Trump’s Economy (merged)

[chicagoceltic]

The economy under President Trump has improved, I will give him that.  Hopefully it continues.  Only one year into his presidency it is hard to gauge what effect he has had and will have on the economy.  So far a lot of the improvement we have seen has been out of speculation of the President's policies are for business.  He clearly was going to deregulate a lot of things...some good and some bad.  He was going to give a major tax break, especially to corporations and the wealthy.  What this has done is build short-term/immediate confidence in the wealthy and large business owners that they are going to make more money which effects the market, at least temporarily.  However, supply side economics and tax cuts (predominantly for the wealthy) have been tried before with little success.  A year into a presidency is far to early to make a determination on how good or bad a President's policies are.  The real proof of his success are years down the road.  As of today we simply do not know what President Trump's impact will be.

On the other hand, nine years after President Obama was first elected we do have a pretty good idea about his effect on the economy.  Some in this thread continue to say that President Obama did nothing or did a horrible job with the economy.  The facts simply do that bare that out.  Under President Obama the S&P 500 went up 166%, home prices increased by 20%, weekly earnings increased by 4.1%, unemployment is down 4.8%, corporate profits went up 57% and in the last year of his presidency the monthly job growth was higher than the monthly job growth so far under President Trump.  In addition, green energy production is up a ton, carbon emissions is down, illegal immigration is down and far more people are insured.

Don't get me wrong, like every President before him President Obama made his fair share of mistakes.  However, the economy is in far better shape after his presidency than before and there is history to show that he and his policies have had a hand in that.  So far under President Trump we have seen an increase in confidence but we need to wait years before we can say with confidence what kind of effect he had.  For the sake of the country I hope I am wrong on his longterm effect.

Lind:  https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/

[nickagneta]

The economy under President Trump has improved, I will give him that.  Hopefully it continues.  Only one year into his presidency it is hard to gauge what effect he has had and will have on the economy.  So far a lot of the improvement we have seen has been out of speculation of the President's policies are for business.  He clearly was going to deregulate a lot of things...some good and some bad.  He was going to give a major tax break, especially to corporations and the wealthy.  What this has done is build short-term/immediate confidence in the wealthy and large business owners that they are going to make more money which effects the market, at least temporarily.  However, supply side economics and tax cuts (predominantly for the wealthy) have been tried before with little success.  A year into a presidency is far to early to make a determination on how good or bad a President's policies are.  The real proof of his success are years down the road.  As of today we simply do not know what President Trump's impact will be.

On the other hand, nine years after President Obama was first elected we do have a pretty good idea about his effect on the economy.  Some in this thread continue to say that President Obama did nothing or did a horrible job with the economy.  The facts simply do that bare that out.  Under President Obama the S&P 500 went up 166%, home prices increased by 20%, weekly earnings increased by 4.1%, unemployment is down 4.8%, corporate profits went up 57% and in the last year of his presidency the monthly job growth was higher than the monthly job growth so far under President Trump.  In addition, green energy production is up a ton, carbon emissions is down, illegal immigration is down and far more people are insured.

Don't get me wrong, like every President before him President Obama made his fair share of mistakes.  However, the economy is in far better shape after his presidency than before and there is history to show that he and his policies have had a hand in that.  So far under President Trump we have seen an increase in confidence but we need to wait years before we can say with confidence what kind of effect he had.  For the sake of the country I hope I am wrong on his longterm effect.

Lind:  https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/

TP...excellent post. Right on point.

[incoherent]

I work in Government and Commercial construction sales.

Around 2013-2014 the economy really picked up.  Our sales pretty much doubled since 2011 without any region expansion.

Not sure how this relates but under no circumstances has the economy just now become good.  It's been really good for about 4 years.

[Celtics4ever]

I think Pres. Obama saved us what could have been another great depression with some of his early interventions.   I think Pres. Trump with the Tax Cuts and de-regulation has made the economy hum during his first year.   People can argue whose responsible for what but both of them have done things that helped the present economy.   

It is said that some here are so partisan that they can admit that.    Your part of the problem not the solution.  America has little hope when people are so partisan that one side cannot acknowledge the good of the other.   You may think that Pres. Trump is the biggest problem but I think it is people that so partisan that give us extreme candidates and have a no compromise mentality and practice obstructionism.   It was wrong when it was done with Pres. Obama and it is just as wrong when folks do it to Pres. Trump. 

