Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

RE: Economy

True. But the annual growth rate of 2.8% is well below what Trump and the GOP claimed they would create through tax cuts. It also fell just a hair short of matching Obama's best year. Virtually every forecaster I've seen (unless they are a Trump toady playing economist on tv) expects 2019 & 2020 to be weaker than 2018.

So the White House is touting a different figure: emphasizing 4 consecutive quarter average growth instead. Which is this case is 3.1%. But there again, Obama had growth of 3%+ over 4 consecutive quarters at least 4 different times.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/trumps-economic-policies-failed-to-deliver-promised-3percent-growth-in-2018.html

[iam416]

True.

Glad we agree.

I suggest taking the numbers for what they are. Good news. As you agree. If you want to get into predictions, there's plenty about what a catastrophic economic failure PDJT would be and how tax cuts would hurt the economy.

So, I don't quite get it -- PDJT's Economy is right on par with Obama's PEAK Economy. Are you saying Obama's Peak was shitty? And Obama's final year was considerably lower (2016).

[Dr. Strangelove]

Glad we agree.

I suggest taking the numbers for what they are. Good news. As you agree. If you want to get into predictions, there's plenty about what a catastrophic economic failure PDJT would be and how tax cuts would hurt the economy.

So, I don't quite get it -- PDJT's Economy is right on par with Obama's PEAK Economy. Are you saying Obama's Peak was shitty? And Obama's final year was considerably lower (2016).

It's actually the reverse. I'm not poo poo'ing the numbers. I'm saying the dreaded Obama economy wasn't, y'know, bad, after the first two years. Which has been the standard Trump/GOP talking point for the past 3 years.

Maybe, just maybe, Trump was handed an economy that was in pretty good shape.

[Hannibal]

The economy continues to hum along at a nice slow burn: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...p?srnd=premium

One of my new tasks is to sit in on pension board meetings. They are, more or less, dull as fucking dishwater. But, they do involve reporting from the folks in charge of the investments. And they get asked questions about what makes sense, how to guard against risk, etc. Something interesting I've heard, now, from two different financial management groups is that one way to think of how long an "up cycle" will last is to think about it in terms of total GDP growth. If you burn hot then the cycle is shorter. If you burn low then the cycle can go on for awhile. That's how they view the current cycle. They've even pushed back their forecasts for a down turn to 2021-22ish. Since I know nothing of this macro-economic stuff, I found that interesting.

Ridiculous and inconsistent with history.

[AlabamAlum]

[froot loops]

There's no big warning signs pointing to a downturn like there was in 2006-2007, but that was a bad financial panic and those aren't that common compared to a garden variety recession. The problem with that was too many of the important folks thought of it like a garden variety recession and didn't throw enough at it. That is thought to be common with recoveries of financial panics, they have the more slow-burn growth rates.

There's no reason there has to be a downturn, Australia famously hasn't had a recession in 29 years.

Trump's boasting of what kind of growth rate he could achieve showed his ignorance of how the system currently works and has worked since Volcker applied the brakes to the inflation rates of the 70's. The Fed favors the inflation part of the dual mandate. If any president thinks that they can run some plan that keeps the GDP growth near 4 percent for any length of time, they haven't been paying attention to how the Fed operates. If the Fed see that type of growth, expect the brakes to be applied with interest rates. So when you hear Trump complain about the Fed when the FOMC gives guidance that they are going to hike rates, he has a valid point. But it's valid point for any president since Carter. Most Fed governors and the Chairman are fairly hawkish on this point.

[Kapture1]

RE: Economy

True. But the annual growth rate of 2.8% is well below what Trump and the GOP claimed they would create through tax cuts. It also fell just a hair short of matching Obama's best year. Virtually every forecaster I've seen (unless they are a Trump toady playing economist on tv) expects 2019 & 2020 to be weaker than 2018.

So the White House is touting a different figure: emphasizing 4 consecutive quarter average growth instead. Which is this case is 3.1%. But there again, Obama had growth of 3%+ over 4 consecutive quarters at least 4 different times.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/trum...h-in-2018.html

2.9% not 2.8


basically Trump matched in 2 years the absolute best 0bama could do in 8.

[iam416]

Heh. Of that vintage, the coolest thing is the actual Chicago Tribune "Dewey Defeats Truman" edition. My brother has that. It's probably a couple grand.

I have a James A. Traficant for President button back from his short-lived 1988 campaign. Fucking Dukakis. Traficant would have won!

[Da Geezer]

RE: Economy

True. But the annual growth rate of 2.8% is well below what Trump and the GOP claimed they would create through tax cuts. It also fell just a hair short of matching Obama's best year. Virtually every forecaster I've seen (unless they are a Trump toady playing economist on tv) expects 2019 & 2020 to be weaker than 2018.

So the White House is touting a different figure: emphasizing 4 consecutive quarter average growth instead. Which is this case is 3.1%. But there again, Obama had growth of 3%+ over 4 consecutive quarters at least 4 different times.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/trum...h-in-2018.html

Heh. What BS. Might I suggest that when you see the name John Harwood attached to an article, just skip the article. He was the guy who checked with the Hillary campaign after he asked a couple of polemic questions during one of the 2016 debates.

