November 3, 2017: Trump Keeps Streak Alive - 85 Months Straight of Job Growth

 

11/3/17: Revised numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics give Trump something to brag about – not counting the fact that so far only three members of his 2016 campaign have been indicted. Job numbers for September have been revised upward to +14,000 jobs gained, instead of a previous estimated loss, followed by 261,000 jobs (preliminary) added in October.

 

This keeps a healthy string alive: 85 months in a row with job growth – 75.629 of those months (figuring from the swearing-in at noon on January 20, 2017) under President Obama.

 

(Bureau of Labor Statistics figures are “preliminary” for two months. In November the September number is revised again to +18,000. It seems more accurate to me to leave in place the numbers as they were reported at the time in posts like this.)

Job growth for 85 months.

December 10, 2017: Trump Job Gains Are Good - Not as Good as Obama's

 

12/10/17: Let’s give it up for Trump! The stock market has set repeated highs since his election. In November 228,000 jobs were added to the economy. This means, your “favorite President,” as he has taken to calling himself, has seen 1,916,000 jobs added in the first eleven months of 2017. 

He’s doing almost as well as Barack Obama in 2016, when 2,085,000 jobs were added in a similar span.

February 2018: Trump Spills the Red Ink

 

2/10/18: R.I.P. Tea Party movement. Hang up your tri-corner hats. When Obama was in office, you thought deficit spending was a disgrace. 

 

Deficits larger than under Obama. 

Now you have your own boy in office – or is it occupying the throne? The GOP controls both houses of Congress and the “power of the purse” is firmly in Speaker Paul Ryan’s hands. 

The projected budget deficit for 2018 now stands higher than for any year since 2012, when the U.S. economy was recovering from the Great Recession. If we also look at projected deficits for 2019-2021, the four-year total of $4 trillion would be significantly larger than the deficits ($2.852 trillion) rolled up during President Obama’s last five years. Of course, to be fair, the deficits in Obama’s first term were worse; and, again, to be fair, Obama inherited a mess.

February, 2018: Explaining Job Numbers to Trump Fans

 

EXPLAINING JOB NUMBERS TO TRUMP FANS

 

Can’t we all just get along? Conservative friends of the blogger who glance at these posts always seem so…mad.

 

Let us strive to find common ground. For example, are monthly job gains good so far under Emperor Trump?

 

Yes.

 

Are they as good as under President Obama, notorious Kenyan interloper, according to Trump?

 

They are not.

 

____________________

 

This is what we liberals refer to as “using facts.”

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We of the liberal persuasion will do our best to outline relevant facts. Let us begin with a quick perusal of the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports to form a picture of the growth of the job market in recent years.

 

Unless I have made some minor error in addition the total number of jobs added each year, once the Great Recession ended, would be as follows:

 

2011:   2,074,000

2012:   2,176,000

2013:   2,301,000

2014:   3,004,000

2015:   2,720,000

2016:   2,345,000

2017:   2,114,000

I added a chart later, which covers all of Trump's time in office.

 

Of course, conservatives once insisted job numbers couldn’t possibly be that good. You may even remember that happy day when Candidate Trump claimed 93 million Americans were without jobs.

 

That claim was so far-fetched it seemed no one who could count on fingers and toes and come up with anything close to “twenty” would fall for it.

 

Yet many in Trumpistan did.

 

Suppose this claim had been true. Even if we cut Emperor Donald I some slack, even if we ignored the entry of a couple million young people into the labor force this year, even if we simply subtracted the number of jobs created in 2017, it would mean at least 91 million Americans still lack employ.

 

 

Ten thousand baby boomers retired every day.

 

Of course, I know my conservative friends like to say the job gains under Obama didn’t hold up because the labor participation rate plunged. Magazillions of Americans, they insisted, had given up looking for work. So, we can check Bureau of Labor Statistics and see what we find. That participation rate did drop from 66.2% in January 2008 to a 62.7% in December 2015.

 

I would point out to my Trump-loving friends that 10,000 baby boomers retired every day. I would do my best to explain how this would impact the labor participation rate. Senator Rob Portman, an admitted Republican, said as much, but in a different context, in a 2014 speech. This figure, 10,000, was reported first in the Wall Street Journal. It was then analyzed by the Washington Post. The Post agreed Portman’s figure was accurate, meaning 3.5 million Baby Boomers were bowing out of the job market every year. My friends of conservative bent did not wish to hear such math.