[Roy H.]

Apple on Wednesday made a slew of announcements about its investment in and contribution to the U.S. economy in part because of the new tax law.
The headline from Apple is that it will make a $350 billion "contribution" to the U.S. economy over the next five years, although it's unclear exactly how the company came to that number.

The company also promised to create 20,000 new jobs and open a new campus.
It said it expects to pay about $38 billion in taxes for the horde of cash it plans to bring back to the United States. This implies it will repatriate virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash.
Apple also said it will spend over $30 billion in capital expenditures over the next five years. About $10 billion in capital expenditures will be investments in U.S. data centers, the company said.

[Vermont Green]

Apple on Wednesday made a slew of announcements about its investment in and contribution to the U.S. economy in part because of the new tax law.
The headline from Apple is that it will make a $350 billion "contribution" to the U.S. economy over the next five years, although it's unclear exactly how the company came to that number.

The company also promised to create 20,000 new jobs and open a new campus.
It said it expects to pay about $38 billion in taxes for the horde of cash it plans to bring back to the United States. This implies it will repatriate virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash.
Apple also said it will spend over $30 billion in capital expenditures over the next five years. About $10 billion in capital expenditures will be investments in U.S. data centers, the company said.

Bought and paid for by government debt.

i recognize that because I believe that Trump is a totally dishonest politician, that I have a hard time believing all the good news about the economy.  Ford was supposed to bring jobs back from Mexico (or was it Carrier) but they never did.  Companies like lower corporate taxes, that is easy, but who is going to pay the added debt?  What are the risks associated with the reckless "reforms" to regulations?  I remain skeptical.  I don't feel like this is going to end well.  I don't feel like the reports like this one are real somehow.  It just feels like propaganda.  Kind of like Bitcoin.

[Roy H.]

Apple on Wednesday made a slew of announcements about its investment in and contribution to the U.S. economy in part because of the new tax law.
The headline from Apple is that it will make a $350 billion "contribution" to the U.S. economy over the next five years, although it's unclear exactly how the company came to that number.

The company also promised to create 20,000 new jobs and open a new campus.
It said it expects to pay about $38 billion in taxes for the horde of cash it plans to bring back to the United States. This implies it will repatriate virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash.
Apple also said it will spend over $30 billion in capital expenditures over the next five years. About $10 billion in capital expenditures will be investments in U.S. data centers, the company said.

Bought and paid for by government debt.

i recognize that because I believe that Trump is a totally dishonest politician, that I have a hard time believing all the good news about the economy.  Ford was supposed to bring jobs back from Mexico (or was it Carrier) but they never did.  Companies like lower corporate taxes, that is easy, but who is going to pay the added debt?  What are the risks associated with the reckless "reforms" to regulations?  I remain skeptical.  I don't feel like this is going to end well.  I don't feel like the reports like this one are real somehow.  It just feels like propaganda.  Kind of like Bitcoin.

The added debt is a drop in the bucket compared to our recent budget deficits.

As for bringing back jobs, Chrysler is moving production of the Dodge Ram from Mexico to the US, adding thousands of new jobs.

[heyvik]

the other side of the coin says...
https://apnews.com/f81e6d4350c444a08c2dfcb9cd5bd81d/Trump-claims-credit-for-what-is-still-mostly-Obama's-economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relentlessly congratulates himself for the healthy state of the U.S. economy, with its steady growth, low unemployment, busier factories and confident consumers.
But in the year since Trump’s inauguration, most analysts tend to agree on this: The economy remains essentially the same sturdy one he inherited from Barack Obama.
Growth has picked up, but it’s not yet clear if it can sustain a faster expansion. Hiring and wage growth actually slowed slightly from Obama’s last year in office. Consumers and businesses are much more optimistic, but their spending has yet to move meaningfully higher.

