. For example, the top line traces changes in the Civilian non-Institutional Population (CniP), i.e. the set of people, 16 and over, who could work if they wanted to. Also, it makes a good surrogate for population growth overall. We see that CnIP growth is slowly decreasing over time from 1.16%/yr during the Bush administration to 0.4%/yr in Trump's first year (that will probably grow some over the next three years).

That is not good news on two counts. First, it implies the overall population growth is slowing which, in turn, puts downward pressure on GDP growth. Second, using the same logic a slowing CnIP growth rate also suggests a couple of things; 1) inflation as employers vie for fewer employees and 2) less output if the labor pool for workers shrink too much.

The first numbers that reflect current and short-term economic health is what is happening to the labor pool (those people willing to work). You can see that the difference between the Bush and Obama administration reflects the fact that most of the decrease in Civilian Labor Force occurred right after Obama assumed office even though the causes for it happened months earlier. Trump's .55% increase results from inheriting a growing economy.

The same dynamic can be seen with the Employment Level, Full-Time Employment, and Not In Labor Force numbers. The Part-Time numbers, while looking a little different still reflect a declining and then improving economy. This includes the decrease in Part-Time Employment growth which reflects the switch from part-time to full-time.

Of interest is the bottom two measures, Marginally Employed (ME). Marginally employed persons are those who are Willing to work full-time but are working part-time for economic reasons (not shown) or are Discouraged but still looking (the latter two are subsets of ME). Now ME is acting as you would think it would, after the initial plunge into a deep recession, those figures are decreasing as the economy recovers.

But consider the fact that Discouraged workers are increasing during the first year of the Trump administration. That is something to watch as, in isolation, it is not a good sign for future economic growth. Why? Because it says the number of people who are unemployed but haven't found work in a while. While one year doesn't make a trend, it is in agreement with a metric we will consider next.

2/9/2019 - After two years into the Trump administration, as with the other metrics, things kept improving and continuing the trend set under President Obama.

¹ Theoretically "full employment" is that point where employers start competing for labor and driving wages up.

² These totals are not adjusted for population growth. So please keep in mind when considering Civilian Labor Force and Employment Level, some of the growth is simply due to an increasing population rather than changes in employment dynamics

Weeks Out of Work

There are two measures for how long people have been out of work. One is the "average" number of weeks people have unemployed and the "median" number of weeks out of work. A third metric, a more important one as it turns out, is the difference between those two numbers.

The Average is the sum of the total weeks out of work divided by the number of people out of work; 24.9 weeks at the end of 2017. The Median is the number of weeks where 50% of the people out of work have been so for less than that number and 50% have been out of work longer. At the end of 2017, the median is 10.6 weeks.

Our third metric is the difference between the average and median, which at the end of 2017 was 14.5 weeks. Why is this important? Because whether the difference is getting larger or smaller gives insight on whether employment is betting better or worse. If the median is larger than the average they are getting closer together then the employment picture is getting better because fewer and fewer people are spending long times out of work.

Obviously the opposite is true as well. And if you look carefully at the dashed line in Chart EMP-4 you will see a slight up-tick, or at least a flattening out in the difference. This would correspond to the increasing Discouraged worker number.

One up-tick does not make a trend, so we need to wait for two or three more months of data to come.

CHART EMP - 4: Mean and Median Weeks Out of Work

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Since the January 2018 update, things have changed a little bit. While not indicating things are getting worse, it may be that things have stopped getting better. Notice that in Chart EMP - 4, the February numbers for less than 5 weeks and between 15 and 27 weeks out of work have flattened out or have a slight up-tick.

That implies people are starting to find it harder (or simply taking longer on purpose) to find jobs. This is confirmed with the next Chart, EMP - 5 where the difference (dashed line) has also flattened out a bit. At this point in time, these indicators aren't indicating much. But, if it continues into the March update, there will be more significance attached to them.

CHANGE IS HAPPENING - The first sign of weakness just appeared on Chart EMP - 5. For three months running, the average and the median weeks out of work have increased; one more month and you probably have a trend. This is backed up by the data behind Chart EMP - 4, but you can't see it yet.

NEW - Job Openings, Hires, and Separations

This new chart shows a history of job openings, hires, and separations since the last few years of the Bush 43 administration to now.

You always want to see hiring (the red line) greater than separations (the green line). That indicates growth, even if total job openings flattens out. It is easy to see what happened in 2008 and 2009 where this was not true. If separations exceed hires, even in one month, that is a major red flag.

There has been a lot of talk about how the current administration has done a much better job at job growth than the previous administration. This chart tells a different story - one where the current job growth is just a continuation of a pattern set in 2010.

Job openings (blue line) is a good proxy of 1) how business sees the future and 2) how well they are doing as a whole. We see that once President Obama stopped the downward spiral, by late 2009 job openings began to grow. The growth was steady until 2014 when it accelerated. Beginning in 2016, coinciding with the very volatile 2016 presidential election, the growth in job openings slowed down to a crawl. This lasted until after the GOP tax cut was passed when it accelerated once again.

Food Stamp Use

Hand-in-hand with unemployment is SNAP (Food Stamps) usage. It makes since that as unemployment grows, food stamp use will sooner or later also increase. The same is true when employment grows, food stamp use will ultimately decline.

The take-away is, of course, that if we see in CHART EMP - 6 food stamp use increasing then the economy is probably in trouble. If it is decreasing, then the economy is almost certainly recovering.

Because food stamps is a "lagging" indicator then the forces driving the observed changes are more than likely not going to change in the near future. If they do, such as the last data point in the chart below, then one needs to start paying closer attention to what's happening in the overall economy.

Miscellaneous Metrics

The next set of indicators measure different aspects of forces that drive economic activity or reflect what is going on.

Manufacturing Jobs

Among other things President Trump has made his presidency about bringing back manufacturing which has been declining since 1998. In fact, it began increasing again under Obama in 2010. The upward trend appears to be continuing with Trump.

An increase in manufacturing jobs reflects an increase in higher paying jobs, which America sorely needs.

CHART MISC - 2 Manufacturing Jobs

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2/9/2019 - Note that the growth in manufacturing jobs slowed from 1.8% through last month down to 1.6% this month. Not a good sign - if it persists. I didn't change the Stoplight Color yet.

Consumer and Manufacture Sentiment Index

Consumer Sentiment is thought to be a great indicator of consumer intention to buy things. And that is important because consumer spending is 69% of GDP. Any given measure generally means nothing in particular, but the trend does. Look at the transition between Clinton and Bush (the 2001 recession) and Bush and Obama (2008 recession) to see what I mean.

6/28/2019 - After climbing through most of the Obama administration, it flattened out shortly after Trump took office and has stayed at around the same level as in the best years of the Bush administration. Notice it is still well below that during the last years of Clinton.

CHART MISC - 8 Consumer Sentiment Index

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Auto Sales

Auto sales is a good indicator of how the economy is doing. If they start declining, especially in domestic production, that portends bad times since so much of the economy is dependent on their sales.

2/9/2019 - After the auto bail-out, the market stabilized and grew nicely through the Obama administration. It did flatten out when the 2016 campaigns began and have stayed flat ever since.

6/28/19 - Enough time has passed to be able to say car sales flattened out soon after the beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign and did not improve after Trump was elected. Peel the onion back a bit and you'll see that domestic light truck sales have been increasing but was more than off-set by decreasing domestic auto sales and other types of vehicles.

Carbon Footprint in America

This final metric is the carbon footprint in America which means how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere. Conservatives and President Trump think global warming is a hoax, especially that it is man-made. In the near future, like the next 20 or 25 years, atmospheric scientists don't see immediate impact on the worlds economy. But after that time the die will be cast and economic disaster will be unavoidable.

Right now, the carbon footprint is still following the downward path President Obama set. President Trump, however, has ordered the EPA to roll back all of Obama's efforts to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released.

Two years into the Trump anti-environment administration, America's carbon footprint, as one would expect, is rising rapidly. It should increase even further as he rolled-back President Obama's green house gas reduction program.

This content reflects the personal opinions of the author. It is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and should not be substituted for impartial fact or advice in legal, political, or personal matters.

© 2017 Scott Belford

Comments

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on June 06, 2020:

Scott,

once again, the experts got it all wrong. They projected 8m job loss, and got 2.5m job gains....???