 

It made them angry when I kept citing figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

In fact, who can forget Candidate Trump insisting that Obama’s good job numbers were one of the “biggest hoaxes in politics.” The monthly numbers remained a hoax till he took office. Then the numbers became, in some magical fashion, real. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said so himself, as soon as the first good reports were issued for Trump. The numbers “may have been phony” before, Spicer informed stunned reporters.

 

They were “very real” now.

 

Again, this humble blogger had a hard time believing anyone could fall for such math-defying dung.

 

 

The economy had shed 4,000,000 jobs.

 

Today we find ourselves in a position to study the job numbers for the first year of the reign of Emperor Donald I. Technically, he should not get credit for all gains in January 2017 since he took over after 19 ½ days had passed. Still, we shall allow him all those gains. (We are if nothing else, gracious in our assessment.)

 

As we can quickly see, if we grab our calculators and start punching buttons, Obama added more jobs five years in succession (2012-2016) than the Donald I in 2017. Finally, we should disabuse our conservative friends of the idea that Trump “inherited a mess” when he took office. For 76 months in succession, jobs had been added to the U.S. economy, starting in October 2010.

 

By comparison, Mr. Obama did inherit a mess. If we consider the last eleven months of 2008 and the first 19 ½ days of January 2009 (assuming Obama could not cause job losses till he took the oath of office at noon on January 20), we learn that he took over an economy which had just shed 4,072,000 jobs.

 

Even Donald J. Trump can probably tell. Losing 4,072,000 jobs in one year is worse than gaining 2,000,000 + jobs annually for six years.

 

What does that leave Trump to brag about when comparing job numbers? True, gains could strengthen in months ahead. He could outperform Obama in the end. We cannot know. We can, however, knock another plank out of the argument that economic miracles have been performed since he took office.

 

For those who love Trump, we also find that labor participation rates have ticked down slightly in the last year.

Summing up, again focusing on facts, as far as job creation is concerned, Emperor Donald is doing a good job.

 

He’s not doing significantly better than the man who preceded him in the White House. In fact, he’s doing a bit worse.

 

And, just for fun, remember that Mr. Obama was never accused of paying off porn stars during his time in office.

March 3, 2018: President Trump Gets Cozy with Xi Jinping

 

3/3/18: Mr. Blogger is always surprised; but Trump fans rarely notice how cozy he gets with scuzz bag world leaders. This week the Communist Party is poised to alter the Chinese constitution and allow Xi Jinping to serve as president for life. Trump seemed to relish the idea of Xi ruling in perpetuity and when he talked about it during lunch at Mar-a-Lago his fat cat friends agreed. 

Here’s how Fox News told the tale: 

“He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great,” Trump said, according to a recording obtained by CNN. “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”

 

Trump’s remarks were reportedly met with laughter and applause during a luncheon for Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

 

Pause for a moment to think how Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly (before he got banned for sexually assaulting a bevy of beautiful co-workers) would have responded if Barack Hussein Obama had made such comments. Always: the “Hussein.” “Obama loves communism!” they would have screamed.

 

“Obama said a dictator was ‘great.’ He wants to be a dictator, too! They’d have gone berserk.

May 10, 2018: Low Unemployment - Slow Wage Gains for Ordinary Workers

 

5/10/18: Wages for the average American worker are up, but despite the decline in unemployment, only slightly more than in recent years. The average wage increase hit three percent annually in January 2015, once recovery from the recession took hold. It has fluctuated since, from a high of 3.9 percent, annualized, in November and December 2016, when Obama was in office, to a low of 2.9 percent in December 2017 and again in February 2018. For March, the average median gain was 3.3 percent, year-over-year. 

For the 12-month period from April 2017 to April 2018 the inflation rate nationally was 2.5 percent.

 

In other words, the average worker wasn’t gaining all that much ground; and the average worker has way less chance of having affordable healthcare since President Trump took office.

Wages for most American workers rise only slowly.

September 14, 2018: A Pathetic President Airs His Hurt on Twitter

 

9/14/18: The president apparently learns his lesson after pretty much everyone says he sounds like an ass arguing about how many people died in Puerto Rico. 