“I don’t see any noticeable break over the past year,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “We tend to overstate the degree to which the president has the ability to control the economy.”
The U.S. public appears to have a similar view, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week. It found that two-thirds of American voters say the economy is “excellent” or “good,” the highest since the poll started asking about the economy in 2001.
Yet 49 percent of respondents credited Obama for the economy’s health, compared with 40 percent who credited Trump.
Trump’s successful push for income and corporate tax cuts and his steps to loosen regulations have helped drive a surging stock market rally fueled by the prospect of higher corporate profits. And most economists are optimistic that growth will continue at a solid pace this year.
“We have created more than 2 million new jobs since the election,” Trump said last week in Nashville, Tennessee. “Economic growth has surged past 3 percent, something that wasn’t supposed to happen for a long time. We’re way ahead of schedule. Unemployment is at a 17-year low.”

The economy remains essentially the same
Those trends aren’t very different from what came before. Employers added more jobs in Obama’s last year in office — 2.2 million in 2016 — and nearly 3 million in 2014. Economic growth did top 3 percent at an annual rate during the second and third quarters of 2017. But it had surged above 4 percent in the second and third quarters of 2014.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.8 percent when Trump took office to 4.1 percent now. It fell by the same amount or more in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
During the presidential campaign, Trump portrayed the economy as floundering and called the unemployment rate “one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.” Now he accepts the government’s data at face value.
When the government reports growth for the October-December quarter next week, it may show the economy expanded at a 3 percent or higher annual rate for the third straight quarter. That could lift growth in 2017 to the fastest pace since it reached 2.9 percent in 2015.
Some of that growth may reflect greater spending by consumers or businesses in anticipation of tax cuts. But most economists expect it will take time for Trump’s deregulatory and tax policies to have their full effect.
There’s no question that businesses and consumers are more optimistic. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumped to a 17-year high in November before slipping a bit last month.
That hasn’t yet resulted in more Americans opening their wallets, though. Spending growth in the first nine months of 2017 was slightly slower than in the previous year.
Some economists are growing skeptical of consumer sentiment surveys because the responses seem increasingly skewed by political leanings. People in counties that voted for Trump reported a much brighter outlook on the economy after the election than did people in Clinton counties, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
People in Trump-voting counties were much more likely just after the election to say their financial situation had improved in the past year, the New York Fed said, long before any of Trump’s policies were in place. But the change in sentiment didn’t produce changes in consumer spending, the report said.
“It does somewhat undermine the message from the confidence surveys,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
American companies have stepped up their investments in machinery, software, and office towers this year after sluggish spending in 2015 and 2016. Such spending increased about 6.2 percent at an annual rate in the first nine months of the year.
Still, business investment topped 9 percent in the first three quarters of 2014.
In both cases, rising oil prices played an outsized role in spurring more corporate spending. When oil prices increase, drilling firms tend to buy more steel pipe and other goods that are used in drilling rigs.
Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, points out that when mining and oil and gas are excluded, investment spending has increased an anemic 3.3 percent this year.
Many economists expect growth to perk up in 2018, with the impact of tax cuts and the Trump administration’s deregulatory efforts spurring corporate investment and consumer spending. So far, 15 regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration have been overturned by Congress. The administration has put dozens of others on hold.
“There’s just generally the feeling that there’s more pro-growth policy coming from Washington,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan forecasts that growth will reach 2.8 percent for all of this year, roughly in line with other projections.
“2017 was largely an Obama economy,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said. “But going forward it will definitely be a Trump economy.”
Other factors besides tax cuts and deregulation are playing a role. For the first time since the most recent major recession ended in 2009, the global economy is enjoying widespread growth. That kind of broad expansion helps boost spending on U.S. exports of factory goods, a boon to manufacturers, and also lifts the stock market because it increases profits for U.S. multinational corporations.
Germany’s economy expanded 2.2 percent in 2017, the fastest in six years. Business sentiment in Japan is at the highest level in 11 years. China is still growing at nearly a 7 percent annual rate.
Manufacturing executives appear highly optimistic and welcome the attention Trump has lavished on their industry. Factories added 196,000 jobs last year after shedding workers in 2016. Still, manufacturing added 208,000 in 2014 and 207,000 in 2011.
And most of the jobs that have been added this year were outside the Midwestern “Rust Belt” states that swung for Trump in the election. Instead, some of the states with the biggest gains are in the South, Southwest and Northwest.
Factory jobs grew 4 percent in South Carolina from January through November, the largest gain nationwide, followed by South Dakota with 3.9 percent. Iowa, Rhode Island and Texas were next, followed by Wisconsin, which enjoyed a 3.2 percent gain. Florida, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Arkansas closed out the top 10.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s manufacturing employment was flat last year, while factory jobs rose just 0.5 percent in Ohio. Pennsylvania lost manufacturing jobs.
Fiat Chrysler said last week that it is moving production of some pickup trucks from Mexico to a factory in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit, which will be expanded. The move will employ 2,500 people. And Toyota and Mazda said they will build a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, that will add 4,000 jobs.
At the same time, 215 more workers were laid off last week at the Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis where Trump touted a deal early in his presidency that prevented the plant’s closure.
“There are still jobs headed overseas, no question about it,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said. “You can’t tweet jobs back into existence.”

