“The Greatest Economy in History”
Trump’s tsunami of bullshit dragged on for over an hour last night, illegally staged at the White House Coronafest of loyalists and GOP congressional invertebrates. During his narcissistic tirade Trump repeated one of his favorite whoppers – that he created the “greatest economy in history” and that last month the US added 9 million jobs, “the most ever added in history”. The tiny detail he omitted is that we’re still down 12 million jobs lost since, asleep at the switch, he allowed COVID-19 to paralyze the economy, costing trillions of dollars, millions of lost jobs, and wiping out the savings of millions of Americans.
Trump is the biggest bullshitter in the history of the presidency. Hell, he’s the Mozart of Bullshit. I’m pretty sick of it and how his sycophants swallow said bullshit as if it’s apple pie with Blue Bell. Let’s hit these lies head on. The following charts are 25 years of key economic measures. First, GDP growth:
Average GDP growth tends to run 2% to 3% per year. That continued during the entire Trump infestation, with no material changes up until this year. There are two notable aberrations in the rate, one the Great Recession in 2008 at the end of the GWB administration, and, of course, this year where Trump’s incompetence has driven the economy into the ditch and will probably finish down 14%, the worst economic performance in modern US history. This is what happens when you have a lunatic at the helm of the US government.
Second, wage and salary growth:
Wages and salaries follow a similar pattern general rising and falling with the economy. The same aberrations are apparent here, with no abnormally high growth rate during the first 3 years of the Trump infestation.
Third, unemployment rate:
Unemployment, up until Trump’s massive 2020 failure, continued to follow the same trajectory established during the Obama administration as the economy recovered from the Great Recession. You can see the explosion in unemployment rate this year.
Lastly, the S&P 500 Index:
There is one measure where Trump is correct – the stock market. With the Fed pumping in trillions of dollars into the economy by buying US debt, it is propping up stocks. Combine that with Trump’s massive tax cut in 2017, and there is clearly a winning class in this economy, and we know which one that is.
So, I’m here to call Trump’s bullshit, bullshit. He has fabricated from whole cloth a booming economy and prosperity which simply doesn’t exist in any form. Add this to Trump’s massive failures in public health, diplomacy, trade, environment, and social justice and it’s impossible for anyone only marginally objective to call Trump qualified for another term.