“Hope” returns. But we’ve been through this before.
One defining aspect of Gallup’s weekly Economic Confidence Index has been its stubborn negativity over the years, compared to other major consumer indices. The survey, which started in January 2008, experienced its high point that very month, then plunged deeply into negative territory, and remained mired in negative territory, except for a few moments of hope in late 2014 and early 2015, before it all headed south again.
But for the week ending November 20, the first full week of interviewing after the election, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index jumped into positive territory, to +4, the highest since January 2015 (+5), which had been the highest since January 2008. Including the prior week, which was election week, the index has jumped 15 points. That’s the Trump Effect.
Trump is shaking up a lot of things, and he isn’t even in the White House yet. Throughout the campaign, he lambasted the “fake” stock market rally fueled by the Fed’s policies. He charged over and over again that “Obama is manipulating the jobs numbers.” And the US economy was in “terrible shape,” as he liked to say. This contrasted with the Clinton campaign and with Obama’s insistence that the economy was pretty good.
Fact is, for many people, this economy, as it pertains to their own lives, is in truly bad shape, while for others, the lucky ones, their economy is rocking and rolling with huge payoffs on a daily basis.
Then the election took place.
Stocks in the US, against all guru predictions, have roared to new highs, with the Dow at the moment kissing 19,000. Even overseas stocks have risen. There is incessant talk around Trump about massive stimulus spending on infrastructure and defense, associated with fears of inflation and soaring deficits. Treasuries plunged and yields soared. Mortgage rates followed. Clearly, the bond market is not amused.
And Americans suddenly started feeling pretty good about the economy, according to the Economic Confidence Index. I circled the Trump Effect – the 15-point rise – of the last two weeks:
In theory, the index ranges from +100 (all respondents say the economy is hunky-dory) to -100 (all respondents say the economy is lousy and getting lousier). At the trough of the Financial Crisis, the weekly index hit -65. With the exception of late 2014 and early 2015, Americans have remained negative about the economy, according to this index. In the 12 months before the election, the index ranged from -7 on the high side to -17 on the low side.
Then everything changed. Gallup:
Since Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, Republicans have become substantially more positive about the economy – particularly about its direction – while Democrats’ former optimism has collapsed.
So the economy is divided by party line…. Hmm.
The overall index in the chart above is an average of two components: how Americans see current economic conditions; and how they see future economic conditions – whether the economy is going to get better for them, or worse.
Current conditions: in the survey week, 29% of Americans considered the economy as “excellent” or “good,” and 23% as “poor.” This produced a current conditions index of +6, up from zero the week before the election, and the highest since the very beginning of the data series, in January 2008, when the index started out at +7.
Economic outlook: since the election, Americans suddenly became bullish on the future of the economy. In the survey week, 47% of Americans said economic conditions are “getting better” and 46% said they’re “getting worse.” As a result, the index rose to +1, from -5 the prior week, and from -21 before the election. That’s a phenomenal 22-point surge in two weeks. I circled the Trump Effect:
Gallup points out that the “heightened confidence places Trump on much better footing than what his predecessor Barack Obama started his first term with, but it could also set a high bar for the incoming president’s performance.”
Which leaves us to ponder: Why this sudden surge of the confidence index to record territory – albeit a surge from deeply negative to slightly positive? Why, in fact, this surge in the current conditions index? Why would the current economy suddenly have changed so much on Election Day? Trump isn’t even in the White House yet. His policies are far from being implemented, and the economy hasn’t changed one iota since the election.
What has changed is perception. And hope – or “confidence,” as economists like to call it. That’s important for an economy. But we’ve been through this before. This “hope” has led to years of frustratingly low economic growth and to a slew of structural issues, amid the biggest asset bubbles the US has ever seen, and with the spoils being divvied up very unevenly.
Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street are smelling the money. Read… Will Trump’s New Financial-Engineering Loophole Make Stocks Rally and Bonds Crash?
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there is no “hope” and “hope” is not a plan.
