American Politics

[Cali Guy]

You do know the stock market is not "the economy", right? LOL. What am I asking. Of course you don't know that.

Uh. The S&P 500 Index closed at its all-time high of 4793 on December 29,2021. It is currently down at a typical "Correction" level, about 10%. It has never been in a "tail spin" under Biden as it did under Trump. At worst, it closed 3-4 percentage points lower than within a normal Correction range for a few days.

It has traded within that Correction range for about 17 months, similar to its behavior under Obama in 2015 and 2016, for about the same number of months and for the same reason; When the economy has begun to show reliable signs of recovery from the horrific Crashes experienced under the previous Repub stewardship, the Fed dithers in fits and starts over how much and how fast to appropriately raise the Fed Funds Rate. And that dithering can and has gone on for 15-18 months at a time.

Wall Street is ALWAYS spooked about what to do whenever the Fed says ANYTHING about raising rates, lowering rates, leaving rates alone, good news about rates, bad news about rates, any statement or utterance by the Fed even vaguely alluding to rates by so much as 25 basis points is enough to drive brave stock market investors under their beds and shaking like frightened kittens.

That is all that's been happening with the broad stock market for the past 17 months.

History proves that when the economy is bad or in a recession the market is stagnant. When the economy is booming like it was pre pandemic under Trump presidency it soars. Dow was at 19,804. 72 when Trump took office and was over 30,000 when he left office for over a 50% gain in 4 years. Quite an achievement with China trying to kill our economy by starting the virus. Trump policies actually drove the market to 36,000 3 months after his presidency ended before Biden executive orders took effect and killed the economy. Which is doubling in 4 years. Biden on the other hand in 2 1/2 years has managed to drive the markets down 10% and creating highest inflation ever and putting millions into poverty. I am in the financial wealth planning and I talk to investors daily. Obviously you are not a savvy investor or you would gladly go back to Trump economy. And yes Wall Street is always spooked by what the feds do and Biden's historical inflation is causing the feds to do radical things. If you remember under Trump president inflation was under control and feds lowered rates. Like it or not corporations and Americans did better under the Trump presidency. Now they are just trying to hold on until we are done with the worst presidency in the history of the USA.

[JustTK]

Here is one for Elvis who refuses to believe USA has never done anything wrong since Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVIZVa1rlGY&t=804s

New research showing much worse death toll by USA in Cambodia. Kissinger is a mass murderer. Never convicted, lives with impunity, reparations never paid nor offered. Absolutely disgusting isn't it Elvis?

Lasts for 17 minutes.

[EihTooms]

Thanks Joe for being the worst president in history for economic growth and business. The last 2 years the market and business has had the slowest growth since the great depression. Dow hit an all time high of 36,000 three to four months after Biden took office basically from the strong economic policies of the Trump administration. It took Biden destructive policies about 3 months from his taking office to send the market into a tailspin. Basically Dow is down 10% under Biden policies making his economy the worst in 75 years. We still have 18 months of the worst presidency in history and every industry in the USA suffers from stupid regulations and policies from the progressive left idiots along with Biden stupidity and incompetence. Yes thanks Joe for ruining the lives of millions of Americans.

You do know the stock market is not "the economy", right? LOL. What am I asking. Of course you don't know that.

Uh. The S&P 500 Index closed at its all-time high of 4793 on December 29,2021. It is currently down at a typical "Correction" level, about 10%. It has never been in a "tail spin" under Biden as it did under Trump. At worst, it closed 3-4 percentage points lower than within a normal Correction range for a few days.

It has traded within that Correction range for about 17 months, similar to its behavior under Obama in 2015 and 2016, for about the same number of months and for the same reason; When the economy has begun to show reliable signs of recovery from the horrific Crashes experienced under the previous Repub stewardship, the Fed dithers in fits and starts over how much and how fast to appropriately raise the Fed Funds Rate. And that dithering can and has gone on for 15-18 months at a time.

Wall Street is ALWAYS spooked about what to do whenever the Fed says ANYTHING about raising rates, lowering rates, leaving rates alone, good news about rates, bad news about rates, any statement or utterance by the Fed even vaguely alluding to rates by so much as 25 basis points is enough to drive brave stock market investors under their beds and shaking like frightened kittens.

That is all that's been happening with the broad stock market for the past 17 months.

[EihTooms]

So true. Great posts. The facts don't lie. Biden's incompetence will not only extend the recession he put us in but also will get us into a war. China and Russia are licking their chops with the weakest American president in history. Only a fool would dispute this. And one probably will.

Yes, absolutely as true as that Recession Biden put us in indeed.

Lolololol.