What explains this gross error?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 06, 2020:

As it turns out, my suspicions that the BLS numbers were wrong were correct.

According to BLS now, they "misclassified" people "employed not at work" rather than the correct classification of "unemployed on temporary layoff."

This would change the April and May UE rates to go from 14.7% and 13.3%, respectively up to 19.2% for Apr and 16.1% for May (still a decline from April)

Massive numbers.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 05, 2020:

A little more insight into why the surprise drop in the UE rate.

* As reported below, the Discouraged Workers increased by over 11%. The mathematics of labor statistics says that when that number goes up, the UE rate will fall. That said, the increase in Discouraged Workers doesn't account for all of the decrease in the unemployment rate.

* The number of people out of work for 5 weeks or less rose from 3,5 million in March to 14.3 million in April and then down to 3.9 million in May, and increase of 400,000 between March and May.

* The number of people out of work between 5 and 14 weeks rose from 1.8 million in March to 7 million in April to 14.8 million in May

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 05, 2020:

From the latest numbers, here is that great economy Trump was talking about.

Since the beginning of 2020:

* Non-Institutional Population (largest measure of those who can work) is UP only .5%

* The number of people in the Civilian Labor Force DECLINED by .24%

* Employment Level has DECLINED by 2.68%

* The number of Full-Time workers DECLINED by 1.77%

* The number of Part-Time workers DECLINED by 7.27%

* The number of people Not in the Labor Force INCREASED by 1.98%

* The number of people not working but Willing to Work INCREASED by 8.14%

* The number of people too Discouraged to work INCREASED by 11.5%

Not one of those numbers is anything to brag about.

(These will be posted in a couple of days)

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 05, 2020:

Show me where the CDC admitted what, that their initial estimates of what the death toll would have been had they followed your advice? No they didn't.

And why should I stop telling the truth about Trump? It will be old when he is no longer a threat to America.

Are you saying 13% unemployment is great news? Are you saying that black unemployment increasing instead of decreasing is great news? Strange.

They are saying this weird outcome may be a timing issue coupled with state unemployment offices being overwhelmed and slow in processing. If that is the case, then that means April's unemployment rates was low. Maybe it should have been 18%.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on June 05, 2020:

Scott, stop with the Trump bashing. It is getting old.

The CDC admitted they were wrong...

Did you see the job report this morning. It looks like the experts were wrong again. They expected a drop of 7 million jobs, instead a gain of 2.5m jobs. Great news for America...aren't you happy?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 05, 2020:

And you know they were wrong how?

We did institute social distancing. Many companies closed their doors to protect people - to the tune of 40 million laid off. Yet we are still shooting past 110,000 dead (which is a low estimate) and 2 million cases (a very low estimate - it is more like 60 million). Just think, if Trump had acted sooner and taken the threat seriously, the official death toll may have been as low as 60,000.

That puts 50,000 dead at the feet of Trump.

At the current rate of death, by the Aug 4 date many modelers are using, over 200,000 will be dead. And that doesn't take into account the expected resurgence this Fall. BTW, the rate of growth in death has now Increased in 5 of the last 9 days.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on June 04, 2020:

That was the miss calculation by the CDC. They projected 2 million death if we didn't shut the country down. As it turned out, they were wrong. I don't wish anyone to die but we can't keep our country shut down indefinitely.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 04, 2020:

So a few million dead in America is OK with you. That is what would happen with your do-nothing scenario. I am not surprised since you are a conservative.

Around 675,000 Americans died as a result of H1N1; up to 50 million worldwide. That was when the American and world population was much smaller. You know what prevention measures were taken back then - roughly the same ones you want to take today.

It is very clear from your comments that money means more to you than human life does. Sad.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on June 04, 2020:

I am going by the history and during that flu epidemic, no shut down and everyone went about their business, wearing face masks.

That was how they dealt with it and in two years, the flu went away on its own. That is how this virus will happen as well. Vaccine or no vaccine. The virus will mutate...it is their nature. Our economy will recover in a short time.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on June 04, 2020:

What is your point Jack? The data is the data. Also, a year from now, unless they come up with a vaccine or an effective treatment, a thousand people will still be dying from the virus.

You do know we are going into a recession come July when they report the 2nd Qtr numbers don't you? What are they projecting? Negative 40% growth?

Do you honestly think they are going to re-employ the 40+ million workers let go so far in a couple months time? Trump screwed the pooch on this one and I suspect it will be years before the economy recovers - pent up demand or not.

The hard truth is - no vaccine (which won't be out until January at the earliest - if there is one at all), no meaningful recovery.

I am already seeing signs that the US Case and Death curves are bottoming out. More and more states are seeing increased cases - and it isn't even Fall yet when the experts expect a major resurgence of cases and deaths. Just look at the history of the Spanish Flu if you want a look into the future.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on June 04, 2020:

Scott, your recent update is meaningless. A year from now, they will be gone and in the noise. The current artificial shut down of our economy due to COVID-19 is an anomaly. The DOW index has already recovered 90% of the decline.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on January 17, 2020:

Scott, you did not answer my question. Also, did China cheated us in those past years? Was the Trump trade war necessary and did it get us to a more even playing field? if not, what would you have done?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on January 17, 2020:

Why are you sad that Trump bankrupted so many farmers.

It has nothing to do with whether Trump did it or not. All one has to do is look at the final document and make an assessment.

Actually, the reports I read said Phase 1 wouldn't effect GDP at all. And remember, what Trump has done with the Trade war is a major reason the GDP growth does not meet his goals.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on January 17, 2020:

Scott, just as I thought, if Trump created it, you are against it or have some issues with it. This is the very definition of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Why can't you be happy for the America farmer who is now able to sell $40 Billion to China? It is a win win for both countries.

It is estimated that the new China Deal Phase I, will add 0.5% to our GDP in each of the next two years...

Is that not good?

In any trade deal, there must be some compromise in order for both parities to feel good about going forward. Trump as the master deal maker knows this. Apparently, you are the rest of the Democrats have no clue.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on January 17, 2020:

Scott, just as I thought, if Trump created it, you are against it or have some issues with it. This is the very definition of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Why can't you be happy for the America farmer who is now able to sell $40 Billion to China? It is a win win for both countries.

It is estimated that the new China Deal Phase I, will add 0.5% to our GDP in each of the next two years...

Is that not good?

In any trade deal, there must be some compromise in order for both parties to feel good about going forward. Trump as the master deal maker knows this. Apparently, you and the rest of the Democrats have no clue.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on January 17, 2020:

Scott, That is the problem. Illegals are not suppose to be here in the first place. Even in your own assessment, you admit that they do commit crimes, and some do take advantage of our social welfare system...even a small minority are one too many. In a time when our government is over bloated and cannot even pay its bills and balance our budgets, why do we have to pay for prisons to house illegals that commit crimes? and all the social services and schools and hospitals which just by the mere fact they are here living among us, will be a burden to those institutions?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on January 17, 2020:

Jack:

Phase 1 does three things:

1. It increases exports to China to make up for the decrease caused by two years of trade war. Although it remains to be seen, the net may be positive - meaning they Promise to buy more than they stopped buying due to Trump's trade war.

2. The tax Trump placed on Americans with his tariffs will be reduced somewhat.

3. China again promised to do better on not stealing our intellectual property. They have made these promises before and cheated anyway. Only time will tell if they cheat this time as well.

USMCA - All agree that the Trump version of this was only a marginal improvement over the original NAFTA and unions would buy into it. After Pelosi got done fixing it, the USMCA ended up strong enough for many major unions to sign on to it.

In the mean time, there has been a 24% increase in farm bankruptcies caused by Trump as well as most of the remaining farmers being put on the hated welfare system. More than likely, farmers will never be able to get back all of the customers they lost due to Trump.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on January 17, 2020:

Eric - Studies suggest otherwise. Immigrants, illegal or not, are generally more productive and less inclined to break the law while, at the same time, not being eligible for most social support benefits than or that citizens do.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on January 17, 2020:

what about the new trade deal with China? and the passing of rhe USMCA trade deal? what do you think of these accomplishments?

Eric Kangas on January 16, 2020:

Since Central Americans formal education ends at grade 6 with no English language skills and the USA K-12 and post secondary education fails to educate these immigrants well, won't these immigrants be on government support for most of their lives paying little federal and state income taxes, which will reduce our USA productivity?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 05, 2019:

It absolutely is what you prefer, Jack since you argue for the kind of economics that lead to those wild swings.