[Pucaccia]

U.S. Jobless Claims Plunge to Lowest Weekly Tally Since 1973.
U.S. filings for unemployment benefits plummeted to the lowest level in almost 45 years in a sign the job market will tighten further in 2018, Labor Department figures showed Thursday.

Trumps economy just keeps getting better.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/jobless-claims-in-u-s-plunge-to-lowest-weekly-tally-since-1973

[heyvik]

U.S. Jobless Claims Plunge to Lowest Weekly Tally Since 1973.
U.S. filings for unemployment benefits plummeted to the lowest level in almost 45 years in a sign the job market will tighten further in 2018, Labor Department figures showed Thursday.

Trumps economy just keeps getting better.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/jobless-claims-in-u-s-plunge-to-lowest-weekly-tally-since-1973

Yes, I agree!  The economy keeps getting better! Its been this way for a few years under former President Obama and now that President Trump is in office, the trend is continuing! Way to Go USA! 

[nickagneta]

the other side of the coin says...
https://apnews.com/f81e6d4350c444a08c2dfcb9cd5bd81d/Trump-claims-credit-for-what-is-still-mostly-Obama's-economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relentlessly congratulates himself for the healthy state of the U.S. economy, with its steady growth, low unemployment, busier factories and confident consumers.
But in the year since Trump’s inauguration, most analysts tend to agree on this: The economy remains essentially the same sturdy one he inherited from Barack Obama.
Growth has picked up, but it’s not yet clear if it can sustain a faster expansion. Hiring and wage growth actually slowed slightly from Obama’s last year in office. Consumers and businesses are much more optimistic, but their spending has yet to move meaningfully higher.

“I don’t see any noticeable break over the past year,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “We tend to overstate the degree to which the president has the ability to control the economy.”
The U.S. public appears to have a similar view, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week. It found that two-thirds of American voters say the economy is “excellent” or “good,” the highest since the poll started asking about the economy in 2001.
Yet 49 percent of respondents credited Obama for the economy’s health, compared with 40 percent who credited Trump.
Trump’s successful push for income and corporate tax cuts and his steps to loosen regulations have helped drive a surging stock market rally fueled by the prospect of higher corporate profits. And most economists are optimistic that growth will continue at a solid pace this year.
“We have created more than 2 million new jobs since the election,” Trump said last week in Nashville, Tennessee. “Economic growth has surged past 3 percent, something that wasn’t supposed to happen for a long time. We’re way ahead of schedule. Unemployment is at a 17-year low.”