Payrolls rose 339,000 in May, much better than expected in resilient labor market

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/02/jobs...ndroidappshare

Dude, we're still waiting for those Great Dem Recessions under Clinton and Obama that never happened but all those pro Repub Economic Gurus and Repub Congressmen assured us they would. LOL.

Oh. Maybe you mean the mild recession Trump's Fed Chairman appointee is struggling mightily to artificially induce because there are way too many jobs being created in Biden's economy than there are applicants to accept them. The same economic "problem" we had under Carter.

For sure, that will never be an economic "problem" that job hunters, entrepreneurs, businessmen and investors will ever have to face under Repub stewardship and policies. No, under Repub stewardship and policies the economic problems are typically who the hell will buy anything from cupcakes to gasoline when jobs are being wiped out by the millions, businesses are closing in droves and Great Depressions or Great Recessions or at least serial Recessions and crap jobs creation are the norm.

[Cali Guy]

Thanks Joe for being the worst president in history for economic growth and business. The last 2 years the market and business has had the slowest growth since the great depression. Dow hit an all time high of 36,000 three to four months after Biden took office basically from the strong economic policies of the Trump administration. It took Biden destructive policies about 3 months from his taking office to send the market into a tailspin. Basically Dow is down 10% under Biden policies making his economy the worst in 75 years. We still have 18 months of the worst presidency in history and every industry in the USA suffers from stupid regulations and policies from the progressive left idiots along with Biden stupidity and incompetence. Yes thanks Joe for ruining the lives of millions of Americans.

[EihTooms]

What do investors do with cash they receive from buybacks and dividends? They reinvest the money. In the process our economy becomes more efficient. Cash flow realized from buggy manufacturers was recycled into automobile manufacturing for example.

As to the Brookings article, they were absolutely right: "By only analyzing results through 2019, we focused only on short-term effects, which may be a poor guide to the longer run. Short-term growth dynamics typically are dominated by changes in aggregate demand while long-term growth stems from changes in supply. Both experts and advocates emphasize that the supply-side process may take a significant amount of time to take full effect. ".

You don't close down an operation in Ireland for example and move it to Austin the year after a tax cut.

And indeed if you look at investing cash flows, which include capex but not investments in working capital, that's what has happened. Here are cash flows from investments (negative because you're spending money) per share for the S&P 500 going back to 2017, the year before the TCJA took effect.

2017 -141.34.

2018 -138.90.

2019 -181.10.

2020 -214.82.

2021 -221.41.

2022 -226.86.

Investments by the S&P 500 companies have increased by 60% since the TCJA took effect! Not including investments in working capital.

And corporate profits resulting from this additional investment in America are kicking in too. In fact, tax receipts on corporate income were the third highest in history in 2022!

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FCTAX

Now those numbers aren't adjusted for inflation, but just eyeballing the graph, it looks to me like your claim that the TCJA will reduce the amount the federal government steals by 2. 5 trillion over 10 years is bogus. Total federal receipts as a % of GDP also are up, to the fourth highest level in history in 2022. All under a tax regime last modified by the TCJA.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

Well, apparently expanding the economy and creating more jobs with them than without them is NOT what investors did with their windfall profits from Repub tax cuts in the late 1920's, the 1980's, 2001-2008 and 2018-2020.

Far, far, far from it.

Now, Dem tax policy / cuts and economic policy produce quite a different result. Because they are focused on the right people to grow the economy and create jobs at the right time; under FDR, JFK / LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden, for example.

I sure as hell would rather have been starting up a business venture or looking for a good job at the beginning of any Dem administration of the past 100 years than any Repub administration of the past 100 years.

Unless my business venture was setting up soup kitchens or selling apples on the street, that is.

[Cali Guy]

The most important measure to bring jobs and factories and investments back to America was the Republicans' 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), specifically, the restructuring of corporate taxation. The corporate tax rate was cut, so that America went from having the highest corporate rate in the developed world to the middle of the pack. The GILTI tax on foreign income realized by American corporations and provisions to encourage repatriation of cash from overseas were perhaps just as important. The trade deficit in goods and services decreased from 46.8 billion / month from January, 2018 when the corporate rate cut took effect to 40.5 billion / month when COVID kicked off. Similarly, the labor force participation rate increased from 62.7% in January, 2018 to 63.3% in February, 2020.

Thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Biden Administration was not able to raise the corporate rate. So, while the trade balance and labor force participation rate haven't rebounded to pro COVID levels, they are still improving from pandemic levels.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOPGSTB

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

As to Biden's brilliant moves, what a joke. Trump's biggest fuck up was trying to steal an election. His second biggest fuck up was his trade wars, including huge tariffs on Chinese products which were borne by USA Consumers in the form of higher prices. They did nothing to move production to the USA. Instead more clothing and cheap electronics consumed in the USA are made in southeast and south Asia and Central America. Big deal. Now when Biden came to power did he remove those tariffs? No he didn't. He's just as bad as Trump. And Trump at least tried to develop a relationship with Xi. Biden, taking lessons he learned from Obama, has treated him with sanctimony and moral arrogance. Biden's going to drag us into a new cold war.

And the green subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, which a recent Wall Street Journal Article claimed would cost $1. 1 trillion, were corporate welfare. That is pork, crony capitalism at its finest.

Well, imposing massive tariffs on China and doing his dead level best to prevent the Nordstream 2 pipeline don't exactly sound like deep throating Xi and Putin. Would there be a war in Ukraine right now if Trump were president? As to Kim, Trump probably scared the shit out of him. Kim might have figured Trump was just crazy enough to push the nuclear button and wipe him and North Korea off the Plant. Donald Trump, crazy? Or crazy like a fox?

So true. Great posts. The facts don't lie. Biden's incompetence will not only extend the recession he put us in but also will get us into a war. China and Russia are licking their chops with the weakest American president in history. Only a fool would dispute this. And one probably will.

[Tiny 12]

Since you must have averted your eyes and plugged your ears to the most vocal Repub opposition to the entire deal and, yep, that would include opposing the retention of $5 billion for vaccine research and development to help avert another Repub Trump's Pandemic from spreading unabated ASAP, a simple Google Search for "turd sandwich" might have cleared up your confusion about that.

From some of Repub House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's most valued and highly-regarded Repub House members:

'Turd Sandwich: MAGA Members of Congress Hate on Debt Deal.
"This is NOT a win for the American people!" Rep. Lauren.
MAY 28, 2023

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...al-1234743550/

When did you become an admirer of Lauren Boebert? I'd bang her, but she's dumb as shit.

[Tiny 12]

Unwilling to accept the growing Winger Love for Larry Summers as a Many-Fleeting Thing, I felt it my romantic duty to post his recent pronouncement about the most conspicuous Repub "win" in the Prevent The Repubs From Crashing Worldwide Economies Again agreement:

Former Treasury Secretary Summers Criticizes IRS Provisions In Debt Ceiling Agreement.
Summers opposes IRS funding cuts in debt ceiling deal, warns of future deficits and tax cheats' advantage.
May 31, 2023

https://www.zenger.news/2023/05/31/f...ing-agreement/

Well, he is a Democrat, which means he instinctively wants to fuck over the entrepreneurs, businessmen and investors who drive growth in America. The Democrats legislated $80 billion in additional funding for the IRS, and now as a result of the debt ceiling agreement will have to back off of $20 billion of that.

[Tiny 12]

LOL. That claim has been debunked many times over, even by the beneficiaries of those tax cuts!

Searching for supply-side effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
July 6, 2021

https://www.brookings.edu/research/s...-and-jobs-act/

What do investors do with cash they receive from buybacks and dividends? They reinvest the money. In the process our economy becomes more efficient. Cash flow realized from buggy manufacturers was recycled into automobile manufacturing for example.

As to the Brookings article, they were absolutely right: "By only analyzing results through 2019, we focused only on short-term effects, which may be a poor guide to the longer run. Short-term growth dynamics typically are dominated by changes in aggregate demand while long-term growth stems from changes in supply. Both experts and advocates emphasize that the supply-side process may take a significant amount of time to take full effect. ".

You don't close down an operation in Ireland for example and move it to Austin the year after a tax cut.

And indeed if you look at investing cash flows, which include capex but not investments in working capital, that's what has happened. Here are cash flows from investments (negative because you're spending money) per share for the S&P 500 going back to 2017, the year before the TCJA took effect.

2017 -141.34.

2018 -138.90.

2019 -181.10.

2020 -214.82.

2021 -221.41.

2022 -226.86.

Investments by the S&P 500 companies have increased by 60% since the TCJA took effect! Not including investments in working capital.

And corporate profits resulting from this additional investment in America are kicking in too. In fact, tax receipts on corporate income were the third highest in history in 2022!

