Trump: The First Year

Exactly. It carries some level of credence.

Meh, I think the economic performance during the first year of a new administration is mostly attributable to the prior one. With that said, I donā€™t doubt that the hope of large corporate tax breaks has made some investors optimistic and that is partially priced in to the market.

While Trumpā€™s all about taking credit for the state of the economy, if the market were to crash tomorrow, we all know exactly where his tiny finger would be pointing to assign blame.

Heā€™s just riding the wave of good economic vibes at this point. As a side note, however, Trumpā€™s bringing factory work back to America did play a role in our perceived economic growthā€¦ Iā€™m interested to see how Trump handles this whole economy business in the next seven years.

And we all know heā€™d blame Clinton. And throw her in a cell.

LOLā€¦he ainā€™t gonna be in there for seven more years.

Youā€™re right, heā€™ll probably die while placing the final brick on the 4000 mile long and 3 mile high border wall heā€™ll have built by the time he hits 75. :slight_smile:

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Indeed. That level being ā€˜zero,ā€™ in my opinion.

Itā€™s not even a matter of thinking it. Simply look at the economic trend lines over the past 8 years or so, and take note re whether thereā€™s a (positive) discontinuity associated with Trumpā€™s ascension. (By and large, there isnā€™t.) No discontinuity = no Trump effect.

And lest we forget, all these positive indices that Trump crows about of late? He dismissed them as misleading and/or erroneous when Obama was POTUS.

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I have to disagree with this portion of your statement, simply because Trumpā€™s job creation has to a respectable degree contributed further to the acceleration of our economic richness than we would have seen otherwise.

Can you remember half of the executive orders Trump signed? He might not be pulling the wool over the mediaā€™s eyes, but heā€™s doing one hell of a job at it with the average American. When people think Trump, they think ā€œRussiaā€, not ā€œimprove rural infrastructure.ā€

Who says Trump was right?

"Employment has been steadily increasing since at least 2013, says Jennifer Hunt, former Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, and any presidentā€”not just Trumpā€”is likely not to have as big of an impact on job creation statistics as they might claim.

ā€œThereā€™s nothing actually special or surprisingā€ about the number, says Hunt. Thereā€™s a few reasons for that. The job addition or employment rate tends to increase proportional to population growth, so the job addition rate tends to increase steadily without having much or any effect on unemployment.

And, the fact that that many jobs have been added since Trump took office is about par for the course with the last few years of steady economic growth. For comparison, Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show that about 1,246,000 jobs were created during the same months (February to July) under President Obama last year."

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:confused:

I am embarrassed to admit that I thought Trumpā€™s behavior during the campaign was all an act to get votes by being extreme. I was mistaken.

The good thing, I think, is that most people in the house & senate will hopefully refuse to pass any of his shit. Partly because they probably donā€™t like him (he seems to call someone out every week) and heā€™s got no idea what heā€™s doing.

Itā€™ll be a slow, nerve racking 3 years. Letā€™s pray.

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this.

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That ship has sailed. And his fingertips are nowhere near the button.

To be fair, most reasonable people could be forgiven for thinking thisā€“Trump built his name on acts for publicity, WWE and otherwise, so it makes sense to think that heā€™s acting yet again.

I think that a lot of the push-back against people shouting out warnings during the election came from this type of reasonable thought processā€“after all, this is what weā€™ve been conditioned to over decades already. Just Trump being Trump, getting peopleā€™s goat on purpose, etc.

Leaving aside the very sizeable percentage of very angry voters who were in a ā€œfu*k youā€ mode, this other block was aggravating to many precisely because it was reasonable. I mean, nobody really thinks a crazy person could run successfully. And hey, as long as Trump was only in the public eye for business it was easy to see it as an act. It was aggravating precisely because people who were trying to shout out a warning KNEW that this was a reasonable thought process to have, so it was a high barrier to break through.

Hopefully we learn well for future elections to put party behind character (fat chance)

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So youā€™re saying he doesnā€™t have unopposed access to nuclear codes?

By all indicationsā€¦while Military People (and I include Mattis, Kelly and McMaster) recognize and respect the OFFICE of POTUS as Commander in Chiefā€¦deep down I get the sense that they know that Trump is the very antithesis of Military Honor and Discipline; and very seldom uses sound judgment in his decisions.

I donā€™t worry about Trump shooting off some Nukes because somebody called him a bad name.

He might have the codes but he doesnā€™t have the buttons.

Canā€™t he get the buttons?

Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that the Trump administrationā€™s proposal to slash the state department and foreign aid budget is partly based on an expectation it will be able to resolve some of the global conflicts that have been absorbing costly diplomatic and humanitarian support.

But in a vivid display of the most urgent diplomatic challenge facing the US, Tillerson was speaking as North Korea carried out a new ballistic missile test ā€“ the first since it fired a missile over Japan in mid-September.

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Increased defense budget, decreased state department.

Because fuck logic.

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I think he would find velcro easier.