Meanwhile, another hurricane smashes into North and South Carolina and floods large parts of both states. 

At first, Trump avoids fresh trouble. His first fifteen tweets today relate to hurricane warnings, “6 inches of moving water can knock an adult off their feet;” and if you are ordered to evacuate, “Turn off the gas, electricity.”  

There’s even this: “RT @FEMAespanol: Hoy es el último día para desalojar. Si está en la ruta de #Florence, escuche a las autoridades locales para órdenes de de…” 

Then: “Incredible job being done by FEMA, First Responders, Law Enforcement and all. Thank you!” 

Which is to say, “I did this. Me. I organized this incredible job being done. Me, myself and I. We all agree. I am the best.”

 

Eight more hurricane-warning-type tweets follow, which are fine. But Trump can’t help himself. Trump has to be Trump. Suddenly, he’s arguing about the death count in Puerto Rico again, using four tweets to defend himself and his record as the greatest hurricane savior of all time. 

Finally, he wraps it up for the night at 10:08 p.m. with the most irrelevant tweet in the storied career of President Twitter Thumbs. “When President Obama said that he has been to ‘57 States,’ very little mention in Fake News Media. Can you imagine if I said that...story of the year!” 

Having slammed his predecessor unnecessarily, content at last, Twitter Thumbs trundles off to bed.

This is probably a slip born of fatigue, possibly, he was going to say 47,

with one more to visit, and Hawaii and Alaska ruled out.

Trump thinks this is a terrible mistake. 

November 4, 2018: Another Good Jobs Report - Almost as Good as the Jobs Reports Under Obama

 

11/4/18: Did we mention the excellent jobs report for October? No, we did not. This is probably because “we,” as in the royal “we,” are just a liberal blogger out to amuse ourselves. 

To the math then! We who believe in facts admit that a healthy 250,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. This brings the total of jobs added in 21 full months (February 2017-October 2018) under President Twitter Thumbs to a respectable 4,054,000. That boils down to 193,048 jobs monthly. 

In President Obama’s final 21 months in office 4,400,000 jobs were added. That comes out to 209,524 per month. 

Look this up if you like.

Still leading.

March 16, 2019: Tucker Carlson Hates on Arabs, Unattractive Women, and Wanted to F**k Sarah Palin

 

3/16/19: Tucker Carlson of Fox News is in a bit of jam. Liberal media outlets have had the audacity to dig up forgotten recordings and quote him, which infuriates the poor man. 

____________________ 

“Semiliterate primitive monkeys” in Iraq…and “extremely primitive” women. 

Tucker Carlson

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For example, here’s his racist assessment of why the Iraq War was a mistake. “Iraq is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys,” he once said. “That’s why it wasn’t worth invading.” 

Any thoughts on Afghanistan? “Well, it’s never going to be a civilized country because the people aren’t civilized.” 

What about Arabs, in general? In this conversation he’s talking with Bubba the Love Sponge and a co-host on Bubba’s radio show: 

CARLSON: They’re also so just awful. Just awful.

 

CO-HOST: They’re animals, dude. They are.

 

CARLSON: I hate the war. You know, I’m not defending the war in any way, but I just have zero sympathy for them or their culture. A culture where people just don’t use toilet paper or forks.

Iraqi children.

 

President Obama?

 

CARLSON: I still can’t get over, you know, Obama saying, “They’re going to attack me because I’m Black.” I mean, that’s just ridiculous. I mean, that is so low to say something like that.

 

CO-HOST: Well, see, Tucker, here’s the—

 

CARLSON: Everybody knows that Barack Obama would still be in the state Senate in Illinois if he were white. 

 

Seeing the “humor” in sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy! 

Would Carlson like to comment on underage marriage, like to fifteen-year-olds? Is that okay? Or is it the same as child rape? 

CARLSON: Wait, wait! Hold on a second. The rapist, in this case, has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person, so it is a little different. I mean, let’s be honest about it.

 

Any thoughts on a thirteen-year-old middle school student having sex with his 28-year-old teacher? 

CARLSON: I was just reading a story trying to figure out how to get it into our show tonight, about the kid, the 13-year-old, who was, I guess, molested, they’re saying, by his teacher, who had sex with him 28 times in one week.

