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[mjbabcock]

You’re going to have to explain to me how tariffs, trade war, and a narrowing trade deficit is ‘the best thing for China’.
Ditto for Russia.

This is the type of argument that is completely disregarding facts. Our own government webpage posts trade data with china (Foreign Trade - U.S. Trade with China). While our monthly trade deficit with china is down this year, it maxed out last year at $35 billion/month. Tht was an increase over the $31.2 billion the previous year, which was higher than in 2014, 2015, and 2016. To argue that our present government is "cutting the deficit" with the trade war is disregarding data the indicates their trade policies actually increased the deficit.
Year -Average Monthly Trade Deficit with China in Millions of Dollars.
2019 -29445.76
2018 -34960.63
2017 -31285.24
2016 -28902.10
2015 -30610.69
2014 -28734.81

The whole, "make a huge freakin mess, then make the mess go away" as some kind of media manipulation strategy is exhausting.
And the Ukraine/Russia argument...how do you disregard the fact that he did withhold aid from the Ukrainians? That is undisputed. That is exactly what Russia wanted. It wasn't until the Trump caught wind of the whistleblower that he released the aid.

[thollandpe]

Are you really trying to spin the U.S. providing lethal aid to Ukraine as a positive for russia?

The delay in sending that aid was certainly a positive for Russia.

Here's some illuminating journalism on that, U.S. military aid bolsters Ukraine’s front lines, but the Trump drama makes Kyiv nervous

[mjbabcock]

I will add, my wife works proximal to state level agriculture policy folks. Farmers are getting fucked...hard. Trade relationships for pork and soy(below) and cherries and apples and hay, those took decades to systematize. Our lovely trade war is incentivizing China to seek Argentina and Brazil for food. This is why Trump is taxing metals and critiquing their currency devaluations...our farmers are getting replaced on the world market because of this trade war. These new food supply chains aren't going to reverse course once the trade war "ends". Our farmers will be seeking new buyers on the international market, and selling their product at a lower price. Given how much we overproduce, and how tight margins are, we are seeing the hollowing out of the agriculture industry.

[Dallas Tex]

This is the type of argument that is completely disregarding facts. Our own government webpage posts trade data with china (Foreign Trade - U.S. Trade with China). While our monthly trade deficit with china is down this year, it maxed out last year at $35 billion/month. Tht was an increase over the $31.2 billion the previous year, which was higher than in 2014, 2015, and 2016. To argue that our present government is "cutting the deficit" with the trade war is disregarding data the indicates their trade policies actually increased the deficit.
Year -Average Monthly Trade Deficit with China in Millions of Dollars.
2019 -29445.76
2018 -34960.63
2017 -31285.24
2016 -28902.10
2015 -30610.69
2014 -28734.81

The whole, "make a huge freakin mess, then make the mess go away" as some kind of media manipulation strategy is exhausting.
And the Ukraine/Russia argument...how do you disregard the fact that he did withhold aid from the Ukrainians? That is undisputed. That is exactly what Russia wanted. It wasn't until the Trump caught wind of the whistleblower that he released the aid.

Seems like a nice reduction & trend from 2018 to 2019. But shouldn’t you attribute those 2017 & 2018 increases to Obama? Since that’s where you attribute all of the record breaking good economic news for those periods ?

[Dallas Tex]

The delay in sending that aid was certainly a positive for Russia.

Yet a ‘yuuuuge’ improvement over the non-lethal
aid given by the prior administration.

[ides1056]

No amount of spin can change the fact that both Russia and China would be a lot happier with a 3rd Obama term as President Clinton right now.

This is a steaming load of hooey.

[djg714]

No amount of spin can change the fact that both Russia and China would be a lot happier with a 3rd Obama term as President Clinton right now.

This is a steaming load of hooey.

Wow.

[HorsCat]

Yet a ‘yuuuuge’ improvement over the non-lethal
aid given by the prior administration.

The Obama administration had a good reason for not providing lethal aid. It was addressed by one of the witnesses in the Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry. There are probably transcripts you could review if you're so inclined.

