US is World's Most Competitive Economy for First Time in a Decade (wsj.com)

schwit1 shares a report: The U.S. is back on top as the most competitive country in the world, regaining the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2008 in an index produced by the World Economic Forum [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], which said the country could still do better on social issues. America climbed one place in the rankings of 140 countries, with the top five rounded out by Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and Japan. All five countries' scores rose from 2017, with the U.S. notching the second-biggest gain after Japan's. [...] The Global Competitiveness Report this year assessed 140 countries on 98 indicators that measure business investment and productivity. The indicators are organized into 12 main drivers of productivity including the nations' institutions, tech savvy, infrastructure, education systems, market size and innovation.

Comments

We are tech savvy

[110010001000]

We even know how to use Unicode on the web.

Re: We are tech savvy

[Anonymous Coward]

No we donâ(TM)t

Re: We are tech savvy

[DontBeAMoran]

This represent Slashdot's support of Unicode:

There's supposed to be a poop emoji at the end of my sentence above. It displays when I'm in the textarea but disappears when I click on preview.

Re: We are tech savvy

[MrKaos]

This represent Slashdot's support of Unicode:

There's supposed to be a poop emoji at the end of my sentence above. It displays when I'm in the textarea but disappears when I click on preview.

Works fine for me.

Re: We are tech savvy

[Anonymous Coward]

hunter2

Re: We are tech savvy

[Anonymous Coward]

http://bash.org/?244321

We beat a country the size of California

[HangingChad]

Woo! Victory lap!

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[jellomizer]

Also with the State of California (The Top State Economy in the US) carrying most of the country.

The United States is the 3rd most populated country and the 3rd/4th (Depending on how you measure it, and disputed border areas) largest in area country. We really shouldn't just be edging past these countries, we should be near dominate. The only other country with the resources to beat the US Economy would be China, Who is about the same size as the US in area however has a massive population.

For the most part political leanings have no effect on the economy (Unless you are stupid enough to start a trade war). If you have a tax cut then business have more money to spend, if you have higher taxes used towards infrastructure, then business need to pay less for services and repairs. Jobs will shift from the private to public sector and back.

Now the Federal Reserve which is mostly not political has some control on the economy, but still what it can do is limited.

The biggest factor on the economy is if there are customers. If you have people paying you then you are doing better. So you need to make sure you produce enough for your customers to pay you, otherwise you will not have things to sell.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[jellomizer]

I know the GOP Russians Trolls don't like research. But here is some data anyways

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

It's why Trump will be re-elected in 2024 and 2028.

That would require a constitutional amendment. If we cannot muster the support to amend the 2nd amendment, what makes you think we can muster the support to amend the 22nd?

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

congrats on pedowood and silly valley.

Re: We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

After sufficient application of the second amendment there will be full support to modify the 22nd.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Good heavens, you're wrong on so many factors. Firstly, the competitiveness of an economy is not that reliant on the population of a country. For being one of the largest, most populous countries on the planet, the U.S. does absolutely dominate based on the size of its economy. Competitiveness is based on factors such as ease of starting and running a business; low taxes; a skilled workforce; relatively low wages; and so on. You'll note that a common meme in business media is talk of making sure one's economy is competitive by intentional currency depreciations. That's hardly something that people who work for a living want as it decreases the purchasing power of their earnings and their savings.

As for the Federal Reserve, it is undue, undeserved influence on the U.S. and world economy. You don't think the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble, and the current seemingly everything bubble is not the result of Federal Reserve manipulations? You need to study how the world economy works more intensely.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[drinkypoo]

congrats on pedowood and silly valley.

Pedowood? The religious child molestation problem is so serious in the South that Texas actually has yellow diamond warning signs which read "CHURCH". I suppose you might make the argument that it's to let people know of upcoming traffic on Sundays, but I don't think that's particularly plausible considering just how poor the signage is in Texas.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[lgw]

The religious child molestation problem

You seem to have blurred problems with Catholicism and Islam across all religions. Catholicism's problems seem to stem from the expectation of celibacy for priests, which attracts those with little interest in a conventional marriage, but Buddhism doesn't seem to have that problem, so that can't be the full answer.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

When nearly have the country thinks some invisible monkey god doesn't want you to get an abortion, you get the "just edging past" effect.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with California and the reputation that pedowood gave itself?

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, trust me, there is almost no difference between the Talibangelicals and fundamentalist Islamists. Other than a few words here and there, they sound, demand, and preach the same things. They're also just as likely to be willing terrorists. Although the Talibangelicals are considerably mroe dangerous since they have greater resources and the GOP's balls.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[psycho12345]

So... you want a dictatorship. Fun stuff. And right wing people wonder why others consider them insane. Also, fun fact, repealing the 16th won't remove income tax. Right wing activist judges tried to block income tax, so they got bypassed by the 16th. And 17th, hah, nah, rather prefer Senate seats be for the highest bidder. And no, you need liberals to do constitutional amendments. If you tried without them, well... civil war coming right up.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[lgw]

Without the 16th amendment, any income tax must be sent to the states, proportional to population. (Same reason there's no federal sales tax today).

Corruption of the Senate seems perfectly optimized for the current system. Flipping back to appointment by the states would confuse all the lobbyists for a while, and give us many years until we come full cycle. Plus all those lobbyists would have to actually (gasp!) visit flyover red states in order to bribe all the state governments. Do them good to get out of DC once in a while. Of course, in another few decades we'd want to flip it again.

An amendment takes 3/4 of the states. That means the left coast can be entirely ignored. According to the documentary Demolition Man, we'll be amending the Constitution soon enough to allow Schwarzenegger to become president. I figure it's a twofer.

Re: We beat a country the size of California

[Zero__Kelvin]

The reason you voted for him is that you are so uneducated you don't know about term limits, but it doesn't matter if you vote for him or not now, because all the people who didn't vote in 2016 because they didn't know how many idiots there are in the US now know better, and many who voted for the world's biggest loser have figured out they screwed up in a Huge way. Trump will definitely not win in 2020.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Freischutz]

Also with the State of California (The Top State Economy in the US) carrying most of the country.

Is that what progressives tell themselves these days? Man, someone should add more robust programming to those NPCs, they're pretty repetitive.

Welcome to the Trump Economy. It's why Trump will be re-elected in 2024 and 2028. (2020 is a given.) You ready for the Red Tide in November?

Why wouldn't they? Seeing as how it's true. The Red states are mostly subsidised by the Blue ones (and Texas). Plus the country that sat at the top of the competitiveness scale over the las ten years was Switzerland so for the US to make it to the top once a decade is not really any kind of an achievement. Also, just to add insult to injury Socialist Sweden and Socialist Finland have been higher than the US on that competitiveness list for a good part of the last ten years.

P.S. There are term limits on POTUS. Unless Mitch McConnell manages to repeal amendment XXII to the US constitution orangutang-human hybrid* face will not be re-elected in 2028.

*If Trump can call women 'horse-face' it only seems fair that the rest of us can call him that, or 'orangutang face' for short.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[sysrammer]

It seems that a lot of people nowadays are ready for an emperor. 'Tis true that is how republics die. Reading through history I've always wondered if and when this "great experiment" that the US has been called would follow the path of other historical republics. I think we're well into oligarchy phase, and typically the next step is a civil war which enables all the power to be collected at the top, and people get tired of the war and follow someone, anyone, who can end it.

That will take a while, of course, so it's hard to say who will eventually "assume the purple" over a reunited(?) nation. What the nation and empire would look like then is a thing to be guessed at. And whoever it is, they will, of course, not call themselves an emperor, because the trappings of a republic will remain for a long time until the last of the old generations who remember what they had, pass away.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[sysrammer]

"yellow diamond warning signs which read "CHURCH""

You kiiiiiiilllllll me!

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[fatwilbur]

Mod parent up, it's a very astute point that "political leanings have no effect on the economy". Some folks seem to think California's top position is in part to their left political leanings, but look at Canada: the province of Alberta carries much of the country economically, and (at least contains) some of the most conservative political leanings in the country. Heck, in 2015 Alberta elected it's first non-conservative government in decades, and they are almost surely returning to power in 2019. (Aside: I will note having lived there, it's far less hardcore conservative that it's usually perceived, but everything's relative). The GDP per capital of the major cities in Alberta would make nearly any city across the world envious.

Re: We beat a country the size of California

[Dorianny]

Underestimating the opponent was a fatal mistake that contributed to his victory. Trump has no morals or convictions which are very useful in a popularity contests such as an election, especially when the election is skewed in favor of his base by the "electoral system." He didn't win the popular vote even in his first election

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[harrkev]

Yup, Russian communists are evil. But we need to vote in the domestic communists.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

You can nervously deny easily researchable facts all you want. You only prove your own ignorance :)

Plus, let us all shout out huge THANKS OBAMA! for achieving this. Trump got lucky he rode in on such a successful presidency; but it's just a matter of time until it comes crashing down thanks to Trump.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what? The lobbyists already visit the flyover states, and they already bribe the right wing congress critters. This has been going on for decades. I realize you don't know very much at all, but this is practically common knowledge among 99% of the world.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is all the people doing anything and everything to remove a lawfully elected President from office. These people act like Trump already occupies the position of Emperor when the reality is a US President has very little power in how the country is run. They seem to ignore the fact that an election happens every 4 years where you can vote for another President. These people have wasted over 2 years doing nothing but attacking every single thing the President does. Those who lost to Trump the first time have not addressed the policy issues they failed to communicate in the last election. They are positive that they only lost the last election because of Russian interference instead of the Democratic party who prefer dealing with the fringes of society and ignoring a large sector of the electorate. I belong to the sector of the electorate that both parties ignore. I am a white, heterosexual, college educated, fully employed in a high paying field with health care benefits, a widower, and have no children. I make too much money to take advantage of the low to middle class tax benefits and do not make enough money to take advantage of the tax benefits of the ultra wealthy. I am invisible to some and despised by others who think everything I have accomplished in life is because I am white.

