President Obama, the last six months of 2016, job growth, 209,000 per month. Trump job growth first six months of 2018, job growth 196,000 per month. This year, the first six months, 172,000 per month, down 13% from 2018.
WASHINGTON—Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services produced across the economy, rose at a 2.1% annual rate in the second quarter, adjusted for seasonality and inflation, the Commerce Department said Friday.
As I recall Trump derided president Obama’s recovery effort, but, let us look at the past ten quarters of the Trump Economic Miracle! Where is the promised 4-6% growth rate? I ask?
Revised official figures shows that GDP expanded by 2.5% during 2018. The figures also revealed that growth slowed during the second quarter as exports declined and companies invested less in their businesses.
GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.1% between April and June, ahead of expectations but below 3.1% recorded in the first three months of the year. Growth in the second quarter was better than the 1.8% expansion forecast, and was supported by stronger consumer spending and a jump in government spending. However, the pace fell short of the first quarter as both foreign trade and business investment shrank as the US continued its trade war with China.
Revised official figures shows that GDP expanded by 2.5% during 2018. The figures also revealed that growth slowed during the second quarter as exports declined and companies invested less in their businesses.
The Trump growth rate peaked because of the effects of the tax cut when it reached the 2018 peak of 4.2% (second quarter), which has been the highest level achieved during President Trump’s administration. This is, however, less than the 5.1% achieved in the second quarter of 2014, during the Obama presidency.
Speaking of Donald Trump and his troubled and disastrous two years in office, the question is what has been really accomplished. Well, he was able to appoint two Justices to the Supreme Court who will probably sustain his anti-environment, misogynist, anti-Choice, and anti-union policies. The other triumph of his first term was his tax cut, which was economically skewed to the top income brackets, the corporations and away from the Blue States which contribute the largest amount of money into the US Treasury. In 2016, American corporations paid the lowest percentage of revenue to the US Treasury in the 105 year history of the graduated income tax, enabled by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. Within a year of the Trump tax cut, corporate contributions, already at their lowest level in that 105 year period, dropped another 40%.
What then was the result of the tax cut? Yes, there were jobs created, but interestingly, there were fewer jobs created in 2017 and 2018 than in 2015 and 2016. In the first six months of 2018, there were 1,175,000 jobs created or 195,000 per month. The average amount of jobs created in the first six months of this year, was 155,000, a drop of 21%. In the last six months of 2016 (July-December) the job creation averaged 209,000 per month!
By the way, during the Obama years, unemployment which hit 10.6% as a result of the Great Recession, authored by his predecessor, declined to 4.7%. Thus during the Obama eight years, there were over 15 million jobs clawed back, a net gain of 11 million and the DJIA, which bottomed in June of 2009 at 6600, reached 20,000.
The promised growth rate, of anywhere from 4 to 6%, and let me repeat, the GNP grew this quarter at 2.1% and the annual deficit went from $585 billion in 2016 to an estimated $984 in 2019. How did those deficits effect the National Debt? It soared $2.4 trillion! The U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2020 is $1.10 trillion. FY 2020 covers October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020. The deficit occurs because the U.S. government spending of $4.75 trillion is higher than its revenue of $3.65 trillion.
The deficit is 1% greater than last year. The FY 2019 budget created a $1.09 trillion deficit. Spending of $4.53 trillion was more than the estimated $3.44 trillion in revenue, according to Table S-4 of the FY 2020 budget.
Along with the growing deficits, where was the repatriation of trillions of US Dollars parked overseas? What happened to those “tax-sheltered” monies? Meanwhile, the Treasury Department said that the U.S. government’s deficit for the first four months of this budget year rose to $310.3 billion — a full $134.6 billion dollars more than the deficit during the same period last year. This is in spite of the government reporting a budget surplus amounting to $8.7 billion in January. As, as of May, 2019, the U.S. merchandise-trade deficit widened to a five-month high amid a surge in imports following President Donald Trump’s decision to increase levies on $200 billion of items from China. The gap increased to $74.5 billion from $70.9 billion in the prior month, according to a Commerce Department report Wednesday. That compared with the median estimate for a shortfall of $71.8 billion. Imports rose 3.7%, the biggest jump in four years, while exports advanced 3%, the most since early 2018.
https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ceshighlights.pdf
Mount Vernon, NY Wrestling Program 60s-70s
I just read your piece on Coach Littlefield.
I well remember you and your assistance and support to the program.
My older brother was fortunate enough to be coached by Coach Littlefield.
I was coached by Brookes, Forrest and Lee, from elementary though MVHS.
I coached Coach Forrest for a day at SUNY Brockport, where I was a student, when he came up to the Olympic trials. I did meet Dan Gable there.
I was the weakest link in the MVHS program. I weighed 168 pounds; I could beat the 180 pounder but not the 169 pounder!
You said things I have remember my entire life.
Coaches Forrest and Lee gave me a basis which inspired a 40 plus year martial arts journey.
Thanks for the memories.
Robert Lasorsa
(954)267-9088
Thanks for you for your kind comments. Henry was one of those rare breed of men (humans) who transcended the norm, even for the greats. Over the decades I knew him and the 21 years since his untimely death, I have realized he was extremely unique and beatific in his time on this Earth. He had a way with people that was quite remarkable. Over the years, many people have come up to me and said the following, “You are Richard Garfunkel, a friend of Henry Littlefield!” What a way to be linked. In the most simplistic sense, just being close to him, working with him or being his friends was some kind of lifetime pass. He had that way with people; a great teacher, a great coach and a great man. One day I asked his late wife Madeline, who I knew well and since I was 16, “who were his other friends, like students when he was in high school?” She said, “he had none but you!” I was shocked and asked her, “how come!” She said that “every one else was intimidated and basically afraid of him! But you weren’t!” We met after I was cut from the Varsity Basketball team by Vinnie Olson. I was told by my neighbor Tony Taddey that he was the greatest. I went to a wrestling meeting and he mentioned the Petersen Roll. Later, I asked him if that move was named after the Horace Mann trainer, Gus Petersen. He asked me how I knew. I told him that I was at Horace Mann in 9th grade and left. He invited me to help him if I was interested. He told me that the team was going to a scrimmage at Cheshire Academy in the middle of Connecticut and would I like to go! It was on a Saturday, an all day affair and I said “yes!” We road the 100 miles in the school bus and we sat in the front and talked. Henry was a history teacher, and was not aware that I was generally an expert on WWII by the age of 16, and had read every book in the MV Public Library ( the 6th largest in the state of NY) on WWII. I also was well read on FDR, and today I have over 500 books on the late president and over 5000 pieces of Rooseveltia. We never talked wrestling, and he treated me as a friend and a contemporary from that day on. He asked my opinion, let me have carte blanche running the wrestle-offs, ordering equipment and when I was in college, he asked my to run the Section I Wrestling tournament at MV for three years running. No college kid ever did that, before or after. In the Division Tournament one year, he had thought we had lost by a point and I discovered the other 2 points that insured our win. In reality, we were fast friends. I would visit his homes in MV during the summer with my friends and I enjoy a so-called “special relationship!” I had a habit of never asking personal questions of anyone I have known, and that is of countless people. I never put anyone on the spot. But, in talking frankly about politics, our country, government, public policy issues, I could determine a lot. I knew a bit about him and more from Madeline. But, all in all, he was a remarkable personage, unequaled in my life. I have known thousands, interviewed over 300 on my radio show, and was involved in countless activities. But, thanks again for the nice remarks.