July 3, 2021: The "Trump Rule" in Economics

 

7/3/21: The Fourth of July weekend should be a pleasant one, despite the fact the Delta variant of the virus still threatens. 

First, the jobs report Friday was excellent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary numbers show that 850,000 jobs were added in June. Figures for May were adjusted upward, which means in Mr. Biden’s first five months in office, 3,023,000 jobs have been added or recovered. 

That’s more jobs than were added during Donald J. Trump’s three years in the White House (we subtract one for all the time he played golf) – which is not a mark all that hard to beat. In fact, this blogger added more jobs to the U.S. economy in the last four years than Rejected-President Trump, that number being (1), the teenager who sometimes cuts my lawn. I also gave the economy a boost by having a heart attack and juicing the healthcare industry.

 

If you are a Trumpophile you can read the numbers, as card players say, and weep. While Don sat on his tangerine fanny in the Oval Office, the U.S. economy suffered a net loss of nearly 3,000,000 jobs. You can look it up and savor that fact if you’d like to quibble about this blogger’s math. Remember when Trump said any good jobs numbers when President Obama was in office were “phony,” but any good job numbers when he took over were suddenly real? 

Well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers have always been the same. If you like Trump, and can add and subtract, check the math. 

(I don’t include January 2017 under Trump, since he split the month with Obama; and the same for January 2021, for Biden.)

 

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WHAT ABOUT the economic front? Trump fans will tell you gas prices have surged and Joe Biden is senile. 

According to NPR, regular gas was selling for $2.79 per gallon on June 5, 2019, before the pandemic. Two years later, that average was $3.05, or up 9.3%. Prices were also expected to continue rising. Trump lovers will tell you that Biden hates American drivers and wants us all to be forced to drive Toyota Priuses. 

Or pedal bicycles. 

On the other hand, the price of oil has gone up, which is excellent news for oil producers. Which means, assorted Republicans will claim they have saved the oil industry by standing up and blocking all efforts to address climate change, including battling cancer-causing windmills.

 

Also, they will insist that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one vote out of 435 in the U.S. House of Representatives, will somehow ban the production, sale, or consumption of beef in any form whatsoever. Plus, they will get confused and say the socialist Democrat from New York is a “little communist,” which is akin to looking at a pineapple and saying you see a pumpkin. 

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez promptly points out that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who gave her that label, is shorter. 

Fortunately, she refrained from making insensitive comments, such as labeling the “Jewish-space laser lady” from Georgia a “fascist midget,” which would be an insult to all Little People.

 

You can play with economic numbers to prove almost anything you want; but you can count on Republicans to hammer Mr. Biden because of rising gas prices, while denying him credit for the booming sale price on homes in this country. (Biden is not really to blame, nor does he deserve credit, for either). Home sellers should be pumped. According to Fortune magazine, the median asking price for a home for sale increased, from January to April by 8.3%. And here’s one number sure to make Rejected-President Trump instinctively reach for his iPhone and try to log on to Twitter. The Dow-Jones average closed Friday at: 

34,786.

 

We have made note of the fact before: That on November 6, 2020, the Dow closed at 28,323. The next day, a Saturday, rational news people declared that Biden had defeated Trump and would be the next president. 

That means we divide 34,786 by 28,323, using the Trump Rule (invented by someone with lunatic tendencies), and discover that the Dow is up 22.8% over the last eight months, all thanks to Joseph R. Biden Jr.ˆˆ 

A more realistic figure would be to start from January 20, the day the new president was inaugurated, and QAnon believers learned they were a bunch of suckers. On that day the Dow finished at 30,931. Same math, more realistic: 34,786 divided by 30,931 = an increase of 12.5%. 

The Stock Market Crash of 2021, as predicted repeatedly (again, by someone stupid, named Donald), has not transpired. 

 

FUN FACT: Saturday night, Donald J. Fool did the only thing he was really good while president. 

He held a rally. 

Among other topics, he brought up the recent indictment of the Trump Foundation and CFO Allen Weisselberg – who prosecutors allege failed to pay taxes owed on hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fringe benefits. 

In this tape from the rally, Trump seems to admit that’s exactly what was going on at his old Foundation: 

Trump rally.

 

 ˆˆ THE TRUMP RULE: This blogger continues to amuse himself by using the Trump Rule. That rule allows you to claim all credit for stock market gains that occur from the moment you are elected to lead the country, even though someone else is still in charge and in office – which rule Donald J. Trump invented on November 3, 2016, as soon as he was declared victor. 

(If the man had tried to claim credit for all stock gains from the moment of his inception, no one would be surprised by his narcissism.)