I was quietly a big fan of Donald Trump. I say “quietly” because there was a lot not to like about The Donald. He was a blowhard, an egomaniac, offensive, arrogant and he often didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s just for starters.
A lot of voters despised Trump, including many conservatives who wanted him out of office at any cost. Yet whether you liked him or not, Donald Trump’s economic policies were spot on, especially compared to what we see from the current occupant of the White House. Let’s take a look.
When running against Donald Trump for president, Joe Biden often made the now-ironic charge that any president who had allowed so many deaths from COVID-19 should never be in the White House. Yet today, there are many more deaths from COVID under Biden than under Trump – and that is even with the vaccine.
But it isn’t just on health issues that Trump’s presidency is looking so much better and competent in hindsight.
No one has vindicated Trump’s “Make America Great Again” policies more persuasively than Biden. High gas prices, the highest inflation rate in four decades, a plan to double the national debt in 12 years and falling paychecks for many workers are waking Americans up to the real broad-based prosperity under Trump.
Trump’s strategy was to reduce taxes, slash regulation, massively increase domestic energy production and overhaul trade deals to get tough with China. I liked every one of those policies.
No one in the progressive movement thought it could possibly work. The Washington Post famously claimed before the 2016 election that “Trump could destroy the world economy.” Did that turn out to be true? Of course not!
Let’s just look at some facts. Over his first three years in office before COVID hit, the unemployment rate fell below 4%, which was near the lowest in half a century. The inflation rate fell to 1%, which was even below the target level set by the Federal Reserve. This kept the interest rates on mortgages and many other loans down to the lowest level in modern times.
Poverty rates fell to their lowest levels ever recorded. This was true for women, children, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and Asians. Median household income rose to nearly $68,000, and the $5,000 gain in three years was more than over the second term of George W. Bush and the eight years of Barack Obama combined.
Here was another remarkable feat: Under Trump, the United States became energy-independent for the first time in over a century. Trump opened up drilling and exploration on federal lands which has been off-limits for decades.
The month Trump left office, one year ago, America was importing zero oil from Saudi Arabia, largely because US oil and gas production had surged to record levels. President Biden put a stop to all that immediately upon taking office.
What did he and his advisors expect would happen? Now we have a president who has to beg the Saudis and Iranians to produce more oil. How humiliating!
I’ll admit I understand why many Americans, including a lot of conservatives, couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump for re-election and voted for Biden despite their reservations. But the economic implications are clear to see at this point.
Fortunately, President Biden has not been able to implement the worst elements of his economic plan – higher taxes, more regulation and government intervention. As a result, the economy is holding up pretty well overall. It remains to be seen what happens going forward.
The bumper stickers are starting to appear everywhere: “Miss Trump Yet?” Not many Americans miss some of his antics. But every day that inflation surges, the border remains in chaos, COVID runs amok and government spending and debt surges to new multitrillion-dollar highs, Trump’s economic policies sound like a better idea.
Finally, I don’t write this to suggest Donald Trump should be the GOP nominee in 2024. Frankly, I hope he doesn’t run again. I just hope some Republican candidate picks up on the economic and policy positions Trump advanced and runs with them.
That should be a winning agenda. Just my thoughts.
Fed: At Least 3 Rate Hikes Coming In 2022
The Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) met on December 14-15 to set monetary policy for the New Year. The Fed made it clear it will end its monthly bond and mortgage buying activities early this year and move to increase short-term interest rates at least 3 times in 2022.
On the surface, this seems like a big change for the Fed, but it was widely expected and thus had little effect on the financial markets. In fact, the financial markets are expecting 4 interest rate hikes in 2022. Whether we get 3 or 4 rate hikes in 2022 remains to be seen. It may not make much of a difference.
The Fed Funds Rate is currently set at 0.00%-0.25%. The Fed is expected to increase the rate in 0.25% increments. Three rate hikes would take the Fed Funds rate to 0.75%-1.00% by the end of the year. Four rate hikes would take it to 1.00%-1.25%. Either way, the rate will remain historically low.
As a result, I don’t see Fed policy changes having a big impact on markets in 2022. We’ll see.
I had resolved to shut up, but your comment re “more Covid deaths under Biden despite the vaccine” is ridiculous. Who’s dying of Covid for the last 8-9 months? Vaccine refusers!! Somehow it’s become politicized, almost all sources of antivaccine disinformation, and those gullible and stupid enough to believe, are Trump supporters. That’s beyond argument.
The responsibility for the vast majority of Covid deaths in the last 6-7 months are in Trump’s lap, though as always his lies are carefully couched. Some of his supporters aren’t so careful.
Alaska MD
You should have kept yourresoolution rather than openly display such mindless partisanship. Covid deaths aren’t in Trump’s lap. He’s a strong proponent of the vaccine. His vaccine support is one of the few areas where his base will break from him.
And then you use loaded terms like vaccine refusers and antivaccine disinformation. The true disinformation rests in continuing to push for a vaccine that has clearly failed. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission. It has resulted in more deaths and injuries than all other vaccines combined over the last 30 years.
Athletes are dropping dead the world over. Countries like Israel and the UK are seeing all cause mortality rates 50% higher than in previous years. kids are suffering strokes and myocarditis and even dying after getting vaccinated for a disease that poses virtually no risk to them at all. Children 18 and under survive Covid at a rate of 99.9987%. It has been shown that vaccines will kill 117 kids for every 1 kid saved.
The gullible are the people trying tostill argue that the vaccine is beneficial. And this is before we get into the horrible suppression of early treatment options for people with Covid. This has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
In this state, the risk of death from Covid is currently 10.7x for unvaccinated vs vaccinated.
At this point, not getting vaccinated is stupid for anyone with risk factors or at/above late middle age.
Since transmission is reduced by “only” factor of 2 for Omicron variant, not getting vaccinated also pisses on the (unwritten) social contract. In other words, selfish behavior to an extreme vs tiny risk.
My sources do not include Facebook.
Does Tucker Carlson have a history of supporting Trump?
What’s he been saying about vaccination?
You should be aware that Tucker C. himself is vaccinated.
If this infection were not transmitted by airborne route, THEN it would be an “individual decision”.
BTW I am about as far from ignorant about this and some other subjects as one could get.
Who said anything about Tucker Carlson and who cares if he’s vaccinated or not? I have no issue with people choosing the vaccine. I have a problem with mandating people take an experimental medical procedure (the vaccine) against their will. Nuremberg Code, anyone?
You completely skated past the absurdity of vaccinating kids, the 20,000 plus deaths reported into VAERS, the many 10s of thousands of people who have been injured by the vaccine. This isn’t a vaccine with the safety data of previous vaccines. This is a rushed product that it hurting people and any sane person is taking that risk into account versus the risk that they would be hospitalized or killed by Covid. For most healthy people, there is better than a 99% chance of survival should they come down with Covid.
So, if you don’t get the vaccine, you have 0% chance of an adverse reaction that can include death, and a better than a 99% chance of survival from Covid. Those are pretty damn good odds which makes not getting the vaccine a very reasonable decision.
And since the vaccine does not prevent transmission, the whole social contract argument is moot.
Your first post suggests you’re an MD. What are you doing for early treatment on patients with Covid? Are you following the CDC and just letting them sit at home and get worse and then telling them to go to the hospital for remdesivir and a ventilator before they die?
Are you encouraging people who are healthy to supplement their immune systems with Zinc, vitamin C, and vitamin D? That alone improves Covid outcomes dramatically.
Are you going to answer any of these questions or just babble about random Fox News hosts?