 

…She slept with this kid 28 times in one week. Now, I ask you –

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: In one week?

 

CARLSON: You have a lot of experience. You’ve been around, right? Could you do that?

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: Could I sleep with – not a kid, but could I sleep with a woman –

 

CARLSON: Could you sleep with a 165-pound woman 28 times in one week? Are you physically capable of doing that or do you take your hat off to this kid?

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: Yeah, this kid should get like a Nobel Peace Prize.

 

CARLSON: The Presidential Medal of Freedom, anyway.

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: Now at the end of the day. But see, you know, now as double standard as everybody wants to be, it just seems like so much more of a crime from this beast then it does Debra Lafave, does it not?

 

CARLSON: Totally. Look, my theory on this is, you know, 13-year-old boys have one goal, obviously in life —

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: To get laid.

 

CARLSON: Of course. And they take that out on 13-year-old girls. Now, 13-year-old boys getting laid, not a bad thing. Thirteen-year-old girls getting laid, bad thing. Particularly if the 13-year-old girl is your daughter, right?

 

Exactly. So my point is that teachers like this, not necessarily this one in particular, but they are doing a service [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted] to all 13-year-old girls by taking the pressure off. They are a pressure relief valve, like the kind you have on your furnace. 

 

“You just need to be quiet and kind of do what you’re told.” 

In the next exchange, Carlson and The Sponge are discussing Alexa Stewart, the daughter of Martha Stewart: 

THE LOVE SPONGE: They’re very cunty.

 

CARLSON: She seems extremely cunty.

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: I like to hear that word, oh yeah – I stepped over him. She seems what now? Go ahead.

 

CARLSON: She just does seem a little cunty. I mean you said it; I’m just agreeing with you. I don’t use that word because it’s offensive.

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: Right. I’d love for Tucker Carlson. Tonight on MSNBC a girl that comes across kind of cunty.

 

CARLSON: Well she does. I mean, I heard – I mean, now I’m a Brent fan, so, I’m just stating my bias right out front here. I heard her on with him and I just wanted to give her the spanking she so desperately needs.

 

Sarah Palin? 

CARLSON: Well, I’ll tell you exactly. I mean, honestly, I voted for McCain, again, because I like the guy personal —

 

…

 

THE LOVE SPONGE: You want to fuck Sarah Palin.

 

CO-HOST: You want to talk about —

 

CARLSON: Well, there’s that. There is that. I’ll agree with that.

 

Thoughts on Elena Kagan, on being nominated for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court? 

CARLSON: I got to be honest with you. I don’t like and I wouldn’t vote to confirm her if I were a U.S. senator. But I do feel sorry for her in that way. I feel sorry for unattractive women. I mean it’s nothing they did. You know, she didn’t. Nobody deserves that. And men are just mean.

 

Any thoughts on how to treat women, Tucker? 

CARLSON: It’s true. It’s true. You debate politics with a woman and just go – just full blown out there, especially feminism. If you’re talking to a feminist, and she’s given you, “Well, men really need to be more sensitive,” [say] no, actually, men don’t need to be more sensitive. You just need to be quiet and kind of do what you’re told.

 

CO-HOST: And lighten up a little bit, bitch.

 

CARLSON: They love it. They love it.

 

More on women: 

CARLSON: By the way, women hate you when they do you wrong and you put up with it.

 

CO-HOST: Exactly.

 

CARLSON: Because they hate weakness. They’re like dogs that way. They can smell it on you, and they have contempt for it; they’ll bite you.

 

...

 

CARLSON: I mean, I love women, but they’re extremely primitive, they’re basic, they’re not that hard to understand. And one of the things they hate more than anything is weakness in a man. 

 

Now, Carlson insists his words were “spoken in jest” and they are taken out of context, just to make him look bad. (See: 5/2/19 for similar comments by Steve Moore.)

March 28, 2019: Trump Makes Up Numbers Again - the Stock Market

 

3/28/19: Time to check on the stock market again to see what magic President Trump has wrought. Okay. The Dow is up a bit today, closing at 25,717. That means, since the market closed at 19,804 on January 19, 2017, President Obama’s last full day in office, the Dow Jones is up 29.9%. 

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“The Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now.” 

