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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 6:51:46 GMT
What the heck is a "pattern maker?"The fastest-growing job in each U.S. state Adriana Belmonte 8 hours ago
The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.0% in January 2019, while the labor force participation rate hit its highest mark since 2013. Overall, the report indicated that the U.S. labor market is still chugging along.
And some jobs are growing faster than others. Construction and extraction jobs are in high demand in the U.S., along with installation, maintenance, and repair services. Production jobs are also quickly developing, as are mathematical and technology-focused occupations.
Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and projections from the government-backed Projections Managing Partnership (PMP), we mapped out the top jobs by growth rate (as opposed to plentifulness).
(Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) These are the fastest-growing jobs in each state. Titles edited for clarity. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)
Solar panel installers are in high demand
A solar panel installer is the fastest-growing job in eight different states, including California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Minnesota, and New Jersey. It is also known as a “PV installer,” and “assembles, installs, and maintains solar panel systems on rooftops or other structures.”
In 2017, the occupation saw a median pay of $18.98 per hour, or $39,490 per year. It’s projected to grow 105% by 2026, which is significantly faster than the national rate.
Statisticians are another developing job. They “develop or apply mathematical or statistical theory and methods to collect, organize, interpret, and summarize numerical data to provide usable information.” The field involves crunching numbers and includes mathematical and survey statisticians. There are various specialties, including bio-statistics, agricultural statistics, business statistics, and economic statistics, according to BLS. With a median annual salary of $84,060, it’s the fastest-growing occupation in Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, and Massachusetts.
Vivint Solar technician Eduardo Aguilar installs solar panels on the roof of a house in Mission Viejo, Calif. (Photo: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)
Wind turbine technicians are also needed
Derrick operator jobs are very popular in North Dakota and Oklahoma, and in Middle America in general. If you’re wondering what the job entails, the occupation is part of the oil and gas rigging industry. It makes an annual median wage of $46,140, which translates to roughly $22.18 an hour.
There are more and more wind turbine service technicians in states like Colorado, Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa. The BLS defines these workers as those who “inspect, diagnose, adjust, or repair wind turbines” and “perform maintenance on wind turbine equipment including resolving electrical, mechanical, and hydraulic malfunctions.” Wind turbine service technicians see a median hourly wage of $25.91, or $53,880 a year.
Some of the fastest-growing jobs are a bit more unique depending on location (and the relative number of jobs available). In Georgia, you’re in luck if you’re interested in being a costume attendant. In Oregon, it’s more about animal trainers. In Idaho, exhibit designers are in demand.
Adriana is an associate editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @adrianambells.
READ MORE: www.yahoo.com/finance/news/available-jobs-us-143220860.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 6:56:24 GMT
I need to bring this up again because the big braggart in the White House seems to think it has something to do with him. We know irresponsible economic ideology (trickle down) and greed (housing crisis, derivatives, etc.) caused the 2008 crash and tremendous job loss. BUT, the SUPPOSED great numbers in job creation has NOTHING to do with Trump or Trumpubliconservative policies. Boomers are retiring in record numbers! This NEVER gets mentioned in the monthly numbers. Why?
And thanks to Republiconservative efforts to stop pension programs and force workers into 401Ks and other non-pension programs beginning under Reagan a large percentage of the boomers LOST most of those types of funds thanks to the second Great Republicon caused Depression in 2008. That has resulted in many boomers having to delay their retirement but the numbers are now increasing.BABY BOOMER RETIREES WILL HELP CREATE 55 MILLION JOBS BY 2020 www.georgetown.edu/news/study-finds-retirees-will-create-more-jobs-2020.htmlJune 28, 2013 – A Georgetown report released this week predicts that 31 million jobs will open up as baby boomers retire, and another 24 million new jobs will be available by 2020, barring any unforeseen economic or political surprises. The report by Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) also predicts a shortfall of five million workers with postsecondary education and training. “If the U.S. Congress can deal with budgetary challenges, we are on schedule for recovery,” says center director Anthony P. Carnevale. “But we will still face a major shortage of college-educated workers, especially as baby boomers retire.” MAY 7, 2014, AT 10:24 AM
What Baby Boomers’ Retirement Means For the U.S. Economy By Ben Casselman fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-baby-boomers-retirement-means-for-the-u-s-economy/ The recession may have delayed the inevitable for a time. The financial crisis wiped away billions in retirement savings, forcing many Americans to work longer than planned. But the stock market has since rebounded, and there are signs that more Americans are at last feeling confident enough to leave the workforce. The labor force participation rate for older Americans — the share of those 55 and older who are working or actively looking for work — has fallen over the past year after rising through the recession and early years of the recovery. Roughly 17 percent of baby boomers now report that they are retired, up from 10 percent in 2010. www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/032216/are-we-baby-boomer-retirement-crisis.aspTHIS IS THE MORE ACCURATE PICTURE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TRUMP'S EFFORTS. IT HAS MORE TO DO WITH TRICKLE DOWN POLICIES FORCING PEOPLE TO STAY IN THE WORKFORCE.Older workers are driving job growth as boomers remain in workforce longerPaul Davidson, USA TODAY Published 12:01 a.m. ET Jan. 9, 2019 | Updated 7:52 a.m. ET Jan. 9, 2019 www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/01/09/boomers-older-workers-work-longer-driving-job-growth/2496893002/
Baby boomers should be hanging it up and kicking back.
Instead, they’re still driving U.S. job growth.
Americans 55 and over made up about half of all employment gains in 2018, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by The Liscio Report, a research publication for investors. That’s an eye-popping share considering that demographic made up only a quarter of last year’s labor force -- which includes people working and looking for jobs.
Of the 2.9 million new jobs recorded by Labor's survey of households last year, 1.4 million were taken by people 55 and over. And in December, 39.2 percent of Americans in that age group were working, the largest portion since 1961, according to the monthly employment report Labor released on Friday.