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FCTAX

Now those numbers aren't adjusted for inflation, but just eyeballing the graph, it looks to me like your claim that the TCJA will reduce the amount the federal government steals by 2. 5 trillion over 10 years is bogus. Total federal receipts as a % of GDP also are up, to the fourth highest level in history in 2022. All under a tax regime last modified by the TCJA.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

[EihTooms]

Unwilling to accept the growing Winger Love for Larry Summers as a Many-Fleeting Thing, I felt it my romantic duty to post his recent pronouncement about the most conspicuous Repub "win" in the Prevent The Repubs From Crashing Worldwide Economies Again agreement:

Former Treasury Secretary Summers Criticizes IRS Provisions In Debt Ceiling Agreement.
Summers opposes IRS funding cuts in debt ceiling deal, warns of future deficits and tax cheats' advantage.
May 31, 2023

https://www.zenger.news/2023/05/31/f...ing-agreement/

"The rescinding of #IRS funding will raise future deficits by more than $100 billion and risks a compliance crisis and privileges rich tax cheats. I desperately hope it will not set a precedent, Summers said.
....
The economist is not the only person to sound critical of the IRS provisions. Harvard professor and noted economist Jason Furman had stated that the funding reduction is particularly galling especially since it will increase the deficit. It should not be repeated ever again, he said in his tweet.

[EihTooms]

The most important measure to bring jobs and factories and investments back to America was the Republicans' 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), specifically, the restructuring of corporate taxation. The corporate tax rate was cut, so that America went from having the highest corporate rate in the developed world to the middle of the pack. The GILTI tax on foreign income realized by American corporations and provisions to encourage repatriation of cash from overseas were perhaps just as important. The trade deficit in goods and services decreased from 46.8 billion / month from January, 2018 when the corporate rate cut took effect to 40.5 billion / month when COVID kicked off. Similarly, the labor force participation rate increased from 62.7% in January, 2018 to 63.3% in February, 2020.

Thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Biden Administration was not able to raise the corporate rate. So, while the trade balance and labor force participation rate haven't rebounded to pro COVID levels, they are still improving from pandemic levels.

LOL. That claim has been debunked many times over, even by the beneficiaries of those tax cuts!

Searching for supply-side effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
July 6, 2021

https://www.brookings.edu/research/s...-and-jobs-act/

The TCJA provision that allowed firms to return overseas profits to the U.S. without paying U.S. tax created a one-time spike in repatriated funds. But rather than boosting investment or wages, it generated a wave of corporate stock repurchases.

[EihTooms]

Please be more coherent.

Well, he's your guy. Trump is the Democrat's best friend. He's given you three elections, although the Republicans did manage to eke out a small majority in the House in 2022. Democrats gave tens of millions to support the Trumpiest of the pro Trump candidates in 2022.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/202...can-primaries/

And they'll probably spend tens or hundreds of millions supporting Trump in the 2024 primaries.

And why not? Trump used to be a card carrying member of the Democratic Party. He proposed a Bernie Sanders style wealth tax. He said he had no problem with partial birth abortion. And as recently as 2017, he wanted to raise taxes on better off Americans. Gary Cohn, a Democrat and his chief economic advisor, had to talk him out of it. "Mr. President, you can't raise taxes. You're a Republican."

Since you must have averted your eyes and plugged your ears to the most vocal Repub opposition to the entire deal and, yep, that would include opposing the retention of $5 billion for vaccine research and development to help avert another Repub Trump's Pandemic from spreading unabated ASAP, a simple Google Search for "turd sandwich" might have cleared up your confusion about that.

From some of Repub House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's most valued and highly-regarded Repub House members:

'Turd Sandwich: MAGA Members of Congress Hate on Debt Deal.
"This is NOT a win for the American people!" Rep. Lauren.
MAY 28, 2023

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...al-1234743550/

Oh, Reagan "used to be a Democrat" too. Then his show biz career tanked, he decided to enter politics and he knew from decades of observation that Lazy, Know Nothing, Do Nothing slackers can join the Repub Party, never be expected to produce anything other than Great Repub Depressions / Recessions and Massive Job Losses, none of the historic recoveries, expansions and gains yet still get praised for "handling the economy better than Dems" by Mainstream Media.

The same as Trump did.

Now, where do you see me begrudging the elimination of the work requirement for anyone?

[Tiny 12]

In addition to once again working brilliantly and masterfully to (likely) rescue America and the rest of the world from still another typical Horrific Repub Economic Collapse, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Joe Biden was WAY ahead of the curve on when and how to bring important supply-chains and jobs back to America, particularly with regard to his Pro Repub Numbskulls-bewildering Inflation Reduction Act:

Firms are bringing production home thanks to war, China's slowdown and TikTok

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/resh...ndroidappshare

The most important measure to bring jobs and factories and investments back to America was the Republicans' 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), specifically, the restructuring of corporate taxation. The corporate tax rate was cut, so that America went from having the highest corporate rate in the developed world to the middle of the pack. The GILTI tax on foreign income realized by American corporations and provisions to encourage repatriation of cash from overseas were perhaps just as important. The trade deficit in goods and services decreased from 46.8 billion / month from January, 2018 when the corporate rate cut took effect to 40.5 billion / month when COVID kicked off. Similarly, the labor force participation rate increased from 62.7% in January, 2018 to 63.3% in February, 2020.

Thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Biden Administration was not able to raise the corporate rate. So, while the trade balance and labor force participation rate haven't rebounded to pro COVID levels, they are still improving from pandemic levels.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOPGSTB

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

As to Biden's brilliant moves, what a joke. Trump's biggest fuck up was trying to steal an election. His second biggest fuck up was his trade wars, including huge tariffs on Chinese products which were borne by USA Consumers in the form of higher prices. They did nothing to move production to the USA. Instead more clothing and cheap electronics consumed in the USA are made in southeast and south Asia and Central America. Big deal. Now when Biden came to power did he remove those tariffs? No he didn't. He's just as bad as Trump. And Trump at least tried to develop a relationship with Xi. Biden, taking lessons he learned from Obama, has treated him with sanctimony and moral arrogance. Biden's going to drag us into a new cold war.

And the green subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, which a recent Wall Street Journal Article claimed would cost $1. 1 trillion, were corporate welfare. That is pork, crony capitalism at its finest.

It turns out Trump's passionate and determined deep throat blowing of Xi, Kim and Putin while sneakily helping them to overthrow Democracy at home and around the world in favor of Socialism and Communism wasn't the way to MAGA after all. LOL. Not that there is one iota of evidence that was ever Trump's or any Repub's goal anyway, of course.

Well, imposing massive tariffs on China and doing his dead level best to prevent the Nordstream 2 pipeline don't exactly sound like deep throating Xi and Putin. Would there be a war in Ukraine right now if Trump were president? As to Kim, Trump probably scared the shit out of him. Kim might have figured Trump was just crazy enough to push the nuclear button and wipe him and North Korea off the Plant. Donald Trump, crazy? Or crazy like a fox?

[Tiny 12]

Which bite of a Repub-characterized "turd sandwich" is the sticking point for not eating it? If they are screetching about objecting to all of the deal, everything is a sticking point.

Please be more coherent.

Additionally, the undisputed absolute Leader of the Repub Party is on record ordering all Repubs in Congress to default, unless:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladit...spending-cuts/

Well, he's your guy. Trump is the Democrat's best friend. He's given you three elections, although the Republicans did manage to eke out a small majority in the House in 2022. Democrats gave tens of millions to support the Trumpiest of the pro Trump candidates in 2022.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/202...can-primaries/

And they'll probably spend tens or hundreds of millions supporting Trump in the 2024 primaries.

And why not? Trump used to be a card carrying member of the Democratic Party. He proposed a Bernie Sanders style wealth tax. He said he had no problem with partial birth abortion. And as recently as 2017, he wanted to raise taxes on better off Americans. Gary Cohn, a Democrat and his chief economic advisor, had to talk him out of it. "Mr. President, you can't raise taxes. You're a Republican."

Did the Dems give them "massive cuts" in that deal?

All indications by CBO and others is that "winning" Repub demand will cost more money, not cut anything much less make "massive" cuts,

The best unbiased estimate we have at present for the savings from the debt ceiling bill is from the Congressional Budget Office, and it's 1.5 trillion:

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/202...r_McCarthy.pdf

That's 6.3% of GDP. Hey, every trillion helps.

and puts more Americans on the food stamp program. No surprise:

Changes to food aid in debt bill would cost money, far from savings Republicans envisioned.
An estimate from the Congressional Budget Office says that while the new work requirements in SNAP would save money, the added benefits pushed by Democrats would cost more and add almost 80,000 people to the rolls in an average month.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/05/...ns-envisioned/

Maybe that is what the Progressive Dems were trying to prevent th Repubs from doing.

You're better than that Tooms. Yes, it would be better if aid for the poor were funded, administered and controlled at the state and local level. But given what we're stuck with, I don't see why you begrudge eliminating the work requirement for food stamps for the homeless and veterans. Many or most of the homeless are mentally ill. It's difficult for them to hold down jobs. Should we let them starve? And veterans were willing to and often did put their lives on the line for America. They deserve good treatment. I don't see Republican Congressmen begrudging that provision for the veterans. As to the homeless, those that are voting mainly with their districts and states in mind might not favor ending work requirements for the homeless. That's because homelessness is mostly a blue city and blue state problem. And while I would disagree with those Republican Congressmen, maybe they have a point. San Francisco could take some of the money it's using to tell the homeless where to get drugs and spend it on food aid for example.

https://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2...-at-8pm-et-pt/