"keeping interest rate at zero percent for all those 8 years." - By saying that, that means you think they ought not to be. Since the whole purpose of the Fed doing that was to help grow the economy, that tells me you wish the economy didn't grow.

If you did want the economy to grow coming out of the the worst downturn since the Great Depression, you would support such a move. But apparently you don't, hence your criticism of it.

You do understand that if the Feds had kept interest rates at normal through the recession, a depression would have resulted - a move which was partly responsible for the Great Depression being so great - the Fed thought the way then the way you do now.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on March 04, 2019:

It is not what I prefer. It is the way of economics. What is unnatural is the federal reserve keeping interest rate at zero percent for all those 8 years.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 04, 2019:

Tell me Jack, why do you prefer, what is your rational for preferring all of those wild swings prior to 2009 than the nice steady growth after 2009 in CHART GDP-5 Annual GDP Growth Rate?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 04, 2019:

I don't know Crowder, so I have no opinion of him. But in looking at your link, all I saw were unsubstantiated claims.

Yeah, I saw Trump's denial. But since he lies or makes false statements all of the time, I don't believe a word he says. No sane person would.

The one thing one your links did prove to me is that it is illegal for illegal aliens to receive any federal benefit except emergency medical care. What States do is their business so long as it doesn't violate the Construction or federal law or don't you believe in State's Rights?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 03, 2019:

"Because food stamps is a "lagging" indicator then the forces driving the observed changes are more than likely not going to change in the near future. " - And what makes you think food stamps is a lagging indicator??

Did you look at the chart?? It clearly shows it is a leading indicator.

Your non-sequitur about illegal aliens begs the question - Why did Trump hire hundreds to work his properties??

Further, the only meaningful statement in your reference is

"Federal law does prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits meant for American citizens. The only benefit that illegal aliens are allowed is emergency medical care."

bradmasteroccal on March 03, 2019:

Scott

"Food Stamp Use

Hand-in-hand with unemployment is SNAP (Food Stamps) usage. It makes since that as unemployment grows, food stamp use will sooner or later also increase. The same is true when employment grows, food stamp use will ultimately decline.

The take-away is, of course, that if we see in CHART EMP - 6 food stamp use increasing then the economy is probably in trouble. If it is decreasing, then the economy is almost certainly recovering.

Because food stamps is a "lagging" indicator then the forces driving the observed changes are more than likely not going to change in the near future. If they do, such as the last data point in the chart below, then one needs to start paying closer attention to what's happening in the overall economy.

"

B: https://thelawdictionary.org/article/why-is-it-tha...

The connection is illegal aliens! And Trump against illegal aliens.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 03, 2019:

Polymath - Brad, you should look it up. I use it the proper way, as a noun, not a name.

Jack - Actually yes, there are several things Trump has done I have approved of. A few which come to mind are:

1. Walking away from the so-called summit when he realized his type of diplomacy doesn't work in the political world

2. Standing up to China's domination of international waters.

3. Caving in and signing the funding bill to end the shut down.

And there are some others.

As to proof in the pudding. About the only candidate, in a fair, Russian-free election that Probably couldn't beat trump is Hillary Clinton. And now I am not so sure of that anymore either.

The numbers are WAY against you. Remember, Trump won by only 90,000 votes split among three blue states. Now that people see what he is really like, he has only LOST votes among Ds, who won't make the same mistake twice, and Independents, who have left Trump in droves, and probably some Republicans. He has GAINED None.

There will be active measures against the Russians attempt to get him elected again, so that won't be as effective either.

All blue states who voted for Clinton will vote D again. Most or all of the Red states who voted for Trump will probably do so again. It is the blue and purple states (WI, PA, MI, NC, and FL) who will most certainly flip (well, maybe not FL since they are so screwed up here). I wonder how much the NC Republican voter fraud shenanigans had to do with Trump winning NC?

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on March 03, 2019:

Scott, has Trump done anything you approve of since taking office?

It is a simple question.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on March 03, 2019:

The proof is in the pudding. We will see what happen in 2020. So far, with the candidates, over 20 on the Democrat side, none of them can beat Trump.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 02, 2019:

"Scott, you have failed to convince half the country about the evil Trump." - like Brad, you need to get your facts straight. About 60% of America already knows Trump is evil. About 30 - 35% think evil is good and support Trump. The other 10 - 15% still need to open their eyes.

bradmasteroccal on March 01, 2019:

Scott

Use your words, you don't make any points with these kind of sweeping summary dismissals. Tell us where we are wrong and why? You don't even acknowledge much of what we write, and when you do this is your comments.

You cherry pick, dismiss, divert, smear red herrings and just don't make any arguments. In the legal sense, where a lawyer argues their case to the jury.

Give my some reasons why I am wrong to call democrats UnAmerican?

What are they doing for America and Americans?

Neither party has a solution for healthcare, the insurance companies are immune. The pharma companies are not interest in finding cures.

Name some serious diseases like cancer, and heart disease where there has been a cure? None exist because long term expensive and even questionable treatments are more profitable. Medical patents should be extremely limited in score, as other people could build on any useful patents to find a cure.

The last cure for a major disease was Polio, and it is not a real cure but a prevention. Although around the world it still exists.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 01, 2019:

WHY must you always LIE, Brad??? "As for the Hillary claim of WikiLeaks and their publishing of her classified emails," is a complete LIE. Wikileaks NEVER published even one of Hillary Clinton's emails. NOT ONE of Hillary Clinton's emails was compromised.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 01, 2019:

"The real collusion is on the Democrat side. Hillary Clintoon should have never been on the ballot. She belongs in jail along with some other top Obama officials who broke the law but with the help of the corrupt FBI leaders and the DOJ under Loretta Lynch exonerated her." - YOU never cease to amaze me, Jack, with your complete lack of knowledge of the truth and facts (of which the above has none). You apparently ARE one of those who would excuse Trump for shooting someone on 5th Ave like he said. Absolutely Amazing.

I bet you even agree with Brad when he says 40% of Americans (the Ds) aren't American. So Very SAD neither of you have an iota of a concept of what it is like to be American and what American ideals really are.

bradmasteroccal on March 01, 2019:

Scott

"In raw numbers (keep in mind Trump only has 2 years in office) the stock market grew as follows:

- Clinton: 210%

- Obama: 182%

- Reagan: 118%

- Bush 1: 53%

- Trump: 23%

- Bush 2: -40%

Looking at JUST the two year point, the order is:

- Clinton

- Reagan

- Bush 1, Trump - can't quite tell

- Obama

- Bush 2"

B: These are not raw numbers!

"Raw data, also known as primary data, is data (e.g., numbers, instrument readings, figures, etc.) collected from a source. If a scientist sets up a computerized thermometer which records the temperature of a chemical mixture in a test tube every minute, the list of temperature readings for every minute, as printed out on a spreadsheet or viewed on a computer screen is "raw data"."

B: Clinton's stock market was the result of the dot com bubble. That is hardly impressive when it shapes the stock market on a Ponzi scheme. And when it fails, it crashes, and it will ultimately fail as it did.

The GW Bush stock market was built on the real estate bubble, that also crashed.

The Obama stock market, was based on the US government injecting $1.5 Trillion into the broken economy.

Is your opinion overtaking your formal education?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 01, 2019:

Jack, you wanted a historical perspective and I just found this https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/stoc...

In raw numbers (keep in mind Trump only has 2 years in office) the stock market grew as follows:

- Clinton: 210%

- Obama: 182%

- Reagan: 118%

- Bush 1: 53%

- Trump: 23%

- Bush 2: -40%

Looking at JUST the two year point, the order is:

- Clinton

- Reagan

- Bush 1, Trump - can't quite tell

- Obama

- Bush 2

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on March 01, 2019:

The real collusion is on the Democrat side. Hillary Clintoon should have never been on the ballot. She belongs in jail along with some other top Obama officials who broke the law but with the help of the corrupt FBI leaders and the DOJ under Loretta Lynch exonerated her.

The media also played a role in attack Trump every chance they get and still the America people did not buy it. Their credibility, along with Congress is at lower than Trump.

If I was a democrat, I would ask for my money back. They have destroyed your party without any help from the Russians or the GOP.