This is the actual record for the last eight years or so. Four consecutive quarters of 3% growth, four times? Utter nonsense. Four quarters is a year. That means the Obama economy had four years of 3% or better growth. That is laughable on its face, so I checked the actual statistics from a non-fake source.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-chance-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/

[Da Geezer]

There's no big warning signs pointing to a downturn like there was in 2006-2007, but that was a bad financial panic and those aren't that common compared to a garden variety recession. The problem with that was too many of the important folks thought of it like a garden variety recession and didn't throw enough at it. That is thought to be common with recoveries of financial panics, they have the more slow-burn growth rates.

There's no reason there has to be a downturn, Australia famously hasn't had a recession in 29 years.

Trump's boasting of what kind of growth rate he could achieve showed his ignorance of how the system currently works and has worked since Volcker applied the brakes to the inflation rates of the 70's. The Fed favors the inflation part of the dual mandate. If any president thinks that they can run some plan that keeps the GDP growth near 4 percent for any length of time, they haven't been paying attention to how the Fed operates. If the Fed see that type of growth, expect the brakes to be applied with interest rates. So when you hear Trump complain about the Fed when the FOMC gives guidance that they are going to hike rates, he has a valid point. But it's valid point for any president since Carter. Most Fed governors and the Chairman are fairly hawkish on this point.

I agree with most of this. If you look at the chart I just posted, notice how the standard deviation of change has been radically lowered in the last couple of years. This is not particularly Trump's doing (other than deregulation), but it reflects the Fed doing its job. The point that Talent made about risk and the advisors' saying that the "consensus" is a recession in 2021-2022 makes more sense when you see the stable growth of GDP growth in the last few years. Slow and stable growth is a lot better than the Obama era swings which were mostly prompted by extraordinary spending spurts. Tax policy has longer term effects than spending.

[Kapture1]

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[Hannibal]

After the great recession of 08-09, the Obama economy typically grew at an anemic rate of around 2%, give or take. Historically speaking, that sucks. Leading up to the 2016 election, there was no shortage of commentary about how:

A. This was the new normal, so we might as well just get used to it.

and

B. We need massive waves of immigrants to sustain just this anemic growth rate.

There's no law of physics that says that our economy can't grow like it did post-WWII, when GDP growth rates north of 5% were common and we built the country's interstate highway system and put a man on the moon with a government that was much smaller, as a percentage of GDP, than it is now. As recently as the 1990s, we had a very long sustained period of robust growth with low inflation better than what we have now.

[froot loops]

4 consecutive quarters of average 3% growth does not mean they are claiming 4 years of 3 percent growth. Duh.

Geezer posted something that didn't have all of Obama's quarterly growth, I wonder why. Here is a powerpoint from the treasury giving the other years.

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-ce...omicGrowth.pdf

Using the stats given on that link, lets see the math. I see 5 for Obama. Do your math and show me where I'm wrong as I'm not sure on their methodolgy.

Q3-09 - Q2-10 - 3.3 percent average growth
Q4-09 - Q3-10 - 3.5 percent average growth
Q1-10 - Q4-10 - 3.12 percent average growth
Q2-14 - Q1-15 - 3.8 percent average growth
Q3-14 - Q415 - 3.35 percent average growth

I see 2 under Trump
Q4-17 - Q3-18 - 3.03 percent average growth
Q1-17 - Q4-18 - 3.1 percentage groqwth

If q1 2019 comes in at least 1.8 percent growth, that will be the third stretch under Trump

[Da Geezer]

Strangelove said "So the White House is touting a different figure: emphasizing 4 consecutive quarter average growth instead. Which is this case is 3.1%. But there again, Obama had growth of 3%+ over 4 consecutive quarters at least 4 different times."

Froot, it is getting tedious answering your babbling.

Please focus on the statement:

Obama had growth of 3%+ over 4 consecutive quarters at least 4 different times."

Four quarters four different times. Four quarters consecutively is a year. That is because (1 X 1/4 = 1). Four different times means that there were four of these one year periods. As near as I can tell, that means that in 4 of Obama's eight years in office (at a minimum), there was 3% growth. That is why I checked the actual statistics, because I was alive for all of those eight years, and times were bad and getting worse. You folks on welfare may not have felt it, but the working population certainly did.

[froot loops]

Its tedious because you are having trouble comprehending there can be overlapping cycles, in what they are trying to claim. . What you are saying the statement should say approximating the following:

Obama had growth of 3%+ over 4 consecutive quarters at least 4 different times seperately

This way, they can claim one quarter over the 4 quarter average once but that's not what your statement says that you can't comprehend.


Again you prove your standing as an utter POS by the following statement.

"You folks on welfare may not have felt it, but the working population certainly did."

That is your standard bullshit response to getting your bullshit thrown back in your face, accuse someone being on welfare. You are a miserable ass.