Tell me how donOLD had the greatest economy in the history of America?

[mrjurrs]

It appears to me that there is a false belief that the former President is the better option on the question of who would be better to run the economy. Putting aside the last year of his term where the economy began its collapse, my premise is that the former President did nothing to improve the economy other than to ride the coattails of the Obama economy. Why do I say that? Because in all the times I've asked this question, no one has ever given me an answer that works.

If you think Trump would be better on handling the economy, please give me one, just ONE economic metric that donOLD improved during his term which was not just a continuation of the growth President Obama presided over after the 2008 meltdown?

 

[Mr Person]

He increased the demand for vaccines and ventilators greatly! And then he turned around and magicked demand for ass pills for horses into existence! And bleach! Bleach of all things.... who cared about bleach until Trump came along?

 

[Ikari]

He didn't. He inherited an improving economy and he sat on that for about as long as he could. He had policies which hurt the economy and American manufacturing, such as his one-man trade war with China. And then COVID hit, and he completely mismanaged that, the global economy tanked and with it went our economy. Trump did nothing to soften any blows, to work with the States, or anything else necessary to try to address the problems. And we were left with a cratered economy, and when things started to come back, inflation took off.

 

[mrjurrs]

He didn't. He inherited an improving economy and he sat on that for about as long as he could. He had policies which hurt the economy and American manufacturing, such as his one-man trade war with China. And then COVID hit, and he completely mismanaged that, the global economy tanked and with it went our economy. Trump did nothing to soften any blows, to work with the States, or anything else necessary to try to address the problems. And we were left with a cratered economy, and when things started to come back, inflation took off.

I would also suggest that inflation gained a bigger beachhead in this economy with the 2018 tax cuts.

 

[Ahlevah]

It’s not so much how great Donald’s economy was but how shitty Joe’s is and is becoming: falling consumer confidence; auto loan defaults at fifteen-year highs; auto inventories rising; sales of existing homes at 30-year lows; credit card debt at record levels, with rising delinquencies; plummeting full-time employment…. At least under Donald people could afford to pay rent and to go to McDonald’s once in a while.

 

[Ahlevah]

I would also suggest that inflation gained a bigger beachhead in this economy with the 2018 tax cuts.

The inflation showed up in 2022, a couple of years after the federal government set the stage with massive fiscal stimulus and the Federal Reserve doubled its balance sheet from $4.5 trillion to $9 trillion. taking the M2 money supply to almost $22 trillion at its peak:

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output... “

Milton Friedman

Notice what happened after that: M2 dropped. That’s only happened four times in modern monetary history: during the 1930s, following WWII, in the early 1980s—and now. In the three prior instances, economic disruption in the form of a recession or depression followed every time.

 

[Fletch]

DonOLD. I see what you did there. Golly but you libs are funny. Must be great to have your finger on the pulse of playground comedy.

 

[Peter]

I could be wrong but wasn't the US economy the best after WW2 when it was exporting like bonkers to help rebuild a shattered Europe and Japan?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The inflation showed up in 2022, a couple of years after the federal government set the stage with massive fiscal stimulus and the Federal Reserve doubled its balance sheet from $4.5 trillion to $9 trillion. taking the M2 money supply to almost $22 trillion at its peak:

The Fed doubled its balance sheet?
Does adding eight and a half trillion to the debt count for any of that?

Yeah keep telling us how Donald's economy was so wonderful and how unemployment is surging.
By the way, a five percent UE rate is generally considered "full employment" and we're not even at four percent now.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I could be wrong but wasn't the US economy the best after WW2 when it was exporting like bonkers to help rebuild a shattered Europe and Japan?

Shattered Europe was back to manufacturing EVEN AMONG THE RUBBLE by 1948 or 1949.
My grandparents bought a 1950 Blaupunkt AM-FM-SW-LW tabletop Hi-Fi radio when they finally settled in NYC as WW2 refugees.

 

[Peter]

Shattered Europe was back to manufacturing EVEN AMONG THE RUBBLE by 1948 or 1949.
My grandparents bought a 1950 Blaupunkt AM-FM-SW-LW tabletop Hi-Fi radio when they finally settled in NYC as WW2 refugees.

View attachment 67534662

Yep, we did indeed get on our feet quite quickly but we had to import a whole lot from the US to get to that state.
It's what happens when entire cities full of factories suddenly cease to exist.

 

[Helix]

He didn't. Then he botched the pandemic.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Yep, we did indeed get on our feet quite quickly but we had to import a whole lot from the US to get to that state.
It's what happens when entire cities full of factories suddenly cease to exist.

I'm just attacking the so called "libertarian + conservative" idea that the US economy was not robust because of the New Deal but ONLY BECAUSE "the USA was the Last Man Standing" in the world economy after WW2 and they love extending that theory all the WAY BACK to 1938 and all the WAY FORWARD to 1980.