The they I am referring to is the Obama administration.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on March 01, 2019:

"There is no other interpretation of the data." - which data are you referring to? Certainly not the gov't data I use.

And no, they won't agree with you because the American voter didn't reject the Democrat. [b]In fact, more[/b] people voted for Clinton than Trump.

As to the electoral college, if Comey and the Russians [b]had stayed out of our elections[/b], Clinton would have, I am convinced, won. It was that close.

Of course there is 2018 where the Democrats clobbered the Trumpettes in the House and kept seats in the Senate they should have lost. Give me a break.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on March 01, 2019:

Scott, the idea you are pushing is the LIE. You are basically saying the improved economic conditions of the last two years is not due to anything Trump did but a continuation of the Obama administration policies. Nice try but wrong on all counts.

Anyone who is living in America for the last 10 years would agree with me. There is no other interpretation of the data.

The ultimate prove is with the American voter. They vote their pocket book. If things were just humming along like you claim, why did the American voter rejected the Democrats in 2016? Why not continue with a party that was doing so well? And so good for the people? And so compassionate? And so anti racist? And so pro women?

If you can answer that? You might have an audience.

bradmasteroccal on February 28, 2019:

Scott

"HOW does not paying for insurance and foisting your medical expenses off on to taxpayers helping the economy - these well-off freeloaders are dragging down the economy. And all the deregulation has done is screw people and the environment."

B: How did taxing people for not getting ACA insurance offset these medical expenses that you mention? They didn't did they?

B: How about 100 years of war screwing the environment. Vietnam 50 years later is a walking bomb field, thanks to LBJ. And we lost that war big time.

B: What deregulation are you talking about?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 28, 2019:

When, Jack, did I ever say "how bad things (I presume you are talking about the economy" are under Trump" - WHY do you make such stuff up?? I never said that. What I said is that things aren't as good under Trump as you make out - which is true. Effectively, the economy is only doing a little better under Trump than under Obama because Obama set the stage and NOT from anything Trump did that was lasting.

What Boom? Exactly HOW does not paying for insurance and foisting your medical expenses off on to taxpayers helping the economy - these well-off freeloaders are dragging down the economy. And all the deregulation has done is screw people and the environment.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 28, 2019:

It is an average and fluctuates with economic and seasonal cycles.

The overall yearly GDP is up and over the Obama years which never went above 3 percent all 8 years....

Are you still harping on how bad things are under Trump...keep it up. Perhaps you will get your wish, with the release of the Mueller report.

The Trump economy is real...not a progression or continuation of the Obama years.

In fact, it was just the opposite. The dismantling of the Obama regulations and some ACA mandates along with the tax reform is what started the new boom.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 28, 2019:

The economy grew at, in your opinion, Jack, an anemic 2.6% in the 4th quarter of 2018. What happened to Trump's astounding growth numbers???

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 28, 2019:

Scott, you have failed to convince half the country about the evil Trump.

You would have more credibility if you did a similar piece against President Obama. He has done more damage to our coutry than any of our known adversaries. He did it with the help of the left media and the progressives who thinks he is the Messiah. In truth, he is an ideologue who hates America and who wanted to take America down a knotch or two and he succeeded.

His transformation of America is what made it possible for the rise of Trump. The pendulum swings so far left, it had to come back the other way.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 28, 2019:

Again, the investigation is into #TraitorTrump (who, besides being a known liar, is a known Micromanager), his inner circle, and his campaign. There is PLENTY of evidence and convictions to back up conspiracy to defraud the government.

Oh yeah, and then there are ALL those OTHER investigations into everything Trump and his family.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 28, 2019:

There is zero evidence that Trump colluded with Russia.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 27, 2019:

" I don't consider democrats Americans," - AND YOU JUST proved yourself the TRUE unAmerican here. You belong in Russia with Trump.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 27, 2019:

I watched Sowell. It is clear he belongs to the school of economics Alen Greenspan, who had a lot to do with the 2008 Recession from happening. Greenspan saw the error of his ways and tried to reverse course, but it was way too late.

I also sort of stopped listening when he called Obama a Fascist.

Now here are six economists debating, 3 for and 3 against Obama's policies to an audience interested in economics. The For's won, but you can here for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFu2oze_uZA

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 27, 2019:

"What a disaster just like the solyndra loans to solar company..." - YOU forgot, Jack, this started out as a Bush initiative. You also, in your enthusiasm to mislead, forgot to mention that Solyndra as part of a much bigger initiative which actually succeeded, even though that one small piece didn't. Shame.

Cash For Klunkers - What have you got against trying to jump-start the economy out of a depression? Do you like depressions? Seems so.

I'll have to listen to Thomas Sowell before commenting.

Brad - why do most Americans love ACA. As to the mandate, I can't help it you want to let people have a free ride when they get hurt without insurance. The rest of us think people ought to pay their own way and not rely on my tax dollars when they can afford insurance.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 27, 2019:

Yep, I like your charts; they are very familiar. They also make my point about slow, steady growth being much better than the boom-bust you seem to prefer. Notice how many recessions happened after periods of high growth (more than 3.5%) between 1930 and 1983. Then growth settled down to about 3% until around 1998 when it accelerated again only to collapse in 2001. Other factors led to the 2008 crash, mainly conservative economic theory maintained by the Fed and Congress.

Since Obama saved the day, just nice steady growth.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 27, 2019:

Here is Thomas Sowell explaining why Obama’s policies failed -

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi8eLSyb7RM

He is an economics professor.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 27, 2019:

Another Obama video - priceless...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv8T1QFHwGs

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 27, 2019:

Here is President Obama in his own words...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4yXNiYJApAk

remember the cash for klunkers?

What a disaster just like the solyndra loans to solar company...

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 27, 2019:

Here is the reality on GDP -

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-27/barack-o...

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 27, 2019:

"Are you going to play dumb? The democrats blocked Trump for repealing ACA. He has tried several times to get funding for the wall and they didn't give it to him." - DIDN'T you read what I wrote? Just to refresh your memory, I wrote:

"POINT 7: Now why would you think Democrats would want to help Trump destroy America??? They WERE doing something FOR America to the degree they were able to stop bad law by the GOP and actions by Trump."

The fact you are in the vast minority in thinking ACA is bad is beside the point. In fact, ACA is good and the Ds and a few Rs helped preserve it.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 27, 2019:

So you are proving my point Brad, why?

How do I know it isn't a hoax. I read and I think about what I read and I research. But, even if you don't do all those things, we have 20 years of virtually EVERY climate scientist saying so and proving it.

BUT, the REAL question is why is your hero Trump doing everything in his power to INCREASE the carbon footprint? Pretty Stupid, right?

Brad - I am trained in economics, I spent a career (I know, I am repeating myself again) the Air Force as a cost and economic analyst. I have taken many courses in economics, etc, etc. WHAT is your bone fide?? You simply have no idea what you are talking about.

BradmasterOCcal on February 26, 2019:

Scott

"Carbon Footprint in America

This final metric is the carbon footprint in America which means how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere. "

B: From Scientific American

"Jet engine exhaust contains carbon dioxide, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, unburned fuel, soot and metal particles, as well as water vapor. The soot provides condensation sites for the water vapor. Any particles present in the air provide additional sites."

From the FAA

"Every day, the FAA's Air Traffic Organization (ATO) provides service to more than 43,000 flights and 2.6 million airline passengers across more than 29 million square miles of airspace"

----

"On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only one-third are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings." - From the National Air Traffic Controllers Association

---------------

I provided these statistics to show how much these flights contribute to the carbon footprint. What is the plan to reduce this type of carbon footprint? Was there a solution in the Paris accord?

----------------------------------

"Conservatives and President Trump think global warming is a hoax, especially that it is man-made. "

B: How do you know it isn't? Global Warming has been replaced by Climate Change, and there is also something called Global Dimming which is the opposite of Global Warming. Also, many scientists aren't sure about Carbon and suggest that it is Methane that is causing the problem.

What then is the solution, and how do we know there is a problem. Over the history of the planet, the climate has changed many times. How do we know that humans are causing it, if we don't know what is changing the climate, man or nature?

-------------------------------------

In the near future, like the next 20 or 25 years, atmospheric scientists don't see immediate impact on the worlds economy. But after that time the die will be cast and economic disaster will be unavoidable.

B: Remember Al Gores prediction that never happened.