It’s been recession since Q3 2014 and i don’t see that changing anytime soon….talk is cheap.
fair point, talk might be cheap…but the ‘full faith and credit of the USA” is the only thing backing the USD…it’s all just about perception and the wall street shell game is just loading up on greater fools.
I already said again and again. There’s nothing more dangerous than “muppets”.
“Hope”, “change”, etc are just really: “please wave your magic wand to make things better” …. and don’t tell us the cost because “the best things in life are free.”
An establishment figure heading the State Dept., neocons running Defense and TBTF bankers running the Treasury, and it’s more like Trump, the new boss, is the same as the old boss, and we’ll have the same kind of “hope and change” that we’ve had over the last eight years (probably more like the last 24 years).
Well, a Republican Congress won’t be doing everything it can to keep the economy in the dumps so as to make a Democratic President look bad… Instead, they’ll be doing things to create short-term gains while setting up the next Great Depression, such as deregulation of the financial markets. There’s be a “Tiger Economy” like the Asian Tiger and the Celtic Tiger economies – and sometime in 2020-2022 the control-fraud-fueled bubbles will collapse. The social safety net will have been shredded by then, so we’ll all be standing in soup lines.
No more Clintons, no more globalism, no more illegals, no more culture warrior crap. It’s an improvement anyway you look at it.
Except maybe for the Clinton’s (who no longer have anything to sell) I posit that you’re gonna be a mite disappointed, Petunia.
He’s already reneging on campaign promises.
We’ve elected an Erratic Orange Mussolini and in our system that also empowers the American Taliban — you don’t get more culture warrior than them. Pence, an extremist Catholic bigot, is impeachment / assassination insurance for Trumpolini because he would actually be worse.
And then the corporate wing of the R party, who we also empowered, likes globalisation just fine — they just won’t call it that from now on. You don’t think they’re already whispering in his ear how TPP or whatever they call it benefits his business? Don’t you think those “repatriated” at 15% (or whatever) profits that Trumpolini touts won’t be an overwhelming incentive for the status quo?
No more illegals? There aren’t resources that can be scaled in any near time frame — Obama was running the system flat out with historic levels of deportations. Of course, I’ll concede Trumpolini’s neo nazi / alt-right base may “vigorously encourage” some to leave and that will become a test of our humanity — will we stand for violence, hate and pogroms?
If you deport all the illegals then just who do you expect to do the hard dirty work in the US? You can’t get these low end white folks out there to put down their meth pipes and get off their lazy bums and get their hands dirty doing work.
Am I the only one who is beginning to suspect that the Petunia who regularly posts in the Wolf Street comments is a fictional character?
The adorably oddball name, the hardluck stories of jobs lost and home foreclosed, the engagingly cranky opinions on absolutely everything, the sophisticated takes on financial news, the extreme politics that stir up lots of responses….
Could Petunia be Wolf?
NOPE!!!
I wish.
Petunia and I had some infamous entanglements early on in the comment section, and even now … see the rising water levels, etc. We disagree on many things.
Petunia, please forgive Mary for comparing you to me. I don’t think she meant it as an insult :-]
I don’t mind at all. You are one smart guy. So maybe she means I’m smart too.
One of my favorite things about this site is reading the comments. The articles are good, and the comments are easily just as informative. Petunia definitely ranks highly among the commenters who I enjoy reading/feel like I learn something from. :-)
Petunia says some pretty insightful things when she thinks for herself but some outrageously silly things when she mindlessly repeats Trumpite propaganda. I think she will gradually wise up as we get into the Trump Presidency. Since I don’t know her personally, I cannot undertake the task of deprogramming…..
Petunia seems to have a great deal of common sense, she’s way ahead of many posters here, IMO. Doesn’t seem like anything fake, on the contrary.
I think many posters have been brainwashed by MSM.
Nicely put,Petunia,may i add, no more ACLU supreme court judges!