Re: We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we can find videos of Christians chanting from the Bible while sawing off the head of a pregnant woman, cutting out the fetus, and raping it.

No... Wait... That's Muslims. You fucking imbecile.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[LunaticTippy]

What are you talking about? Alberta's GDP is dwarfed by Ontario, although the oil income is substantial. Educate yourself here

BTW, Alberta is communist by US political standards, with their public healthcare and environmental regulations. Ontario is off the charts!

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[commodore64_love]

Back when the Senate was appointed directly by the States, many times the states just left seats empty. It was a broken setup & restoring what had previously not worked, would be illogical.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[commodore64_love]

I've read reports from ex-patriots of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and they call it "hell" because these countries cannot tolerate individualism. For example you buy yourself a BMW or Mercedes, your car will be keyed by your neighbors, to remind you "You are no better than we." If you try to express a contrary opinion, you get ostracized and home vandalized. Possibly arrested.

They are very oppressive societies.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this modded up? Obviously a troll...

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, explain then why this report says this:

" Additionally, the definition of openness must look to concepts beyond trade, freedom of people’s movement and ideas exchange. Using such a
definition, we find that Singapore, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and the United States are some of the most open countries in the world, "

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Freischutz]

I've read reports from ex-patriots of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and they call it "hell" because these countries cannot tolerate individualism. For example you buy yourself a BMW or Mercedes, your car will be keyed by your neighbors, to remind you "You are no better than we." If you try to express a contrary opinion, you get ostracized and home vandalized. Possibly arrested.

They are very oppressive societies.

I've read reports from ex-patriots of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and they call it "hell" because these countries cannot tolerate individualism. For example you buy yourself a BMW or Mercedes, your car will be keyed by your neighbors, to remind you "You are no better than we." If you try to express a contrary opinion, you get ostracized and home vandalized. Possibly arrested.

They are very oppressive societies.

That is a steaming load of horse shit, noting more, nothing less, just a big steaming pile of horse shit.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone's projecting. That sounds very much like what brown and homosexual people have to deal with here in the United States. Someone shoots nine people to death in a church, the cops take him alive and buy a drive-thru meal for him on the way to the clink. Someone of darker complexion caught selling grey market cigs gets choked to death. But hey, those Satanists don't count as real people, so let's cry about the poor, put-upon wretches who are totally getting arrested for the high crime of buying a nice car in Europe while ignoring the established pattern of brown people getting pulled over because there's no way someone like them could have bought the car they're driving.

Re: We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

After sufficient application of the second amendment there will be full support to modify the 22nd.

This is why people mock you when you cry about "violent liberal mobs".

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to watch yourself when it comes to crying about the "fringes of society". We post on Slashdot. We ARE the fringes of society.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot.org - where snowflakes come to fluff other snowflakes. I miss slashdot.net.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. This is a huge pile of horse shit. I've been to Finland for a job interview (lots of tech workers are getting job offers to escape Trump's US), and it's absolutely fantastic. There's really no comparison; literally everything is better than in the US. I plan on expatriating soon.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[ChrisMaple]

The 17th Amendment has been an unmitigated disaster. It removes one of the important balances built into the original Constitution. By making the Senate more like the House, the diversity of power sources has been reduced.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, keep promoting the state that all the rich people launder our^H^H^Htheir money through, and all the associated business practices. Really, the rest of us thank you for it.

Re:We beat a country the size of California

[lgw]

The reason for the 17th was that the huge corporations of the day has optimized fully on bribing the state governments t get the senators they wanted. Flipping over to direct election reset that for a few decades. Flipping back will help, for a while.

Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you put a true entrapeneur, and verified job creator with business savvy and acumen, into office rather than the career politicians we are used to that simply are trying to stretch things out for a nice pension. Trump has brought old school competitive spirit and American agressiveness back into the White House. Say what you will about his personality or personal decisions but the man is a bulldog when it comes to business and all Americans are now reaping the rewards with record low jobless rates, more job openings than there are people to fill them, and record low taxes. It's simply amazing to me when I think about what is going to be possible with 6 more years of this environment.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

But...Orange man bad!

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Archtech]

This is what happens when you put a true entrapeneur, and verified job creator with business savvy and acumen, into office

That's one of the funniest things I have seen since George W Bush, of revered memory, told the world that "the trouble with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepreneur'".

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

TV say orange man bad...I say orange man bad

*NPC has joined your party

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems relevant:

https://www.tni.org/en/publication/who-does-the-world-economic-forum-really-represent

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

A Trump supporter

And just the way Trump loves 'em: dumb as a rock

Don't ever change.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Applehu Akbar]

You’re repeating old fake news. Bush never said that.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Many other countries on Earth had record low jobless rates and more job openings than there are people to fill them before Trump enacted any economic policies. How did Trump break causality?

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree. Would love to see the back and forth movement on this post score.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

MAGA indeed.

Freeing USA from communist/socialist minded aggresive NPCs is nice too.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[pjrc]

If we enter a recession within the next 2 or 6 years, and especially if Obama-era stimulus isn't feasible due to already low interest rates and increased debt & deficits, will you assign any of the blame to Trump?

I'm guessing it'll all be democrats fault, even if they control only the house and can't pass legislation. Even if Republicans manage to hold onto the house and senate next month, will you somehow still try to assign the blame for any downturn to wild conspiracy theories involving Hillary Clinton?

If this current ~3% annual growth, which began back in mid-2009 during Obama's first term, continues with interruption for 6 more years, then Trump will indeed deserve substantial credit, regardless of how distasteful his personality and how childish his Twitter rants may be.

But at this moment, when the USA is most able to pay down its massive accumulated debt and put itself on a financially sound course, Trump and republicans (who repeatedly called for a balanced budget when democrats held power) are racking up huge deficits that are just piling on more debt. They're deregulating the financial sector, which has allowed massive buildup of consumer and student debt. Massive consumer debt, overly leveraged by the deregulated financial "industry" is what caused the great recession 10 years ago (near the end of Bush's tenure). Collectively we all should have learned a lesson, but sadly it seems we didn't.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling mistake, it's not entrapeneur" it's "orange penis"

Orange. Man. Bad.

Me. Good.

Exit. Code. 0. Load. Next. Dialog. Tree? (Y/N) >

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling mistake, it's not "jeremyp" it's "jeremynpc"

FTFY.

Grow the fuck up and quit regurgitating childish TDS-fueled crybully bullshit.

Or does it hurt too fucking much that Obama's 8 years of "remaking the US economy (based on dated, stale, and failed 19th century "progressive" redistributionist ideals...)" didn't work?

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[fafalone]

Unemployment, which has continued the same trend without an inflection point since recovery started before Trump, is all there is to talk about. All those corporate tax savings benefited the wealthy. Mostly used for stock buybacks. Wages are flat. There was no cut in government spending, so Trump's giveaway to the already-wealthy resulted in a large increase in deficit, expected to top $1 trillion next year. Meanwhile, tariffs are hurting many sectors significantly, as well as the poor and middle class, who are hurt by the price increases. The bailout to farmers hurt by the tariffs wasn't nearly sufficient by their own account. The trade war is only going to get worse. Manufacturing still isn't coming back.
But yeah, keep harping on the unemployment figure, because that's what most important. And to still think Trump has any business savvy whatsoever, after he underperformed the market, lied about being self-made, got bailed out by his father countless times... ugh, the delusion.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

You dropped your pacifier!

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[aicrules]

Interesting...the WEF is made up of people who actually truly care about the business economy which is exactly what this is a rating for...thanks for that!

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with the President. For the past decade, the economy has been in the worst shape it's been in for generations. All this means is the economy has finally fully recovered from the Great Recession and we are where we were before it happened. Presidents take far too much credit and receive far too much blame for the economy. I don't blame W for the recession. I don't praise Obama for the recovery. And Trump deserves no praise for the state of the economy now. The market acts on the typical economic forces and government can't do much to steer it in our system.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Duhavid]

You believe in the market?

Yes? Then there is no "Job Creator". There are people who purchase products from people who make products. Those who make products would not make them ( and hence would not "create jobs" ) if it were not for those people purchasing products. All the "Job Creator" does is stand in the middle and collect.

Job creation is based on demand which is based on purchasing, which is based, by and large, on massive numbers of people.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[LynnwoodRooster]

Nope - never happened.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

-If- Trump fucks the economy I -absolutely- will blame him for it. Whereas you give credit to Obama for 8 years of 3% growth at did -not- happen. You completely fabricated that despite the numbers being easily available. -You- are a hypocrite and fail to lay blame at your socialist Gods feet for the 8 long years of hellish econ0mic disaster. And as far as stimulus goes, are you talking about the 80 billion dollars a month he pumped into the hands of his rich banker buddies with millions more diverted to his socialist friends and their we hate America Astro turf grass roots movements?