-------------------------------------

Right now, the carbon footprint is still following the downward path President Obama set. President Trump, however, has ordered the EPA to roll back all of Obama's efforts to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released."

B: We still can't predict nature and weather accurately. If we can't do that then how can we fix the weather.

---------------------------------------

BradmastersOCcal on February 26, 2019:

Jack

I agree, the democrats and the republican are two sides of the same coin. They created the problems and they don't want to fix them. They just don't want to be blamed for them, even though they are to blame.

Trump has put wheels on the democrat republican see saw. The continual gridlocks in congress over the years, and the reversal of the other party when they get back in control is the up and down of a see saw. and see saws can't move forward. So, Trump has put wheels on the congressional seesaw to get it to move.

BradmastersOCcal on February 26, 2019:

POINT 9: False in its entirety. If it weren't for the Fed, America would have experienced the same frequency of terrible (think 2008) recessions as happened before 1950."

B: And you think you are an expert in economics. There is no correlation to the recessions before the Dot Com and the Real Estate Bubbles. These two bubbles changed the paradigm of conservative investing.

Just because you say it is false in its entirety doesn't mean squat. B: That is technically true, but the FRB was one of the major contributors to the real estate bubble and its collapse. The FRB has been working against the US this century. The real estate bubble couldn't have happened without the FRB keeping the interest rates low, and sustained for more than a year. These loans were so bad, and they didn't have equity to protect the banks when they failed, and the buyers were strapped just to get into the loans because credit and all the previous safeguards were ignored. Had the FRB raised the interest as they had in the year previous to this bubble, these loans would have fallen like dominoes.

The other major contributor associated with the government were Fannie and Freddie for allowing these ridiculous loans. From no down, to negative amortization, and variable loans so low. That low interest variable loan coupled with no or really low down payment and with many buyers maxed out to buy the house. Any rise in the interest rate would have had many buyers defaulting or not keeping up with their loan payments. Had the FRB raised interest rates during that last year, many of the buyers would fail and that would have been a signal to the FRB and the government economists that the real estate bubble was starting to collapse.

Where were all these so called economists that not only didn't figure out the Dot com days of Bill Clinton, but were also clueless during GW Bush and Obama? If you didn't see this 2008 economic collapse then you were clueless. This was the same paradigm of irresponsibility as was found in the dot com bubble. Don't just shake your head and try to wisp it away. It was the fault of both parties allowing Fannie and Freddie to take these kind of loans. Market comparison of the real estate was none existent, and like the dot com when the worthless stock started to rise, and continue to rise that let in the dummies trying to get a piece. This was an artificially created buying and selling frenzy just like the dot com.

-------------------------------------------------

Scott if you don't see this then shame on you.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 26, 2019:

When are you going to wake up and realize the Democrats and Republican leadership are all corrupt and working to undermine Trump - an outsider...? That is the whole draining the swamp mean. The people in power, bought and paid for by the lobbyists.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 26, 2019:

I'll bite:

POINT 1: What exactly did the Ds block? The GOP Congress tried to do very little.

POINT 2: How did the Ds stop Trump from wasting money on the wall prior to 2019? Seems like most of the Rs (and 80% of the country) don't want his stupid, useless wall (at least the one he wants) Besides, the wall has nothing to do with the economy other than driving up the debt and deficit.

POINT 3: Who is "THEY you are talking about? The GOP? If so, it was their budget, not the Ds.

POINT 4: You mean Democratic and Republican leaning judges, don't you since Reagan and Bush (both) appointed judges ruled against Trump.

POINT 5: Pointless, no response needed

POINT 6: When did the Ds ever say such thing? The only Party that I know of who did Mitch McConnell against Obama. May I have a quote please? I can (and have) given one from McConnell.

POINT 7: Now why would you think Democrats would want to help Trump destroy America??? They WERE doing something FOR America to the degree they were able to stop bad law by the GOP and actions by Trump.

POINT 8: You used the wrong Party. You described most of the Republicans in Congress

POINT 9: False in its entirety. If it weren't for the Fed, America would have experienced the same frequency of terrible (think 2008) recessions as happened before 1950.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 25, 2019:

You made no points, Brad - no response needed.

You should read my bio again, Jack regarding understanding economics. You, however, should follow your own advice.

Take your statement about a "false" economy - it is clear you have no clue what you are talking about. One, it wasn't Obama, it was the Fed, which Obama does not control. Two, there is nothing "false" about a zero interest economy that saved the world.

BradmastersOCcal on February 25, 2019:

Scott

You didn't respond to the points we made, and your hubs don't address them.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 25, 2019:

Scott, the problem is you can’t have an economy chug along at 2% foreever...

You should take a course in economics 101...

Obama was the one that created a zero interest false economy. Free money does not exist in real life. He had it for 8 years.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 25, 2019:

Brad, Jack - all you have to do is read my hubs like https://discover.hubpages.com/politics/Here-is-Wha... and several others that look at economic history.

Your logic is flawed about Clinton; the Russian's, Comey, and Clinton's own flaws were why she lost. I would much rather have an economy chug along at 2 - 2.5% for years and years rather than 3.5% + for a few years before the next recession as history says it will.

bradmastersOCcal on February 25, 2019:

Now it is time for Scott to have some good points against yours and mine.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 25, 2019:

Brad, excellent points. Scott, you need to revisit the last two years and replace “Trump” with the “President of the US,” and see how much was accomplished and compare that with past presidents...

When it comes to economics, it was night and day between the Obama years and now. Granted Obama faced a deep recession when he first took office in 2009. That was one reason he got elected...to fix it. He kept the economy in first gear for the next 7 years until Trump. If he was doing so well, we would have President Clinton today?

BradMastersOCcal on February 25, 2019:

Scott

You are being obtuse, and wrong. The republicans while having technical control of the house and senate were not able to stop the democrats from blocking the actions.

They stopped Trump's wall from being funded, while they got Trump to OK $70 billion for a subway tunnel between NY and NJ.

They got their budget passed without giving funding for the wall, and made DACA a budget issue when it wasn't. The list goes on but the point is that the democrats didn't support a single Trump bill. The democrat leaning judges in the federal courts got attacked every plan on Trump's national security on the temporary 90 day ban on immigrants from 7 then even 6 war torn Middle Eastern states, even though it was to protect the US. There are 49 Muslim countries but the temporary ban only affected 6 of them. That is hardly a ban on Muslims.

They made a mockery out of the Judge Kavanaugh SC justice hearings. Feinstein broke hearing protocol and sandbagged the hearing for political advantage. The democrats were allowed to continue the Mueller investigation that didn't even have a predicate crime to investigate. He stacked it with democrats, and corrupt ones at that. He found zero evidence in the politically motivate investigations, while controlling the republicans from investigating them. That was a problem of the republicans who don't know how to play the dirty politics so proficient a democrat tactic.

The bottom line is that the democrats put their vendetta against president Trump above their duty to the country and the people. Their resistance for over 2 years was effective to prevent the positive changes of president Trump from being passed. In spite of that president Trump accomplished a lot in those two years.

While the democrats in congress worked solely to undermine the president, and they didn't contribute anything in congress to help the country. They put Illegal Aliens, and even Convicted Illegal Alien Felons above their duty to America, Americans and Legal Immigrants. The republicans let the president down, but the democrats let the country and its people down. The democrats once again have divided the country to get their way. This time it is the illegal aliens and treating as pseudo Americans and because they have been effective in keep vote id from happening, there is no way to know how many of these illegal aliens, and convicted felons as well as dead people have been voting in our elections.

The democrats have worked against the country, failed their oath to office, and have boasted of taking down the country if it would get president Trump out of office.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 25, 2019:

I am not sure, the Democrats didn't control any part of gov't did they. Your side owned the Presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Look where that got us. In case you don't know, the answer is Backwards.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on May 08, 2018:

Fair enough, let's see what happened at the end of the year when all 12 months of data are in...

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on May 08, 2018:

Jack, the Times article isn't what this hub is about. I look at metrics over time to how they are changing.

The April surplus is an annual occurrence and has no meaning in trend analysis. It is simply an indication that on tax day, taxes owed exceed taxes withheld and in this case the difference was a record.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on May 08, 2018:

I hope you update this hub with news as they happen...

For example, did you read this?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/7/cb...