That is absolutely right! The new ultra conservative judges will utterly crush the silly pretense that ordinary American citizens have any rights at all! They will overturn the Civil rights Act, allow Congress to confiscate and end Social security and MediCaid, end treatment in public hospitals for the poor, end food stamps, allow police and military to massacre anyone protesting any government policies, allow for indefinite detention for any reason whatsoever, and on and on until the Supreme Court has catalyzed the creation of an unmitigated hell on earth in what was once this country!
How can you be so blind?
Petunia do you truly believe there will be no more illegals? Trump has already reneged on the prosection of Hillary and has downgraded his famous wall to a fence and he is putting the same neocons in charge as Bush so Im not very hopeful at this point
Yes, I do think the illegal problem will improve. But you may be surprised to hear that I don’t think it will be mostly because of Trump. I think it will be because of the democratic party. The democrats are so disconnected from the working class voter, due to this issue, that in order to attract those voters back, they will have no choice but to do something about the illegal problem. Trump has them cornered on this issue.
“No more Clintons, no more globalism, no more illegals, no more culture warrior crap. It’s an improvement anyway you look at it.”
Vastly better chances of that than with Clinton, but I’m still highly skeptical.
Border controls will most likely be strengthened.
SCOTUS appointments may benefit.
Executive Orders may be rescinded.
Lobbying and government/private sector rules may be improved.
Culture Warriors (aka Social Justice Warriors) will continue to reside within their reason and fact impairment bubbles (aka, safe spaces and echo chambers).
Whoever won the presidency was going to be the one in power when the inevitable, steepening economic decline and possible catastrophic worldwide crash occurs, most likely within the next four years.
This will be blamed on Trump, Brexit (and what ever EU exits occur), and populism. Then, considering the popularity of Sanders and the popular vote for Clinton, the vast majority who are obviously clueless on economic topics will likely buy into that claim. So don’t EVEN think that globalism has been defeated.
There is no sustainable economic recovery possible at this point no matter how much deficit spending is applied. There must be a massive and extremely painful readjustment to actual price discovery and fundamentals-based asset prices before true, sustained recovery CAN happen and I don’t see any way that can happen short of 2008 on steroids, either all at once, in ever-downward trends with mini-recoveries, or via a long, deep decline.
So, in short, Trump is vastly better than Clinton, but he’s not a savior. That is an impossible role at this point unless he departs from the monetary manipulation, money “printing” path taken worldwide thus far and there is no sign that he will. Just the opposite actually.
I was just saying this very thing last night.
You have said it comprehensively and correctly.
Perhaps this says the same ( without any analysis or evidence ) : “A deep crash will be a nice purgative”
I believe ( without expounding upon the evidence/analysis here ) that a yuuge crash is the only cure.
SnowieGeorgie
We already have mass hidden unemployment and hunger, people can’t afford medicine, more and more can’t afford housing, and you want things to get a lot worse?
A huge crash will lead to total economic and political and social collapse. It will be the end of the United States. Unemployment will become total and vast numbers will starve. The people everywhere will rise up in all out rebellion. Remember that this is a well armed populace! The military will be called on to handle the situation that everywhere overwhelms the police. But the soldiers will rebel against mass murdering their fellow citizens and the military will split on class lines and start fighting each other. Angry mobs of desperate civilians will march on Washington and THEN all hell will break loose. Wonder what your chances of survival are?
P.S. Be careful what you wish for guys, you just might get it!
How do you know he’s better- the only consensus is that no one knows what he’ll do.
“There is no sustainable economic recovery possible at this point no matter how much deficit spending is applied. There must be a massive and extremely painful readjustment to actual price discovery and fundamentals-based asset prices before true, sustained recovery CAN happen”
WRONG.
The fundamental problem in the chinese/European problem which America has a variation on.
ZIRP and NPL’S Supporting zombie company’s. AKA Over capacity.
Every zombie is bleeding at least two company’s, that could be profitable and pay MORE tax. By dragging down sales price and volume in those other company’s.
china has it worse, as the state supports its industries against the chinese and international private sectors. Forcing chinese private company’s, that could succeed, into failure. Whilst the state continues to loose money in that industry.