The economy remains essentially the same
Those trends aren’t very different from what came before. Employers added more jobs in Obama’s last year in office — 2.2 million in 2016 — and nearly 3 million in 2014. Economic growth did top 3 percent at an annual rate during the second and third quarters of 2017. But it had surged above 4 percent in the second and third quarters of 2014.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.8 percent when Trump took office to 4.1 percent now. It fell by the same amount or more in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
During the presidential campaign, Trump portrayed the economy as floundering and called the unemployment rate “one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.” Now he accepts the government’s data at face value.
When the government reports growth for the October-December quarter next week, it may show the economy expanded at a 3 percent or higher annual rate for the third straight quarter. That could lift growth in 2017 to the fastest pace since it reached 2.9 percent in 2015.
Some of that growth may reflect greater spending by consumers or businesses in anticipation of tax cuts. But most economists expect it will take time for Trump’s deregulatory and tax policies to have their full effect.
There’s no question that businesses and consumers are more optimistic. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumped to a 17-year high in November before slipping a bit last month.
That hasn’t yet resulted in more Americans opening their wallets, though. Spending growth in the first nine months of 2017 was slightly slower than in the previous year.
Some economists are growing skeptical of consumer sentiment surveys because the responses seem increasingly skewed by political leanings. People in counties that voted for Trump reported a much brighter outlook on the economy after the election than did people in Clinton counties, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
People in Trump-voting counties were much more likely just after the election to say their financial situation had improved in the past year, the New York Fed said, long before any of Trump’s policies were in place. But the change in sentiment didn’t produce changes in consumer spending, the report said.
“It does somewhat undermine the message from the confidence surveys,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
American companies have stepped up their investments in machinery, software, and office towers this year after sluggish spending in 2015 and 2016. Such spending increased about 6.2 percent at an annual rate in the first nine months of the year.
Still, business investment topped 9 percent in the first three quarters of 2014.
In both cases, rising oil prices played an outsized role in spurring more corporate spending. When oil prices increase, drilling firms tend to buy more steel pipe and other goods that are used in drilling rigs.
Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, points out that when mining and oil and gas are excluded, investment spending has increased an anemic 3.3 percent this year.
Many economists expect growth to perk up in 2018, with the impact of tax cuts and the Trump administration’s deregulatory efforts spurring corporate investment and consumer spending. So far, 15 regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration have been overturned by Congress. The administration has put dozens of others on hold.
“There’s just generally the feeling that there’s more pro-growth policy coming from Washington,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan forecasts that growth will reach 2.8 percent for all of this year, roughly in line with other projections.
“2017 was largely an Obama economy,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said. “But going forward it will definitely be a Trump economy.”
Other factors besides tax cuts and deregulation are playing a role. For the first time since the most recent major recession ended in 2009, the global economy is enjoying widespread growth. That kind of broad expansion helps boost spending on U.S. exports of factory goods, a boon to manufacturers, and also lifts the stock market because it increases profits for U.S. multinational corporations.
Germany’s economy expanded 2.2 percent in 2017, the fastest in six years. Business sentiment in Japan is at the highest level in 11 years. China is still growing at nearly a 7 percent annual rate.
Manufacturing executives appear highly optimistic and welcome the attention Trump has lavished on their industry. Factories added 196,000 jobs last year after shedding workers in 2016. Still, manufacturing added 208,000 in 2014 and 207,000 in 2011.
And most of the jobs that have been added this year were outside the Midwestern “Rust Belt” states that swung for Trump in the election. Instead, some of the states with the biggest gains are in the South, Southwest and Northwest.
Factory jobs grew 4 percent in South Carolina from January through November, the largest gain nationwide, followed by South Dakota with 3.9 percent. Iowa, Rhode Island and Texas were next, followed by Wisconsin, which enjoyed a 3.2 percent gain. Florida, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Arkansas closed out the top 10.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s manufacturing employment was flat last year, while factory jobs rose just 0.5 percent in Ohio. Pennsylvania lost manufacturing jobs.
Fiat Chrysler said last week that it is moving production of some pickup trucks from Mexico to a factory in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit, which will be expanded. The move will employ 2,500 people. And Toyota and Mazda said they will build a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, that will add 4,000 jobs.
At the same time, 215 more workers were laid off last week at the Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis where Trump touted a deal early in his presidency that prevented the plant’s closure.
“There are still jobs headed overseas, no question about it,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said. “You can’t tweet jobs back into existence.”

Excellent post. The same way Obama's economy wasn't a result of just about anything he did in his first year, just about nothing in this economy is a result of anything Trump has done. I will give him credit for the jacked up stock market as the market was driven by pure speculation this year over the expected corporate tax cuts that would increase corporate profits. Had that not gone through we probably would have seen a major correction.

[heyvik]

the other side of the coin says...
https://apnews.com/f81e6d4350c444a08c2dfcb9cd5bd81d/Trump-claims-credit-for-what-is-still-mostly-Obama's-economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relentlessly congratulates himself for the healthy state of the U.S. economy, with its steady growth, low unemployment, busier factories and confident consumers.
But in the year since Trump’s inauguration, most analysts tend to agree on this: The economy remains essentially the same sturdy one he inherited from Barack Obama.
Growth has picked up, but it’s not yet clear if it can sustain a faster expansion. Hiring and wage growth actually slowed slightly from Obama’s last year in office. Consumers and businesses are much more optimistic, but their spending has yet to move meaningfully higher.

