OT: American Politics
- Thread starter MindzEye
- Start date
worm
Well-known member
[video=youtube;8Ux3DKxxFoM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ux3DKxxFoM[/video]
worm
Well-known member
9/11
Habsy
Just Walking About Aimlessly
Your heads will explode when Agent Orange wins another term. It’s actually better for the Dems if they lose the house again this year and allow the feckless gop to spin wheels another 2 years. It will take away Trumps excuse that it was the Democrats in the house that prevented his awesomeness at like presidenting and stuff.
Altair
Well-known member
Wait for it...America may in the future find someone who makes us look back fondly on the Trump years.
Altair
Well-known member
America just gets tossed into the pile of countries that no one gives a shit about when bad things happen to it.
Car bomb in Iraq. Meh.
Suicide bombing in Afghanistan. Must be Monday.
Starving African kids starve? Uh huh.
Mass shooting in America. **** em.
worm
Well-known member
better for the dems maybe but not the USA
and either way trump will just make up some excuse that will be gobbled up
ie: he will blame the dems either way
Aberdeen
Well-known member
American's themselves already don't care about mass shootings.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Trump isn't winning a second term. His approval is as high as it is almost solely because he's sitting on top of (and blatantly taking credit for) a strong economy that he inherited. His tax cuts are quickly losing popularity and "librul tears" only makes about 30% of the country erect. The rest look around and see that things are good economically, so shrug their shoulders and assume that he must be doing a good job.
The economy is a slow moving beast and trends can change, but the trends are absolutely moving in the wrong direction
Exhibit A: The yield spread between 10 & 2 yr government bonds.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y
The yield spread does a pretty ****ing tremendous job of predicting US recessions. Basically when there is no difference between the bond yield of a 10 yr and 2 yr bond, the US economy slows the **** down (sometimes in spectacular fashion). That seriously appears to be coming.
Exhibit B: Tightening of the money supply (rising interest rates)
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate
The financial crisis in 08 put the weight of the world on Obama and the US Fed and both did a pretty decent job of playing their part to more or less rescue the economy. Obama had TARP, but the larger part of why the US turned around relatively quickly (and there wasn't a 30's style decade of economic depression) is that the Fed basically made borrowing money free. The US economy went through rounds of Quantitative Easing (aka, pouring buckets of money down the economy's throat) at ridiculously low interest rates. Well, QE stopped a couple of years ago, but the interest rates remained at a pretty historic low until recently when the fed has started to ratchet the rate back up into the 2% range (which is still historically low). This tightening of the money supply will lead to slightly slower growth but more importantly, it removes the biggest tool in the Fed's bag to combat a bad economy should a Trump recession be a harsh one. In normal circumstances, the Fed can make a pretty significant impact by
Exhibit C: Trade Wars
This just ****ing exacerbates everything else. One of the key reasons for these long term trade deals like Nafta is that it creates a relatively fair, but almost entirely stable long term set of rules that allows companies to invest money in future production with the confidence that they will see the fruits of their investment in the future. That spending of profits on expansion is the mortar of any economy. It generates short term, usually high paying construction jobs and then longer term employment, often in areas that need it (look at the expansion of automotive production in the US south for a good example of this). Fewer new jobs means less consumer spending, which means the service/retail sectors starts to suffer almost immediately. To make matters even worse, the prices of just about everything goes up because of tariffs and large chunks of your economy are basically landlocked so the already relatively small domestic consumer base you have the ability to sell to, is getting smaller and poorer by the day.
Exhibit D: Stock Market
The stock market is not the economy. Something in the range of 15% of all Americans even own a publicly traded equity, so it really and truly is only a measure of the wealth for the wealthy. It is however a pretty ****ing decent barometer for the sentiment of big/smart money within the economy. It is prone to over reacting in both directions to current economic sentiment but again, it does a good job of letting us know what big/smart money thinks is going to happen in the future. Well, the DOW is down 2000 points since January.
So yeah, unless if all of this shit turns around, Trump isn't winning shit. He's almost historically unpopular at this point in his presidency with an economy that is slowly turning against him.
The economy is a slow moving beast and trends can change, but the trends are absolutely moving in the wrong direction
Exhibit A: The yield spread between 10 & 2 yr government bonds.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y
The yield spread does a pretty ****ing tremendous job of predicting US recessions. Basically when there is no difference between the bond yield of a 10 yr and 2 yr bond, the US economy slows the **** down (sometimes in spectacular fashion). That seriously appears to be coming.
Exhibit B: Tightening of the money supply (rising interest rates)
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate
The financial crisis in 08 put the weight of the world on Obama and the US Fed and both did a pretty decent job of playing their part to more or less rescue the economy. Obama had TARP, but the larger part of why the US turned around relatively quickly (and there wasn't a 30's style decade of economic depression) is that the Fed basically made borrowing money free. The US economy went through rounds of Quantitative Easing (aka, pouring buckets of money down the economy's throat) at ridiculously low interest rates. Well, QE stopped a couple of years ago, but the interest rates remained at a pretty historic low until recently when the fed has started to ratchet the rate back up into the 2% range (which is still historically low). This tightening of the money supply will lead to slightly slower growth but more importantly, it removes the biggest tool in the Fed's bag to combat a bad economy should a Trump recession be a harsh one. In normal circumstances, the Fed can make a pretty significant impact by
Exhibit C: Trade Wars
This just ****ing exacerbates everything else. One of the key reasons for these long term trade deals like Nafta is that it creates a relatively fair, but almost entirely stable long term set of rules that allows companies to invest money in future production with the confidence that they will see the fruits of their investment in the future. That spending of profits on expansion is the mortar of any economy. It generates short term, usually high paying construction jobs and then longer term employment, often in areas that need it (look at the expansion of automotive production in the US south for a good example of this). Fewer new jobs means less consumer spending, which means the service/retail sectors starts to suffer almost immediately. To make matters even worse, the prices of just about everything goes up because of tariffs and large chunks of your economy are basically landlocked so the already relatively small domestic consumer base you have the ability to sell to, is getting smaller and poorer by the day.