And the Europeans have just softened the capital requirements for the smaller bank’s, whilst increasing the capital requirements of foreign small bank’s that operate in the Eu. Ensuring the NPL ZOMBIE problem, rolls on…
Something tells me you can’t eat “improvement”. If the economy is ruined and there is no more safety net you are going to starve like everybody else. I don’t think a bowl full of Trump’s promises have much in the way of nutrition.
The poll is a guage of the voters “perception” of the economy’s direction. I’m not surprised that the poll has turned positive. It’s a reflection on Obama’s economic condition but framed to reflect the future outlook. As Wolf pointed out, along party lines.
When voters start to realize the Trump has little intention of improving the lives of John Q Public, the poll will again take a turn for the worse.
It’s been pretty obvious that Trump would say anything to get elected and it’ll take a while (6 months to a year) before people wake up to the fact he’s only interested in helping wealthy people become more wealthy at the expense if everone else.
Jas…this is Foolish talk,If you have watched the Speeches over the Course of this Entire election process. First and foremost the average American is going to be helped the Most. Why..? because Trump,along with his Confidants and Advisors….KNOW One Thing….If there is No Major Help for John and Jane Q Public…He gets massively ‘tarred and feathered’ in Social Media,plus the Pitch Fork ‘Folks’..march on Washington DC…lolol thanks for reading,aloha
Jas,
I find it interesting that you know Trump so well BUT we don’t have to guess what a Clinton Presidency would have been like and we really DON’T know what Trump will do.
I try not use absolutes or state opinion as fact as you obviously have……. but we KNOW Clinton was for the TPP and we KNOW Trump has already said it’s dead as fried chicken on his watch. So that alone disproves your initial premise that he’s going to fuck over John Q.
just saying.
And there’s is so much wrong with the economy i don’t see how anyone can fix it other than starting over.
Jas, I mostly agree with what you are saying. Trump is just the otherside of the same coin. He will use different words but the results will be the same as if Clinton won.
Most Presidents are puppets that represent the people that funded them not the people that voted for them. Every once in a while you get a good one that really wants to make a difference but its toough to get work done with the beauraucracy, the House, the Senate and lobbyists.
8 years ago there was lots of hope (for change) when President Obama was voted in. Has much changed for the good? I not hopeless but it will take a few good people, vision and persevarance to make a positive change.
Listen to what Trump said in his YouTube video yesterday. For every new regulation added to the Federal register, two must go. This is music to the ears of small and mid size business leaders everywhere. Obviously the proof is in the pudding, but this statement alone is cause for rejoicing.
Deregulating the Wall Street casino will do very little for small and midsized businesses. Anyone know what rules can be rolled back to assist small-mid sized business? Not trying to be a perpetual pessimist, but setting the economy up for another crash by a deregulating Wall Street doesn’t sound good for small businesses.
Didn’t say anything about Wall Street. His first target will be the new exempt/non exempt employee wage and hour rules scheduled to take effect December 1st. Complying with these new rules has consumed tens of millions of hours of SMB time and energy. Stuff like this has to be stopped, and Trump will do it.
If those rules are repealed, hourly workers will pay the price. They’ll be working overtime without pay. You want to crank up the economy, start paying hourly workers for their hourly work, so that they can take home more money and spend more money.
Overtime is too expensive? There is a simply trick to avoid paying overtime: send your workers home after 40 hours of work a week. Make that a company policy. And hire additional staff if needed.
I understand: everyone wants cheap labor. And that’s exactly what ails this economy.
BTW, well-rested workers are more productive workers.
Thank you, Wolf!
BREAKING: A federal judge in Texas just blocked the new rule. Another blow for workers – and for the economy.
On the good side, Trump won’t need to do the dirty work and then explain to his hourly-worker supporters why he stuck it to them.
Jas…
there you go again….please post links regarding his comments that his focus is on only wall-street deregulation…….as if anyone could do more harm than slick willy with the repeal of glass-steagall…….which is partially why 2008 happened in the first place.