My point was that Europe, and later Japan, astounded the world with how quickly they restarted a working economy.
All nations need help after a war, and to put a finer point on it Ukraine will need a lot of help if they emerge whole from the Russian invasion.

But it is the Europeans who did the work...even mothers and children were manning the bucket and shovel brigades when Europe began digging out of the rubble.
That old 1950 Blaupunkt would not exist if there was no assembly line and no workers to put it together and get it on a boat to America.

Funny aside...
When televisions began to become affordable my grandfather insisted on wanting to buy a Telefunken TV set from Germany and my father had to explain to him that Telefunken TV sets were not compatible with the American NTSC system, and the German TV's weren't even compatible with American 110 volt 60 Hz electrical supplies either.

 

[Peter]

I'm just attacking the so called "libertarian + conservative" idea that the US economy was not robust because of the New Deal but ONLY BECAUSE "the USA was the Last Man Standing" in the world economy after WW2 and they love extending that theory all the WAY BACK to 1938 and all the WAY FORWARD to 1980.

My point was that Europe, and later Japan, astounded the world with how quickly they restarted a working economy.
All nations need help after a war, and to put a finer point on it Ukraine will need a lot of help if they emerge whole from the Russian invasion.

But it is the Europeans who did the work...even mothers and children were manning the bucket and shovel brigades when Europe began digging out of the rubble.

I completely agree.
Given how much of Japan was in complete ruins the rebound was amazing.
The Tokyo fire bombing on it's own would be enough to cripple most countries for decades given the almost complete destruction it caused.
London was hit by the Blitz but nowhere near as bad as our building are made primarily from brick so it was almost impossible to start a similar city with firestorm.

Coventry was the worst city hit here and even that was rebuilt.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I completely agree.
Given how much of Japan was in complete ruins the rebound was amazing.
The Tokyo fire bombing on it's own would be enough to cripple most countries for decades given the almost complete destruction it caused.
London was hit by the Blitz but nowhere near as bad as our building are made primarily from brick so it was almost impossible to start a similar city with firestorm.

Coventry was the worst city hit here and even that was rebuilt.

Japan was also back to churning out all manner of sophisticated high tech products and cars even under occupation.
In fact, a Japanese still camera with Made in Occupied Japan on the boilerplate fetches top dollar from collectors.
They didn't get a chance to churn out millions of them but they did show up in numbers sufficient to get noticed.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Coventry was the worst city hit here and even that was rebuilt.

We Yanks regularly curse Coventry for its incredible automobile engines, although I am not sure if any engine factories are still running.
I was under the impression that the Germans took over much of the UK auto industry at this point

Clarkson had a touching farewell a few years back.

 

[Peter]

We Yanks regularly curse Coventry for its incredible automobile engines, although I am not sure if any engine factories are still running.
I was under the impression that the Germans took over much of the UK auto industry at this point

Clarkson had a touching farewell a few years back.

The Germans and mainly the Japanese did buy whole lot of the mass-produced car stuff.
Interestingly, for decades Sunderland car plant was Europe's most efficient car plant because of the strong link between managers and the unions.

The UK still has a vast race car industry with a hub near Silverstone race track that has most of the F1 teams and they also make the cars for many US race series.

 

[post]

Unde

It’s not so much how great Donald’s economy was but how shitty Joe’s is and is becoming: falling consumer confidence; auto loan defaults at fifteen-year highs; auto inventories rising; sales of existing homes at 30-year lows; credit card debt at record levels, with rising delinquencies; plummeting full-time employment…. At least under Donald people could afford to pay rent and to go to McDonald’s once in a while.

Under Donald the cost of building materials skyed, speculators channeled tax savings into increased demand for single family homes, stock indexes were propped up by buybacks of individual stocks Trump had promised was to be invested in capital improvements, new factories that didn’t happen. Domestic oil exploration dropped 25% during 2019. Purchasing power has kept pace with inflation since 2021. the 68% who own their homes are worth more than in 2021, ad are pension investments in the stock market.

 

[Ahlevah]

Under Donald the cost of building materials skyed, speculators channeled tax savings into increased demand for single family homes, stock indexes were propped up by buybacks of individual stocks Trump had promised was to be invested in capital improvements, new factories that didn’t happen. Domestic oil exploration dropped 25% during 2019. Purchasing power has kept pace with inflation since 2021. the 68% who own their homes are worth more than in 2021, ad are pension investments in the stock market.

Lumber prices peaked in May, 2021. Much of everything else peaked in 2022. I still blame lax monetary policy and excessive fiscal stimulus for much of it. We had two too many stimulus checks, and Democrats kept their cities locked down longer than necessary. That’s why their economies are are still suffering today, four years later. Cities like Boise, Austin, and Las Vegas are seeing deflation in housing. Florida’s housing market is going to get whacked in many areas, some due pandemic-related issues, but also for reasons unique to it.

