Shocking! Yes, shocking economic news.

[William Thornton]

Lowest unemployment in decades.
GDP 3.2%
Average wage...up.
Consumer confidence soaring.


Must be some fake news else the datahounds here would be making mention of this.

OTOH, there has to be some way to spin this as a national disaster.

Maybe the hair-sniffer or other of the twenty or so dem candidates have a plan. Eliz Warren could start a dna company. Klobuchar could offer anger management classes. Beto, the shiny object, knows upscale furniture. Maybe he could open a shop. I don't know if Bern has any marketable skills. Kirsten could start a Mandarin interpreter bidness (I'm actually impressed with that).

[Haruo]

Give it a year.

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

One of the great Trump lies is that he rescued the economy. It has been on a slow upswing for ten years. Actually, the tax cut creates an interesting bubble as the wealthiest companies buy back their own stock to make money for the few preventing the kind of gains that most of today's retirees got from investments in our retirement accounts. That is not coming when the available stock pool is shrinking.

[Sandy]

Those are Trump administration figures. My response to those is the same as his used to be when unemployment was reaching lows not seen in decades during his predecessor's administration, when the economy under Obama produced consecutive months of unprecedented job growth, and when the GDP flipped by 5 percentage points from the negatives under Bush. Trump said, "Those are just their figures. That's not really what's happening." And "The President's policy doesn't have anything to do with the economy, it runs on its own." That's from his book. And he also alluded to the number of people who simply dropped out of the unemployment figures because they ran out of benefits and stopped being counted. Obviously, according to orange hair, these people never came back into the system during Obama's last term, and Trump's unemployment numbers are not anywhere near large enough to have accounted for them over the past two years (unemployment is actually starting to move back up and job growth is slowing down).

When compared to Trump's economic starting point, these are average figures, not anything outstanding. They're built on what was a remarkable eight year recovery from the Bush recession during the Obama administration.

And a roaring economy wouldn't be enough to make up for the corruption and the lack of character.

Y*A*W*N*

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

The economic growth that started under the Obama administration continues. What's shocking about that? It took a Democrat to get the economy moving again, as it did in 1992.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Dems can't run on much of any of this. But maybe 'save the planet' or 'free stuff for all' will work.

[Dave Roberts]

One of my concerns about the economy is the question of the ability of younger people to gain wealth, especially in home values and in retirement accounts. Home prices in some markets have already put younger people outside the possibility of buying homes (unless their parents are able to help them). Also, with the numbers of stock buy-backs by major companies, the earnings of their retirement accounts are running quite low, and interest rate on even long-term investments are almost nil. It seems our economy favors those who are over fifty and works against younger people. As an example, the first home we purchased gained 300% in value from its purchase to its sale. Our present home, purchased in 2001, would sell for little more than what we paid. Also, we purchased CD's in the 70's through the 90's that paid 3.5 to 5% interest. Now 2% is considered amazing. We are not in an economy that allows working people and younger people to make gains.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

Looks like 76% of Americans are alarmed, concerned or cautious about climate change. And those numbers have increased over the last 5 years

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

[William Thornton]

Neither Clinton was a model of rectitude.

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

My view of the Clintons goes back to early 1980s.

[Dave Roberts]

[Haruo]