Trump on Pace to Do What Obama Couldn’t

Sabato’s Crystal Ball says there are 12 Republican and 3 Democrat Congressmen in “toss-up districts. If all toss-ups were won by Democrats (and none of their incumbents lost), they’d pick up 15 seats.

(248 minus 192 is 56)

Democrats need to prevail over Republicans in 41 more districts, 15 of which Sabato says “lean Republican” (the other 26 they need are described as “likely Republican”).

It doesn't seem to me such a sure thing Democrats will win a majority in Congress in 2018 (no matter how awful Trump is).

 

After the Hillary disaster, I doubt Democrats and left leaning Independents will come out in any significant numbers in 2018. Especially the Bernie Bro's.

 

As usual I have beaten you into submission with facts and you have nothing left but derogatory remarks. I need a more worthy opponent.

 

I posted the GDP chart sorry you can't understand it.

 

too bad you make things up

nothing but high school puffery

 

Excellent Point. Bernie voters were angry during the Convention, angrier when the Drunken Kleptocrat picked the clown from VA for her VP, angrier when she lost, and they now livid as she blames Bernie for her loss, when Bernie on the ticket she stole from him would have resulted in a victory.

They will have no opportunity for a unifying figure until 2020, so you are right, Dems are hosed for 2018.

 

Fallacy of lack of cause and effect.

 

The dems will have a narrow majority or a huge minority after 2018.

If you think the GOP house does not function competently now, well then . . .

 

There are 14 toss ups and one flip. That's fifteen, you can count to that and leave one shoe on. You currently have 194 seats. If you take every toss up you will have 209. That's 9 short of the majority.

Get woke!

 

Check your source, Zorro! But if it were true, think of all the havoc the Dems are doing now with a solid minority, and what would happen if they were only nine short. Ryan and Trump would go to the Dems instead of the Conservatives and the hard right for money bills. And that means the Repubs would have to compromise on other bills. Decisions, decisions.

 

I've given you two, if you can't count to 15 and add it to 194 and realize that the result is less than 218, I don't really see how I can help you further, but, enjoy ride!

Fair Point!

A real concern of mine, but hell's bells, in all seriousness, we are there now, so whether we have a 46 vote majority or a 21 vote majority, I doubt that changes that, it's likely the squishes that will be picked off.

Uhh... they only have two speeds now: Surrender and Compromise.

Neither Ryan nor McConnell have a clue of how to effectively manage a majority.

 

Thank you for agreeing with me. Despite your doubts and your numbers, the Dems have a chance to take the House next year. Doesn't matter if they do. The legislative process in this country is to protect the legislators, first, and the parties, second.

 

I am not spinning anything...merely stating facts.

You want more than what I provided above? Fine.

Let's look at production last month.

Factory orders and Durable Goods orders...largest drop for both since late 2014 last month.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/factory-orders

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/durable-goods-orders

Car production - a VERY important part of the economy - dropped last month to the lowest level since 2011.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/car-production

None of this is anything but bad news...especially the auto production which is tanking.

Plus, if you want me to tell you why last month's BLS jobs report was lousy...I will GLADLY explain it for you WITH the data to prove it from the BLS.
You see, with BLS reports, you almost always have to look behind the headline numbers to get the real story.


And as for the stock market? Here is what Trump said about it (rightly) on the campaign trail:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-05/trump-says-artificial-stock-market-is-a-bubble

'But on August 9, the day after delivering his landmark economic address in Detroit, the Republican nominee made an eminently sensible observation on the stock market. In a telephone interview on CNBC, Trump stated that "It's all a big bubble." Trump added that he's dabbled in picking stocks, but, "I'm a person who doesn't believe in it much," and right now, "I wouldn't do it."'

http://fortune.com/2016/08/09/trump-right-about-stocks/

And he was dead right then.


