Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

Food prices should one of the primary needs I would think. That is a basic and it is one big benefits of trade agreements.

The unemployment rate is 4.6 percent. It's not as if a large swath of jobless workers propelled Donald Trump.

His complaining about the Chinese willingness to peg the dollar shows an obtuse understanding of the benefits. The world's willingness to park their wealth in our treasury bills allows you to use government spending as a stimulus. When he talks about making America great again, he is harkening back to a time when the goverment spending did stimulate the economy. The government's response to the 2008 financial panic was pretty pitiful relative to the size it needed to be, it looks better in comparison to the silly European austerity measures.

But stimulus spending isn't the same as a "trillion" dollar infrastructure bill that is more tax breaks than actual spending.

[entropy]

froot.. people with jobs struggle to pay bills and keep utilities on.... A lot of people in this country feel as if they are just one bad day away from losing it all. And if you told them they'd have to buy more local food (or god forbid, raise some of their own), they could pay their bills but probably only have a flip phone vs their current situation, I'd bet they'd take it.

[froot loops]

Again, it's hard to argue a counterfactual, that's why detrimental trade wars happen.

[hack]

Good point, ent. I agree with Froot, but sure.

So, adjusted:

1. It's really and truly robots that have taken "your" jobs

2. So do you want cheaper stuff or not?

[hack]

A lot of people in this country feel as if they are just one bad day away from losing it all.

And they are right to feel that way. And marginally cheaper goods won't do much good if you have that sudden car crash that leads to the avalanche of hospital bills, or lose your job abruptly, etc. etc. Those are risks more than costs, and that's a different problem than trade deals.

[Da Geezer]

The unemployment rate is 4.6 percent. It's not as if a large swath of jobless workers propelled Donald Trump.

C'mon froot, even you know that number is not true in any way. For example, in the most recent jobs report, (188k "created" not counting those "lost") had 118k part-time jobs included in that total. This is not job growth. Obamacare has put an implicit limit on the workweek of 29 hours. The labor participation rate is around 40-year lows, with 95 million "employable but not working" who have left the workforce and are not counted as unemployed. The current meme of the left is that Obama is leaving a booming economy to Trump. The truth is that any uptick in outlook is due to Trump's election, not something Obama has done. We have gone through 8 years of depression-level unemployment, and that would have continued had not Trump won.

Look at the scoreboard. Obama wanted us to be like Europe. US voters rejected that, and with good reason.

BTW, if Trump were to institute a 35% tariff (as he has "floated"), the US would be kicked out of the WTO. He can't do it by treaty. Again, this is a negotiating position.

Being the reserve currency, and with the dollar strengthing, the US is going to have a hard time exporting goods. Imports will cost less. That is one cost of being the tallest midget standing.

[froot loops]

Yawn

[hack]

You claim regularly that government cannot increase GDP, so any claim that an uptick in outlook is due to any expectations of something from government is an inconsistency you'd have to explain. In truth I think we both know that things are far more complicated than giving/taking credit for economic performance to a presidential administration.

As for importing and exporting, however, you speak as if this world is one in which any one thing can or cannot be produced and exported from any one place. That's not the case. There aren't more than ten countries that can host a company able to produce an airplane. Less than five have a company able to design a smartphone with mass appeal. Electric cars? Two. Etc., etc. IMO it is silly to pretend that domestic manufacturing policy requires a low dollar. I think the smart debate on manufacturing features a lot less talk on currency and a lot more on training people to have relevant skills.

That said, I agree enthusiastically that the liberal idea that Obama's left us with a growing economy is silly. I think Obama's done a decent job with economic policy, but wages remain insufficient compared with both the costs of living and the risks people face, which entropy has pointed out this morning. I think we'd all be better off were there no obsctructionism from the right on the post-crisis stimulus package. Righties suddenly like that spending now that it's not a Democrat doing it. The concern now is how much the government is going to get fleeced by private investors. Is Trump going to go on a debt binge and may paying for it all somebody else's problem in the future? If so, that could be OK if you pick the right economic projects with the greatest potential to catalyze new investment. Will projects be picked based on that?

[froot loops]

1. Just to be sure everyone knows. The commonly referred to unemployment rate at the height of the financial panic was over 10 percent. It is now at 4.6 percent.

2. There is a different rate that is always higher because it includes the unemployed workers of age that aren't actively looking for work. At the height of the panic, it crested somewhere around 17 percent. It is now between 9 and 10 percent.
The rate is called U6.

3. They didn't have a U6 equivalent measure during the great depression, but I've seen estimates that it was near 36 percent at its crest. Any attempt to equate Obama years to this is flat out false.

4. Financial panics have a tendency to be much longer than Run of the mill recessions because banks are increasingly unwilling to lend.

5. Just because you read something that says Obama wanted to turn the US into Europe doesn't make it so, if you believe that that, you can go to the Comet Pizzeria and root out Hillary Clintons child prostitution ring.

6. We can look to Obama's handling of the financial panic compared to Europe's austerity measures, it is asymmetrical.

[hack]

I have been going to the Comet Pizzeria to eat some pizza. That place deserves some support.

[froot loops]

Make sure you steer clear of Edgar Welch, stay safe.

[hack]

Good guy with a gun

[Dr. Strangelove]

McCrory officially concedes the Governor race in North Carolina. A rare Republican loss this year.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/allahpundit/status/805895831710797824[/ame]

[Coop]

Froot...what is our national debt and how did it get there...?


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