12/31/18: The U.S. government ends the year as it began, shut down, this time for a tenth day.
The same nut job is at the helm, only a little nuttier with the passage of a year, steering the Ship of State to no discernable port.
Still, the stock market did bounce up a bit on the day, ending at 23,327 for the year. This marked the first full-year decline for the Dow since 2008, following eight straight years of gains under Obama, one under Trump. Although President Twitter Thumbs loves to brag about how great he’s done leading the markets to new heights, it’s fun to compare his performance with Mr. Obama’s. In Barack Hussein Obama’s first year in charge the Dow rose 25.94 percent. In Trump’s first year the market fared well, rising 21.64 percent. In Mr. Obama’s second year, the market continued to rise, up 14.82 percent. In Trump’s second year the Dow began at 24,719. It ended today, down 5.7 percent.
The markets have now declined nine times for a year, since 1980. Reagan saw a drop in 1981 and 1984, Bush 41 in 1990, Clinton in 2000, Bush 43 in 2001, 2002 and 2008, Obama in 2015 and Trump in 2018.
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THE AVERAGE WORKER might not care much about the Dow Jones average, but the average worker does like having a friend in the White House – which Trump is assuredly not. Whereas the federal government can afford massive tax cuts to tide mom and pop multinational corporations over when they get in a pinch, and lift threadbare billionaires out of the squalor in which they live, the president realizes there is no money left for federal workers.
With the deficit having surpassed $800 billion for the year
and expected to grow in 2019 to almost a trillion, he freezes their pay for 2019, denying hundreds of
thousands a 2.1% bump.
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Keep out the dangerous murderers and rapists, just don't expect a raise. |
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