The economy is stagnating (has been for many years - the GDP growth rate shows that)...the markets mean nothing (as Trump rightly said on the campaign trail) as they are propped up on cheap money, not solid fundamentals.. They are 'artificially' pumped up by ZIRP/near-ZIRP and QE. I knew that years ago...it was obvious.
When the markets are rising steadily for 6 months AFTER interest rates are back to 'normal' and QE is over - ONLY THEN can the markets be called fundamentally strong. They are not now and have not been since the Great Recession.

 

Turn off CNN for a while.

 

JakeStarkey said: ↑Fallacy of lack of cause and effect.

And the professor proves my point.

 

"Lousy"?

Employment Situation Summary
Transmission of material in this release is embargoed until USDL-17-1177
8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, September 1, 2017

Technical information:
Household data: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps
Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * cesinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/ces

Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov


THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- AUGUST 2017


Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 156,000 in August, and the unemployment
rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing, construction, professional and technical
services, health care, and mining.

Household Survey Data

In August, the unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, and the number of unemployed
persons, at 7.1 million, were little changed. After declining earlier in the year,
the unemployment rate has been either 4.3 or 4.4 percent since April. (See
table A-1.)

 

Employment situations is really at about 9.8% UE and nearing 100 million dropped out from work according to the National Labor Participation Rate.

 

First, Donald Trump already said that the U-3 was 'bogus' (and he was dead right).

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/...t-Rate-Bogus-and-His-Labor-Pick-Puzder-Agrees

http://fortune.com/2015/09/14/donald-trump-unemployment-rate-jobs/

Everyone who truly understands the employment situation knows that the U-3 is a joke. Even the Fed no longer uses it as their principle jobs barometer.


Second, the 156,000 number (the headline number) is from the Establishment Survey...which has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the official unemployment rate. And that number is modified by the Fed's ridiculous 'Birth/Death Model' which (seemingly) arbitrarily subtracts or (usually) adds numbers to the Establishment survey STRICTLY due to a mathematical model they use. Result? The Establishment Number is often a joke - with virtually no way to know what the real numbers are.

https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbd.htm


Now the official unemployment rate is based solely on the Household Survey...and those numbers (to my knowledge) are NOT modified by the BLS.

And what did they say for July?

They say number of employed went DOWN by 74,000. Not up....DOWN. And that is just the seasonally adjusted number. The non-seasonally adjusted one (the 'pure' number) has 894,000(!?!) less people employed in July. You call that a good month? I sure don't.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm

And the bad news does not stop there.

Since April (seasonally adjusted), only 283,000 new 'jobs' have been created in America. That is less then 71,000 per month...that is lousy and NOT keeping pace with the population growth.

Also, the 25-54 age group (which is the heart of the economy as that is the group that gets paid the most money on average and supports the most people)? That number dropped in July by a whopping 347,000 (seasonally adjusted). Plus the number of full time employed persons also dropped...by 166,000 (again, seasonally adjusted).

And finally, the average weekly earnings for the nation also dropped.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.b.htm

When it comes to government jobs data...ALWAYS LOOK BEHIND THE HEADLINES. And looking behind them you should be able to clearly see that July was a BAD month for employment in America. Less people with jobs and those that were working made less per week.

I don't know about you - but less people working and for less money is a bad month to me.


And, once again, I am neither Dem nor Rep.

 

My response was to someone that claimed this report was "lousy". I just don't see lousy in it.

 

LOL...74,000 less people employed (894,000 non-seasonally adjusted) and those that were working made less per week.

And you do not call that lousy?

What would you call it then?

(you mentioned 'spinning' above'. Let's see how you spin these lousy numbers).

 

Good post. Most of the credible prognosticators ( folks who actually have a proven track record predicting things before they happen) are warning that the stock market is due for a serious correction.