Among the factors behind the numbers: Older people want to work longer. The low, 3.9 percent unemployment rate provides them more opportunities as businesses struggle to find qualified job candidates. And lots of workers are simply aging into the 55-and-older bracket while many prime age-Americans remain sidelined.
“You have an aging workforce,” says economist Sophia Koropeckyj of Moody’s Analytics.
It’s not that baby boomers aren’t also retiring in droves. An estimated 10,000 a day are calling it quits. It’s just that the group is so large that enough are staying in, or returning to, the workforce to provide a welcome labor supply in a tight market.
After being on Social Security disability for five years, Janene Evans, 55, of Bozeman, Montana, decided to get a part-time job as a Walmart cashier in 2018 to earn some extra money. Although her disability paycheck rose 2.9 percent last year, she also faced a higher health insurance premium.
“Bozeman area employers are having difficulty finding employees,” Evans says, adding that Walmart managers were disappointed that she couldn’t work full-time. “Help-wanted signs are up everywhere.”
After putting in four weeks last spring, she quit the $11.50-an-hour job because it was too physically taxing, she says.
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Overall, older workers are changing the dynamics of the American workplace. While their knowledge and skills make many more productive, others may be less adaptable and savvy about new technology, Koropeckyj says.
AARP Vice President Susan Weinstock says older workers bring soft skills “gained over a lifetime of work, like calm under the pressure, ability to solve complex problems, ability to listen and be empathetic. These are uniquely human skills that a computer or a robot can’t replace.”
Why older Americans are accounting for so many job gains:
Choosing to work longer About a third of middle-aged Americans plan to work part-time and another 4 percent intend to work full-time after age 65, according to an Ipsos/USA Today survey in 2017.
Many baby boomers can do so because they’re healthier and better-educated than their predecessors, allowing them to continue working in white-collar jobs that don’t take a big physical toll, Koropeckyj says.
And since they’re living longer, they’ll need a bigger nest egg to fund their retirements, especially since the number of employers providing pensions has been steadily shrinking, says Jennifer Schramm, senior strategic policy advisor for AARP Public Policy Institute. The Great Recession compounded the problem by hammering the retirement savings of many older workers, Schramm says.
The 2007-09 downturn also left many boomers unemployed. When they finally did get jobs, many had to accept lower-level positions for less pay.
“Many seniors are having a hard time making ends meet and find they have to work when they had not planned to,” says Dean Baker, cofounder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
That wasn’t the issue for Gregory Siegelman, 61, who was laid off from his job as a marketing vice president in 2014. Although he couldn’t land another marketing position, he realized he had lost his passion for the field and could afford to retire. But he was bored.
Gregory Siegelman (Photo: Clinton Lewis)
“How much golf can you play?” Siegelman asks. “How many trips can you take?”
“I knew I had more juice left in me,” he says, and so he sought a job teaching marketing at area colleges. He was repeatedly turned down until he finally snared a full-time job teaching marketing at Western Kentucky University that began in fall 2017.
While the position pays about a third of his former salary, it allows him to avoid tapping his retirement savings and delay going on Social Security, a strategy that will increase his monthly Social Security payments.
“I love helping the kids,” he says. “I enjoy being up on stage. I enjoy sharing my knowledge.”
Employers are struggling to find workers With unemployment at 3.9 percent, it has gotten harder for employers to find qualified workers. In October, there were a near-record 7.1 million job openings but just 6 million unemployed workers, Labor figures show. As a result, more employers are willing to hire and accommodate older Americans by letting them work from home, for example.
That has drawn in more older workers. The share of 55-to-64 year-olds in the workforce increased to 65.5 percent in December from 64.5 percent a year earlier, Koropeckyj notes. And the portion of 65-and-older Americans in the labor force averaged 19.6 percent last year, the highest in decades, according to AARP and Labor.
Lots of baby boomers The increasing presence of older Americans in the job market can at least partly be explained by the sheer size of the boomer generation. There are about 73 million boomers and many of the youngest ones recently entered the 55-plus bracket. That age group accounted for about half of the total 2.6 million increase in the U.S. labor force last year, according Moody’s and Labor.
Meanwhile, many Americans in their prime working years, age 25 to 54, were laid off during the Great Recession and went on disability or succumbed to the opioid crisis, Koropeckyj says. The share of prime-age Americans in the labor force has edged higher in recent years but remains below prerecession levels.
Holiday hiring At least part of the surge in older workers last year seems to be related to strong seasonal hiring for temporary jobs in November and December. Employment for those 55 and over increased by 342,000 in that period, the largest two-month total since last spring.
Ruining the lives of future generations may sound extreme, but according to a new poll, 51% of millennials beset with big college loans, two wars and uncertain future work blame Boomers. Veuer's Chandra Lanier has the story. Buzz60
More Money: December jobs report: 312,000 added, easing recession fears amid stock turmoil
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 6:57:14 GMT
We need to learn from "OUR" leaders mistakes 1) what caused the problem and 2) how poorly it was handled. Why Republicans' Explanation Of The 2008 Crash Is Dangerously FalseEric Zuesse, Contributor Feb. 8, 2013, 2:40 PM www.businessinsider.com/republican-explanation-of-2008-crash-is-false-2013-2
Basically, there are two explanations that are given for the 2008 crash: the Democratic one, which says that Wall Street was deregulated and ran wild with frauds that cheated both the people who signed to trick mortgages and the people who bought the fraudulent mortgage-backed securities; versus the Republican one, which says that there was too much regulation in order to get poor people to buy houses they couldn't afford, and so Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ran wild with insuring or even buying mortgages to the poor, who basically ripped off the system and so caused the crash.www.thebalance.com/stock-market-crash-of-2008-3305535
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 6:57:52 GMT
BAD WITH MONEY 7 HOURS AGO National Debt Hits $22 Trillion
Reuters The national debt has passed a new milestone, surpassing $22 trillion for the first time ever. Tuesday’s daily statement from the Treasury Department showed that total outstanding debt now stands at $22.01 trillion. The public debt stood at $19.95 trillion when President Trump took office. The rate of debt figure has quickened following the passage of Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut in December 2017, as well as after increases in spending on domestic and military programs. The Trump administration argues that the tax cuts will eventually pay for themselves by generating faster economic growth—a projection disputed by many economists.
