No end of Trump’s drama
The day after
Donald Trump won the presidential election, myriad predictions of catastrophes and disasters rattled media outlets from coast to coast and around the world.
How could the world survive the worst that could have happened?
On the day after the election, Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, and columnist for the New York Times opined what Trump’s election would portend for America and the world. Krugman begins his comments, “It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover…. a first-pass answer is never.”
The prescient Krugman further pens, “Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news. What makes it especially bad right now, however, is the fundamentally fragile state much of the world is still in, eight years after the great financial crisis.” In other words, the vultures had already landed.
In his succinct sentencing of the inevitable collapsing economy, Klugman writes, “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight.”
From the left’s perspective, the presidency of Donald J. Trump was a foregone disaster for the nation and world from which no one could possibly recover.
Nevertheless, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing jobs in the U. S. declined in 2009 from 12,561 million in January to 11,475 million in December 2009, a loss of 24,000 jobs in the U. S. manufacturing sector. U. S. had 12,355 million manufacturing jobs in January 2017, and added 184,000 manufacturing jobs by December closing the year with 12,539 million jobs.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Black or African Americans 16 years or older was 12.7 percent in January 2009 and rose to 16.1 percent by December 2009. Unemployment of Black or African Americans in January 2017 was 7.8 percent and dropped to 6.8 percent by December 2017, the lowest level since BLS began tracking the number in 1972.
The national debt in January 2009 was $10,627 trillion, and by December 2016, the national debt had grown by $9,350 trillion to $19,977 trillion according to Treasury Direct.gov.
The national debt in January 2017 was $19,935 trillion, and by December 2017, the national debt had grown to $20,493 trillion, an increase of $558 billion. By way of comparison, the national debt grew from $10,627 trillion in January 2009 to $12,311 trillion in December 2009, an increase of $1,684 trillion according to Treasury Direct.
The so-called Great Recession began in the first quarter of 2008 (-2.7 GDP) and ended in the third quarter of 2009 (+1.3 GDP). From the end of the recession in June 2009 to the end of 2016, GDP bumped along at an annual average of around 2 percent. GDP for the second and third quarters of 2017 have been 3.1 and 3.2 respectively. In December 2017, Congress passed and President Trump signed the largest tax reform legislation in more than 40 years spurring the markets and GDP even higher.
Elite media and establishment political class’s brows have collectively frozen into one sad frown. Is there any hope for America, our markets, economy, or wellbeing? Tune in tomorrow to follow the continuing drama.
Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com, or interact with him on the Clarion-Ledger web site http://www. clarionledger.com/story/opinion/