Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 3 2020 05:25pm)

That's a fair point, but the gig economy had been growing since the Great Recession. It complicates comparisons with the 80s and such, but a comparison of Obama's unemployment numbers in 2015 or 16 with Trump's in 18 or 19 is still feasible. The gig economy did not expand THAT much over this timeframe.

Also note that decreasing unemployment gets increasingly difficult the lower you already are. For example, going from 5% to 3% within an already very mature, perhaps overripe economic cycle, is a more difficult task than going from 10% to 8% during the immediate recovery from a recession.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 3 2020 05:25pm)

Not starting wars is definitely not the default for American presidencies.


Obama got the U.S. involved in Libya, a war which ended in a total disaster. Here in Europe, we're still struggling with the aftermath of the mess.

Furthermore, the support of his State Department and intelligence agencies to islamist rebels was pivotal in the start of the Syrian civil war. They thought they could let their proxy forces do the dirty work for them and get rid of Assad. And last but not least, it was Obama's misguided Iran nuclear deal which handed Teheran's theocratic regime the financial breathing room for their proxy wars in Yemen and Iraq, and to increase their involvement in Syria.






Well, if we use Trump's grandiose, hyperbolic rhetoric as the measuring stick, then he has been an abject failure. But that's clearly not an expedient standard.

I dont think that he's anti-hawkish on foreign policy, he's been isolationist/non-interventionist. He's used hawkish methods, like blowing up Iran's top general with a cruise missile, but he has done so with the goal of keeping America out of protracted conflicts. (As opposed to the neocrons of the previous Republican admin, for whom getting America drawn into new conflicts was the goal.)







That's a fair point, but the gig economy had been growing since the Great Recession. It complicates comparisons with the 80s and such, but a comparison of Obama's unemployment numbers in 2015 or 16 with Trump's in 18 or 19 is still feasible. The gig economy did not expand THAT much over this timeframe.

Also note that decreasing unemployment gets increasingly difficult the lower you already are. For example, going from 5% to 3% within an already very mature, perhaps overripe economic cycle, is a more difficult task than going from 10% to 8% during the immediate recovery from a recession.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Dec 3 2020 07:00pm)

Yeah the point is just that a 3% unemployment rate doesn't really mean the economy is working for people.

Considering Trump's new jobs numbers were similar to Obama's previous job numbers it's pretty clear that the trend was the same and the credit Trump should get is that he didn't mess up an already good trend.

The idea that lower numbers are harder to achieve is legitimate in theory, but not applicable to this situation. Trump took the unemployment from 5% to 3% using the same monthly job increases that Obama did. He didn't suddenly take the number of jobs from 200k a month to 500k a month, and the job growth was on the back of a massive tax cut that annihilated the falling deficit. If Obama was allowed to spend and give money away like Trump did he would have had a 3% unemployment rate before his second term. So this talking point is only good for low information people who aren't going to actually look at the specifics.

Quote (EndlessSky @ Dec 3 2020 06:29pm)

Wages rose 10% in 4 years under Trump

Wages rose 4% in 8 years under Obama

Obama shit the bed and lied about it for 8 years

Quote (Thor123422 @ 4 Dec 2020 01:00)

Yeah the point is just that a 3% unemployment rate doesn't really mean the economy is working for people.

Considering Trump's new jobs numbers were similar to Obama's previous job numbers it's pretty clear that the trend was the same and the credit Trump should get is that he didn't mess up an already good trend.

The idea that lower numbers are harder to achieve is legitimate in theory, but not applicable to this situation. Trump took the unemployment from 5% to 3% using the same monthly job increases that Obama did. He didn't suddenly take the number of jobs from 200k a month to 500k a month, and the job growth was on the back of a massive tax cut that annihilated the falling deficit. If Obama was allowed to spend and give money away like Trump did he would have had a 3% unemployment rate before his second term. So this talking point is only good for low information people who aren't going to actually look at the specifics.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 3 2020 06:50pm)

Funny you say that. First, the deficit did go up sharply in FY2016, which ended in October 2016, before it was even known that Trump would be the next president. Hence, your claim that Trump took over a "falling deficit" is wrong. One might even call it "dishonest framing".
https://i.imgur.com/kjXi3uf.jpg
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/deficit/trends/

Second, while low unemployment rates alone dont prove that the economy is working for people, the growth of real median household incomes does. Looking at the data:
https://i.imgur.com/FBB3noY.jpg
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/270/tableA2.xlsx
we see that real median household income in the U.S. grew by 6.8% in 2019 and reached its highest level since 1967.

But since you are a high info person, you surely were aware of this fact.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 3 2020 07:50pm)

Funny you say that. First, the deficit did go up sharply in FY2016, which ended in October 2016, before it was even known that Trump would be the next president. Hence, your claim that Trump took over a "falling deficit" is wrong. One might even call it "dishonest framing".
https://i.imgur.com/kjXi3uf.jpg
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/deficit/trends/

Second, while low unemployment rates alone dont prove that the economy is working for people, the growth of real median household incomes does. Looking at the data:
https://i.imgur.com/FBB3noY.jpg
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/270/tableA2.xlsx
we see that real median household income in the U.S. grew by 6.8% in 2019 and reached its highest level since 1967.

But since you are a high info person, you surely were aware of this fact.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Dec 3 2020 07:40pm)

"wages" is not a metric.

Quote (Thor123422 @ 4 Dec 2020 02:02)

Wouldn't exactly call it sharp lol, but sure, it did increase in 2016 for the first time in 5 years and every year since then under Trump.

Quote

I was actually just looking at median household income since EndlessSky brought up a vague "wages" before. I'd say that the economy under both Obama and Trump has largely not worked well for the average person when compared to the economy of our grandparents. While it's certainly gotten consistently better every year since ~2010-2012, the benefits under Democrat and Republican administrations have disproportionately gone towards the highest earners despite continual increases in productivity.

Quote (IceMage @ Dec 4 2020 12:02pm)

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1334868397721591808

The number of blatant errors from this legal effort is staggering. Even if these people were competent, I believe it would've failed, but you have to wonder.