Take some responsibility for the failures of your guy. I am honest and direct about the failures of the politicians I like. When they fuck up, I say so and vote them down. Have you -EVER- voted for anyone who was not an avowed leftist? Seen -any- flaws in any of them? Not being far enough left does not count.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a race to the bottom - a race to destruction.

Statistics show the USA is "most competitive" and will probably win.

Those who would celebrate this are worth less than two tweets of a twat.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

True entrapeneur (sic)? You mean the guy who was given literal millions by his father before he was a teenager? The guy who has received loans and even outright gifts of *millions* of dollars whenever his ventures began to have the slightest trouble? I think you misunderstand what an entrepreneur is. Trump would've failed several times without his father's business propping him up.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[LynnwoodRooster]

If this current ~3% annual growth, which began back in mid-2009 during Obama's first term

It did? I don't see a single year that reached 3% since 2005.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

The economy has been on the same basic trajectory since the beginning of the economic recovery in 2009. The only real change is that the party in power has stopped telling you how bad the economy is and has switched to telling you how good it is. See:

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
https://www.bea.gov/system/files/intinv218-chart-feature.png

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[allcoolnameswheretak]

This is what happens when you put a true entrapeneur, and verified job creator with business savvy and acumen, into office rather than the career politicians we are used to that simply are trying to stretch things out for a nice pension. Trump has brought old school competitive spirit and American agressiveness back into the White House. Say what you will about his personality or personal decisions but the man is a bulldog when it comes to business and all Americans are now reaping the rewards with record low jobless rates, more job openings than there are people to fill them, and record low taxes. It's simply amazing to me when I think about what is going to be possible with 6 more years of this environment.

You overestimate the amount of control a US president has over the economy. All that Trump did is lower taxes, and while this will always provide a short-term boost to any economy, at this current time I think it was a bad move.
The reason is that the economy is already showing signs of overheating. Look at the NASDAQ and DOW over the last 10 years: up, up, up. The economy was already improving greatly after the financial crisis during the Obama years. There is so much cash moving around, the stock markets have basically exploded and are overdue for a big correction. The last thing you want to do in a situation like this, is infuse even more money into the economy. It will just delay the correction and make the resulting crash and shock to the economy that much harder. Also, the tax cuts will further increase the already immense pile of debt. So what Trump is doing is buying a short-term economic boost that is not needed and actually detrimental over the medium term with more debt for future generations.
You can call that genius entrepreneurship, but really you don't need to be a genius to know that tax cuts boost the economy. What matters is the timing and the context, which in my opinion couldn't be worse right now.

But I'm sure we will see the results of that pretty soon. Maybe in time for Trumps reelection(?).

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you put a true entrapeneur, and verified job creator [...]

You mean the growth in jobs and the economy that has been happening since 2010? In the words of David Frum:

The Trump economy is the Obama economy with higher inflation and lower real wage growth

* https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1038433825968275456
* https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1042045247541403656

And how about those deficit hawks?

* https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1040305343736143873

So the economy is growing, and the Feds are adding fiscal stimulus? Where were they in 2010-2012 when the stimulus was actually needed?

Also, where's that infrastructure plan?

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[LynnwoodRooster]

Wage growth is up.

Unemployment bottomed out at 5% for the last year of the Obama Administration, then plunged after the election.

GDP was plunging during 2015/2016 and has since turned around.

The DJIA plateaued during 2015 and 2016 and exploded after the election.

NASDAQ followed the same trend as the DJIA, indicating the flat-line in growth was economy-wide, not just specific sectors

Manufacturing job growth is at a 23 year high

Basically you're making stuff up - the facts do not support your positions.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it like being retarded? Just wondering

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't let facts get in the way of what he/she heard on MSNBC or CNN.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Its funny that all of your graphs show the economy in the crapper when Bush left office, then getting worse for a year before improving.

These improvements continue until now.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

The economy is cyclical, traditional business cycle is less than the current duration of gdp growthâ"these are facts that have nothing to do with Trump.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Z80a]

It is the democrats fault for drinking the horrible koolaid of the fringe far left with their "privilege plus power" crap and getting the establishment terminator shaped like a old women to run.
If they purge those things from their side, they will annihilate trump in 2020.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[AlwinBarni]

This is what happens when you put a true entrapeneur, ...

How does it go with the $779 bln budged deficit in 2018 - being competitive does not exclude being broke.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[bigfinger76]

The irony...

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Unemployment [...] is all there is to talk about.

ugh, the delusion

That's why this stuff is so fun to read - pot, meet kettle.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree with your premise, but all your facts are wrong. Some of the sites referenced don't really support your statements.
Wage growth is not a thing that impacts We The People. No matter what is said about this topic, wages do what they do and people dont have any control over them. (saying we do is fine, but if you look at historical data you can see there is as much consistency as a pinball in a pinball machine).
Unemployment can be spun to look anyway based on which stats are used. Problem is the stats are crap. If we use the formula produced by the u.s. government in the 1980's then the number of actual unemployed people in the u.s. is around 20%. If we use the formula from the 90's then it looks more like 14%. In the current day we are told it is 4%, but that does not count anything the same as the prior 50 years.
You will find the day to day activites of We The People are not impacted by the DJIA or the NASDAQ. Some may invest in it, but that percentage is small and has no bearing on what we do every day.
Manufacturing growth is high where there is existing manufacturing. But the number of manufacturing jobs in the u.s. is at a all time low and we have not gotten new manufacturing plants or companies in almost 15 years.

Good to support Trump. Stupid to have your facts so fucking backwards.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks with liberal arts degrees generally aren't.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Zero__Kelvin]

When are the planning to put the guy you described in office? It will be nice to replace the Incompetent con man in there now.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes 60 votes in the senate to pass a budget buddy. Democrats absolutely have a share of the blame. They are add just as much shit or more to the budget every year.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[fatwilbur]

That's a very hard argument to make, since it's correct a president does have limited control and more in the long-term effects. People will still blame the other side; eg. if we had a recession and the economy contracted by 2%, supporters will argue it would have been 4% or greater were it not for the actions of $Party_I_Support.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

You fail it.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, Hillary is a pro at making up conspiracy theories and will continue to try and distract your from her treasonous past. The lawsuit against the DoJ to release the details of sworn testimony regarding Benghazi is nearing a verdict with the judge showing every sign that he is down right pissed at the DoJ for their continued obstruction of justice.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we all thank Obama for what he did as well. Now to prevent Trump from wrecking it all, which he seems deadset on.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

That is hilarious! Every link you posted actually disproves your claim. Did you even bother to read them? I'll be reusing your links, thanks! It's always nice to see yet more evidence of how horrible Trump is doing!

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Kyr Arvin]

Or does it hurt too fucking much that Obama's 8 years of "remaking the US economy (based on dated, stale, and failed 19th century "progressive" redistributionist ideals...)" didn't work?

Trump is benefiting from Obama's economy -- it's not like the economy did a 180 when Trump was elected. We're currently in the longest bull market in US history, starting in 2009. The bull market that Trump derided as being a fraud when he was on the campaign trail, then took credit for when it was convenient for him.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[kiminator]

If the US economy continues to grow without a substantial recession for the next 6 years, it will be in spite of Trump, not because of him. His war on trade has already caused serious, lasting harm to the US economy (short version: international trade relationships require that both companies and foreign countries can trust US behavior, but Trump's behavior is wildly erratic and unpredictable, meaning that the end result will likely be a large drop in US imports and exports, with the overall US trade deficit worsening and US citizens ending up poorer).

Additionally, the Republican party has been waging a broad campaign to eliminate the financial regulation which would have a chance of preventing or mitigating the next financial crash. Every year that economic exuberance prevails (which by my measure has been about 1-2 years so far: most of the growth during Obama's term was pretty muted and cautious) increases the likelihood that lots of money will be funneled into an unstable sector, as happened with housing around roughly 2003-2006. And without strong financial regulation, we have no protection against that.

My current thinking is that the probability of a recession within three years is quite high (whether or not the Republicans lose the House, Senate, or presidency in that time). If we get six years of solid growth without a drastic increase in financial regulation, I'll eat my hat.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[fafalone]

Wage growth is 1% account for inflation with the median weekly earnings up only 0.57% per year.
Plunged after the election? Are you blind or lying, that graph shows a nearly perfect linear decrease from 01/10 to 01/18; long before the election.
So GDP increased substantially but wage growth only beat inflation by 1%? And you think this is evidence against corporations reaping the benefits of the tax break without doing much for the rank and file why exactly?
DJIA/NASDAQ are up which is benefiting large investors, you're just making my point for me now.
You really want to argue that manufacturing is going to be anywhere near the levels it based on that growth? At the rate it grew it would take decades to reach where it was before the crash that started in 2000.

So let's see, your argument consisted of ignoring context, then lying, then listing 3 items that you didn't realize supported my complaint about the tax cuts, then made an argument that ignored absolute numbers, and to top it all off, insisted the facts actually supported your fantasy. Yup, that's a conservative argument. If you're already wealthy there's no doubt you're experiencing a great windfall in the Trump economy, but it's not trickling down this time either... shocker.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[ebvwfbw]

Obama had absolutely *NOTHING* to do with this. Just go back to say December and January before 45 took control. Predictions of gloom, doom. The economy was sure to tank. People would be on the street, etc.

Well they are on the street, where Democrats control the town like San Francisco, Portland, etc.