“I don’t see any noticeable break over the past year,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “We tend to overstate the degree to which the president has the ability to control the economy.”
The U.S. public appears to have a similar view, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week. It found that two-thirds of American voters say the economy is “excellent” or “good,” the highest since the poll started asking about the economy in 2001.
Yet 49 percent of respondents credited Obama for the economy’s health, compared with 40 percent who credited Trump.
Trump’s successful push for income and corporate tax cuts and his steps to loosen regulations have helped drive a surging stock market rally fueled by the prospect of higher corporate profits. And most economists are optimistic that growth will continue at a solid pace this year.
“We have created more than 2 million new jobs since the election,” Trump said last week in Nashville, Tennessee. “Economic growth has surged past 3 percent, something that wasn’t supposed to happen for a long time. We’re way ahead of schedule. Unemployment is at a 17-year low.”

The economy remains essentially the same
Those trends aren’t very different from what came before. Employers added more jobs in Obama’s last year in office — 2.2 million in 2016 — and nearly 3 million in 2014. Economic growth did top 3 percent at an annual rate during the second and third quarters of 2017. But it had surged above 4 percent in the second and third quarters of 2014.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.8 percent when Trump took office to 4.1 percent now. It fell by the same amount or more in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
During the presidential campaign, Trump portrayed the economy as floundering and called the unemployment rate “one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.” Now he accepts the government’s data at face value.
When the government reports growth for the October-December quarter next week, it may show the economy expanded at a 3 percent or higher annual rate for the third straight quarter. That could lift growth in 2017 to the fastest pace since it reached 2.9 percent in 2015.
Some of that growth may reflect greater spending by consumers or businesses in anticipation of tax cuts. But most economists expect it will take time for Trump’s deregulatory and tax policies to have their full effect.
There’s no question that businesses and consumers are more optimistic. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumped to a 17-year high in November before slipping a bit last month.
That hasn’t yet resulted in more Americans opening their wallets, though. Spending growth in the first nine months of 2017 was slightly slower than in the previous year.
Some economists are growing skeptical of consumer sentiment surveys because the responses seem increasingly skewed by political leanings. People in counties that voted for Trump reported a much brighter outlook on the economy after the election than did people in Clinton counties, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
People in Trump-voting counties were much more likely just after the election to say their financial situation had improved in the past year, the New York Fed said, long before any of Trump’s policies were in place. But the change in sentiment didn’t produce changes in consumer spending, the report said.
“It does somewhat undermine the message from the confidence surveys,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
American companies have stepped up their investments in machinery, software, and office towers this year after sluggish spending in 2015 and 2016. Such spending increased about 6.2 percent at an annual rate in the first nine months of the year.
Still, business investment topped 9 percent in the first three quarters of 2014.
In both cases, rising oil prices played an outsized role in spurring more corporate spending. When oil prices increase, drilling firms tend to buy more steel pipe and other goods that are used in drilling rigs.
Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, points out that when mining and oil and gas are excluded, investment spending has increased an anemic 3.3 percent this year.
Many economists expect growth to perk up in 2018, with the impact of tax cuts and the Trump administration’s deregulatory efforts spurring corporate investment and consumer spending. So far, 15 regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration have been overturned by Congress. The administration has put dozens of others on hold.
“There’s just generally the feeling that there’s more pro-growth policy coming from Washington,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan forecasts that growth will reach 2.8 percent for all of this year, roughly in line with other projections.
“2017 was largely an Obama economy,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said. “But going forward it will definitely be a Trump economy.”
Other factors besides tax cuts and deregulation are playing a role. For the first time since the most recent major recession ended in 2009, the global economy is enjoying widespread growth. That kind of broad expansion helps boost spending on U.S. exports of factory goods, a boon to manufacturers, and also lifts the stock market because it increases profits for U.S. multinational corporations.
Germany’s economy expanded 2.2 percent in 2017, the fastest in six years. Business sentiment in Japan is at the highest level in 11 years. China is still growing at nearly a 7 percent annual rate.
Manufacturing executives appear highly optimistic and welcome the attention Trump has lavished on their industry. Factories added 196,000 jobs last year after shedding workers in 2016. Still, manufacturing added 208,000 in 2014 and 207,000 in 2011.
And most of the jobs that have been added this year were outside the Midwestern “Rust Belt” states that swung for Trump in the election. Instead, some of the states with the biggest gains are in the South, Southwest and Northwest.
Factory jobs grew 4 percent in South Carolina from January through November, the largest gain nationwide, followed by South Dakota with 3.9 percent. Iowa, Rhode Island and Texas were next, followed by Wisconsin, which enjoyed a 3.2 percent gain. Florida, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Arkansas closed out the top 10.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s manufacturing employment was flat last year, while factory jobs rose just 0.5 percent in Ohio. Pennsylvania lost manufacturing jobs.
Fiat Chrysler said last week that it is moving production of some pickup trucks from Mexico to a factory in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit, which will be expanded. The move will employ 2,500 people. And Toyota and Mazda said they will build a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, that will add 4,000 jobs.
At the same time, 215 more workers were laid off last week at the Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis where Trump touted a deal early in his presidency that prevented the plant’s closure.
“There are still jobs headed overseas, no question about it,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said. “You can’t tweet jobs back into existence.”