The national debt is the total of the annual budget deficits. The deficit increased by 15 percent over last year, and is expected to continue increasing in order to fund Social Security and Medicare as baby boomers retire. Michael Peterson, head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which focuses on economic challenges of the United States, says interest costs incurred due to the growing national debt “will weigh on our economy and make it harder to fund important investments for our future.”
www.thedailybeast.com/national-debt-hits-dollar22-trillion
Does Trump think he will lose in 2020 or that he will be dead? Many predictions are that the blowup begins at the end of this year or next year. And if republiconservatives really cared about the debt they wouldn't have transferred 2 trillion of middle class wealth to the 1% (global elite corporatists and their heirs) that could give a rats ass about the US or the American people. Trump on Coming Debt Crisis: ‘I Won’t Be Here’ When It Blows UpThe president thinks the balancing of the nation’s books is going to, ultimately, be a future president’s problem.
Asawin Suebsaeng, Lachlan Markay 12.05.18 10:32 AM ET EXCLUSIVE
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt.
Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn’t have to worry about the money owed to America’s creditors—currently about $21 trillion—because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.
“Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.
“I never once heard him talk about the debt.” — Former Senior White House official
The episode illustrates the extent of the president’s ambivalence toward tackling an issue that has previously animated the Republican Party from the days of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of Barack Obama.
But for those who have worked with Trump, it was par for the course. Several people close to the president, both within and outside his administration, confirmed that the national debt has never bothered him in a truly meaningful way, despite his public lip service. “I never once heard him talk about the debt,” one former senior White House official attested.
Marc Short, who until recently worked for Trump as his legislative affairs director, said he believed the president recognized “the threat that debt poses” and he pointed to Trump’s concern “about rising interest rates” as evidence of his concern for the matter.
“But there’s no doubt this administration and this Congress need to address spending because we have out-of-control entitlement programs,” Short said, adding, “it’s fair to say that... the president would be skeptical of anyone who claims that they would know exactly when a [debt] crisis really comes home to roost.”
Recent reports have suggested that Trump is determined, at least rhetorically, to address the issue. Hogan Gidley, a spokesman for the president, noted that the president and his team have proposed policies to achieve some deficit reduction, “including in his first budget that actually would’ve balanced in 10 years, a historic, common-sense rescissions proposal.”
But Gidley also passed the buck to the legislative branch. “While the president has and will continue to do everything in his power to rein in Washington’s out-of-control spending,” he said, “the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse and it’s time for them to work with this president to reduce the debt.”
FUZZY MATH The “Tax the Rich” Delusion of the Democratic Left Brian Riedl
Those close to Trump say that one reason the issue of debt reduction has never been an animating one for him is because he is convinced that it can be solved through means other than tax hikes or sharp spending reductions.
Stephen Moore, a conservative economist at the Heritage Foundation and an economic adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign, recalled making visual presentations to Trump in mid-2016 that showed him the severity of the debt problem. But Moore told The Daily Beast that he personally assured candidate Trump that it could be dealt with by focusing on economic growth.
“That was why, when he was confronted with these nightmare scenarios on the debt, I think he rejected them, because if you grow the economy… you don’t have a debt problem,” Moore continued. “I know a few times when people would bring up the enormous debt, he would say, ‘We’re gonna grow our way out of it.’”
Moore has since championed this approach to tackling the debt as a key part of “Trumponomics,” and has co-authored a book supporting it.
As Moore recalled, a belief that robust economic growth would solve all problems was the way Trump—starting in 2016—justified the cost of his ambitious proposals to slash taxes, pursue big infrastructure projects, and simply avoid massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Since then, the president has continued to show indifference over the national debt, to the consternation of more traditionally conservative associates.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump Remember, as a senator, Obama did not vote for increasing the debt ceiling bit.ly/f7yQrU I guess things change when President?!
44 12:55 PM - Jan 14, 2013 Twitter Ads info and privacy
Obama: Not Always a Fan of Upping Debt Ceiling
While President Obama’s economic advisor Austin Goolsbee argued Sunday that a refusal by the Senate to increase the government’s debt ceiling (currently $14.3 trillion) would be “catastrophic” and …
One current senior Trump administration official vented that Trump “doesn’t really care” about actually attacking the debt “crisis,” and prefers simply “jobs and growth, whatever that means.”
For the most part, the Republican Party has gone along. Over the first two years of the Trump administration, congressional Republicans have slashed taxes dramatically while increasing defense and discretionary spending, all without giving much indication that they’re going to take a stab at dramatically gutting certain popular entitlements.
The results have not been what Trump and Moore have promised; at least not yet. Economic growth increased over the past year—including a robust 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018—but the federal deficit has ballooned as well, in part because the government has taken in less revenue because of the tax cuts. Current forecasts are not too rosy about the future economy.
Recently, both Trump and some Republican lawmakers have hinted at regret over their approach. Earlier this year, Trump conveyed his disappointment with signing a large spending bill, particularly after he saw typically friendly allies on Fox News tear into him for supporting legislation that they viewed as funding Democratic priorities, exacerbating the national debt, and ditching his pledge to build a gigantic border wall, according to a report at the time in Axios.
Sources close to the president tell The Daily Beast that Trump was genuinely taken aback by the severity of this mini-revolt from MAGA loyalists.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump Funny to hear the Democrats talking about the National Debt when President Obama doubled it in only 8 years!
122K 7:23 PM - Nov 29, 2017 Twitter Ads info and privacy 62.7K people are talking about this However, right-leaning reformers shouldn’t be holding their breath.
The Washington Post recently reported that Trump had instructed his Cabinet to devise plans to trim their budgets in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. But Trump also set strict limits on what sorts of programs could be cut—and quickly proceeded to propose increased spending in other areas of the federal government.