Basically, people benefited from a lot of excess liquidity and cheap credit that’s driven asset prices in some areas to bubble levels, but a mathematical principle called “reversion to the mean” will address that at some point. I don’t know when that will happen, but I’m staying in T-bills and bonds for most part. When this thing blows it will be fast and hard, and likely take many months if not years to resolve.

 

[Ahlevah]

The Germans and mainly the Japanese did buy whole lot of the mass-produced car stuff.
Interestingly, for decades Sunderland car plant was Europe's most efficient car plant because of the strong link between managers and the unions.

The UK still has a vast race car industry with a hub near Silverstone race track that has most of the F1 teams and they also make the cars for many US race series.

I think Germans live in an alternate reality. They think they know how to make cars, but most of them are overpriced, over-engineered crap that rely too much on plastic. I guess they thought they could rest on their laurels and keep selling this garbage indefinitely, but now people are wising up. EVs won’t save them either. China will eat their lunch, too, because people like cheap stuff from China. They’ll resort to protectionism, but it won’t save them. The Chinese are like cockroaches: they’ll find a way into the EU kitchen.

 

[mrjurrs]

It’s not so much how great Donald’s economy was but how shitty Joe’s is and is becoming: falling consumer confidence; auto loan defaults at fifteen-year highs; auto inventories rising; sales of existing homes at 30-year lows; credit card debt at record levels, with rising delinquencies; plummeting full-time employment…. At least under Donald people could afford to pay rent and to go to McDonald’s once in a while.

I'm sorry, he claims it was the greatest economy anyone ever saw.

I only asked for one metric. Did you look?

 

[mrjurrs]

I could be wrong but wasn't the US economy the best after WW2 when it was exporting like bonkers to help rebuild a shattered Europe and Japan?

Later than "...after WW2..." The transition from the arsenal of democracy to a peacetime economy was soft.

 

[bomberfox]

I'm just attacking the so called "libertarian + conservative" idea that the US economy was not robust because of the New Deal but ONLY BECAUSE "the USA was the Last Man Standing" in the world economy after WW2 and they love extending that theory all the WAY BACK to 1938 and all the WAY FORWARD to 1980.

My point was that Europe, and later Japan, astounded the world with how quickly they restarted a working economy.
All nations need help after a war, and to put a finer point on it Ukraine will need a lot of help if they emerge whole from the Russian invasion.

But it is the Europeans who did the work...even mothers and children were manning the bucket and shovel brigades when Europe began digging out of the rubble.
That old 1950 Blaupunkt would not exist if there was no assembly line and no workers to put it together and get it on a boat to America.

Funny aside...
When televisions began to become affordable my grandfather insisted on wanting to buy a Telefunken TV set from Germany and my father had to explain to him that Telefunken TV sets were not compatible with the American NTSC system, and the German TV's weren't even compatible with American 110 volt 60 Hz electrical supplies either.

Remember the Japan panic of 1980s?

 

[mrjurrs]

The inflation showed up in 2022, a couple of years after the federal government set the stage with massive fiscal stimulus and the Federal Reserve doubled its balance sheet from $4.5 trillion to $9 trillion. taking the M2 money supply to almost $22 trillion at its peak:

View attachment 67534604



Notice what happened after that: M2 dropped. That’s only happened four times in modern monetary history: during the 1930s, following WWII, in the early 1980s—and now. In the three prior instances, economic disruption in the form of a recession or depression followed every time.

Here is what I notice. First, you did not include 2020 in your source. Why is that important? Because every citizen that supports the R candidate apparently is suffering from mass amnesia. The worst President in the history of the US was President until 2021. Check out the chart change from 1.1.20 to 12.31.20. Inflation went from 1.23% to 4.69% annually. Check it out, at the time of this post, the annual inflation rate is lower today than it was when donOLD left office. Care to revisit your claim of the start of the inflationary run?

Inflation, consumer prices for the United States

Graph and download economic data for Inflation, consumer prices for the United States (FPCPITOTLZGUSA) from 1960 to 2024 about consumer, CPI, inflation, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

fred.stlouisfed.org

 

[Ahlevah]

I'm sorry, he claims it was the greatest economy anyone ever saw.

What do you expect from someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder? I mean, duh!

I only asked for one metric. Did you look?

Yeah, we can see that inflation began to trend up near the end of Trump’s term:



But some of us also see that M2 trended up prior to that:



Like I said, I, like monetarist economists, put more faith in the ability of the people who manage the inflation rate and control the money supply—the “monetary” authorities at the Federal Reserve—to affect it, rather than a single politician, even if that politician is the President of the United States. Since until recently M2 was dropping and is still below its peak, that’s a major reason I’m sanguine on inflation and bonds, but not so sanguine on the economy overall. This is bigger than Joe, Trump, or Kamala.