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 29, 2018:

Jack, because Obama didn't, he left it much more stable over all than what Bush left him. If the "he" you are referring to is Obama, then you are right, Obama went after ISIS (a Bush creation) and was very successful in diminishing them. By the time Obama left office, much of Iraq was in friendly hands when prior to that it was in ISIS hands. All Trump did was follow Obama's playbook with a few needed enhancements which has improved the situation even more.

How is America stronger under Trump, unless you consider being led by the biggest bully in America as being stronger?

Obama was a strong supporter of Israel, just not the dictator-wanna-be Netanyahu.

EXPLAIN why Obama provided more military support than any president before him, or Trump (I think).

Trump guaranteed no peace in the Middle East when he officially recognized Jerusalem. Jerusalem was de facto the capital already, I hope you knew. It had an American embassy there, not just THE American embassy. All Trump did was screw diplomacy up, piss a lot of people off (which he loves to do for the fun of it), and put peace almost out of reach.

Trump's trade deals will devastate America. Trump's trade policies WILL Cost Jobs and make most Everything more Expensive. He simply has no clue what he is doing (which is what I blamed Democrats for vis-a-vis trade. In that arena, the GOP actually had it right.)

His so-called "Art of the Deal" simply means bully your opponent into submission. In real estate, that may work but in politics, it does not.

How is perpetual chaos a sign of a good leader. If it were, an earthquake, tornado, or hurricane would be the best leader in the world.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 29, 2018:

Jack, because Obama didn't, he left it much more stable over all than what Bush left him. If the "he" you are referring to is Obama, then you are right, Obama went after ISIS (a Bush creation) and was very successful in diminishing them. By the time Obama left office, much of Iraq was in friendly hands when prior to that it was in ISIS hands. All Trump did was follow Obama's playbook with a few needed enhancements which has improved the situation even more.

How is America stronger under Trump, unless you consider being led by the biggest bully in America as being stronger?

Obama was a strong supporter of Israel, just not the dictator-wanna-be Netanyahu.

EXPLAIN why Obama provided more military support than any president before him, or Trump (I think).

Trump guaranteed no peace in the Middle East when he officially recognized Jerusalem. Jerusalem was de facto the capital already, I hope you knew. It had an American embassy there, not just THE American embassy. All Trump did was screw diplomacy up, piss a lot of people off (which he loves to do for the fun of it), and put peace almost out of reach.

Trump's trade deals will devastate America. Trump's trade policies WILL Cost Jobs and make most Everything more Expensive. He simply has no clue what he is doing (which is what I blamed Democrats for vis-a-vis trade. In that arena, the GOP actually had it right.)

His so-called "Art of the Deal" simply means bully your opponent into submission. In real estate, that may work but in politics, it does not.

How is perpetual chaos a sign of a good leader. If it were, an earthquake, tornado, or hurricane would be the best leader in the world.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on April 28, 2018:

How has Trump destabilize the world more than Obama did?

He went after ISIS and now they are much reduced in influence.

America is stronger under Trump and that is a good thing.

He is a strong supporter of Israel and recognized Jerusalem as Capitol. No other president did that - even though they all talked about doing it...

The trade deals is another one of Trump’s initaitive. We have been taken advantage of for a long time under both Republican and Democratic admin.

So as you see, Trump is a better leader and has the executive experience and the art of the deal to make a difference.

My Esoteric on April 28, 2018:

Jack, you only addressed one of the two possibilities with "You can be against a bad deal and not for war. ". Since you say "no war", then you must be supporting a nuclear armed Iran given it is well known by all that they were within a year of having "the bomb". Given the WHOLE purpose of the deal that six countries, including Russia, signed on to was to stop Iran from getting the bomb, how can it be a "bad" deal since that is exactly the outcome from the deal? Does Iran have a nuclear bomb? NO. Was Iran going to have a nuclear bomb without the deal (short of the war you say you don't want)? YES.

Since Iran does not have the bomb, to repeat myself, it by definition must have been a Good Deal.

There is no doubt that Trump does deserve at least a little credit for the Korean thing, even if it is left-handed credit. I think it is entirely possible that Trump's irresponsible rhetoric sped up Un's time table for developing his nuclear and missile capability. As Un said, he has what he needs now and does not need to further develop his ability to deliver nukes to the US.

You do know, don't you, that under Trump's watch, Un fired off more missiles than he had under ALL other presidents COMBINED. Un also fired off an H-Bomb under Trump, something else he never did while any other president was in office, only Trump.

Consequently, it is very possible that Trump helped him get to the position where he now feels invincible and can safely make peace with South Korea and rejoin the world.

We won't know the answer to that for awhile. Only time will tell if Trump/Pompeo did something else to get Un going down this path. Personally, I doubt it, but I am willing to eat crow if it turns out I am wrong.

Should have Obama gotten the Nobel? No, and he said as much.

Should Trump get a Nobel? No, because, assuming actually did something positive to get Un to change his mind, he has done so much other stuff to Destabilize the world, that he clearly doesn't deserve it.

The Logician from now on on April 28, 2018:

Jack, honestly, the onus of Obama's award was that he brazenly accepted it. Any honest man with humility would have declined to acknowledge that award since he had done NOTHING to deserve it. Time revealed he did many things to justify it should have been revoked, if they would ever do that.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on April 28, 2018:

You can be against a bad deal and not for war. You liberals constantly make this false chioces. It is not a simple either or scenerio.

While we are on this topic, what do you think of the North/South Korean development of recent days? Will Trump be given credit for this?

Or will the Nobel comiitee snub him like they snubed Reagan 30 years prior...?

While giving a Nobel peace prize to Obama in his first year, not having done anything.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 28, 2018:

First there is this that lays out what Obama did for the Israeli People, not their version of Trump - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan...

Meddling? Like when Netanyahu came over and lobbied Congress?

OK, since you repeated your claim that the deal with Iran to prevent them from developing a nuclear capability, I must believe you prefer WAR or a Nuclear Iran over a non-nuclear Iran.

You and Trump apparently think a nuclear Iran is a good thing, Jack - SAD

The money you refer to was THEIR money that we froze, NOT our money that we "gave" them.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 28, 2018:

First there is this that lays out what Obama did for the Israeli People, not their version of Trump - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan...

Meddling? Like when Netanyahu came over and lobbied Congress?

OK, since you repeated your claim that the deal with Iran to prevent them from developing a nuclear capability, I must believe you prefer WAR or a Nuclear Iran over a non-nuclear Iran.

You and Trump apparently think a nuclear Iran is a good thing, Jack - SAD

The money you refer to was THEIR money that we froze, NOT our money that we "gave" them.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on April 27, 2018:

I am not wrong. Just ask any Israeli. They knew Obama was not a friend of Israel, in fact a hostile adversary who try to defeat Natanyahoo in their own elections... Isn’t that meddling in a foreign election? Isn’t that against our laws? Obama did it and no one question its legality...

The Iran deal was the worst deal we can have. He gave away billions of dollars and got nothing in return. Israel is doing fine without the US. They could use our help but don’t need it.

They have nuclear capability for defense if they are pushed by their neighbors.

Why do you think Iran wants desparately to possess nuclear weapons?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 27, 2018:

Even Trump's golf courses are having problems

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14342704/1/trump-s...

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 27, 2018:

Unfortunately Jack, neither of your observations is correct. Obama did as much or more for the Israeli people than previous presidents, he just wan't going to take Netanyaho's aggression sitting down.

Without the Iran deal, you would have 1) war with Iran or 2) a nuclear Iran. It would seem you favor one of those two choices.

Khalil - I don't think I can agree with your assessment that Trump is the stronger of the two. For Trump to have been "stronger", it seems to me he would have had to gone to war with Russia, or at least sent American (Europe wouldn't go) troops into the Crimea. Keep in mind while Trump has no problem giving the rest of the world the finger, Obama had to deal with Europe who was economically dependent (to some degree) on Russia for gas. By keeping us out of war yet imposing crippling sanctions, I find Obama the much more effective president.

Further, relations with most of the world's powers were pretty well destroyed by the Bush presidency. Obama fixed that over time which resulted in great working relationships with our allies. In the space of 15 months, Trump has torn that to shreds.

Having said all of that, do I wish Obama had done more to arm the Ukranians, the Kurds, and, if they could figure out who the good guys really were, some of the Syrian rebels. I also wished, like Hillary wanted, he would have imposed a no-fly zone in Syria. But Libya left such a bad taste in his mouth, he wasn't about to do it again.

