In case you thought Trump was imploding . . .
by New Deal democrat
In case you thought Trump was imploding . . .
For those of you who may be cocooned in the liberal blogosphere, I’m afraid I must administer a cold slap in the face.
Here is the graph of Gallup’s Economic Confidence Survey from its inception nearly 10 years ago. Notice that spike to new highs right at the end?
Let’s zoom in for a closer look, as in the last 3 months:
The first surge of +10% in confidence happened right after the November elections Democrats got less confident, but nearly 40% of GOPers became increasingly confident in the economy.
The second surge of +10% (from +8 to +18) happened starting on January 20.
Trump is solidifying his support.
Individual or business related?
well, i don’t know who is being polled. but in general people who worry about money are completely ignorant about the environment and deliberately ignorant about the effects of economic policies on real human beings. so what you are looking at is people looking at “the bottom line” that is more companies making money and stock prices going up.
i think that in the long run they will prove catastrophically wrong, as they did in 2008. but there is no reason to be surprised that “confidence in the economy” even among the poor deluded poor is “improving.”
Two points about “confidence”:
1. It is the first word in confidence man. Herman Melville wrote a novel about the Confidence Man.
2. Although confidence purports to look forward into the future, it inevitably projects from the immediate past.
Having worked in survey research and being familiar with some of the more critical literature in the field, I tend to rate confidence surveys somewhere between celebrity gossip and V.S.P. punditry.
There may be economic confidence, but his poll numbers are sagging, and huge crowds are mobbing congressional offices to protest against his policies.
Sorry, but he is imploding.
Stocks made new record highs again today. That adds up to a $1.6 Trillion gain since the election. There’s about 160m US investors, so the average investor got a gain of $10,000. Thanks Donny!
More important is what happens a week from now. What will DT do with taxes? He says he has a “phenomenal” plan. What if the Prez cuts middle income taxes by $5k a year. Confidence (and stocks) will rise.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-09/trump-promises-phenomenal-tax-plan-as-ryan-s-ideas-draw-fire
I’m liberal as hell and I hate Trump, but I expect the economy to boom for the next year or so due to tax cuts and elimination of regulation. However, after that the bill comes due, and it won’t be pretty.
BK,
You are just being silly. The market has nothing to do with any of this shit, and it means almost nothing to anyone not in the top 10 or 20 percent of income earners.
The idea you can cut taxes 5K on middle income people shows you have no knowledge and/or interest in middle income people.
Their problem is income, not income taxes.
What happened between June and September 2011? The economy was growing and unemployment was falling, both smoothly? Does this thing have any predictive value or is it just about feelings? It could just be relief that Trump became president and the sun rose the next morning.
Emikie – You say:
“The market has nothing to
do with any of this shit”
Well, sorry, You’re flat wrong on that. There are thousands of links, I’ll provide just one. That you think there is no connection just proves you don’t own any stocks. Buy some – and then you will feel good when they appreciate in value. Also – 52% of all Americans own stocks.
http://globalmoneytrends.com/consumer-confidence-influenced-stock-prices/
Follows a link to a June 2016 CBO report. It clearly shows on Table 1 that the middle quintile of earners in America pay about 9,000 in federal taxes.
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51361-HouseholdIncomeFedTaxes.pdf
I don’t know what Trump’s tax plan is for middle quintile workers. But should he reduce the tax burden of those workers by a significant amount ($5,000), then it would result in a significant economic boost. I think Trump will be advised to help middle income earners for political reasons. We shall see soon enough.
BK:
Still playing the shell game? Between $40,000 and $100,000 in income, the highest percentage paid out would be in payroll taxes and roughly 1/3 of all tax payers are in this category. Save them $5,000??? I do not think so, it will be less very much like the 2001/2003 Bush tax cuts. The biggest portion will go to $250,000 on up. This http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/current-law-distribution-federal-taxes-november-2006/current-law-distribution-9 is a little outdated; but, it works as an explanation.
Nice insult Krasting.
For the record, I bought Chase and Wells at 9 and 14, one of the reasons I was able to retire at 60.
Meanwhile I am not interested in playing games with a neanderthal who intentionally interjects bs (“federal taxes”) into a discussion to distract from the subject, which was income taxes.
And “own stock” only means something if it is beyond a couple of shares in something.
The evidence that tax cuts and deregulation in general stimulate economies a lot is way overblown. The economy will probably do well because Obama and the Fed under Yellen managed to get it going pretty well, with solid, if unspectacular, non-inflationary growth, certainly better than our European or Japanese friends. This now has a major head of momentum and will continue unless Trump does somethign wildly craxy to mess it up. Of course, the Trump people are already claiming credit for the Obama growth path they have inherited. Probably they can avoid messing it up too badly for a year or two.
Barkley:
Of course if the world was crashing like 2009 they certainly would not take credit for that one year. This was the argument being made by past posters (Mike Kimel?). First year of Trump’s era of a “reign of witches” belongs to Obama as he had the greatest influence on 2017.
EMike – WOW!! You are some talented trader. The low for Chase was set on 3/6/2009. The low that day was 15.93. Yet you manged to buy the stock 15% below the market.
Please tell us – how did you do that?
But since you did make the trade of the century, and that trade alone allowed you to retire 6-7 years before most people then surely you would have to agree that your confidence was boosted by rising stock prices.
PS I traded stocks, bonds and currency for 30 years, I don’t believe that you bought stock below the market on any day, much less a at a 10-year low.
More bs.
As an active trader are you telling me that your info is correct? Check again, pal. BTW, a dollar off means something other than nit pricking bs? And, btw, it was 14 something.
My interest in stock prices back then has no relevance to the discussion. We are talking about the vast majority of Americans who have no interest, and for whom it means nothing. Another silly diversion.
Nice try though.
Over the time period discussed here, stock prices have nothing whatsoever to say about Trump. The stock market for the past ≥ 15 years has become a casino, and short term stock prices reflect gambling, not investment.
On the matter of the stock market I agree with Dan. It has a lot to do with Trump. What people should keep in mind is that there has been exaggeration of how great it is, as Krugman has pointed out. Most of the runup came between the election and Trump’s press conference on Dec. 23, when he went after the CIA. Dow nearly got to 20,000, but then stalled out. It has since gone over 20,000, but basically since Dec. 23 it has not gone up all that much.
Why did it go up? People looking at higher profits due to less regulation and lower taxes not too irrationally priced that into stocks in the immediate aftermath of the election. But that is now more or less sort of worn out.
OTOH, all this higher economic confidence looks like a joke. Profits may go up, but I see no reason at all for GDP to grow any faster than it would have if Hillary were in the WH now. And indeed there are good reasons to fear that Trump will mess things ujp and lead us to a lower growth rate rather than higher, although probably a bit down the road, so the suckers can have their wishful fun for now.