Exhibit D: Stock Market
The stock market is not the economy. Something in the range of 15% of all Americans even own a publicly traded equity, so it really and truly is only a measure of the wealth for the wealthy. It is however a pretty ****ing decent barometer for the sentiment of big/smart money within the economy. It is prone to over reacting in both directions to current economic sentiment but again, it does a good job of letting us know what big/smart money thinks is going to happen in the future. Well, the DOW is down 2000 points since January.
So yeah, unless if all of this shit turns around, Trump isn't winning shit. He's almost historically unpopular at this point in his presidency with an economy that is slowly turning against him.
Habsy
Just Walking About Aimlessly
I think he can be defeated if the GOP keeps control. I think he has a better shot at repeating if he can obfuscate using the Dems as scape goats.
Habsy
Just Walking About Aimlessly
While I appreciate you taking the time to produce this post I have to disagree with your conclusion. Trump is far more popular than you think and his silent supporters are still lurking. Sure a crappy economy would likely end him but as you said, it’s a slow moving beast.
To my point, should the Dems win the house, he will blame them for everything and anything and people will believe him. Bet on that. The question is will enough people believe him to win.
Right now I’m leaning yes, enough will. A lot can change in two years though.
Altair
Well-known member
I have never wished for a global economic downturn before, but honestly, it's needed right now.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
I don't think enough people buy his brand of bullshit for him passing the buck for an economic downturn to work. He won the election by lying his face off to middle America (health care for everyone, jobs for everyone) and by tossing meat to his 30-35% base (lock her up, build the wall). I don't think there's anything the build the wall crowd could see or be told to turn on him at this point, they're pot committed. But the people who just didn't trust Hillary and bought the protection of middle america bullshit aren't going to buy what he's selling when they watch a well publicized trade war put the country into recession.
Habsy
Just Walking About Aimlessly
poor Jim Jordan.
You just know Rosenstein had this dug up as a **** you to Jordan. The two really dislike each other. It’s a very J. Edgar type move.
UWHabs
Well-known member
Yeah, I'm not expecting the average voter to factor in yield spreads when making their voting decisions.
It will come down to whether the Dems can run a reasonable option who can successfully counter Trump's popularity. And also we need to keep in mind - just because Trump is causing the Democrats popularity in places like NY to be at around 103% with the margin of error, that doesn't mean a worker in Ohio or Wisconsin is going to vote Dem. What might hurt him most is the fact that the trade war with Canada is going to hit some of those norther border states that he so desperately needs. If Ohio and Pennsylvania get hammered due to the tariffs, and whoever is running against Trump can convince the people there that it was Trump who did that and not those evil socialists in Canada, then he'd DOA.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
There's no proof of Trump being popular. There just isn't. The economy is a slow moving beast, but it's come a long way in the wrong direction in just the last 6 months. Another 6 like the last 6 and you'll be on the cusp of a recession, with 2 years left on Trump's term.
and that's just it, I don't buy it. Maybe if his tax cuts didn't go over like a lead balloon I'd reconsider this stance, but with how unpopular they turned out to be, I don't see enough people buying his economic bullshit.
Most polls I've seen recently suggest that the American public badly want someone to stand in opposition to Trump. A Democratic congress will do exactly that.
I think you're over estimating the support that got him into the white house. It took a historically unpopular democrat with ~30 yrs of public baggage and a poorly run campaign for Trump to sneak into office by about 85,000 votes almost perfectly placed. He's done nothing to endear himself to the masses since and his numbers show it. Disapproval is up 10% since he barely took office and approval is down 5%. That all occurred while he was riding a booming economy and taking credit for it at every turn.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Oh, I didn't suggest that they will. I just used that to illustrate how close the US is to sliding into recession. Only a couple percent understand what the yield spread is, but almost everyone understands what a recession is.
Can someone please provide me with proof of Trump's actual popularity? The last time a President had this level of popularity at this point in their Presidency, it was Jimmy Carter. I really don't get why we should assume the polls are wrong here. I get that there was some wiggle room between Trump's pre election popularity and the final vote count (within the margin of error) but I'm not seeing the argument for why they wouldn't show up in polling 18 months later. They're still worried about being seen as pro Trump?
We've already seen pretty heavy movement in those key battleground states.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...pecial-election-results-shift-democratic.html
The support difference between the election and the special elections that have occurred since, is ****ing striking.
again, I think people over estimate Trump's popularity. He barely, barely won the election. His popularity is down in most of the key states he snuck a win out of in 2016 (for example, in Pennsylvannia his personal approval rating was at 30% in polling from a few months ago https://www.pennlive.com/capitol-notebook/2018/03/no_stormy_weather_for_trump_pr.html )
We see it all over the country as Republicans running for election tend to want Trump to stay as far away from them as possible, other than in hard core Trump country.