Excellent post. The same way Obama's economy wasn't a result of just about anything he did in his first year, just about nothing in this economy is a result of anything Trump has done. I will give him credit for the jacked up stock market as the market was driven by pure speculation this year over the expected corporate tax cuts that would increase corporate profits. Had that not gone through we probably would have seen a major correction.

Agreed! Are we saying that the left AND right agree on something!!! btw nickagneta,- I know you are left leaning.

[nickagneta]

the other side of the coin says...
https://apnews.com/f81e6d4350c444a08c2dfcb9cd5bd81d/Trump-claims-credit-for-what-is-still-mostly-Obama's-economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relentlessly congratulates himself for the healthy state of the U.S. economy, with its steady growth, low unemployment, busier factories and confident consumers.
But in the year since Trump’s inauguration, most analysts tend to agree on this: The economy remains essentially the same sturdy one he inherited from Barack Obama.
Growth has picked up, but it’s not yet clear if it can sustain a faster expansion. Hiring and wage growth actually slowed slightly from Obama’s last year in office. Consumers and businesses are much more optimistic, but their spending has yet to move meaningfully higher.

“I don’t see any noticeable break over the past year,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “We tend to overstate the degree to which the president has the ability to control the economy.”
The U.S. public appears to have a similar view, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week. It found that two-thirds of American voters say the economy is “excellent” or “good,” the highest since the poll started asking about the economy in 2001.
Yet 49 percent of respondents credited Obama for the economy’s health, compared with 40 percent who credited Trump.
Trump’s successful push for income and corporate tax cuts and his steps to loosen regulations have helped drive a surging stock market rally fueled by the prospect of higher corporate profits. And most economists are optimistic that growth will continue at a solid pace this year.
“We have created more than 2 million new jobs since the election,” Trump said last week in Nashville, Tennessee. “Economic growth has surged past 3 percent, something that wasn’t supposed to happen for a long time. We’re way ahead of schedule. Unemployment is at a 17-year low.”