I think trying to keep America out of yet another Middle East war using massive amounts of American troops who had no certain mission like what happened in Iraq, did lead Russia to fill the power vacuum. But don't give Trump too much credit, other than being loud mouth and inconsistent. Beyond all of the rhetoric he did little more than carry on the plans that Obama began, with a few small exceptions. He did somewhat increase the number of special operators we had in Syria, he dealt directly with the Kurds rather than trying to work through the Iraq gov't (sort of like Russia working with Alabama, by-passing the American gov't), and he did introduce some small contingents of U.S. conventional forces. I suspect Hillary, who is much more of a hawk that Obama, might of gone the same route. But bottom line, Trump didn't change the fundamental structure of Obama's plan.

No, Trump has not deterred Russian aggression one iota, from what I can see. What has he stopped Putin from doing? They aren't out of the Ukraine, they aren't out of the Crimea, they aren't out of Syria, they have begun rearming their nuclear capability, and they are still heavily involved in trying to influence our, and other nations', elections (where Trump is not lifting a finger trying to stop, btw)

No, I think Putin is doing just fine under Trump.

What Trump didn't tell the world is that ALL previous presidents have urged the same thing regarding NATO, just not so undiplomatically and bullying.

There is no news coming out of the rest of the world where they say they respect Trump. It's quite the contrary. Consider https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/world-opinion-tr...

Why the ambiguity? Because that is Trump's management style - leadership by chaos. I find it interesting that when Trump actually tried to manage his business ventures, rather than receive royalties from his name, they largely failed, and probably for the same reason. This might give you a clue. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/donald-...

In my mind, Donald Trump is one of the biggest con men in world history.

khalil serya on April 24, 2018:

Thank you My esoteric for your precious time and for the rich response. Your analysis of the elements mentioned is pretty logical, especially when it comes to the population growth which is being reversed by immigration block. The current domestic numbers especially in the sector of healthcare are not doing great, but when it comes to foreign policy, some argue that Trump’s America is stronger than Obama's America. Obama allowed Russia to expand its influence through threatening Ukraine, joining Crimea, supporting Separatists in Ukraine and expanding further influence in Syria. Thus, a picture of Monster super power Russia began to take shape in the world. However, Trump came and hit Syrian gov (Russia’s most important ally) twice. How could Russia declare that it protects the unity of the Syrian lands from any external aggression and then comes Trump and hit the Russian interest in Syria ignoring Russian vetoes, and Russia did not fire a single bullet in response to the “aggression,” as Russia described the strike. Russia then declared that it protects only its military bases and it will supply defense arsenal to Al-Assad to defend himself.

My question is Was Trump more effective than Obama in facing the Russian monster? or was Russia only a huge empty Balloon? And why would Kim Un announce that he will stop his nuclear program has been worked on since the 1950s along with so many hostilities and aggressive propaganda. Something extremly unexpected and bizarre. does it have any relation with the strike on Syria ? did Jong Un feared that he may face the fate of Sadam Housain after the last military strike on Syria ?

On the other hand, other observers say that Trump is right when he urged the NATO to pay their fair share and that they owe the U.S. Doesn’t that seem logical? Isn’t Trump right in getting more respect to U.S. abroad and preventing other nations from taking advantage from it? The same with Iran, isn’t he right in his intention to negotiate a better deal that would ultimately serve the United States? Didn’t Trump bring more money (actually huge sums of money) from Al Saud?

The last thing (on the other hand), America became undermined and laughed at because of the big contradictions between Trump and his administrations. In many occasions Trump would say something, and his team would do another or the total opposite. Why there is a weak connection between the white house and state departments? Why this ambiguity?

How would you respond, Mr MyEsoteric

thank you in advance..

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on April 23, 2018:

Recognizing Jerusalem is definitely a positive step.

The Israel Palestinian issue is never going to be solved. It has been going on for thousands of years.

It does put Israel on our side as it should. Under Obama, Israel was put as second class and it got us nothing.

The Itan crisis was created by Obama with the nuclear deal. It was a bad deal Trump should have canceled it.

North Korean is something we need to fix. We created this monster after the Korean war ended. We need to reunite the two Koreas just like the two Germanies.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 23, 2018:

There is a diplomatic reason that 40-years worth of presidents from both parties did not recognize Jerusalem. I suspect by doing so, it eliminates any chance of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Trump's blind bull-in-the-china-shop approach to foreign policy has done nothing but harm America relative to the rest of the world. Specifically to Jerusalem, my bet is he set relations back decades.

My jury is still out on his moves in North Korea. Based on his past actions, however, I am thinking the outcome will not be good.

The last airstrike in Syria was necessary. But it will be as wasted as the first one because Trump is incapable of forming long-term plans and strategies and following through with them.

The America First policy has already shrunk America's position in the world. Yes, America is a huge economic engine but the world, taken together, is much bigger. Therefore, America will lose any fight against the world which seems what Trump is trying to achieve.

Yes, he will take credit for Un, but I think the South Korean deserves most of it.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 23, 2018:

Khalil, happy to respond

Keep in mind as you read on that I my worldview consist of, but is not limited to the following:

- People have a duty to do no harm to other people, animals (yes, I quietly oppose hunting), and the environment

- Gov't has a duty, through the people, to ensure one citizen or business does no harm (beyond fair competition) to another

- To accomplish the above, reasonable gov't regulation is needed and necessary

- Rights are not unlimited; liberty is not unlimited

- Within the limits set above, individuals should exercise the greatest amount of liberty they desire

* "America First". Trump's version translates to isolationism and economic nationalism. It will ultimately and necessarily lead to lower employment and higher prices in the United States as well as in many parts of the world

* I think Trump is doing an abysmal job on the domestic front. Instead of "doing no harm", his policies are hurting every segment of American society save for wealthy white men. One of the primary non-minority losers from his domestic party are those who voted for him.

An unintended consequence of his domestic policy is a further tamping of population growth. Already native born population does not replace itself. The only way our population continues its meager growth is the influx on immigrants. Take that away and US population will begin to decline. Because population growth plus productivity growth equals, over the long-term, GDP growth, the GDP will ultimately begin to fail

* The military budget is a little over half of the $1.3 trillion. Given the disastrous sequester brought on by the conservative elements in American society, the military lost a lot of its preparedness. I lived through a similar draw down beginning with the Bush I administration after we won the Cold War. The cut in funding similarly destroyed military capability culminating in 1999. I saw this first hand working in a DoD readiness office.

The GOP tax plan will be a "tremendous disaster" as Trump likes to say. It also violated every economic principal the GOP holds dear (except for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations). The likely outcome is an explosion of the national debt, similar to the one achieved by Ronald Reagan and for the same reasons. People will point to the big run-up at the beginning of the Obama administration. But that was do to saving America from a horrible depression brought on by GOP economic policy. Paying for the debt will cut the amount of funds available for investment or, to prevent that, increase inflation substantially. No sane economist believes the minimal, short-term bump, if any, in GDP growth will in no way make up for the huge budget short-falls.

That is a long enough response for this go-round.

khalil serya on April 23, 2018:

My Esoteric, thank you for taking time to respond to my last question.

I would like to give you the first part of my questions concerning U.S. policy in the light of the current issues.

-How do you generally view Trump’s America first policy?

-In general, how do you think Trump is doing on the domestic ground ?

-You know that recently, Donald Trump has signed a tremendous spending bill. $1.3 trillion which is the largest military budget in U.S. history, despite his prior opposition to it. How would you reflect on that?

-Trump has made two main significant actions towards the Middle East and which had their echo worldwide. First, Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A move that may not promote peace and stability in the region. Second, the last airstrike made on Syria which had different interpretations. How would you reflect on that? And how could his act towards Jerusalem serve his “America First”

-What do you think the possible global repercussions of ‘America First’ policy in the long term? And how would it effect U.S. position as a world power?

-Do you think that Trump takes credit on what Kim Jong Un has announced recently?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on April 20, 2018:

Khalil - Thanks for taking the time to review and think about this hub.

The first part of your question regarding favorability, etc is actually displayed in another hub on President Trump but presented here on the stop light chart. They are from various polls which periodically ask questions as to how "favorable" do you view the president, or "do you approve or disapprove of the job Trump is doing in foreign affairs". They ask similar questions for your other subjects.