“He understands the messaging of it,” the former senior White House official told The Daily Beast. “But he isn’t a doctrinaire conservative who deeply cares about the national debt, especially not on his watch… It’s not actually a top priority for him… He understands the political nature of the debt but it’s clearly not, frankly, something he sees as crucial to his legacy.”
The former Trump official adding, “It’s not like it’s going to haunt him.”
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 6:58:45 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 6:59:48 GMT
Americans — particularly millennials — are alarmingly late on car payments Aarthi Swaminathan 19 hours ago
A record seven million Americans are more than 90 days late on their auto loan payments, and millennials are clearly leading delinquency rates, according to a report by the New York Fed.
The NY Fed found that the number of new auto loans and leases appearing on credit reports in 2018 reached a new peak — the highest level in the 19 years they have monitored the data — at $584 billion.
Looking at the number of auto loans in serious delinquency, the researchers noted that there was a “sharp worsening in the performance of the loans held by borrowers under 30 years old between 2014 and 2016.”
And as seen in the graph below, borrowers between the ages of 18 and 39 — Pew Research identifies millennials as anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 23 to 38 in 2019) — have the worst delinquency rates as compared to other demographics.
Americans — particularly millennials — are alarmingly late on car payments. (Source: NY Fed) The researchers said that overall, the end of 2018 saw “more than a million more troubled borrowers than there had been at the end of 2010,” when the overall delinquency rates were at their worst on record. Auto loans have also surged by almost 35 percent since the Great Recession according to additional data.
“The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefitted from the strong labor market and warrants continued monitoring and analysis of this sector,” the report concluded.
Delinquencies concentrated in the southeast A Yahoo Finance analysis of the NY Fed data revealed that many of the higher delinquency rates are concentrated in the southeast, with states like Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi looking at the highest levels.
(Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) Vicious cycle of low credit ratings
Millennials with poor credit may be a key contributor to the trend.
“The strongest correlation is credit rating,” Bankrate.com’s chief financial analyst Greg McBride told Yahoo Finance. “Those with poor credit ratings have much higher delinquencies. It’s much more a function of credit rating than age.”
McBride explained that younger people don’t have a long and established credit history, which results in them being classified as non-prime borrowers in addition to depriving them of access to financing options from credit unions or banks.
“Borrowers with credit scores less than 620 saw their transitions into delinquency exceed 8 percent in the fourth quarter,” the NY Fed report stated, “a development that is surprising during a strong economy and labor market.”
Vehicle shopper Mary Jean Jones speaks with Mark Miller Toyota salesman Doug Lund Tuesday, June 13, 2017, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
McBride downplayed the idea that millennials’ student loan debt burden created the need to delay payments to reallocate funds: “If you run into financial difficulty, you have more flexibility on that than any other form of payment… with car payments in particular, you have absolutely no wiggle room.”
He pointed out that while auto loan delinquencies alone didn’t warrant alarm, the situation was still worrying when looking at overall household debt — which includes mortgages, credit cards and auto loans. (Auto debt makes up about 9.4% of the total household debt, according to the NY Fed.)
Auto loans ‘not a smoking gun’ Other economists strongly rejected the idea that the rapidly increasing number of delinquencies represented a threat to the economy.
“Auto delinquencies have never been the smoking gun that flashes warning signs that the economy is stretched to its limits and in danger of crashing,” MUFG’s chief economist Chris Rupkey told Yahoo Finance. “It is a false comparison to say subprime auto loans are similar to subprime, no-doc home loans made over a decade ago that brought about the deepest downturn in the economy since the Great Depression.”
He added that unlike homes, “cars can be resold with less of a haircut and less of a financial loss.”
MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 30: A For Sale sign is seen outside of a home on January 30, 2019 in Miami, Florida. The pending home sales index dropped 2.2 percent to 99.0, down from 101.2 in November, the weakest reading since April 2014 according to the National Association of Realtors. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) However, the effects could be cumulative. Heritage Capital president Paul Schatz told Yahoo Finance that overall, the loan delinquencies are just “one nail in the coffin for the expansion but nowhere near the final nail.”
Schatz added that the current situation does not resemble the 2008 crisis because “today, the consumer has a much better balance sheet and is not committing mistakes as egregiously as they did from 2003 to 2007.”
Nevertheless, the combination of other areas of the economy weakening — alongside auto loan delinquencies — could create enough momentum such that “an exogenous event will tip us into recession after the landscape has been properly fertilized for it.”
Aarthi is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.
Read more: www.yahoo.com/finance/news/car-payments-missed-credit-scores-171533526.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:00:46 GMT
'Unhinged madman': Former U.S. budget director says Trump is 'conducting 4 wars on the economy' Aarthi Swaminathan Sun, Feb 24 9:04 AM MST
A former U.S. government official believes President Donald Trump is severely hurting the American economy in various ways.
“We have a delusional, unhinged madman in the Oval Office, and anything is possible,” David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Ronald Reagan, told Yahoo Finance’s The Ticker (video above). “He's conducting four wars on the American economy, and it's not going to make it great again.”
Stockman, who just published Peak Trump: The Undrainable Swamp And The Fantasy Of MAGA, argued that Trump is waging a trade war, a border war, a political war against the Fed, and a war on the nation’s solvency.
U.S. President Donald Trump points a finger during a special session entitled 'Fair And Sustainable Future' as part of G20 Leaders Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina on November 30, 2018. (Photo: Murat Kaynak/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
1. Trade war
In March 2018, Trump slapped a 10% tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. He accused the country of unfair trade practices that were hurting Americans and the U.S. economy.
China quickly responded with retaliatory tariffs on roughly $50 billion worth of U.S. goods. Tensions escalated for months with both sides refusing to budge on the issue, kicking up tariffs even further.
“The trade war is a war on consumers,” Stockman said. “If it goes from 10% — which is already costing $30 billion a year just on Chinese imports — to higher, that is only going to be that much worse.”