The economy remains essentially the same
Those trends aren’t very different from what came before. Employers added more jobs in Obama’s last year in office — 2.2 million in 2016 — and nearly 3 million in 2014. Economic growth did top 3 percent at an annual rate during the second and third quarters of 2017. But it had surged above 4 percent in the second and third quarters of 2014.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.8 percent when Trump took office to 4.1 percent now. It fell by the same amount or more in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
During the presidential campaign, Trump portrayed the economy as floundering and called the unemployment rate “one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.” Now he accepts the government’s data at face value.
When the government reports growth for the October-December quarter next week, it may show the economy expanded at a 3 percent or higher annual rate for the third straight quarter. That could lift growth in 2017 to the fastest pace since it reached 2.9 percent in 2015.
Some of that growth may reflect greater spending by consumers or businesses in anticipation of tax cuts. But most economists expect it will take time for Trump’s deregulatory and tax policies to have their full effect.
There’s no question that businesses and consumers are more optimistic. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumped to a 17-year high in November before slipping a bit last month.
That hasn’t yet resulted in more Americans opening their wallets, though. Spending growth in the first nine months of 2017 was slightly slower than in the previous year.
Some economists are growing skeptical of consumer sentiment surveys because the responses seem increasingly skewed by political leanings. People in counties that voted for Trump reported a much brighter outlook on the economy after the election than did people in Clinton counties, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
People in Trump-voting counties were much more likely just after the election to say their financial situation had improved in the past year, the New York Fed said, long before any of Trump’s policies were in place. But the change in sentiment didn’t produce changes in consumer spending, the report said.
“It does somewhat undermine the message from the confidence surveys,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
American companies have stepped up their investments in machinery, software, and office towers this year after sluggish spending in 2015 and 2016. Such spending increased about 6.2 percent at an annual rate in the first nine months of the year.
Still, business investment topped 9 percent in the first three quarters of 2014.
In both cases, rising oil prices played an outsized role in spurring more corporate spending. When oil prices increase, drilling firms tend to buy more steel pipe and other goods that are used in drilling rigs.
Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, points out that when mining and oil and gas are excluded, investment spending has increased an anemic 3.3 percent this year.
Many economists expect growth to perk up in 2018, with the impact of tax cuts and the Trump administration’s deregulatory efforts spurring corporate investment and consumer spending. So far, 15 regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration have been overturned by Congress. The administration has put dozens of others on hold.
“There’s just generally the feeling that there’s more pro-growth policy coming from Washington,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan forecasts that growth will reach 2.8 percent for all of this year, roughly in line with other projections.
“2017 was largely an Obama economy,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said. “But going forward it will definitely be a Trump economy.”
Other factors besides tax cuts and deregulation are playing a role. For the first time since the most recent major recession ended in 2009, the global economy is enjoying widespread growth. That kind of broad expansion helps boost spending on U.S. exports of factory goods, a boon to manufacturers, and also lifts the stock market because it increases profits for U.S. multinational corporations.
Germany’s economy expanded 2.2 percent in 2017, the fastest in six years. Business sentiment in Japan is at the highest level in 11 years. China is still growing at nearly a 7 percent annual rate.
Manufacturing executives appear highly optimistic and welcome the attention Trump has lavished on their industry. Factories added 196,000 jobs last year after shedding workers in 2016. Still, manufacturing added 208,000 in 2014 and 207,000 in 2011.
And most of the jobs that have been added this year were outside the Midwestern “Rust Belt” states that swung for Trump in the election. Instead, some of the states with the biggest gains are in the South, Southwest and Northwest.
Factory jobs grew 4 percent in South Carolina from January through November, the largest gain nationwide, followed by South Dakota with 3.9 percent. Iowa, Rhode Island and Texas were next, followed by Wisconsin, which enjoyed a 3.2 percent gain. Florida, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Arkansas closed out the top 10.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s manufacturing employment was flat last year, while factory jobs rose just 0.5 percent in Ohio. Pennsylvania lost manufacturing jobs.
Fiat Chrysler said last week that it is moving production of some pickup trucks from Mexico to a factory in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit, which will be expanded. The move will employ 2,500 people. And Toyota and Mazda said they will build a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, that will add 4,000 jobs.
At the same time, 215 more workers were laid off last week at the Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis where Trump touted a deal early in his presidency that prevented the plant’s closure.
“There are still jobs headed overseas, no question about it,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said. “You can’t tweet jobs back into existence.”

Excellent post. The same way Obama's economy wasn't a result of just about anything he did in his first year, just about nothing in this economy is a result of anything Trump has done. I will give him credit for the jacked up stock market as the market was driven by pure speculation this year over the expected corporate tax cuts that would increase corporate profits. Had that not gone through we probably would have seen a major correction.

Agreed! Are we saying that the left AND right agree on something!!! btw nickagneta,- I know you are left leaning.

😄 TP

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So gas prices seem to have ticked up a bit over 10% nearby my little patch of paradise...read somewhere it's due to a quick drop in the dollar in response to the tax cut/deficit increase.

For those not getting a windfall from the tax cut, the ripple effects look to be unpleasant.

[nickagneta]

So gas prices seem to have ticked up a bit over 10% nearby my little patch of paradise...read somewhere it's due to a quick drop in the dollar in response to the tax cut/deficit increase.

For those not getting a windfall from the tax cut, the ripple effects look to be unpleasant.

Well, inflation is the most likely result of this tax cut but I am not sure I would agree that gas prices are an immediate result of the tax cut. Could be but I doubt it since gas prices have been so volatile over the last 2 years or more.