This is common knowledge, he’s said it throughout his campaign. Here’s the link to his transition team webite. Check it out, it lays most of his most ambitious plans. https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/financial-services.html
Unless the one he is creating is on small business and the 2 he is cutting is on banks. This is what the Dems have been doing since Clinton 1. But, as you said, the proof will be in the pudding.
You have to be kidding.. Most of the federal regulations that affect small and medium sized business are either state rules or ADA compliance rules. Other than those surrounding illegals working in our businesses but if you go after them, who is it you think will do the farm work or roof your house? Unless you are talking about labeling laws or such. All the regulations I believe he is talking about keep your air and water clean and your vehicle safe.
Besides his talk about the public private partnerships reeks of new fees for me to pay when I drive down the road or use some other infrastructure..
Then his talk about selling excess federal property. What is that about? Selling our National Parks or our forests? That way I have to pay a fee to use what was once mine to use for free while they strip the forests of all the wood in the pretense of jobs?
All sounds to me like short term gains for a few and long term harm for the most of us on almost all fronts. So far I am not impressed with his plans.
Message –
Don’t Get Your Hopes Up!
The Donald’s “First Big Disappointment”.
Big broken promise #1 NO FURTHER LEGAL ACTION ON HILLARY.
He promised during his “electioneering” that the first thing he would do after taking office, was to appoint a special prosecutor and put Hillary behind bars. So much for his promises! Just a question now of, how many more will he break? Great again? Not so much.
+10000. To me, the number 1 role of any government is to deliver justice. Otherwise what’s the point?
It was obvious from the outset he would say anything to get elected. No matter how outrageous and obscene.
There is no doubt that Trump is going break any number of his campaign promises. The last thing Trump should do is spend the first couple of years of his administration with a giant, ugly diversion of focus on a campaign to put Hillary in prison. A campaign he’d likely lose and end up looking like a bully and an idiot. That choice shows me he has some intelligence.
Scott Adams blogged that Trump’s outrageous statements were designed to show his constituency that he understood their concerns by being the most outraged and over the top of them all. A standard persuasion technique.
We’ve got him for 4 years. Our best “hope” is that he walks back his most egregious, low-brow stuff and settles in on things that matter in a reasonable way. I didn’t vote for Trump (went 3rd party) because I don’t think he is bright enough to pull off what he wants to do. And if he doesn’t, he could leave the country in a very bad place.
But now its time to pick yourself up, dust off, and go do the right thing for the country.
Right now, I’m cleaning the rust off my pitchfork.
WD 40 and a bit of steel wool seems to be working …
Why clean off the rust just sharpen the tips the fleash will clean off the rust.
Rust also helps create tetanus.
Don’t forget to file …. sharp ! .. ‘;]
LOL. Great to see that you guys have been putting some thought into the proper weaponization of pitchforks!
It’s a very smart political move: he simultaneously avoids a drawn-out distraction and potential kindling of opposition (which at the moment is clueless, and collapsing by the hour), and he gets to look magnanimous and Presidential while doing it.
By going against type, since he’s got a well-earned reputation for vindictiveness, he improves his standing, and keeps people guessing.
Give the Devil His due: whether consciously articulated to himself or unmindfully intuited, his political sense is impressive.
His opponents (I consider myself one) had better stop emoting and moralizing, and start trying to understand this grand turning of events.
I think the one thing everyone has missed about Trump is his ego and as such he will not be able to “live” with himself if he thinks he will leave a tarnished legacy. The Establishment Politicians may be whispering in his ear now but if he feels that the voters that supported are turning against him he will unleash the candidate Trump to win them back.
We underestimate Trump. When you consider what he did to get elected it’s pretty amazing. George Lakoff said not one word passes his lips he has not considered.
He overcame Billionaires like Soros and Murdock. He overcame the Bush dynasty. He overcame Corporations, Silicon Valley, the whole mainstream media.like the NYT and Fox news, plus condemnation from international leaders and politicians. Hollywood celebrities, TV Comedians, many senior Republicans, The Democrats, the Clintons, his past, attacks on his families and a bad haircut.
How often has that happened?