Negotiations are underway on a trade deal that would address issues including forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.
“It looks like perhaps this new version of the Titanic will avoid the iceberg,” American Apparel & Footwear Association’s president and CEO Rick Helfenbein told Yahoo Finance’s On The Move. “Clearly, that makes all of us very happy because we have serious concerns if these tariffs come in… it's already hitting us a bit. It's already baking some inflation into our system.”
President Donald Trump talks with reporters as he gets a briefing on border wall prototypes, Tuesday, March 13, 2018, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
2. Border war
Stockman then referred to Trump’s hardline stance against illegal immigrants as a “border war on immigrant labor.”
Because of shifting demographics, “the domestic labor force is shrinking,” Stockman explained. “We need immigrant labor. We shouldn't be having a, you know, silly battle over a wall in a border where there isn't a crisis.”
A promise he made while on the campaign trail, Trump now has appropriated enough funds to commence building a nearly 2,000-mile-long border wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Trump administration has also inspired harsh immigration enforcement tactics carried out by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Stricter immigration policies will strengthen national security, they argued.
“We’re moving in tremendous numbers of people to get out the MS-13 gangs and others gangs that illegally come into our country,” said Trump. “And we’re getting them out by the thousands. But this is a perilous situation, and it threatens to become even more hazardous as our economy gets better and better.”
(Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)
3. Attacking the Fed
Trump’s third war was a political one, said Stockman. And it was aimed at the Federal Reserve for its interest rate hikes.
“He's conducting a political war on the Fed that finally was getting enough courage up to normalize interest rates,” Stockman explained. “For crying out loud, 10 years, interest rates have been below the inflation rate, which means zero money market costs. It's been a boon like never before to speculators. It's done nothing for Main Street.”
After a decade of keeping rates low following the Great Recession, the Fed began to accelerate interest rates hikes, with a third one in September 2018. Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that the central bank was going to be more data-dependent in its decisions.
But Trump expressed frustration over the hike — fearing that it may stall the economy — and tweeted: He even discussed firing Powell, according to a report by Bloomberg.
But last week’s Fed minutes indicate that the Fed would be more patient in evaluating financial conditions — which means that it is pausing interest rate hikes – given “risks and uncertainties in the outlook.”
The U.S. Capitol Building Dome is seen through a beveled window at the Library of Congress in Washington. (Photo: AP/Carolyn Kaster)
4. War on the nation’s solvency
Stockman’s final gripe with Trump is over the national debt.
As the number soars past $22 trillion — which is 22 times higher than when Reagan and Stockman were in office — Trump remains mum on the issue.
“He's conducting a war on the nation's solvency with a fiscal policy that is more out to lunch than anything I've seen since 1970 when I started on Capitol Hill,” Stockman fumed.
The big challenge was that even though the economy has been expanding at a rapid pace, “we're in the last months… you don't raise the deficit to $1.2 trillion at the very tippy top of a business cycle and expect anything but bad results,” said Stockman.
Hence, Stockman said: "Everything he's doing is wrong. The trade war is wrong. The massive deficits are wrong. Beating up on the Fed when it's trying to go in the right direction is wrong.”
He added that the combined effect would be that “when the recession finally comes, and it will come in the next year or two years… the deficit is going to soar to $2 trillion a year as revenue collapses, like it always does.”
And as there are considerable tailwinds coming at the economy — both domestically and overseas — Stockman argued that “we're going to go into the 2020s with a massive retirement wave from the baby boom, a deficit that is beyond belief in size, and a national debt that's out of control.
It will be a nonstop crisis for the entire decade, unless we do something big and quick. And I think it's too late.”
Aarthi is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.
Read more:
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:01:32 GMT
reaganbushdebt.org/
Welcome to ReaganBushDebt.org This site tracks the current Reagan Bush Debt. The Reagan-Bush Debt is how much of the national debt of the United States is attributable to the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and the Republican fiscal policy of Borrow-And-Spend.
As of Friday, April 08, 2016 at 6:10:18PM CT,
The Current ReaganBush Debt is:
$18,028,285,990,551.30 (THAT IS 18 TRILLION)
which means that in a total of 20 years, these three presidents have led to the creation of
93.66%
of the entire national debt in only 8.3333% of the 240 years of the existence of the United States of America.
ReaganBushDebt.org Calculation Details
According to www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm, the debt at the end of the 1980 fiscal year, on September 30th, 1980, was $907,701,000,000. On September 30th, 1981, it was $997,855,000,000. Averaging it out over the year gives a debt of $246,997,260.27 per day.
Reagan took office 112 days later on January 20th, 1981. The debt on that date could be estimated as $907,701,000,000 plus 112 x $246,997,260.27, or $935,364,693,151.
Bill Clinton was the first president to slow the rate of the accrual of debt after the current out-of-control spending began with the Borrow and Spend Republicans in 1981.
The final amount of the senior Bush debt was $4,174,218,594,232.91 (according to www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np), and Clinton became president on January 20th, 1993. Bill Clinton saw $1,553,558,144,071.73 added to the national debt during the eight years of his presidency.
However, from the start of fiscal year 1994 (7 months after Clinton became president), until the start of fiscal year 2002 (7 months after Bush took office), the amount of money paid toward interest on the existing Federal debt was $2,767,282,794,374.59 (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm).
Therefore, no amount of the national debt is attributable to Bill Clinton - his policies of higher taxes and reduced spending actually simultaneously reduced the debt and brought about the strongest economy since World War II, despite the fiscal disaster left in the wake of Reagan and the first Bush.
The debt was at $5,727,776,738,304.64 on January 19th, 2001, the last business day before George W. Bush took the office of president. The debt was at $10,628,881,485,510.23 on January 16th, 2009, the last business day before Barack H. Obama became president.
During his administration, George W. Bush increased the national debt by $4,901,104,747,205.59 and personally approved of the creation of 46% of the entire national debt, in only 8 years.
