Filed under: Asia, Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Energy, Health Care, Immigration, Law, National Security, Taxes, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Centrist Positions, Middle of the Road, Progress
Democrats were quite sure that by now we would be mired in a global recession, with the end of the world just around the corner. Tom Steyer is still pursing his attempts to impeach Donald Trump, sure that he has committed some high crime, but nobody has found one just yet.
Americans have a lot to be grateful for, though Democrats aren’t much on gratitude either. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ and S&P 500 have been hitting one new record high after another. The Wilshire 5000 Index says that some $3.4 trillion in new wealth has been created since the Inauguration, and $5.4 trillion since President Trump’s election. Some global recession! Business is confident again.
In the second quarter, the real GDP hit 3.1 percent increase, and 3.0 in the third quarter, and the New York Federal Reserve predicts that the 4th quarter output will expand by 3.8 percent. The average feeble GD growth in the Obama years was 1.5 percent. Even the IMF expects the global GDP to rise by 3.5 percent this year.
Unemployment is at 4.1 percent—a 17-year low. New unemployment claims were the lowest since 1974. American companies are expanding their operations here instead of shipping jobs overseas. Foreign firms are planning new facilities and creating jobs here. Taiwan’s Foxconn will spend $10 billion on a new electronics plant in Wisconsin, (3000 employees) and Beijing has agreed to invest $84 billion in new energy projects in West Virginia.
The Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline are under construction with 42,000 jobs to be created. The War on Coal is gone. The fake Paris Climate Accords are over. Obama’s Clean Power Plan, $993 billion waste of economic sabotage is gone. For every new regulation from the Trump administration, 16 unnecessary regulations are gone.
President Trump signed legislation that enabled the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire incompetent or corrupt officials. So far, the VA has sacked more than 500, suspended 200 and demoted 33. He has also endorsed bills that give vets a greater choice in their own health care.
These numbers come from an essay by Deroy Murdock in National Review just before Thanksgiving, suggesting that there truly is quite a bit to be thankful for. It is certainly not Leftist big government, nor conservative nattering over every tick of the tax bill. It’s plain, common sense middle-of-the-road centrist progress. There’s lots more as well.
The Justice Department is investigating Harvard University for possibly discriminating against Americans of Asian descent who argue that they are being rejected in favor of less qualified applicants of other ethnicities. And good for the Justice Department.
President Trump has appointed a commission to investigate the glitches in our entire system of casting ballots and how it can be made tamper-proof. VP Pence chairs the effort. Does that put an end to the Democracy Alliance’s Secretary of State Project? And there is Obama’s announced effort to work with Eric Holder to prevent any Republican Gerrymandering: of electoral districts. I think it was Judicial Watch that estimated there were 1,100,000 illegal aliens who voted for Hillary.
ICE has arrested 97,482 illegal aliens as of October 27. Among those arrested 70 percent were convicted criminals. In an international operation from September to November 267 members of the deadly immigrant gang MS-13 have been arrested. Gang members are largely from El Salvador, with some from Honduras and Mexico.
That sounds like a remarkable amount of progress to me.
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American Elephants 
Since stocks really aren’t based in real worth, then it is impossible to claim growth in real wealth based on them. Lower unemployment based on fewer people applying for unemployment is meaningless if the number of people that are unemployed and ineligible for applying for unemployment is growing or, at the least, not shrinking.
I will believe that there is economic growth when I see real income, adjusted for inflation, increasing, and when I stop seeing the destruction of retail outlets and businesses.
I’d rather see a graphic showing a real increase in the number of people working and a real decrease in the work force that is not working, and yes, I would like to see that increase in full time positions at higher priced jobs, and not just low paying, part time jobs. Can you show me those? If not, then the recession hasn’t ended, and there are still a lot of people out there that still have little to be thankful for on any given day.
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Comment by Tom O November 27, 2017 @ 1:36 pmI don;t have any idea what you are talking about. What do you mean stocks aren’t based on real worth? If you want to buy a particular stock today, that is its real worth. Demand may go up or down, but it’s all quite real.
What is important in the employment statistics is what is happening over time. If the pattern is fewer and fewer people applying for unemployment –that is a significant pattern.
Whose real income? Just yours? What we want is business hiring, people finding jobs, fewer people losing their jobs. These are only snapshots of a massive picture with millions of moving parts. The retail businesses you see? Bad management? Competition from Amazon and other online business? The picture right now is vastly improved. Obama could never reach a single quarter of 3% growth.
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Comment by The Elephant's Child November 28, 2017 @ 1:02 am