However the US is the strongest economy once again. If you want to keep the us going strong, vote for Republicans. If you want to be like Venezuela, vote for the Democrats. If you vote for the Dems, kiss your car, food, livelyhood goodbye because that's what's going to happen. Poverty for everyone.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[ChrisMaple]

The stock market is not the economy.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[ChrisMaple]

It only takes 60 votes if there's some asshole willing to threaten to filibuster. Or some hero, depending on the issue.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[ChrisMaple]

The economy was in bad shape when Bush left office because years earlier the Democrat-controlled Congress prevented financial reform that Bush wanted. (You can thank Barney Frank for that disaster.) The worst that can be honestly said of Bush is that he was a weak President who couldn't get around the opposition's obstructionism.

Obama's recovery merely got us back to where things were at their best under Bush, and it took 8 years to do that, because his policies retarded economic growth. That's not a good record; doing nothing would have been better.

Trump has actually advanced the economy to new ground, it's beyond recovery.

Re:Job creator in office = #MAGA

[ChrisMaple]

Lots of working people have Individual Retirement Accounts that run through their employer. Those IRAs frequently invest in the stock market, in part or in whole. Last time I read any data, more than half of all households were invested in the stock market, either directly or through retirement accounts.

Re: Job creator in office = #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to know your reading comprehension is "effectively illiterate". Thanks for that! Now we can more easily disregard your ignorant posts.

MAGA bitch!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's whats up!

Re:MAGA bitch!

[Anonymous Coward]

We traded short term growth for long term instability MAGA woooooo! The deficit is where it was in 2012. So much for fiscal conservatism. RIP

Thank you Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Itâ(TM)s been a long climb from the hole the republicans dug for the country.

Re: Thank you Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, were fast at work digging a new hole

Still a trade deficit

[religionofpeas]

The US has had a trade deficit since the '70s, and still does. What is the value of 'most competitive' if you have to borrow money from the rest of the world in order to pay for your imports ?

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Pinky's Brain]

The US doesn't borrow, it prints.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the value of 'most competitive' if you have to borrow money from the rest of the world in order to pay for your imports ?

It means our credit is still good.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the value of 'most competitive' if you have to borrow money from the rest of the world in order to pay for your imports ?

That you have trouble understanding undergrad economics tells me the US education system probably sucks, even if our economy is strong.

I blame the inherent class division that keeps voters like you in ignorance. translation: you're holding us back, dude.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Money gets printed by selling US bonds with a promise to pay interest when the Bond is due.
So yes, we are borrowing money to print money and import goods.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Deficit != debt

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

It means we get more goods and services from other countries than we get money from other countries.
Sounds good to me; I'd rather have useful stuff than money. I think only governments worried about taxes care about trade deficits.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[jeremyp]

You realise you don't borrow money from the rest of the Worlds to pay for imports, don't you?

The trade deficit thing is a red herring. If the economy is doing well, people will buy more stuff and some of that comes from abroad.

Also, although money flows out of the country, goods flow in. For example, Trump seems very concerned about paying for Chinese steel. Well, yes, you've sent a load of cash to China, but they have sent you a load of steel and if they are dumping it at below cost, you've actually got a pretty good deal and it will benefit all of the industries in the USA that use steel. Everybody benefits except the US steel industry, which is actually a pretty small part of the economy compared to all the parts that will benefit.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[DontBeAMoran]

The US doesn't borrow, it prints.

1 BTC = USD$1,000,000 is coming sooner than we thought!

Re:Still a trade deficit

[guruevi]

You can't fix the deficit by fiat. You do it by making trade and production within your borders efficient so that it trends in the better direction.

China did a great job at that, they kept all the production to themselves, with low or non-existent export taxes they made themselves more competitive than any other country, attracting industry and lifting their own people out of poverty. Saudi-Arabia is currently trying to do the same thing for high-tech business because they know oil is inherently unstable, even if there is another 100 years worth of it under their feet.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[religionofpeas]

Most of the money is printed as a result of a new loan.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[religionofpeas]

Also, although money flows out of the country, goods flow in

Money is nothing but a standardized form of IOU. The US dollar is valuable, only because it carries a promise to the recipient that they can give back the money to the US, in return for something (goods, labour) of equal value. If you keep promising for decade after decade, and never return goods of equal value, you're borrowing for imported goods, just like a drunk is borrowing from the bar when he lets the tab run up and never pays it back.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[religionofpeas]

You do it by making trade and production within your borders efficient

Yes, and that's what I would call 'competitive'. The ability to create products that the rest of the world desires enough to buy them from you.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[drinkypoo]

Everybody benefits except the US steel industry, which is actually a pretty small part of the economy compared to all the parts that will benefit.

And the workers, whose wages have remained flat during this period. The corporations are making more money, and as usual, they are giving all the profit to executives and none of it to the workers. It's an outright lie to suggest that everyone benefits.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

And Trump has been working on the trade deficit, too. A couple of steel mills in the US have reopened for example and renegotiating trade where the other country has an already high tariff. One thing not Trump's making that is helping the imbalance is US fracking, which increased US production some 4 million bpd.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[MobyDisk]

you have to borrow money from the rest of the world in order to pay for your imports?

The US foreign debt situation is actually pretty good.

There is a persistent trope that the US owes tons of money to foreign governments, but it is incorrect. Most US debt is held by US citizens. Wikipedia lists foreign bond holders at 34% right now. That isn't huge, and it isn't a bad thing even if it was. The more invested foreign governments are in your currency the safer your currency becomes. It means everyone on the planet has a vested interest in the US economy doing well. It means if you want to invest safely, give money to the US. That 34% number also doesn't include the vast amounts of foreign assets that the US government owns. Also, most of the foreign investment is spread throughout the world, with the main debt holders being Japan, China, and UK. So no single foreign government individually tank US bond prices.

Take a look at a list of foreign debt by country in relation to GDP. The US foreign debt is really low compared to Canada, Europe, and Australia. The ones keeping it low are either not participating in the global economy, or are strongly protectionist like Russia, China, and Japan.

Overall, foreign investment in the US is in good shape.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't what "trade deficit" means. Contrary to what the GOP spouts, international trade is not a zero-sum gain.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[h4x0t]

BTC is done for. It's not useful for transactions and it pollutes like a MF. The writing is on the wall. It has no solution for the amount of electricity it pulls per (lack of) product/service.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, this again.

Trade deficits are neither inherently good nor bad, they're merely an accounting of the money companies and citizens are spending. It's trivial to come up with scenarios where the trade deficit could be good.

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/are-trade-deficits-really-bad-news
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051515/pros-cons-trade-deficit.asp

From the Cato institute article:
Nations do not trade with each other; people do. America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world is only the sum of the individual choices made by American citizens. Those choices, to buy an import or to sell an export, only take place if both parties to the transaction believe it will make them better off. In this way, the “balance of trade” is always positive.

Nobody's going to accuse the friggin' CATO institute of being some sort of anti-business, liberal organisation. Drop the trade deficit BS already. It means practically nothing. Trump only understands that one number is bigger than another, so he thinks it's bad, but it's just showing his ignorance again. There's absolutely no reason to worry about the trade deficit right now.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

But you don't have to return goods or labour by yourself. You can keep printing more money, and send it to others and let them return goods and labour. If you start to think this is weird, you are about to realize that the world is in fact unlike what you've been thinking ;-)

Re:Still a trade deficit

[tomtomtom]

The language of "trade deficits" is exactly the wrong way around.

The rest of the world gives you *actual things which are useful* and you only have to give them a piece of paper (or even better, increment a number in a database) in return. I know who I think wins in that equation.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

A trade deficient isn't bad for us. Your example of the broke drunk on a tab is exactly why. The drunk outside of a debtors prison situation or lending from mobsters isn't the one who is going to be hurt by the huge tab. The bar is the one going to be hurt. The bar if wise, will realize that the drunk is never going to be able to pay them back in cash but they might be able to get him to sober up and pay it off in work though they will likely have to accept paying him more than his economic worth if the debt is sky high.

In the real world, Those we owe money to are buying things like facebook stock, companies and property here in the USA. This of course can inflate the value of those things which latter crashes but since we sold the things to them we got our debt back. But they don't see themselves having much choice. The only other choice is to devalue our debt which means making the cost of our goods goes higher. Another, way to look at this is that they would say w willl take $0.75 of US goods for every $1 you owe use. Yes, we can no longer buy cheap goods from over seas but our goods become cheaper overseas. And relatively cheaper domestically. If we have the drive, expertise, and regulatory environment, we can start to export goods thus restoring fiat in our currency since there are things that can be bought with it. Of course, this could go to hell and lead to incredible poverty if the manufacturing fails to materialize.

Ideally, of course, foreign governments would get wise to that they write us debt and we pay them back even less for it but the problem is they see huge short term benefits from trading unfairly with us. But things like putting huge taxes and tariffs on our goods while selling goods to us, at below there value is only going to hurt them. Imagine a car dealership that sell below cost to customers who go else where for service, they'll see huge sales but it will go bankrupt in short order. For foreign countries the worst thing they can do is to never buy anything from us. Then they are basically just giving us free stuff. Our government, would be wise to work to prevent this from happening too because in the short term a lot of people are removed from work and have to go on to unemployment, etc. Which creates a set of social problems that probably that out way many of the benefits of getting cheap stuff. And back to the bar example. if we allow the bar to get to have too much debt, it will never be able to pay it's employees and suppliers and will go out of business. Thus, we'll loose out favorite bar. In the real world it will be people in the foreign country going broke and this could lead to all sorts of retaliation.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[HornWumpus]

Chumps!