IMO, he’s aiming first up to fulfill his promises to his base. I think he might later tell his base it’s not working and then he will reconfigure his cabinet. Just a thought. But he does need insiders on his team to familiarise himself with government workings. Pence is one.
The deficit spending idea will take time as there won’t be any shovel ready proposals to implement yet. But he does need to get government to spend into the economy. a s a p.
Been clear for 8 years that the economy needed fiscal stimulus like infrastructure spending. The Republicans in Congress wouldn’t permit it. So, we’ll see how it all works out now.
Or maybe we overestimated the voters.
BTW: Clinton’s popular vote now exceeds Trump’s by 2 million.
45 has no mandate, less than 1 in 4 eligible voters, voted for it. and it does not have the popular vote
44 had the popular vote and nearly 1 in 3 Eligible voters. He was still ^%&*useless.
America needs to got to compulsory voting.
Kent you are just plain wrong The Clintons have been accused of some agregious things and should certainly face justice just like everybody else regardless of the cost Same goes for the perps of the 911 attacks otherwise the nation will NEVER heal How does sweeping treason under the rug work for you
Suppose you are wrong? Just consider it for a second. What if the awful things she did are highly unethical, stupid even, but not necessarily illegal? Do we want Trump trying to get his agenda through but being constantly drowned out by the latest news on Hillary? Do we want Democratic voters hating him more everyday? And, in the end of all that, there is a risk that a jury finds her innocent.
Trump and his supporters can afford to be magnanimous. There is little downside and tons of upside.
The perps died in the attack and their boss Osama was killed by US forces.
Only Hillary escaped.
PLEASE!!!
“a giant, ugly diversion of focus on a campaign to put Hillary in prison.” = one phone call to whoever to get a Special Prosecutor appointed to go after her. What “giant, ugly diversion”???
Excuses, excuses…
This is Trump’s first bad decision and one he will live to regret. The Clintons will regroup and destroy his presidency.
It depends what happens to the economy, and if that falters he has more trouble than just the Clintons, like MSM and Soros. Much depends on who he choses for his cabinet and the FED, once he fired Yellen.
It is important to have likable people around him.
Closing some wasteful oversees military basis creates good optics, too.
Good as he lost the popular vote now approaching 2million Americans rejecting his hate and ignorance. He has Z E R O mandate and is not about to improve the lot of the average 55 year old white male voter of his. Who has a high school degree or less. He is not a champion but a gifted grifter.
King Trump LOL. The pathetic. He is a bankruptcy expert on a good day. He lashes out like a petulant school bully when confronted with reality and employs Bannon the Bigot to make policy. A complete and total chump.
My grandfather actually fought Nazi’s and hate. The rest of you need to wake up to the empowerment of some very sad and deluded people in the US now thinking they are mainstream.
This sounds like something out of Elizabeth I versus Mary Queen of Scots!
To the Tower!
A difference between the US, Britain, Canada etc. and India, Pakistan, and some South American countries is that an election is NOT followed by a vendetta and jail or worse for political opponents.
The Trump election ( after losing popular vote by 2 million, has done enough damage to the US image (that was just beginning to recover from the Bush Disaster) without making it look more like a banana republic.
Yes Nick but the Promise Breaker in Chief of Canada takes a much better “selfie” than The Orange Man down south.
1) Trump will say whatever it takes to “win” or whatever he considers winning.
2) He is not “draining the swamp”…..just bringing in a fresh crop of gators.
FWIW : Should be interesting to see how the Donald and Baby Trudeau get along. I wonder who is going to wind up as the “bitch” in that relationship. No offense intended to the other (some say better) half of the species. ;)
he did, but really, Why bother? The Clintons are now history. Let them slink off into the night.
Besides, all the fake news stories upon which the demonization of Hillary Clinton were based on wouldn’t hold up in court.
Meanwhile, persecuting (not prosecuting) Hillary for the Clinton Foundation would draw more attention to the flat out illegal self-dealing Donald Trump’s Foundation recently admitted to in a recent IRS filing:
“In one section of the form, the IRS asked whether the Trump Foundation had transferred “income or assets to a disqualified person.” A disqualified person, in this context, might be Trump — the foundation’s president — or a member of his family or a Trump-owned business.
