Tag Archives: GDP

business news, national news, political news

GDP up, inflation in check! Who knew?

President Biden keeps getting these political gifts from the bean-counters who work for the federal government. And yet … he continues to languish in the minds of Americans who seemingly are struggling with trying to process this good news.

The salty Democratic political genius, James Carville, once coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid!” in setting the tone for the 1992 presidential election. He was right then. Carville would be right today were he in the game working actively to re-elect Joe Biden.

GDP rose at an annual rate of 3.3% while inflation continues to flatten out, remaining somewhat stable, said the Commerce Department today.

Good news, yes? Of course it is. Ahh, but the doomsayers on the right and on the MAGA right say it’s nothing of the sort. They choose to ignore the findings and focus instead — and it’s good political strategy — on the issues that continue to plague the Biden administration.

Immigration and the southern border crisis? Yep! That’s a big one. The money we’re spending to help Ukraine fight the Russian invaders? That’s important, too. But not as critical as the border. I mean, the Russians must be defeated and Ukraine needs help from its allies to accomplish that task. The ongoing Israeli pummeling of Hamas terrorist compounds in Gaza? That’s big, too, given the immense civilian casualty toll among Palestinians.

The economy, though, well might have cleared the hurdle that the naysayers said would bring it crashing down. Wages are up. Jobs are up. Production is up. Joblessness is down. Inflation is slowing dramatically.

These are economic issues that President Biden should be proud to herald as he seeks re-election.

Yet I hear conservative commentators tell their audiences that Joe Biden is “the worst president in history.” Good grief! The numbers simply say something quite different.

It truly still is the economy … stupid!

economic news

Morning in America dawns again

Ronald W. Reagan campaigned for re-election in 1984 as president on the theme that it was ā€œmorning in America.ā€ By golly, it worked as President Reagan steamrolled to a smashing landslide victory, winning 49 states and rolling up an Electoral College margin of 525 to 13.

Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen. I believe itā€™s ā€œmorning in Americaā€ is dawning yet again in the good olā€™ U.S. of A.

Economic reports show that the Gross Domestic Product grew at a rate not seen since 1984. Unemployment is now down to 3.9%, which is about where it was prior to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. More jobs have been added to non-farm payrolls at any time in the first year of a presidency, which is something that Joe Biden has been proclaiming for a good while.

What does this mean for the president? It means he has some grist on which to build a campaign in advance of this yearā€™s midterm election, which will be a setup for the 2024 presidential campaign.

I am aware of the hurdles that remain. We need to rein in inflation; the Federal Reserve Board is poised to do that by increasing interest rates this year. There are some foreign-policy issues with which to deal, such as Russia and Ukraine, Chinaā€™s bellicosity and threats against Taiwan, the ongoing Middle East tensions. Of course, we also have climate change ā€¦ and the pandemic.

Economically, it is morning once again across the land.

The president needs to be careful to avoid hogging more credit than he deserves. I have noted for longer than I can remember that POTUSes donā€™t deserve all the blame nor do they deserve all the credit for swings in the economy.

The good and the bad, though, occur on their watch. Thus, they become the hero or the zero, depending on which way the economy is tracking.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Here’s a thought: Share the economic glory

Democrats running for president say that Donald Trump doesn’t deserve credit for the current boom in the nation’s economy.

They drape the credit over the shoulders of Trump’s immediate presidential predecessor, Barack H. Obama. They say President Obama’s policies are responsible for the continuing job growth, the diminishing unemployment rolls, the increase in the Gross Domestic Product, the increase in wages and salaries.

So, there you go.

Oops. Not so fast!

Hey, don’t misunderstand me on this matter. Donald Trump doesn’t deserve nearly all the credit he keeps taking. However, he does deserve credit at least for not botching the progress that was well under way when he took office in January 2017.

I resist granting him all that credit mainly because I want him out of office. I want him defeated in the 2020 election and I do not want him to ride behind the wave created by the good economic news that keeps coming his way.

However, the ongoing good news is occurring on the current president’s watch.

However, I cannot yet fathom why this president cannot give any credit to anyone else for the success he enjoys in the moment. That refusal to offer a positive nod to President Obama’s economic policies perhaps is fueling Democratic politicians’ current anger with the current president.

Hey, we’re heading into an election year. Thus, one man’s economic miracle is another man’s economic disaster. Donald Trump plays that game better than most.

business news, economic news, national news

Some perspective, please, on GDP numbers

Donald J. Trump is damn proud of the Gross Domestic Product report given this week, showing the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent.

Good news, yes? Sure it is! It’s even great news! But hold on, Mr. President. It ain’t “historic,” as you contend.

And, in fact, the rate of growth might not last, thanks to the trade war the president has launched with, oh, Canada, Mexico, China, the European Union … and maybe even the outer planets of our solar system.

As CBS News is reporting, the president didn’t inherit a “fixer-upper economy.” He took command of an economy in good condition. It has been on an upward spiral for, oh, the past eight years.