Starting in 2003, George W. Bush destroyed the world economy by encouraging U.S. banks to make loans to those who could not afford them, through schemes such as the "American Dream Downpayment Initiative", and through the elimination of oversight, such as lawsuits to prevent state securities laws from being enforced on Bush's watch. Once Bush's policies led to their inevitable result of economic collapse, the United States found itself in a situation where it had to increase the size of the annual Federal budget in order to support and restore the economy, and then sustain that budget, to avoid another collapse.
The result of George W. Bush's Borrow-And-Spend Republicanism was a 2009 annual Federal government budget of $3,517,677,000,000, and an economy too weak to avoid recession from cutting that budget.
President Barack Obama took four years to cut the deficit in half from 2009 levels, and is on track to lower the deficit throughout his term (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist01z1.xls).
That means that Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush's Borrow-And-Spend Republican administrations oversaw, approved, or caused to be spent, almost all of the national debt, except for as much as $1,221,051,693,151.00.
The current calculation on the site is based on the U.S. Treasury's published Total Public Debt Outstanding as of Tuesday, April 05, 2016, when the debt was $19,237,067,126,145.00. On Tuesday, September 04, 2007, the debt was $8,995,145,905,720.62.
This means that with the current national debt around $19,249,362,199,127.10, we're adding $3,265,918,756.51 per day, or $37,799.99 per second.What do these numbers mean?
Millions
First consider a million: •One million is a thousand thousands. •One million is a 1 with six zeros after it, denoted by 1,000,000. •One million seconds is about 11 and a half days. •One million pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower nearly a mile high. •If you earn $45,000 a year, it would take 22 years to amass a fortune of one million dollars. •One million ants would weigh a little over six pounds. •One million dollars divided evenly among the U.S. population would mean everyone in the United States would receive about one third of one cent.
Billions
Next up is one billion: •One billion is a thousand millions. •One billion is a 1 with nine zeros after it, denoted by 1,000,000,000. •One billion seconds is about 31 and a half years. •One billion pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower almost 870 miles high. •If you earn $45,000 a year, it would take 22,000 years to amass a fortune of one billion dollars. •One billion ants would weight over 3 tons - a little less than the weight of an elephant. •One billion dollars divided equally among the U.S. population would mean that everyone in the United States would receive about $3.33.
Trillions
After this is a trillion: •One trillion is a thousand billions, or equivalently a million millions. •It is a 1 with twelve zeros after it, denoted by 1,000,000,000,000. •One trillion seconds is over 31 thousand years. •One trillion pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower about 870,000 miles high - the same distance obtained by going to the moon, back to earth, then to the moon again. •One trillion ants would weigh over 3000 tons. •One trillion dollars divided evenly among the U.S. population would mean that everyone in the United States would receive a little over $3000.
What’s Next?
Numbers higher than a trillion are not talked about as frequently, but there are names for these numbers.
Name / number of zeros / groups of (3) zeros
Trillion 12 4 (1,000,000,000,000) Quadrillion 15 5 Quintillion 18 6 Sextillion 21 7 Septillion 24 8 Octillion 27 9 Nonillion 30 10 Decillion 33 11 Undecillion 36 12 Duodecillion 39 13 Tredecillion 42 14 Quatttuor-decillion 45 15 Quindecillion 48 16 Sexdecillion 51 17 Septen-decillion 54 18 Octodecillion 57 19 Novemdecillion 60 20 Vigintillion 63 21 Centillion 303 101
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:04:18 GMT
Trump keeps touting job creation like it is the best it has ever been because he is the president. Consider this: 10,000 baby boomers retire every day now. That equals approximately 300,000 per month jobs left open. So when Trump boasts anything under that total that means he LOST jobs. Just another of those LIES OF OMISSION republiconservatives love to tell. During the Obama administration baby boomers for the most part had to forego retirement because the Republiconservatives that controlled our government crashed the economy causing the worst depression since the last Great Republican Caused Depression in the 1930s. Socialism had to bail out Capitalism once again. Rich bankers and Wall Street were bailed out by Main Street who is still suffering because of it.
So understand, when Trump and his Republican cronies lips are moving...they are lying. BABY BOOMER RETIREES WILL HELP CREATE 55 MILLION JOBS BY 2020 www.georgetown.edu/news/study-finds-retirees-will-create-more-jobs-2020.html talk about synchronicity...this just popped up as I finished the post: U.S. economy adds 263,000 jobs in April, unemployment rate falls to 3.6%Emily McCormick Reporter Yahoo FinanceMay 3, 2019 finance.yahoo.com/news/april-jobs-report-2019-220932515.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsOh, and unemployment falls because they cannot find any qualified people to replace the boomers and the Trumpubliconservatives are kicking out immigrants who might otherwise take the more blue collar jobs that no one wants which are also added into these numbers. It is all a scam and a shell game propaganda tool. Think about it.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:05:11 GMT
Business Charlie Munger: Trump is not primarily responsible for US economic successYahoo Finance Max Zahn with Andy Serwer,Yahoo Finance 7 hours ago www.yahoo.com/finance/news/charlie-munger-trump-120000112.html
President Donald Trump is not primarily responsible for U.S. economic success, says Charlie Munger, the right-hand man of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) CEO Warren Buffett.
“I think [Trump] deserves some credit, but a lot of it just happened,” says Munger, 95, in his first interview after the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting.
The U.S. has been awash with positive economic news in recent weeks.
Last month, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported first quarter GDP growth of 3.2%, which far exceeded expectations. Meanwhile a jobs report released last week found the economy added 263,000 jobs in April, dropping the unemployment rate to 3.6%, its lowest level since 1969.
Munger, a Republican, said the strong economic performance resulted largely from the natural economic cycle and the decisions of Trump’s predecessors in the White House.
Munger made the remarks to Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer in a conversation that airs on Yahoo Finance on Thursday at 5 p.m. EST in an episode of “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.
