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About the trajectories, that makes it all the more impressive, doesn't it? It's easier to show growth (improved metrics in unemployment, positive changes in wa

About the trajectories, that makes it all the more impressive, doesn't it? It's easier to show growth (improved metrics in unemployment, positive changes in wage growth, higher stock market) after a crash, right? When things are bottomed out, it's not so difficult to show improvements (after the initial proper steps are taken.) Along those lines-- I do give Obama credit for making the right moves immediately after the crash. He just ran out of ideas after a few years, thus the 'jobless recovery'. But after things are improved for a while, then it gets harder to make incremental improvements. If you're walking, it's not hard to change to running. But if you're already running, it can be pretty hard to move faster. About giving it some time to evaluate, I agree this is a good idea.

ChrisLomont 7y ago
It’s not more impressive when a significant part of his problems are self made. There’s a reason trade wars are not fought, and protectionism has (had) died out. It empirically has been demonstrated to cost an economy many multiples of any hoped for benefits. This is Econ 101. The US was last this dumb with Smoot-Hawley, and we’d learned our lesson for almost 100 years. Next, instead of paying down the debt, he ran the deficit up willingly during good times. Also bad Econ, no matter the party. Steel and aluminum tariffs have raised the price of either in the US far above outside markets. As a result high tech industries that used to take that and turn it into precision instruments are losing foreign markets, many of which will never come back. Who wants unstable trading partners. And for what? Nothing but a handout to a few steelworkers at a large long term cost to consumers and producers alike. The net result of all this nonsense is not making the US better off; Trump is running record trade deficits, despite saying he isn’t (easy to check). This is all unnecessary and only hurting the economy. There’s a reason we (and most other countries) don’t do this type of nonsense anymore. It simply ruins economies. He was handed a strong one, still on an upswing. These choices will likely wreck it before it would have, through simple bad decisions.

ChrisLomont 7y ago

It’s not more impressive when a significant part of his problems are self made. There’s a reason trade wars are not fought, and protectionism has (had) died out. It empirically has been demonstrated to cost an economy many multiples of any hoped for benefits. This is Econ 101. The US was last this dumb with Smoot-Hawley, and we’d learned our lesson for almost 100 years. Next, instead of paying down the debt, he ran the deficit up willingly during good times. Also bad Econ, no matter the party. Steel and aluminum tariffs have raised the price of either in the US far above outside markets. As a result high tech industries that used to take that and turn it into precision instruments are losing foreign markets, many of which will never come back. Who wants unstable trading partners. And for what? Nothing but a handout to a few steelworkers at a large long term cost to consumers and producers alike. The net result of all this nonsense is not making the US better off; Trump is running record trade deficits, despite saying he isn’t (easy to check). This is all unnecessary and only hurting the economy. There’s a reason we (and most other countries) don’t do this type of nonsense anymore. It simply ruins economies. He was handed a strong one, still on an upswing. These choices will likely wreck it before it would have, through simple bad decisions.