Posts Tagged ‘economy’

These are few excerpts from an article in the LA Times, with a few comments of my own thrown in! It was long so I am going to try and shorten it so some of you might read it. Actually nothing I have not said before, but here goes again!
President Trump stood before a crowd of small-business owners at a hotel last week and said that his administration’s economic policy could “be summed up in three very beautiful words … jobs, jobs, jobs.” But when it comes to jobs, Trump is like the wealthy heir who, as the saying goes, was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
Unemployment rates for blacks, Latinos and all Americans began a steady decline in late 2009 that has continued since Trump took office. The same is true with the plunge in first-time claims for unemployment benefits.
And the 3.4 million jobs created in the 18 months from December 2016 through May of this year isn’t such an unbelievable number. The U.S. economy added 3.7 million net new jobs in the 18 months immediately before that.
It was Obama administration policies plus Federal Reserve policies that engineered a recovery from the depths of the Great Recession and that continues. The tax break given to the rich has kept it going, but that will not last as the break for the middle class disappears. Also, inflation has been on the rise since Trump took office and wages have not increased even though there are more jobs, so the average worker makes less, not more!
So, Trump needs to also thank Obama for the current economy, but that is never going to happen! However, we the people need to look at the figures, figures that are easily accessed if you actually care to know the facts, and realize that you have to dig out the truth for yourself! If you have not figured it out, Trump is a liar, plain and simple! To be fair, he has kept the momentum Obama created going, but we have created more debt in the last year than any time in history and we are still creating more, and that will bite us in the ass!

 

This is information I got from an article written by Don Lee for the LA Times. It is rather long, but it had salient points we all need to recognize, so I paraphrase for your edification, with added commentary of my own thrown in for good measure!
The tax bill’s passage could turn out to be too much of a good thing, economic analysts warn! No expansion lasts forever. The current surge is 8½ years old. By spring, it will be the second longest expansion in American history. Ok, (my words), the one thing here I would like to point out, a point I have made before, the surge in the economy is 8 ½ years old. So who was President during at least 7 ½ years of the economic surge, oh yeah, that guy some of you claim was worthless! But I digress. (You can probably tell which parts I gleaned from the article and which parts came from my little pea brain without me having to tell you!)
“Simply stated, we are adding substantial stimulus to an economy already operating near full capacity,“ Northern Trust economists Carl Tannenbaum and Ryan Boyle said in a research note Tuesday evening, shortly before the Senate approved the tax bill 51 to 48, strictly along party lines. (Again, who made that happen?) Almost all analysts agree that this tax bill will be a disaster for America over time. The poor timing of these tax cuts, which are financed largely by increasing the federal deficit, washes out most of the benefits!
Now, (my words), this paragraph is important, pay attention to what is said here. I have often written that most of the things Trump takes credit for with his bluster and lies are actually the result of the Obama legacy. (Yep, that same worthless guy again!)                                                                                                  Here is the import: Most of what makes the current economy so strong is a matter of inheritance. Aside from recoveries in Europe, Japan and even Russia and Brazil, the U.S. is benefiting from the result of decisions made years ago about how to get the country out of the 2008 financial crash — the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. (Yep, that other guy again!)
Most experts say that quick government action in late 2008 and early 2009 staved off immediate disaster and saved major industries and tens of thousands of jobs. Creative but careful monetary policy in the following years led to a slow but steady recovery. The results of those efforts would have been inherited by any president, Republican or Democrat!

So in conclusion, (my words), Trump has done nothing for the economy up to this point, he inherited a ready-made set of conditions that improved the economy without input from him, other than bragging and lying about it, that is! His tax plan will give you and me some small tax relief, for about a year, then it starts falling apart. Middle and lower incomes will lose their tax breaks as they are designed to be there only for a limited time, just enough to try and make you feel good around mid-terms, and then you are going to have to pay through the nose for years to come. Do not be fooled, you cannot blow up the deficit and debt by numbers that are spelled with the word “trillions” and not have to pay for it. The 1% and big corporations tax breaks are written as permanent, but as I said, yours were not! They are but fleeting, so be aware who you vote for! This economy cannot last under the current leadership and even if by a miracle it does it will not benefit you, because you, my dear friends, will be paying for the elite to get even more of what they already have while you can eat cake! If you can afford it!

 

Trumps tax bill is not a boon to you and I! It will put nothing in your pocket, not the middle class or the poor in America. Sure Trump promises it will put $4,000 dollars a year back in your pocket, but that is a bald faced lie. It is not only a lie, but this tax bill is going to cost you big time when you know the truth.

First off economists know that the lion’s share of the tax cut goes to corporations. Well who owns the lion’s share of stock in our corporations, the top 1% and maybe in lesser degree the top 10%! Those little pieces of stock you own are not going to get you squat! So who pays the taxes for corporations, shareholders do! Corporations themselves do not pay taxes, only people pay taxes, despite what a GOP controlled Supreme Court has told you corporations are not people, and only people pay taxes. So this tax cut makes the richest in our country richer, because as shareholders in all the major corporations they will pay a lot less in taxes! I mean that is what they all paid for when they bought their politicians!

You and I, well to start off with the $4,000 dollar boon to you and I is false, a lie. You might see $600 bucks. But in reality you will be paying through the nose. Where to do you think they are going to get the money to give to the rich, I’ll tell you where, from you and me. How, you ask? By getting rid of, or vastly downsizing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal aid to education, food programs, and on and on. Why do you think they want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act so badly, it has nothing to do with healthcare, they could care less about your health! It is because it frees up billions of dollars for this gift to the rich. That is the whole reason the GOP exists right now is to get what the Koch brothers and their ilk paid for, a significantly lower tax on the rich and corporations. They Koch brothers just held a conference in Washington recently to complain about why the GOP has been so slow to get them what they paid for, and they were not even subtle about it! We will not even get into the estate tax, which only comes into play for the very rich, not your average Joe, farmer or rancher, as they would have you believe. It is all a lie that will cost you dearly, not only in your pocketbook, but also in lives as well!

You will notice while Obama was in office the GOP harped on the debt and the deficit constantly. How dangerous it was to increase the debt, and not to decrease the deficit. Even though President Obama did decrease the deficit more than any of the last five Presidents, but the GOP does not talk about that! What do you hear today from the GOP presently, absolutely nothing! The GOP does not talk about the debt and deficit at all! Why? Because this new tax plan and the Presidents budget will add tens of trillions of dollars to the debt! The tax plan alone would reduce federal revenues by $9.5 trillion over its first decade alone! It could increase the national debt by nearly 80 percent of gross domestic product by 2036! And the good ole trickle down theory is the only avenue to pay it back, which we know did not work for Reagan or Bush, or ever for that matter! Now Trump is not a populist. He could care less about the average Jack and Jill, he tells you lies everyday that he does, but lies are his stock in trade! He only cares about amassing power and wealth for himself, and that is all he cares about. Well, and being worshipped by one and all, but that in itself does not cost us anything but our sanity!