We can't possibly pay, without minting a few trillion dollar coins.

But yeah, the world in general has not saved for the baby boomers retirement. We might do OK, if another major currency goes pop first.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[HornWumpus]

US treasury bonds are the GOOD part of Chinese bank's reserves.

Let that sink in, their other debts are worse. That's what happens when the bank can't say no to children of central committee members.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[HornWumpus]

The ticking time bomb is the SS trust. Full of junk bonds.

When those can't be rolled over, we're screwed. Should have already happened, but the fed has been buying the bonds left at the end of every auction. Putting them on both sides of the transaction.

Re:Still a trade deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not how a trade deficit works. You have a trade deficit with your grocery store because you buy more things from it than the store does with you. This has nothing at all to do with borrowing money.

But how much money is "wasted"

[Anonymous Coward]

On paying off unnesscearry student loans and exorbitant rent. We only need to be "competitive" because of the waste. Eliminate the waste, become a normal economy.

Re: But how much money is "wasted"

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL @ gender studies. Ohh the stupid hurts!

When the economy is doing so good

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everyone look stressed out and unhappy?

Re: When the economy is doing so good

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't worry about it. Stress is a social construct

Meaningless

[nukenerd]

Sounds like another of those bullshit evaluations in which you can make the order come out how you like depending what weight you attach to the measured parameters - even assuming they are measured correctly (or guessed) in the first place. For example, FTFA :

This year the WEF changed its methodology to better account for ... [blah blah, blah .....]

Re:Meaningless

[geek]

Man you must be fun at parties

Re:Meaningless

[tezbobobo]

If it were one off, yes. But because this is standardised over time and the parameters are fixed over time, the metric travels well.

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

The measurement probably doesn't take into consideration of the clearly political nature of the repatriated production capacity and related investments made recently. The proof is in the next few years, but then the conditions might be already different due the said policies. It's a little bit like BrExit.

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

USA doing well, that's bad.
USA is evil and bad. Only bad things can be written about USA because it's bad and evil.

Good little NPC.

Re:Meaningless

[DigressivePoser]

Sounds like another of those bullshit evaluations in which you can make the order come out how you like depending what weight you attach to the measured parameters - even assuming they are measured correctly (or guessed) in the first place. For example, FTFA :

This year the WEF changed its methodology to better account for ... [blah blah, blah .....]

And do you ever feel that way about climate change studies?

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

You got that shit right. its a party all right, for the 'powers that be'
Not so much for everyone else

Re:Meaningless

[king neckbeard]

No, because they generally use solid metrics. But let's say that climate change is indeed a hoax. God clearly doesn't want us to burn oil, or he wouldn't have buried it almost entirely under assholes and terrorists.

Re:Meaningless

[DigressivePoser]

No, because they generally use solid metrics.

That's cool and all but when they predict we'll all be doomed by year XXXX unless something is done, and that date comes and goes and nothing happened, rinse-lather-repeat, then most of us non-NPCs begin to wonder about the use of their "solid metrics".

But let's say that climate change is indeed a hoax.

Why? It's not a hoax. It is happening and it's natural. The level of AGW is the issue and whether or not we need to tax gas at $200+/gallon (per the IPCC).

God clearly doesn't want us to burn oil, or he wouldn't have buried it almost entirely under assholes and terrorists.

Nice condescending statement that indicates what an asshole you are.

Re:Meaningless

[king neckbeard]

Why? It's not a hoax. It is happening and it's natural. The level of AGW is the issue and whether or not we need to tax gas at $200+/gallon (per the IPCC).

Because my point was that even if burning oil has NO environmental harms, my follow up argument says that we should act in the exact same way for other reasons.

Nice condescending statement that indicates what an asshole you are.

You're no fun. I am playfully reversing the reality for comical effect. The reality I speak of is that economies based on extracting natural resources are usually grossly undemocratic because the value is in the resources instead of the labor, leading to them to be authoritarians, which are universally assholes.

Now, the people who oppose efforts to burn oil will blame anything on God's will, but they don't seem to put together the above correlation between assholes and oil as part of a divine plan, even though there's more evidence of that than anything they believe.

So, regardless of whether or not there are environmental concerns with burning oil, it's in the interests of people who don't like tyranny and terrorism to destroy the global market for fossil fuels.

Re:Meaningless

[tomtomtom]

God clearly doesn't want us to burn oil, or he wouldn't have buried it almost entirely under assholes and terrorists.

You mean, here?

Re:Meaningless

[king neckbeard]

Yeah, I'd count Texans under assholes, and a lot of the people concerned about borders act a lot like terrorists.

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

God clearly doesn't want us to burn oil, or he wouldn't have buried it almost entirely under assholes and terrorists.

Hey now, don't you go calling Texans terrorists!

If you look just right the US is # 1

[Anonymous Coward]

So, from a certain point of view, with certain restrictions on the data and with more value given to some sectors over others, the US is number one.

I guess this is what constitutes a great country now: statistical manipulation.

MAGA!

No sense of irony whatever...

[Archtech]

From the first article:

"The last time the U.S. topped the list was 2008".

I rest my case.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[cascadingstylesheet]

From the first article:

"The last time the U.S. topped the list was 2008".

I rest my case.

What a coinkidink!

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what changed between 2008 and 2016?

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[guruevi]

Change we can believe in.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what the second "F" in FTFA stands for...

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[king neckbeard]

The bubble burst.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

The failed policies that created the perfect storm finally crashed down like the house of cards they were and Democrats had to fix everything? The boom we are seeing now is because of the 8 years of the Obama Presidency.

Trump's mistakes won't hit for 4 years or so...

Captcha - tyranny

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please do me a favor and find a nice graph of economy/unemployment for the last 20 years, and put a big arrow for Obama's election and Trump's election, and maybe another one for whenever you think Trump's policies kicked in. You want to show the world the tremendous impact Trump had, don't you ? There has to be a big spike, maybe the biggest ever ?

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I had never heard of a failed liberal policy bubble, but I guess it makes sense that it burst finally.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[king neckbeard]

Let me put it more clearly. The point was that the last time the numbers looked like this, there was an economic collapse that crashed the global economy. The point is that this metric is a poor indicator of the actual health of the economy, and citing it uncritically as a good thing is ignoring history.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time numbers looked like this Regan got reelected winning 49 of the 50 states.

Obama is an idiot that couldn't do his job and didn't care. Trump is showing you what a president should be doing.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, we can believe that Obama inherited a mess from Bush that drug us down massively.

We can believe Obama turned that around and turned us from losing 80,000 jobs a month to the longest stretch of job creation in US history, same with the economy.

We can all believe that change because we have the facts and the records to back it up.

Then we got Trump in office who has actually hurt us in that regard while trying to pretend his failures are successes.

So yes, Obama was a change we can believe in. Too bad he was replaced by a failed businessman who is worth less than if he never worked a day in his life and his families recently leaked taxes shows he is even worse at business than we thought and spent his entire life going on handouts and committing tax evasion.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[king neckbeard]

Again, the last time would be 2008, when the global economy crashed, but if you think Reagan was a good president, you're too damn stupid to continue talking to.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

New source of suckers to exploit

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most historians credit Reagan with ending the Cold War by introducing a bogus high-spend military-industrial platform (Star Wars). The Russians tried to match the arms race and ended up bankrupt.

Today we call the phenomenon of regime change due to sliding economic fortunes "Arab Spring". You could as well have called the toppling of the Berlin wall the "Eastern Bloc Spring".

And, quite frankly, I'm happy the Cold War is over. Better saber-rattling communications from Putin than stone-cold silence from Kruschev. At least there is some dialog, even if it is juvenile tribalism at best.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, mr. Reagan. Such a president for the people, by the 'people person, right?

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[Ryanrule]

Yes, your case of being declared a fucking moron is very settled.

Re:No sense of irony whatever...

[bigfinger76]

Sorry, you look like the idiot here.

Re: No sense of irony whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

So stating trends makes you a bad person?

Re:Still a trade -d-e-f-i-c-i-t-

[Anonymous Coward]

US want to print all the US debt!!! More, better!

US is the major theft of the world!

Gold standard did exist for regulating the world economy, without it, the world economy is being sucked by fake regulators.

Divide the US debt by the mass of US gold: the resulting division want to say us that ..... an gold oz is not expected.

Impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Trump.

WHO built that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama, 2015: Those jobs are never coming back.

<Trump beats Hillary!, starts rolling back out-of-control regulatory state, jobs start coming back>

Obama, 2018: I built that!

Yeah, sure you did. Go back to your "War on coal."

Re: WHO built that?

[jabuzz]

The real answer is neither. The increased competiveness of the US economy has come from cheaper energy prices which has come from fracked gas. Even if you got rid of all the regulations on coal, fracked gas would still be cheaper. There is of course a time lag from the availability of the cheap fracked gas to the increase in competiveness but nothing either party or any president has done has had a bearing on it. Well other than allowing the fracking. The only way to bring back coal is to stop the fracking of gas but that would be as dumb as hell, and very unpopular with voters; sorry your energy bills have gone up because we banned fracking to save coal jobs and oh while we saved a few coal miners jobs we lost more because we made our economy less competitive. That would go down like a lead balloon. Oh and a know the greens don't like it but you reduce your CO2 emissions at the same time.