Since 1978, Munger has served as vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway alongside Buffett. The two met 20 years earlier through a mutual contact in Omaha, Nebraska, where both were born and currently live. Berkshire Hathaway is the fourth-largest public company in the world, yielding Buffett a net worth of $83.1 billion and Munger one of $1.7 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway owns over 60 companies, like Geico and Dairy Queen, plus minority stakes in Apple, Coca-Cola, among others.
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, left, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, briefly chat with reporters Friday, May 3, 2019, one day before Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
‘Presidents have always done this’
In his interview with Yahoo Finance, Munger dismissed criticism of Trump’s efforts to pressure Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on interest rates.
“I think presidents have always done this,” Munger says. (Indeed, past presidents including Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon Johnson tried to influence the Fed.)
But Munger sharply rebuked Trump’s policy goals at the Fed, arguing that a push to keep benchmark interest rates low will ultimately backfire.
“If you're a politician in a democracy, of course you want people to print money and spend it,” Munger says. “And of course, it's not a good idea.”
“There comes a point when printing money is counterproductive,” he adds.
Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:05:52 GMT
Can't find the thread I wanted for this post but this will do.
Could Trump's Trade Policy Cost Progressives 2020 Election?
Thom Hartmann Program Published on May 13, 2019
Donald Trump could win the 2020 Election through his trade policies and to make it worse, Donald Trump is going about trade in a way that will hurt the economy and Americans in the long run.
Can progressives bring protectionist trade policies back to the left before Donald Trump starts another term as president?
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:06:55 GMT
Quote by ronstadtfanaz: I heard Thom discuss this yesterday, the talk about a Value Added Tax, which seems to make a lot more sense than a tariff against another country's goods, which we the American consumers pay for, not that other country. Of course he moment the word " tax" gets floated out there, old Grover Nordquist comes out of the woodwork to say "F**K NO!" Personally, I'd love to shrink Nordquist to the size where he could drown in a bathtub. pg4
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:56:08 GMT
If you want to blame ANYONE for all of this BLAME THE REPUBLICONSERVATIVE FREE MARKET FREE TRADE SCAMS pushed since Reagan forward. Their corporate trickle down policies allowed American corporations to move tens of thousands of factories for the cheap labor of Mexico and China while decimating the middle class. It is all about greed. In return these same corporations had to give away technology to the Chinese. Liberals and Democrats have been vocal about what these corporate loving conservatives have done to our country and even Clinton and Obama bought into this nonsense against the wishes of their party. Tariffs have mostly been a Democratic tactic and I am glad Trump latched onto it although he could have done it better. Giving these 1%ers a 2 trillion wealth transfer from the middle class was NOT a wise thing to do. The Republican Party is nothing more than a front group for billionaires and transnational corporations and conservatism is the anointed cult created to do their bidding. www.takeoverworld.info/conservatism.htm www.Takeoverworld.info/overclass.htmlNo easy options for China as trade war, U.S. pressure biteReuters By Kevin Yao and Michael Martina,Reuters 13 hours ago
FILE PHOTO: Containers are seen at the Yangshan Deep Water Port in Shanghai, China April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo By Kevin Yao and Michael Martina
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is running out of options to hit back at the United States without hurting its own interests, as Washington intensifies pressure on Beijing to correct trade imbalances in a challenge to China's state-led economic model.
China said this week it would impose higher tariffs on most U.S. imports on a revised $60 billion target list. That's a much shorter list compared with the $200 billion of Chinese products on which Washington has hiked tariffs.
Washington has also turned up the heat on other fronts, from targeting China's tech firms such as Huawei and ZTE to sending warships through the strategic Taiwan Strait.
As the pressure mounts, Chinese leaders are pressing ahead to seal a deal and avoid a drawn-out trade war that risks stalling China's long-term economic development, according to people familiar with their thinking.
But Beijing is mindful of a possible nationalistic backlash if it is seen as conceding too much to Washington.
more www.yahoo.com/news/no-easy-options-china-trade-war-u-pressure-074805727.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 7:57:58 GMT
Every day there are new lies from this man, his party and the conservative minions...all boasts and lies of omission.AP FACT CHECK: Trump's miscues on trade and drug pricesAssociated Press HOPE YEN and CALVIN WOODWARD,Associated Press Sat, May 18 5:26 AM MST www.yahoo.com/news/ap-fact-check-trumps-miscues-trade-drug-prices-122613295.html
In this May 14, 2019, photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, shake hands prior to their talks in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, southern Russia. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, Pool) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump spoke this past week as if he's unaware that drug prices have gone up and tariffs came before him.
His boast that the U.S. never collected a dime on goods from China until he imposed them marked a series of statements misrepresenting how trade works as the two countries escalated their dispute with new and retaliatory taxes on each other's products.
Meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared inaccurately that no traces of collusion between his country and Trump's 2016 campaign were found in the "exotic" special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller.
A look at some recent rhetoric:
TRADE
TRUMP: "We've been losing, for many years, anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year with China and trade with China. We can't let that happen." — remarks Tuesday at the White House.
TRUMP: "We lost $180 billion with the European Union." — remarks to National Association of Realtors on Friday.
THE FACTS: This is not how almost any economist would describe what is happening.
The United States does have a huge trade deficit with China, totaling $378.7 billion last year, as well as a $109 billion trade deficit with the EU. That means China and the EU exported far more to the United States than vice versa. But in return, U.S. businesses and consumers received goods and services with that money. Economists compare Trump's take on trade deficits to a shopper going to a store and complaining they "lost" money with what they bought.
Most trade experts see trade deficits or surpluses between two specific countries as economically meaningless. China's deficit with the United States is large in part because many goods, particularly electronics, that used to be made in different countries, typically in Asia, are now sent to China for final assembly, even though many key parts are still manufactured in countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
That has lowered the U.S. trade deficit with those countries over the years while increasing the gap with China.