However, the president yet again took pains to disparage the growth rate during the Obama administration years. And, as is the norm, the criticism of President Obama’s handling of the economy was incorrect.

As CBS News noted: While Mr. Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, the economy exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency: in 2009, 2011 and twice in 2014.

The latest numbers are quite good. There’s no mistaking it. Are they sustainable? The trade war impact on various economic sectors will reveal that in due course.

In the meantime, the president and his team — who gripe about Trump Derangement Syndrome afflicting their critics — should check their own vital signs to see if they can ever shake their Obama Derangement Syndrome symptoms.

business news, national news

‘Economy is doing so well’

Donald John Trump is rightfully happy with the state of the national economy.

The stock market is setting records. Joblessness is low. More jobs are being added to non-farm payrolls. Consumer and business confidence is high.

That’s all great, Mr. President.

The president talked about all of that today as White House chief of staff John Kelly reported for work on his first day in the West Wing.

Here’s the deal, though. The trend the president cited is a continuation of the “mess” he supposedly inherited when he took over this past January from Barack H. Obama.

Didn’t the one-time Republican candidate for president trash the daylights out of President Obama’s stewardship of the nation’s economy? Didn’t he cite sluggish GDP growth as part of that so-called “mess”?

I’ll give the president credit, though, for a recent Commerce Department report that ticked up GDP growth a bit past its original estimate. For that, the president can take some measure of credit.

I just find it curiously ironic that one president’s economic “mess” becomes another president’s economic “miracle.”

national news, political news

It's still the economy, stupid

On the eve of the new year, let’s take a quick look at how the economy “tanked” during 2014.

What? Oh, you mean it didn’t? Darn! I must have forgotten about that recent Department of Commerce report that showed the Gross Domestic Product grew at an annual rate of 5 percent for the latest quarter.

OK, I guess that means that the Obama economic policies, those frightening elements that would send the U.S. economy into a tailspin just didn’t doĀ what Republican doomsayers said they would.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-economic-facts-get-in-the-way/2014/12/29/c82d7686-8f9c-11e4-a900-9960214d4cd7_story.html

As the columnist Eugene Robinson wonders in the Washington Post, what in the world are GOP presidential candidates going to campaign on in 2016?

Those darn monthly jobs numbers keep piling up at a rate of a couple hundred thousand jobs a month. Oh, the deficit? It’s down … by about half of what it was annually when Barack Obama took office.

Gasoline prices? They’re down too. Now, the president isn’t able to take credit for the rapid decline in fuel prices, but he sure got the blame from the GOP presidential field in 2012 when they were increasing. Do you remember?

And yes, Wall Street seems happy. The Dow Jones Industrial Index is at 18,000, up more than double where it was in January 2009, when that “socialist” Obama took office. As Robinson noted in his column: “This is terrific for Wall Street and the 1 percenters, but it also fattens the pension funds and retirement accounts of the middle class.”

Uh, hello? Count me as one of those “middle class” Americans who’s happy with the status of his retirement account.

“For years, a central tenet of the Republican argument has been that on economic issues, Obama is either incompetent or a socialist,” Robinson writes. “It should have been clear from the beginning that he is neither, given that he rescued an economy on the brink of tipping into depression ā€” and in a way that was friendly to Wall Streetā€™s interests. But the GOP rarely lets the facts get in the way of a good story, so attacks on Obamaā€™s economic stewardship have persisted.

And they’ll really get cranked up right along with the 2016 campaign.

 

business news

Economy has kicked into high(er) gear

What’s this? The nation’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 5 percent annually?

That’s the greatest increase in the GDP in 11 years. The economy not only has pulled itself back from the abyss, it has kicked itself into high gear.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/dow-crosses-18000-for-first-time-on-gdp-surge/ar-BBh9Hg9

What were investors’ reaction? The Dow Jones Industrial Average today closed at more than 18,000 points for the first time in history. The S&P set another record. Investors are happy. My own retirement account is making me happy again.

Here, though, is where I get confused.

I keep reading doomsayers lament the “wrong direction” the country allegedly is headed. Wrong direction.

The price of gasoline is down. Supply of fossil fuel is up. The United States is now the world’s No. 1 producer of petroleum. That’s one segment of the economy that’s looking up, and is getting the credit for the revised increase in the GDP.

You want more? The budget deficit has been cut by more than half. Remember the yammering of those who wondered whether the economic stimulus would bankrupt the Treasury? It didn’t happen. I consider myself a deficit hawk, so IĀ view the reduction in the deficit as a positive sign that government spending is not hurtling out of control, as some have suggested.

Here’s another kick in the teeth to the naysayers. The most recent jobs report posted more than 300,000 added to the labor force. Even better is that wages are up. It was that pesky wage figure that kept fanning the flames of those who just couldn’t believe the economy had actually turned the corner.

The gloom-and-doom squad isĀ continuing to outshout the other side.

I do not intend to let them get away with it so easily.