Note Obama was wrong some of the jobs will and have come back because of the cheaper energy. It was however not really foreseeable the dramatic difference fracked gas and for that matter fracked oil would have on lowering energy prices in the US.

Re: WHO built that?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real answer is neither. The increased competiveness of the US economy has come from cheaper energy prices which has come from fracked gas. ...

I'd bet a shitload of money that you're ignorant of the fact that it was Obama's actual policy to drive up the price of fuel:

President Barack Obama’s Energy secretary unwittingly created a durable GOP talking point in September 2008 when he talked to The Wall Street Journal about the benefits of having gasoline prices rise over 15 years to encourage energy efficiency.

“Somehow,” Chu said, “we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

That WSJ article:

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama and his energy team could face the most inauspicious climate in years for pushing ahead with their plans to remake U.S. energy strategy.

...

Remember Obama's constant refrain "remake the US economy".

Tell us again why those jobs left?

If it was because of higher energy prices, Obama was deliberately driving them away.

So yeah, thanks for tying US job loss right to Obama.

Somehow I suspect that wasn't your intent.

Re: WHO built that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isnapple building iPhones in America? They arent? Then your quote makes no sense. Steve Jobs said that talking about iPhone manufacturing.

You trumptards are idiots that take everything out of context to fit your small narrow minded world view.

obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Obama!

More seriously, a Republican controlled House and Senate is the constant in this equation. So thanks GOP!

Re:obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

"So thanks"? What kind of grammar is that? Outsourced opinions being made from an Indian comment farm?

Re:obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's typical of my own Mid-western accent (or maybe Great Lakes accent, if you buy into that being a distinct regional dialect).

If you'd like to know more about informal usage, this paragraph from wiktionary is relevant.

Use of so in the sense to the implied extent is discouraged in formal writing; spoken intonation which might render the usage clearer is not usually apparent to the reader, who might reasonably expect the extent to be made explicit. For example, the reader may expect He is so good to be followed by an explanation or consequence of how good he is. Devices such as use of underscoring and the exclamation mark may be used as a means of clarifying that the implicit usage is intended; capitalizing SO is also used. The derivative subsenses very and very much are similarly more apparent with spoken exaggerated intonation.

It is important to note that your issue is a fairly recent controversy around causal usage of "So". And I'd argue it is not a universally held one.

tarting sentences with "so" isn't a trend or a thing. However it may strike you, people aren't doing it any more frequently than they were 50 or 100 years ago. The only difference is that back then nobody had much of a problem with it.

For what it's worth, my usage of "So" was intentional to indicate a casualness and uncertainty. Feel free to re-read my post in a sarcastic tone. (if the "thanks Obama" meme wasn't clue enough)

Re:obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

"So thanks"? What kind of grammar is that? Outsourced opinions being made from an Indian comment farm?

so shut the fuck up

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Analogically speaking... That's like saying that the ONE olympic star on television winning medals is representative that everyone sitting on their couch eating potato chips watching them perform, are also winning medals.

What is a competitive economy really when for thirty or fourty years, the economy of the PEOPLE has been GUTTED by the corporations and politics supporting them?

Fucking hogwash!

Re:Soooooooo

[guruevi]

Everybody is better off. Yes, the divide between the rich and poor is growing bigger, but all the US "poor" are pretty much nearing the middle class as far as the global economy is concerned. The poor are rich, they're just comparatively less rich than the very rich.

Pointing out the divide between rich and poor in the US is not about inequality or living in squalor conditions but about jealousy.

Re: Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Concentration of great power and resources in the hands of a few has generally had poor outcomes for the middle class, historically speaking.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who drives past a truly poor neighborhood on the way to work every day, this is absolute bullshit.

Re:Soooooooo

[drinkypoo]

Everybody is better off. Yes, the divide between the rich and poor is growing bigger, but all the US "poor" are pretty much nearing the middle class as far as the global economy is concerned. The poor are rich, they're just comparatively less rich than the very rich.

The "middle class" is not "the middle third of the nation". It's the middle of three classes, and Americans are dropping out of it, not achieving it. The shrinkage has paused momentarily due to our energy costs plummeting as we move to natgas, but that increased natgas production is predicated upon fracking which is ultimately going to harm the lower and middle class.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Pointing out the divide between rich and poor in the US is not about inequality or living in squalor conditions but about jealousy.

In a way it would be nice if this were true, but unfortunately for us, it's just a conservative talking point.

Wealth is relative - relative to the society in which that wealth exists. When the rich get richer, the purchasing power of everyone else decreases in a real sense. Why? There is now more money chasing the same amount of products and services, meaning that everyone else's wealth decreased as the wealth of the rich increased.

In addition, researchers such as those at the Equality Trust (https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk) have demonstrated that countries (and US states) with higher income inequality have higher rates of social ills such as violent crime, mental health issues, worse education outcomes, etc. It's not hard to see why - as mentioned above, everyone besides the rich is in real terms impoverished.

We really need to put to rest the lie that the rich can get richer without it being a societal problem - it IS a societal problem.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you experience a medical bankruptcy.

Re:Soooooooo

[misexistentialist]

Prosperity results in a higher cost of living, expensive housing and healthcare do of course mean many live in squalor; they may not starve, but that's like saying a rat is rich because there are dumpsters outside expensive restaurants.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

The poor are rich, they're just comparatively less rich than the very rich.

You have never been poor a day in your life or you would never say such a thing. Absolutely. Clueless. When rats are chewing on your kids as they sleep, you are not rich by any measure.

https://abc7.com/pets-animals/video-rats-infest-nyc-housing-complex/4500172/

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Pointing out the divide between rich and poor in the US is not about inequality or living in squalor conditions but about jealousy.

Whatever the actual, or material conditions of the poor are, the point of economic inequality is not about the present conditions but the inheritability of those, the greater political and social instability and the increased crime rate. That's the social cost we should be afraid of. The past and present events and conditions in various places of South America can give a glimpse of the issue.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes, the divide between the rich and poor is growing bigger, but all the US "poor" are pretty much nearing the middle class as far as the global economy is concerned."

You don't push the middle class into the poor class and call it a job well done.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody is better off. Yes, the divide between the rich and poor is growing bigger, but all the US "poor" are pretty much nearing the middle class as far as the global economy is concerned.

Of course you have verifiable data to confirm that right? And i'm not talking here by 'studies made by thinktanks' paid for by "independent" interests. Is there even data and how to be sure its not 'tweaked'? Like for example 'projections that Hillary will win with 90+%' vs Trump and other bullshit - see where i go with this?
Do you have an ACTUAL & VERIFIABLE data saying how much income does every 5% of population get? Like lowest 5% get x, next 5% get y,...
And don't even try with that average BS cause if one guy gets 1000$ and 99 others get 1$ average is around 11$.

Cause if you don't have this data that would mean you just like to talk a lot like big important 'entrapeneur' ( inspired by another troll comment) ?

Re:Soooooooo

[micahraleigh]

Rising tide lifts all boats. The best way to maximize tax collections is to grow the economy (as in broadly, for everybody) ... which is what Obama told O'Reilley that W succeeded with (!!).

The economics of it checks out.

https://www.investopedia.com/t...

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the Randian wack job.

Your desire to paint the poor as lazy and entitled is simple projection.

The US economy is two thirds consumer spending. Worship of capital leads to nothing but devastated economies as the wealthy hoard more while the Randian idiots keep praising and rewarding them for nothing productive whatsoever.

Being parasites of other people's work is neither a healthy life style nor of any value to society. Sadly the tick that is the .01% and their fawning "wanna be" faithful continue to gobble up the myth that it is just a "matter of hard work". Reality of course is, where you start often predicts where you end with little regard for skill or effort.

Re: Soooooooo

[guruevi]

Concentration of great power and resources has never been so fluent either. It's not the same aristocrat family anymore holding all the power and wealth, people traverse up and down that spectrum from poor to ultra rich.

Yes, your children and their children may be better off but beyond even your own generation it's not guaranteed anymore that all of them will stay rich.

Re:Soooooooo

[guruevi]

Which of the poor have to die at 20 in a coal mine? That's what poor used to mean. Now poor just means you may have to skimp on your cell phone or cable plan or drive an old Toyota vs a new BMW.

Re:Soooooooo

[guruevi]

I've had times in my life several times where I had no income, no money, no credit and no place to live. I know what being poor and homeless means, both in the US and the EU.

I also know that in many cases, those people living in those places are there for a reason, giving them more handouts doesn't help them. I came from a family like that, my abusive stepfather never wanted to work, always on some scheme to rip off the government whether it was disability or unemployment and running scams on everyone, including family members and neighbors.

Yeah, we were dirt poor and long before the time I left home (which was before I was 18) neither the government nor anyone else wanted to help us anymore. I know there are people that are being taken advantage off, people that have such low IQ or mental illness that they don't know how to help themselves, but by no means is that the majority of poor people and if we stopped taking care of the latter, we would have enough aid for the former.

Re: Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Your first paragraph is so far off.
The same rich people who were in charge in the 60s, are still in charge today.

The trump family, the kennedys, Rothchilds, etc. we just added a couple more, bezos, musk, zuck, etc.

Re: Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

No; poor means living in a broken down car and not being able to feed your kids. Poor is not knowing where your next meal will come from.