This is not based on some crystal ball. Valuations right now are at 1929 levels. The reason the stock market has surged is not due to "wonderful performance and rosy predictions of future growth". It is due to the movement of money from relatively safe investment vehicles such as bonds into more risky investments (stocks). The reason for this is because interest rates are so low in the bond market that money is chasing higher yield in the stock market.

Global debt is a serious problem. In the US interest on our debt is 450 Billion/year. This obviously eats into growth. What is worse is that this is as low as it can reasonably get. Getting interest rates this low by messing with the invisible hand has caused problems. The Fed is now talking about getting its balance sheet in order (selling the trillions of dollars it has accumulated through QE back into the markets). Interest rates are as low as they can go and the pressure for interest rates to increase is increasing.

2.25% is current ave interest rate on our 20 Trillion dollar debt. Should interest rates go back to historical norm, (6% or higher) interest on our debt would rise to 1.2 Trillion/year.

We are caught in a very nasty situation where there are no good ways of getting out of it.

 

Excellent post, IMO.

I agree with every word.

 

This is the natural cycle of debt and default. World economic/military empires throughout history almost all suffered from the same historical cycle and mistakes.

Technological innovation leads to military superiority which leads to economic hegemony. Times are good on the way up. Goods produced in the empire are in great demand. The profit motive, and simple logistics dictates that some of these goods get produced in the nations that are consuming them.

Technology then spreads. The cost of projecting power increases. This happens around the same times as the business cycle turns around (supply exceeds demand and competition is springing up as countries where the goods produced learn the technology - a double whammy).

A good example is the gatling gun. With one gunship the Brits could pretty much take over an entire African Nation... fighting back with sticks and stones.

Sometime later the African nation gets the gun (think storming a hill with machine gun turrets in WW2). Now one gunship will not do. You must send an entire Armada, you will take casualties, and this is expensive.

The cost of projecting power increases with time - as technology spreads.
The return on investment eventually becomes negative. Same thing happened to Rome - The Barbarians learned Roman technology and became much tougher opponents. Some Roman garrison at the edge of the empire all of a sudden could not cope. .. and so the cycle continues.

We are at that same point. Iraq had just been through a war 10 years prior. Most of their stuff was old - like1960's technology , and in poor condition. Iraq had been under an arms embargo since Daddy Bush had his way with Saddam.

YET ... fighting this puny opponent nearly broke the bank. Our Carriers are obsolete floating cities of metal. Russian missile technology has advanced to the point where there is little defense and this technology is spreading fast.

One can build a whole lot of missiles for the cost of one carrier.

In 2000 ... Total Military Spending was 300 Billion. After 8 years of Bush spending increased to over 900 Billion and under Obama exceeded 1 Trillion.

Had we maintained 2000 spending levels (increasing with inflation) we could have diverted 500 Billion/year over 16 years = 8 Trillion dollars to infrastructure, technology, ramping up our economy to compete in the 3rd millennium.

Instead we threw that money down the toilet - into the mouth of the Oligarchs who own the military industrial complex and the banks.

Interest on the debt is 450 Billion/year. x 16 years = another 7 Trillion ... all to feed the international financiers that run this nation.

This country is being raped and milked by folks who know exactly what they are doing and are very good at it.

This is nothing unusual. This is how things work. It is the natural cycle of history.

This time however I would like to somehow avoid the revolution part.

 

Does anyone know how many individuals newly join the nominal labor force every month, a source for this? These would be the people who become adults, graduate from high school and are not enrolled in college or the college graduates, plus whatever number of immigrants issued visas to work, is there a figure on this?

At the moment the US is supposed to be going through a huge surge of retirements, about 10k people a day attaining the age of 65, not all actually retire, some stay on, but about half actually do go, those would be figures to consider as well, where does one find that data?

Those figures should be taken into account when considering the jobs created. I don't know where to find the figures, but I get the impression 150-200 thousand new jobs any given month barely keeps pace with the demand.

 

Based on all the numbers, I believe that 250K jobs a month would be nominal sustainability of job growth.