The foundation checked yes.”
For every overblown or flatly false Clinton scandal, we’re going to see 10 suppressed or ignored Trump scandals.
P.S.: Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagall was a deal he made at the urging of Republicans. He signed a bill written by Republicans. What do
It might be bad optics, but why squander all your energy into potentially complicated trial when you are trying to make America great again, against all odds.
It needs a good sound bite to explain, though.
Trump is following in Obama’s footsteps: “NO PROSECUTION OF WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS”
Could it be because he is one?
The only reason to vote for The Donald (apart from the fact that he isn’t a Clinton) was his promise to rein in the Neo-Con/NATO war provocations against Russia. Will he make it all the way to the inauguration without reneging on that promise as well?
Amazing how Americans manage to forget the first rule of politics:
Promises made during the campaign are automatically null void as soon as the election is over. Now, promises made to big donors– that is another matter.
Delusion is the opium of the People
That would have been totally wrong and made him look heartless and vindictive. It would also make the Democrats obstruct him at every turn. That was a wise decision and will show he does not intend to cater to the people of hate.
Shame on you!
I doubt Trump has affected the bond markets. The dollar surge has been underway for years and the crashing forex is unwinding dollar carry trades just about everywhere. The surging dollar has more to do with the low price of fuel in dollars … which represents a better ‘deal’ than is available with your ‘Brand X’ currencies. Peeps want dollars to repay dollar debts, too. All of this pressures credit overseas which puts pressure on crude prices => this strands credit further. Bond prices are starting to reflect a kind of repayment risk.
Poor people buy gas … but only when they have money … that is, only when they have access to credit: loans, loans. More Loans.
Fewer loans => diving currencies => race out of currencies into dollars => fewer loans in a vicious cycle.
Trump cannot gin up inflation any more than Draghi, Bernanke, Yellen, Xi, Abe or any of the rest of them have been able to do. Some (Japan) have been trying for DECADES, the rest since 2009. When do they quit? (When does the attempt become counterproductive?)
Fuel myth of the day: http://www.artberman.com/permian-giant-oil-field-would-lose-500-billion-at-todays-prices/
It’s Gatorade vs Kool-aid and it always gets spiked with hopium. Seriously though, this two party brainwashing is not funny at all. Many people do not realize that there are huge prices to pay for their vote. A vote for either red or blue gives them consent to do whatever it is the administrations decided to load up for future plans of action. The brutality of our vicious and violent system of government is coming back on us economically, politically and socially. Orphans and vulnerable refugees are freezing as this winter approaches, we bomb so many countries directly or indirectly.
We dump food that our hungry children need as our farmers go broke. For sanctions sake… Fascism Over Farmers? The Troubling Priorities of the American Government
http://m.journal-neo.org/2016/10/29/fascism-over-farmers-the-troubling-priorities-of-the-american-government/
So What now… all this talk about the market crash: stocks and housing is not gonna happen now?
But all those charts on red and all were fake or what
They will still happen perhaps just be delayed alittle
I guess that I have no skin in the game as I refused to vote for either candidate from total repulsion of the entrants into the process. I threw away my vote to Johnson as I did with Perot twice and Nader once, guessing I’ve been puking for a long time, age 67. And I went to the polling place 4 years ago marking some ballots but totally passed by the top ticket, really sick of the process.
I was glad to see the Revolution, finally, in both parties during the Primaries and see it as a very strong starting place, coming out of the blocks at a scary pace. Like the Occupy Movement it was the first revelation of a true change in the minds of Americans and a baby step of today with a leap now in 2016.
Also, I see the Republicans with majorities in both houses, soon a tilt in their favor on the Supreme Court, a large majority of Governors in the States, and Trump,…no excuses for non-performance.
But I’m cynical, skeptical, and critical of the outcome, and if the Republican Trump voters find that their result of 4 years of support gets them towards my place of mind it will indeed get ugly.