President Trump

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By comparison, that Kenyan guy (who wasn’t really a Kenyan guy, which Trump had only just admitted, before taking over the White House his orange self) had done all the damage to our economy he could. The day Obama took over, with the market in a catastrophic slide, the Dow stood at 8,281. It was still sliding and would drop to 6,547 by March 9, 2009, before bottoming out. Then Commie Obama (who wasn’t a commie) or Muslim Obama (not a Muslim) took charge. By March 28, 2011, the Dow had risen to 12,220, for a gain of 47.6%. 

With that number in mind, let’s stop a moment and consider a presidential tweet from February 20. According to President Twitter Thumbs, had Democrats won the 2016 election, “the Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now.”

 

You could look this up if you had slightly more intellectual curiosity than the average Halloween pumpkin. Donald J. Trump does not. Looking at the last seventeen presidents, going back to 1929, we see that when Herbert Hoover (a Republican) was in office the market dived 82.1 percent. Richard M. Nixon was second worst, with the market falling 28.3 percent. Plus, he got impeached. George W. Bush was third worst, with a plunge of 26.5%. 

The worst Democratic president, in terms of market performance, was Jimmy Carter, who saw the Dow stagnate and drop 0.7 percent. Since 1929, every other Democrat registered gains: John F. Kennedy (15.8%), Lyndon B. Johnson (26.1%) and Harry Truman (75.2%). Three of the top four performers, if we’re going to let presidents claim credit for market gains, would be Obama (by the end of his second term: 148.3%), Franklin D. Roosevelt (198.6%) and Bill Clinton (228.9%). 

Plus, Bill got impeached.

 

Calvin Coolidge, a Republican, finished first, with the market exploding to a gain of 230.5% during his time in office. 

Or course, he got lucky and left office on March 4, 1929, with the Great Crash a few months down the road.

Best stock returns ever: Calvin Coolidge.
He got out just in time to miss the Great Crash of 1929.

May 3, 2019: Who Does Job Creation Better? Obama or Trump?

 

5/3/19: The April jobs report is good: 263,000 jobs added, with unemployment falling to 3.6%, the lowest level in fifty years. 

This gives President Trump a chance to brag about his magic, job-creating skills and of course he takes it. We keep checking the math and we keep getting the same results. In his first 27 full months in office, the Orange Buffoon has added 5,400,000 jobs to the U.S. economy. 

During the last 27 months President Obama sat in the Oval Office, a measly 5,860,000 jobs were added.

May 31, 2019: Does President Trump Suffer from Amnesia? Or Hypocrisy?

 

5/31/19: Someone apparently poked President Trump in his blubber butt with a stick. Angered by what he views as Mexico’s failure to stop migrants from reaching the U.S. border, he orders a 5% tariff slapped on all Mexican goods entering the country.

 

This idea is so dumb that even Republicans who have stood idly by and watched Trump pander to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, who didn’t mind when he said he could pardon himself, who haven’t cared about his sustained attacks on the free press, finally begin to complain. The stock market reacts badly and continues its May swoon, falling to 24,815 by the end of the day.

 

The “good news” for Trump? This will allow him to brag again, for a fourth time, when the Dow rises above 25,000. 

As in the following tweets: 

January 4, 2018: The Fake News Media barely mentions the fact that the Stock Market just hit another New Record and that business in the U.S. is booming...but the people know! Can you imagine if “O” was president and had these numbers - would be biggest story on earth! Dow now over 25,000.

 

July 14, 2018: The Stock Market hit 25,000 yesterday. Jobs are at an all time record….

 

January 30, 2019: Dow just broke 25,000. Tremendous news!

 

Need this simple blogger point out, it is hardly “tremendous news” when the Dow hits the same level, a year later, that it hit the year before?

* 

IN OTHER AMUSING NEWS, can we all remember when Citizen Donald used to bash his predecessor for using Air Force One to go campaigning. 

Boy, did that frost Don’s orange buns. “A total disgrace,” he called it. 

As USA Today notes, President Don has forgotten he ever criticized President Obama, and has already flown to rallies in Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, and Pennsylvania this year. 

On…Air Force One.

(See also: Trump complaining when Obama used teleprompters, and then using teleprompters himself, 7/4/19.)

Air Force One.