That's the problem, you repubtards don't get to redefine words. You have no idea what it's like to be poor, and you just proved it. If you think poor people are worrying about a cell phone bill, then I got a bridge to sell you. Because they can't even AFFORD the phone in the first place.

Re: Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a liar. You are the same person the defined poor as not being able to pay a cell phone bill.

Face it bunk, you are way outta line.

Re: Soooooooo

[HornWumpus]

We spend millions a year on free obesity related healthcare for the 'poor' in the USA.

Globally someone can be fat OR poor, not both.

Re:Soooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Your perspective of poor is extremely inaccurate. To use your definition, we'd necessarily need to use the temporal term for "labor" too, which meant you were literally owned by the company, lived in a company town, got paid in company scrip, shopped at the company store, worked at gunpoint by the company guards, and your entire family got slaughtered if you didn't thank your oppressors for the "opportunity" to die at 30 from preventable ailments.

Considering that by any reasonable metrics, a cell phone and a car are hard requirements to get any job at all, those go into the same realm as shoes used to from your point in time. All this while $30 trillion sits in offshore banks collecting interest that could be used to actually lift people up.

This is the irrefutable proof that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of relieving poverty; it can only impoverish the already poor while making the rich richer. Any critical analysis will come to that conclusion, as all historical critical analyses have. Redefining the threshold for poverty is such a canard that only the most willful idiots can fall for it anymore.

Seems bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Cooperation seems to be a better path

Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

From the alternate source provided:

While it is too early for the data to filter through in this year’s report, we would expect trade tensions with China and other trading partners to have a negative impact on the US’ competitiveness in the future, were they to continue,” Saadia Zahidi, the managing director at the World Economic Forum, said in an email.

Trump is reaping the rewards of 8 years of the Obama Administration's economic planning. Economies do not change overnight but trust that Trump's activity will have an impact. However I am confident you will blame his democratic successor when the bubble finally pops.

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the real deal facts. -1 score a joke

lol, we Trumped all those other countries

[Anonymous Coward]

Come-on, that's funny, I don't care who you are or which side of the political aisle you hate him from.

Re:Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is reaping the rewards of 8 years of the Obama Administration's economic planning. Economies do not change overnight but trust that Trump's activity will have an impact. However I am confident you will blame his democratic successor when the bubble finally pops.

LOL! Maybe you haven't seen the slides?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIhgYtVQGU

Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Rolling
On
Floor
Laughing
Out
Loud.

caption : compete

Re:Best president in history

[Applehu Akbar]

“Thermonuclear war not quite as imminent as it used to be” is still a long way from “reuniting Korea.”

Re:Job creator in office #MAGA

[JackieBrown]

It's funny how that gets repeated even though the last time we were number 1 was 2008.

Re:Still a trade -d-e-f-i-c-i-t-

[Anonymous Coward]

lol damn are they outsourcing their shills to India now? Atrocious spelling.

Was also at the top in 2017

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the linked report

Re:Was also at the top in 2017

[Anonymous Coward]

Wah! TrumpTrolls unhappy with post saying TrumpTrolls are stupid. Wah! Neg points to you, whoever you are Ananamouse, Annonymiss, Anannymess.....
You coward!

Not if you realize his name isn't really Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Trumpf changed the name to Trump. Not a huge leap from German to make it a less odd looking word to Americans. Plus the english word fits them.

Lots of foreign names sound or look like words in other languages; it's like a bad pun, only funny when the foreigner doesn't realize Aspergers sounds close to mispronouncing it Ass-burgers.

Federal Reserve Act

[MrKaos]

With so many pretending that they actually know how the economy works please find US Federal Reserve Act.

I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Somehow though, I think presidents are more the tail than they are the dog.

Re:Federal Reserve Act

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone finally gets it.

Re:Federal Reserve Act

[Anonymous Coward]

With so many pretending that they actually know how the economy works please find US Federal Reserve Act.

I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Somehow though, I think presidents are more the tail than they are the dog.

And some presidents are a region really close to the tail...

779 billion dollars deficit

[4im]

Indeed... 779 billion dollars deficit for the first year of the Trump administration.

That's between tax breaks for the rich and spending even more on "defense".

Guess who's going to have to pay that back? I'll bet it won't be Trump's rich friends.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Times are better than they ever have been before in terms of longevity, health, and average wealth. Our primary health problem is too much cheap, energetic food, a novelty for economists, who historically thought in tems of calories produced per person and dollars per calorie as measures of lifting fom dirt-floor poverty.

And yet we are spending as much per person as we did in 1943, the height of World War 2, when the US was engaged in a massive war on two fronts and was building one new major ship per week.

It is a spending problem driven by politicians and their hyperbole.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[LynnwoodRooster]

FY2017 spending was approved by President Obama; defense spending for the first year of the Trump administration was set by the Obama budget. It is back to around the level of 2010-2011 in dollars, and well under the first term of President Obama as a percent of GDP.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand how trade deficits work.

Federal budget deficit, yes, at some point that's going to be a problem. But running a trade deficit when your currency is the world's reserve currency is a huge advantage, paradoxically enough.

Think about it this way: You pay someone in China $100 for some steel. The Fed now boosts the funds rate, resulting in 3% inflation. Next year when that person in China comes to buy goods and services in the US they effectively only have $97 to use to spend on goods and services - meaning, the US effectively gained $3 in wealth.

There may come a time when the remnibi or rupee replaces the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, but that won't happen until significant social and legal institutions are completely revamped in both India in China for the better, or for the worse in the US, or both, since the US dollar is a well-founded legal and social construct and the Chinese remnibi and Indian rupee are not. That change looks like it will take at least several generations to happen.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[Freischutz]

Indeed... 779 billion dollars deficit for the first year of the Trump administration.

That's between tax breaks for the rich and spending even more on "defense".

Guess who's going to have to pay that back? I'll bet it won't be Trump's rich friends.

Well, that isn't surprising since 'world's most competitive' economy has become a synonym for 'best at letting the rich screw the citizenry'.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[bigfinger76]

We remember what happened during Obama's first term, so these comparisons are useless.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[LynnwoodRooster]

How does that impact defense spending? We're back to where we were during the first term of the Obama administration on an absolute dollar basis, and lower as a share of GDP. Defense spending is not really up - that's the point.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[sysrammer]

A larger deficit is now considered a good thing. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[harrkev]

Obama was VERY clever. He claimed that 2% GDP growth was the new normal, and then triggered the 4% GDP to only happen once he got out of office. I tip my hat for his forethought

http://www.aei.org/publication...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/r....

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[argStyopa]

You know there's a difference between a TRADE deficit, and the budget deficit, right?

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

It was $666 billion when Obama left office. It went up ~120B since.

That's nothing compared to the several years Obama ran trillion dollar annual deficits and fan boys like you had nothing but palm palms.

Re: 779 billion dollars deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Spending isnt the right side of the equation you fucking keynesian!

Re: 779 billion dollars deficit

[HornWumpus]

There are no keynesians. Keynesians save during good times.

All we have is spenders with an excuse.

Re:779 billion dollars deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, both are imaginary. Just print more dollars to pay for them both.

Ten Years Gone

[Anonymous Coward]

After ten years of trying to recover from the consequences of the Glass-Steagall repeal, we've finally done it. (And we even did it under constant Republicrat rule!) Go America!

So, time for another crash, I guess. Let's play a game: what's the name of the company that will first be declared "too big to fail?" It's not like we actually fixed any of the problems that caused the last crash, ya know. We're weaker and more vulnerable than ever before.

Re:Ten Years Gone

[ElizabethGreene]

My understanding is our banks are significantly more capitalized (they have more cash and cash equivalent assets) and less leveraged (they have less debt per dollar) than in the last crash. If true, those are significant fixes to the major contributors to the 2007 financial crisis. What data are you looking at?

Re:Ten Years Gone

[Anonymous Coward]

Less homeless guys have 14 no docs mortgages also.

Thanks Obama!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Obama.

You left us with a recovery so strong not even Trump has been able to stop it yet.

Sure Trump has slowed job growth, but he hasn't been able to stop it yet.
Sure Trump has slowed the economy and added massive instability, but not even he has been able to stop it yet.

Your legacy was leaving us an economic recovery strong enough to weather a fail businessman for this long even as he lies about everything and pretends he is doing better than he is.

Glad you left us with what you did otherwise we would be up shit creek without a paddle now if our little Russian Agent Orange had inherited the mess you did when you took over from Bush.

NPCs are restless

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe few chants of hey-hey-oh-oh-these-leftist-cucktards-gotta-go will help out?

Re:Because Liberalism failed!

[DigressivePoser]

I agree with your sentiment except that I think it's Progressivism that's failed rather than Liberalism.

President vs. Economy Myth

[Tablizer]

The bottom line is Presidents have a relatively small short-term impact on the economy. The boom/bust cycle has been showing its face for more than a 100 years and I doubt any President can stop the cycle; only tweak it around the edges (not always in good ways).

Economies are also affected by other nations' economies, OPEC decisions, and war.

Presidents do affect things like deficits and regulations, but these typically won't change the economy much in the short term.

(I suppose deregulation can act as a stimulus, but it's not fun to be poisoned even if it increases profits for somebody else. Birth defects and injuries do improve medical economies just as breaking windows increases repair jobs. But if enough people are poisoned with heavy metals or hurt on the job, our economy won't be competitive.)

Re:President vs. Economy Myth

[MobyDisk]

Economies are also affected by other nations' economies, OPEC decisions, and war.