Finally,
Wolf I just sent some money for support of your site since the TP days.
Thanks
Bob
Awesome, Bob!!!! Thank you!!! I totally appreciate the donation. I got the friendly smile from PayPal. Obviously, you found the link…. http://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
And thanks for reading my stuff since the TP days.
The guy could not answer a question about animal or mineral or vegetable and still got almost 3 million votes!
Glad to know I had millions puking with me, now I don’t feel so isolated. We were part a an epidemic, this next election may result in a pandemic especially if the Trump team fails to deliver.
The Trump Team absolutely cannot deliver no matter what. Our current system is doomed. With the Republicans in control, things will get much much worse. They openly hate America and loathe the American people. I smell revolution in the air!
JBear, I see the same, I was just trying to be hopeful,… really trying hard. I see myself puking for the duration of Trump’s term. Thinking of getting the card for medical marijuana as it might relieve the political nausea that is sure to continue.
Well, well, well! I can hardly believe it! I was sure he had been bitten by a vampire or made a deal with the devil. That ancient never-dying Stalinist tyrant, Fidel Castro, has finally given the Cuban people the inestimable boon of finally, at long last, croaking. I am very curious as to what this portends. Gambling casinos in Havana again? An end to driving 1950’s model cars?
There is no question much of the nation is economically devastated, while other parts are on steroids. Housing prices reflect that extremely well. Look at a condo in Brookline, MA vs a large house in Ohio. The condo is much more expensive.
Whatever leader takes control, does anyone truly believe systemic problems, exacerbated by the inexorable drum beat of technology requiring fewer workers, combined with the ability to use contract manufacturing overseas to circumvent labor and environment laws, will make it possible to change the trend here? There are no more “US” companies; there are only MNEs with no allegiance to anyone (not governments and certainly not their shareholders).
The US economy is an enormous supertanker and presidential policy often take 6 to 10 years before its true impact is felt. (consider Carter’s negative inheritance of Nixon’s closing the gold window). Will Trump policy, just like many democrat policies in the 1960s and 1970s, focus on creating a few jobs at the enormous expense of destroying the future? How many Reagan Democrats actually, at the end of 8 years, were actually better off? If Reagan’s policies were so successful and Bush I continued them, why did the economy falter?
The bond market alone is saying something is very wrong.
Lastly, if you don’t encourage science education and fund, to the hilt, pure and applied research, the basis of an economy is destroyed in a few years. Since the 1930s, the US has been the beneficiary of receiving the best and brightest (from the Manhattan project to students from Taiwan and Korea in the 1980s and 90s who stayed). Besides offending foreigners, the long slide in US education is actually the most serious issue that no one is talking about.
Sure is Alex. I am a Chinese american citizen who spent 16 years getting educated though k-12 in China before I came here, also went though university here in the US in an above average engineering focused college. Let me just say that the standards, not the quality of the education here in the US, is extremely sorry.
The US still have very quality education, even some K-12 schools, but over the years, the standards has been lowering, partly due to trying to making the numbers look good on a politician’s report card, or to raise money. When I went though the university, I felt everything was so easy that it only took me about 4 hours out of school every week to study in order to get straight As and a very Bs here and there. I took the internship route so I could prepare me for a real job in the real world, and that prove to be the right move in the long run. But the most dreaded thing was seeing people who couldn’t even manage school while the standard was already low, I wonder what kind of job they could do in the real world.
This is another reason why employers treats my generation of workers as delicate creatures, they won’t give any important tasks to us because they simply don’t trust the product of the current education system, even though I know that I can do the job even if it applies a higher standard than our current education system.
Excellent and accurate observation, that proves. The FAILURE of no child left behind.
This has been happening since PC crept in, in the 70’s. Not only in America but in all state funded education, where there is a PC brigade at work.
Unfortunately it’s a republican administration put No Child Left Behind in as a law. Like any other laws, it smells like the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It was well intentioned.
however like all similar laws around the world, it soon became controlled by, PC nobody fails. which was not the original intention of it.