As to the Participation Rate, I haven't updated the stoplight chart yet. If you look at the actual chart (EMP - 1) you will see it is colored Green which means no real change from when Obama left office. (The yellow was from the fact that the participation rate was going down several months ago.)

khalil serya on April 20, 2018:

you have mentioned favorability and direction of country. also, approval/ economy and foreign . what do you mean by them ? and also in Trump's spotlight you mentioned through colored cirlcles that particpation rate is slightly worse than that of Obama's term but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics which you have included, the particpation rate is not that worse during Trump's term . no ?

Brad on February 10, 2018:

ME

Brad, I thought you would no that the FAA was doing the job it was supposed to do. Mind reading is not in its job description. Who is at fault is the intel agencies "territory" mindset. Had they had proper communications between agencies, there was a tiny chance they would have put the pieces together in time.

B:

The FAA didn't have to mind read they saw it on their radar, 4 planes deviate from the flight plan, and they couldn't or didn't have timely connection with NORAD.

NORAD's motto is "Deter, Detect, Defend." Deterrence was accomplished simply through the fact of NORAD's existence. "Potential enemies know that they would suffer disastrous consequences at once if they should be so foolish as to launch an attack against the United States or Canada. Full knowledge of these facts is considered the greatest safeguard and deterrent against sneak attack," reads the introduction of a NORAD guidebook published in 1970 [source: ­Hough]. In many ways, the creation of NORAD was an act of Cold War propaganda. This is not to suggest that NORAD wasn't capable of doing the things the United States claimed it could do, just that the claims were at least as important as the technology itself.

The FACT is not a single government agency did anything to protect the country. Not a single defensive measure was done during 911. What is your definition of Well?

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What has Agriculture done? Their job and are doing it well.

B:

So you think that they have done a good job protecting the people from bad agricultural food.

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FDA? I am guessing, from your comment, that you don't know what the FDA's mission is either. Let me help -

FDA Mission. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.Dec 29, 2017.

Even though FDA is not charted to "create cures", it is charted to make sure they are safe and effective. But just to disprove your hypothesis, the FDA was started in 1906 (Pure Food and Drugs Act) and penicillin use began in 1942. Unless you don't think penicillin is a cure to a major disease, then I would say you are wrong.

Given your objection to the cost and time to make sure drugs are safe, I would have to guess you would rather testing drugs should be like testing software - let the users do it and fix the bugs that show up.

B:

It costs a drug company about 800 million dollars to get their drug through the FDA, and the FDA has no laboratories of their own, and they only use the data provided by the drug company. These FDA approved drugs have been the bread and butter of legal firms because they caused death, and serious side effects. Is that their goal, approve a drug and then let the people be the test rats. They have failed to make them safe or effective. And yes, their job is not finding cures, but they don't really accomplish their primary task either.

Maybe we would be better off if their job was to find a cure for major diseases, or maybe some new agency.

By the way since congress gave the FDA the job of monitoring the drug industry, not a single cure for a major disease has been found, only long term and expensive treatments.

The last major cure was POLIO and it was before the FDA took over the monitoring.

And people are different than software because software has rules, and people don't. The reason that defect management can use the same tools that you do for political polls is that the processes are defined and sampling works because product is uniform. When one fails, it means that the process has failed. What does sampling in political polls do? People are not uniform, and the type of questions can be changed and the results changed, Meaning that you can lead to whatever results you want by asking people questions and having them not be people representing the total.

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The bottom line is that the entire government failed to prevent, and then failed to stop an attack in progress. That is a FACT. And the 911 scenario was known as a possible way for terrorists to attack. The US government has never been proactive, they are only reactive. And while they try to prevent another 911 that uses the same scenario, the terrorists are thinking of new ways to attack us on our soil.

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Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 06, 2018:

You are quite wrong, Jack, both the far-Right and the far-Left fit perfectly with the characteristics that define what is called a Right-Wing Authoritarian (RWA) follower (http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/)

The 12 traits of high scoring RWAs are:

1. Irrational (without reason) Fear - You are afraid Obama is a socialist when there is no rational evidence that he is.

2. Self-Righteousness - As in a more patriotic than thou mindset.

3. Dogmatic - What you believe to be true is set in stone and no amount of fact will change your mind, as in Obama is a socialist.

4. Authoritarian Submission - The kind of person who will let a Dr. talk them into increasing the level of shock they are delivering to a subject despite the protests of the shockee.

5. You get the idea. You can find the rest at https://discover.hubpages.com/politics/An-Analysis... (and even take the test to see how you score.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 06, 2018:

I am willing to bet that most voters on the democratic side does not follow the issues and just vote democratic as a matter of doing what they are expected...

The reason Trump won is because on the side of the GOP, they are engaged and are active and wants genuine change.

I will pit these voters against any group you can come up with. The reason Trump got a large majority of the electoral votes should give you pause. It is easy to have a few large population states like NY and Calif. to swing the popular vote. Most average people live across middle america and they are smarter than you give then credit for.

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 06, 2018:

Jack, you do realize that Trump got ONLY 46% of the popular vote, Hillary got 48% and others got 6%. That tells me 54% of the voting population DIDN'T want Trump.

Further, the Right (who like Trump) had the highest turnout ever while many minorities (who don't like Trump) didn't vote. Add those together and you get MORE than 54% of adults Don't Like Trump.

So, if you are right, more than 54% of Americans (which is majority, btw) are "... a coalition of elites, career politicians, media, Hollywood celebrities, intellectuals ".

Since there are very few "elites, career politicians, media, and Hollywood celebrities" that means the majority of Americans are "intellectuals", i.e., thinking people. On that last point, the world would be much better off if there were even more intellectuals who actually think about and analyze the issues rather than blindly follow their chosen authority figure (that applies to the far-Right and the far-Left).

ptosis from Arizona on February 05, 2018:

33% of the votes elected him

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 05, 2018:

Your last paragraph is telling.

You claim there are plenty of Americans that want Trump taken down. I disagree. There is a coalition of elites, career politicians, media, Hollywood celebrities, intellectuals who are what you claim but they are by no means the majority.

They have influence and they created the image of hatred for Trump.

The rest of Americs voted for Trump and want him to succeeed and support his policies and are liking what he is trying to do.

Here lies the problem. The more Trump succeeds in MAGA, the less power people will have on the other side. There credibility is in the tank. The media being a prime example.

As an observer of human condition, it is a tough position to be at. Your success is based on America’s failure under Trump...

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 05, 2018:

You are correct so far as the WH staff and Congress are concerned. But Mueller's team knows so much more than any of them do - and his team is not leaking. So no, it wouldn't be out already.

You use the word "plenty" when talking about Trump-haters (which is easy to do given the low character of the man). Yes, there are many but you direct your reference to the FBI. Unless you think 3 is "plenty" then you need to name more. In fact, assuming 10% constitutes plenty, then you will need to find 7,000 more who actually "hate" Trump as opposed to think he is "dangerous" to our way of life.

There is no question most Americans want Trump taken down (before he brings down America), but the people who work at the FBI and State Department are professionals who rarely let their personal feelings get in the way of their job

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 04, 2018:

My esoteric, it is very simple. With all the leaking going on since his inauguration, if something of substance was found by Mueller, it would have come out already. There are plenty of Trump haters out there as we’ve seen in the FBI and the state department... They can’t wait to take down Trump. There is nothing... He was a businessman and Holywood star... before he was a politician. What credible person in our government or Russian government would get involved?

Scott Belford (author) from Keystone Heights, FL on February 04, 2018:

If it is as fake as you say, then why have parts of it already been verified, verified circumstantial evidence of the most salacious, and NONE of if found to be false?

BTW, do you know the what the definition of #FakeNews is? You might be surprised when you google it.

Actually it is eight months for Mueller and how do You know they haven't found anything? Just because they haven't leaked anything doesn't mean they have found nothing. Add to the fact that they have now brought charges against four of Trump's cronies tells me they have found something. How come it doesn't you?

I am reading Fire and Fury now. I will get back to you on how credible it seems.

Jack Lee from Yorktown NY on February 03, 2018:

The dossier is a fake created by Steele. Just like the book Fire and Fury is a rumor book with little verification. I am just stating the obvious. Afte a year of investigation by the Mueller team, nothing was found relating to Trump and Russian collusion...