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TRUMP: "Our economy is fantastic; (China's) is not so good. We've gone up trillions and trillions of dollars since the election; they've gone way down since my election." — remarks Tuesday.
THE FACTS: There's not much truth to this. The U.S. economy hasn't done as well, nor has China done as badly, as Trump says. The U.S. economy has grown at a healthy pace since Trump's inauguration in January 2017, but not by "trillions and trillions."
U.S. gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the country's growth — has increased by just over $1 trillion, to $18.9 trillion, in the past two years. Those figures are adjusted for inflation. China has seen its rate of economic growth tick down slightly, from 6.7% in 2016 to 6.6% last year, according to the International Monetary Fund. That is more than twice the U.S. growth rate in 2018 of 2.9%, although mature economies such as America's typically grow more slowly than developing countries such as China.
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TRUMP: "We're taking in, right now, hundreds of billions of dollars. We're taking in billions of dollars of tariffs. And those tariffs are going to be tremendously — if you look at what we've done thus far with China, we've never taken in 10 cents until I got elected." — remarks Monday with Hungary's prime minister.
THE FACTS: He's wrong. The notion that the U.S. suddenly has revenue coming in from tariffs, thanks to his trade dispute, defies history that goes back to the founding of the republic. President George Washington signed the Tariff Act into law in 1789 — the first major act of Congress — and duties from imports were a leading source of revenue for the government before the advent of the modern tax system early in the 20th century. Tariffs on goods specifically from China are not remotely new, either. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before.
Tariffs are a decidedly modest portion of revenue in modern times and Trump has not changed that with the escalation of his trade fight with China. Customs and duties generated $41.3 billion in revenues last year, up from $34.6 billion in 2017 (far more than 10 cents). That $6.7 billion increase occurred in part because of the president's tariffs. But it amounted to just 0.16% of federal spending.
Moreover, tariffs are taxes paid largely by U.S. business and consumers, not foreign countries.
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RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
PUTIN: "However exotic the work of special counsel Mueller was, I have to say that on the whole, he has had a very objective investigation, and he confirmed that there were no traces whatsoever of collusion between Russia and the incumbent administration, which we said was absolutely fake." — remarks Tuesday before a private meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Sochi, Russia.
THE FACTS: Putin is wrong about the Mueller report in regards to its findings of "collusion."
The Mueller report and other scrutiny revealed a multitude of meetings between Trump associates and Russians. Among them: Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer who had promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.
On collusion, Mueller said he did not assess whether that occurred because it is not a legal term.
He looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges on that front.
Mueller noted some Trump campaign officials had declined to testify under the Fifth Amendment or had provided false or incomplete testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign. The special counsel wrote that he "cannot rule out the possibility" that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation's findings.
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DRUG PRICES
TRUMP: "Drug prices have gone down for the first time in 51 years — they've gone down. First time in 51 years." — remarks Monday at White House dinner.
THE FACTS: That's an outdated boast. Trump appeared to be referring to recent decreases in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index for prescription drugs. But the index was updated Friday, before Trump's latest claim, and it showed an increase of 0.3% in April for prescription drug prices when compared with the same month last year.
The index tracks a set of medications, both brand drugs and generics.
Other independent studies point to increasing prices for brand name drugs as well and more overall spending on medications.
An analysis of brand-name drug prices by The Associated Press showed 2,712 price increases in the first half of January, compared with 3,327 increases during the same period last year. However, the size of this year's increases was not as pronounced.
Both this year and last, the number of price cuts was minuscule. The information for the analysis was provided by the health data firm Elsevier.
An analysis by Altarum, a nonprofit research and consulting firm, found that in 2018, spending on prescription drugs was one of the main factors behind a 4.5% increase in U.S. health spending. Spending on prescription drugs grew much faster than in 2017, according to the study.
Economist Paul Hughes-Cromwick of Altarum, said he expects drug prices will continue to creep up.
"I would be quite surprised if by July the annual rate doesn't return to a more normal 2%-4% growth," said Hughes-Cromwick.
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JOBS:
TRUMP: "We have the most people working today than at any time in the history of our country." — remarks to real estate group Friday.
THE FACTS: True but not surprising. The record workforce is driven by population growth.
A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.
According to Labor Department data, 60.6 percent of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in April. That's below the all-time high of 64.7 percent in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9 percent when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.
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TRUMP: "We have the biggest tax cut bill in the history of our country." — remarks to real estate group Friday.
THE FACTS: His tax cuts are nowhere close to the biggest in U.S. history.
It's a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan's 1981 cut is the biggest followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.
Post-Reagan tax cuts also stand among the historically significant: President George W. Bush's cuts in the early 2000s and President Barack Obama's renewal of them a decade later.
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Associated Press writers Christopher Rugaber and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
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Find AP Fact Checks at apne.ws/2kbx8bd
Follow @apfactcheck on Twitter: twitter.com/APFactCheck
EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
Don't Stop Me Now Cold Open - SNL
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 5, 2020 8:00:08 GMT
Farmers are angry as Trump's trade war with China causes record losses
Sher Watts Spooner for Daily Kos Community Sunday May 19, 2019 · 9:00 AM PDT www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/19/1857648/-Farmers-are-angry-as-Trump-s-trade-war-with-China-causes-record-losses
Figures from Pew Research show that 62% of voters in small towns and rural areas—men and women both—voted for Trump. To keep placating those voters, the Trump administration is promising a $20 billion aid package to farmers, after those same farmers got a $12 billion aid package last year. A total of $32 billion in taxpayer money is a lot of socialism, wouldn’t you say?
Whether any of those farmers splinter away from Trump in 2020 remains to be seen. If the Trump administration is successful in negotiating a beneficial trade deal—a process described as mud wrestling in a hurricane—then they’ll likely stay on Trump’s side. If not, and if more farmers face bankruptcy, they might take the viewpoint of Iowa farmer and 2016 Trump voter Larry Angler, whose farm is facing up to $150,000 in losses. Angler vowed to CNN that he would “never vote for him again.”
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