Monday, November 20, 2017

How ludicrous can he get?

I refer to Steve Kates, Trump cultist, who seems to honestly believe that as soon as the Presidency changed, every economic indicator was obviously due to incredible awesome powers of Trump.   And that everything under Obama was crushingly bleak:
The parlous state that Obama left the American economy in will require an astonishing amount of luck combined with a great deal of very well constructed policy to move past. You do know that in the entire eight years Obama was president, the US economy on not a singe occasion achieved a growth rate as high as 3%. Trump has now achieved it twice, with more to come. Obama even inherited the recovery phase following the GFC which is almost invariably an economy’s period of strongest growth since part of what happens is the recovery of ground lost during the recession. Instead, there were eight years of low growth and stagnant employment. There is not an economic story to tell to his credit, even with interest rates at near zero and public spending at an all-time high, which in standard economic theory are a good thing. Of course, both are harmful to an economy’s prospects but don’t expect your friend to know it or believe it if you tell him.

But why take my word for it. Here is Conrad Black pointing out that Trump is already the most successful U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. And as you can see from the beginning of this excerpt, he is not PDT’s greatest admirer, but even so:
Conrad Black!  Kates is outsourcing his economic analysis to the ex con who been writing odes of  praise for Trump for, what, years? 

monty:  how can you resist not telling Kates he's an embarrassment to his profession?

2 comments:

not trampis said...

Katesy stil does not understand the difference between annualised rates and annual rates. Trump hasn't come near 3% at an annual rate.

Kates does not have a profession.

not trampis said...

GDP is growing at 2.3% at an annual rate.