Agreed. The US president has a very significant say in the last of those 3 items. I submit that the "great recession" was directly caused (or at least exaggerated and lengthened) by Bush Jr wars.

Re:President vs. Economy Myth

[Tablizer]

I don't believe the wars directly triggered the recession, for the mortgage bubble burst was pretty much inevitable; but the wars did drain the budget, potentially making the later stimulus smaller than it could have been.

Bad budgeting (debt) typically causes far more problems for future presidents than the one who caused it (or at reigned during the run-up, since Congress also plays a big part).

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[dgatwood]

Nice fiction. Under Obama, the economy added 11.6 million jobs, and brought employment down to below-average levels. In fact, by every metric I'm aware of, the economy did well under Obama.

Trump, apart from a lot of bluster and some ill-conceived tariffs, has done remarkably little to affect the economy, so it makes sense that it s continuing to improve as it did under Obama. Sometimes, the right thing to do is nothing.

#BetterDeadThanRED

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Ivan, most of that credit goes to Obama. And I'm still voting straight ticket Democrat in the next election., so suck my fat, hairy cock.

Like they used to say, way back when 'Murca was great - Better dead, than RED.

Re:"Those jobs are never coming back"? That Obama?

[scum-o]

FYI: The "Those jobs are never coming back" quote was from Steve Jobs when Obama asked him if iPhones can be made in the USA. It wasn't Obama who coined the phrase. Source: https://www.heraldtribune.com/...

Re:Job creator in office #MAGA

[micahraleigh]

Voters make a politician own it after 1 year. It's been some time since the change over.

TrumpGOP runs the country like they run their busi

[Anonymous Coward]

headed for bankruptcy. Despite massive tax cuts the economy hasnt grown enough to compensate for massive new spending, highest in 9 years. Trump is only a master of getting other people to pay for his failures. MAGA fools will be equally culpable.

How

[Ryanrule]

Does Singapore even qualify? It’s a tax haven city state.

Re:Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

And what happened 2007?

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than cutting taxes and reducing regulation.

You are a complete idiot. Thanks for letting us clearly know that not only do you not know what you are talking about, but that you are willing to repeat obvious lies that you are too stupid to even realize are lies.

BLS Graph of Unemployment Rate Since 2008

[Anonymous Coward]

Graph from Bureau of Labor Statistics. If anything, it looks like the unemployment rate is continuing the trend that started in 2009, but is slowly leveling off.

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[fatwilbur]

Remarkably little? As a Canadian I'm a little miffed at that, as Trump has taken away a massive amount of our foreign investment with his reduction of taxes and regulations. To be fair, he's had Trudeau on our side increasing taxes and regulations which has exacerbated Trump's successes, but the data is quite clear. (Examples here and here).

You might think these are just economist talking points but they have significant effect on economic growth and quality of life for each country, and Trump is clearly winning here.

Re:Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for repeating the headline.

Re: Because Liberalism failed!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. The delusion is too much.

Beyond the Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2016 under Obama the US ranked #3 but in 2018 under Trump the US ranks #1. Somehow in two years we managed to go from a pitiful score 5.7 to an impressive score of 85.6. Did the US jump up 79.9 points in just two years? No, the factors that determine scoring have been altered but of course the headline doesn't mention that. How would the US have done under the old scoring system? Can you compare apples to oranges?

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[wisnoskij]

The Economy was rebounding under Obama due to the cyclical nature of the economy. There's nothing he could of done save launching the entire nuclear arsenal at his own citizens to stop this upturn.

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump ended the illegal tax penalty for Obamacare sparing IT contractors like me from bankruptcy. Obama will burn in Hell.

Re:Because Liberalism failed!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Oh my, your nervousness is extremely evident in your wording. You know you're lying, we all know you're lying, why bother to continue lying? All you're doing is proving your own ignorance :)

We all know Obama's policies are what caused the good times, just as history has shown repeatedly. Trump will tank it though, as that's what he has done 100% of the time in his entire life. You can pretend reality isn't what it is, but you're only gonna fool yourself. And right now it doesn't even sound like you can fool yourself anymore! LOL!

Re:"Those jobs are never coming back"? That Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

You what other jobs isn't coming back?
Steve Jobs.

(too soon?)

politics, taxes, revenues, economy

[Anonymous Coward]

For the most part political leanings have no effect on the economy (Unless you are stupid enough to start a trade war). If you have a tax cut then business have more money to spend, if you have higher taxes used towards infrastructure, then business need to pay less for services and repairs. Jobs will shift from the private to public sector and back.

The data shows otherwise.

Kansas lowered taxes and the economy and job growth tanked. California raised taxes, and things grew better than the US national average:

* https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1052233415808962560

Also, how's that US Federal tax cut working out?

* https://twitter.com/econjared/status/1052532402017497089

I think in most tax jurisdictions, we're left-of-peak on the Laffer Curve, i.e., cutting taxes reduces revenues. Over the last >30 years, not once has cutting taxes increased revenues AFAICT. (At least for the top marginal rates.)

With a well-running economy, more fiscal stimulus is not needed. Now is the time to raise taxes and shrink the deficit (a la Clinton), and start paying down the debt. Then, when the economy eventually tanks, the debt won't be as large and going into deficit won't be a big deal, so fiscal means can be used to boost demand. (This is all Keynes 101: surpluses in good times, deficits in bad.)

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Remarkably little? As a Canadian I'm a little miffed at that, as Trump has taken away a massive amount of our foreign investment with his reduction of taxes and regulations.

Outside of oil, the data says otherwise:

Fears of a mass investment exodus from Canada in the face of trade uncertainty and U.S. tax reforms aren’t materializing.

* https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-29/canada-2nd-qtr-foreign-direct-investment-drops-on-energy-exodus

Game Companies Never Update NPCs

[Crashmarik]

The NPCs on slashdot will be using the same dialog trees until the site shuts down.

just answer the fucking question

[Anonymous Coward]

So your answer to the question is "NO". Thanks for playing.

Bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

How much did it cost Dump and his supporters to buy this position in this list?

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Economy improves under Obama: it's all due to Obama, his predecessor had nothing to do with it.
Economy improves under Trump: it's all due to his predecessor Obama, he has nothing to do with it.

Liberal logic for you.

I thought the economy was going to collapse under Trump? That was the libtard prediction pre election.

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[Kyr Arvin]

I thought the economy was going to collapse under Trump? That was the libtard prediction pre election.

It's probably going to happen, and sooner rather than later. But really, the economic rise didn't have that much to do with the Obama, and there's very little that Trump will be able to do to stave off the eventual fall. Economies rise and fall, and the effect that the President has on them is greatly exaggerated.

Re:Job creator in office #MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Lehman Brothers failed while pretty much all other banks were over-leveraged, requiring a trillion dollar government bailout, which was repaid with interest; otherwise we'd have eclipsed the Depression of the 30's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008

Moderation flipped

[DigressivePoser]

Wow, this morning CDT the pro-Trump moderation was pretty positive. Then at some point the anti-Trump moderators swept through. Maybe during lunch time in California? I'd love to see a +/- moderation graph over time.

we will, we will ROC you

[epine]

Apparently, you don't think America is renting machines that print money.

Apparently, you do think America is renting machines that spew giant piles of filth, that all has to be immediately carted off to the nearest landfill, at great expense.

Into which category goes a DVD? If it's a Gladiator DVD, soon enough it does go to the landfill, where it properly belongs (how did that abomination ever win Best Picture?)

However, if it's an instructional DVD titled "Machine Learning for Dummies"—though it might hasten to the landfill twice as fast—usually not until after the person consuming the DVD has absorbed the information and become an elite Machine Learning Ninja Turtle.

Advantage: America.

Moral of the story: Winners and losers in borrowed trade must be decided on a case by case basis. Because enlightened reinvestment is a win-win, any way you slice it.

This level of economic analysis requires 1/8 tablespoon more nuance than running around with your hair on fire chanting "derf derf deficit".

The idiots will praise their messiah

[Anonymous Coward]

Praise your messiah the Obama

Weed is now legal in Canada

[DarthVain]

That should help our productivity! :)

All kidding aside, the takeaway I get from looking at the Canadian numbers, is that the lowest scores that hurt our "productivity" are the "ICT Adoption", which is basically the number of subscriptions per capita of cellular and internet services. Which isn't a huge surprise when you look at how expensive and noncompetitive our telecommunication industry is (Rogers, Bell, and Telus) compared to the rest of the world. To which Canadian's have been complaining about for years. Perhaps it is time for government to take a look at what is causing our productivity index to fall and do something about it. The next time some conservative mentions corporate tax cuts to enhance productivity I'll be sure to point that out.

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[HornWumpus]

Your patoine and lumber industries are healthy!

Too bad you're too far north to grow really good pot outdoors. It's really hard to cover costs under lights, much less make a profit (at typical wholesale price in legal states).

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[dgatwood]

The general consensus is that the economy takes a long time to change direction, and as such, any economic motion during the first year or two of any presidency is primarily due to momentum.

Or, to put it another way, we blamed the weak economy during Obama's first year or two on Bush. Why should Trump be held to a different standard just because the economy is going in a positive direction?

Re: Job creator in office #MAGA

[dgatwood]

That's not entirely true. The President nominates someone to head the Federal Reserve, which is a position that wields a lot of power over the economy. Fortunately, Trump seems to have accidentally nominated somebody who he doesn't really agree with, so we're okay there. :-D