Since that’s where you attribute all of the record breaking good economic news for those periods ?

Trend lines for unemployment numbers, stock market indices and GDP growth have all been consistent since long before the presidency was a twinkle in Trump's eye. He's damn lucky he followed Obama into the WH, for many, many reasons. I couldn't imagine where we'd be if he followed GWB.

[ides1056]

Lethal aid indeed:Conflict of interest questions add to scrutiny of Trump’s Ukraine envoy - POLITICO

[guido]

[QUOTE]Are you really trying to spin the U.S. providing lethal aid to Ukraine as a positive for russia? [\QUOTE]

Given the undermining of Zelensky by Trump and how it is going to weaken his hand in negotiations, the lethal aid is a pinprick to Russia.


[QUOTE]The U.S. producing more and lower prices = not good for russia.[\QUOTE]

Russia has a deal going with China on natural gas that will make up for much of the price drops. Pipelines are more cost effective than shipping the stuff.

No amount of spin can change the fact that both Russia and China would be a lot happier with a 3rd Obama term as President Clinton right now.

Then why did Russia do so much to back Trump in the 2016 election? Why do Trump and Putin speak so often then?
Trump is just a speed bump for the Chinese, they take a far longer view.

[Dallas Tex]

....Trend lines for unemployment numbers, stock market indices and GDP growth have all been consistent since long before the presidency was a twinkle in Trump's eye...

This never makes sense. Do you honestly believe that 3 years into the trump presidency the historical record breaking economic numbers are not due to trumps policies, but due to Obama policies?

What specific obama policies led to the stock market at historical highs, unemployment at historical lows, resurgence of manufacturing, the fastest wage growth in a decade.....all 3 years into the trump presidency?

[Dallas Tex]

Thanks for the friendly discussion. I’ve effed around waaay too much with this today. I gotta go silent, carry on.

[thollandpe]

Yet a ‘yuuuuge’ improvement over the non-lethal
aid given by the prior administration.

First off, thank you for not repeating the blatant lie, dropped by Devin Nunes and now repeated by other members of Congress (even today), that the Obama administration just gave blankets to the Ukrainians.

While one can debate the relative effectiveness of various lethal and non-lethal defensive weaponry, one cannot possibly debate that night-vision devices, counterartillery radar, and surveillance drones are valuable when engaging a sophisticated and well-armed invader like Russia. Javelin shoulder-fired missiles can’t be the only arrow in your quiver.

But certainly a delay like what unquestionably occurred, where nothing was delivered until somebody’s hand got caught in the cookie jar, benefits no one but the aggressor. Russia.

Here’s the link again, in case you’d like to read it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...fb1_story.html

[guido]

This never makes sense. Do you honestly believe that 3 years into the trump presidency the historical record breaking economic numbers are not due to trumps policies, but due to Obama policies?

What specific obama policies led to the stock market at historical highs, unemployment at historical lows, resurgence of manufacturing, the fastest wage growth in a decade.....all 3 years into the trump presidency?

The unemployment rate has been on the same trajectory since 2010.
United States Unemployment Rate | 219 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast

Manufacturing output did rise in 2016 and early 2017. It has been mostly flat till the beginning of 2019 when it crashed.
United States Manufacturing Production | 219 | Data | Chart | Calendar

Wage growth is behind where it should be after a recession
Nominal Wage Tracker | Economic Policy Institute

Gee I don't see a miracle in the actual data...

[BBB]

Yeah...but you're ignoring the alternative facts.

Sometime around early November 2016 America was feeling un-great. Now one was quite sure why. It could have been that the President was born in Kenya and his anointed successor was hiding servers in the Ukraine.

In any event, come 8 November 2016 a miracle happened and a minority of voters elected a red hatted buffoon. It must have been because he was chosen by God, who was conveniently overlooking the adultery and allegations of sexual assault. In any event, his plan was to make America great. Again. He didn't really know how this was going to be achieved as last time he tried adding one plus one, his casinos went bust and no one would touch him except the pesky Germans.

Maybe a building and construction boom by building a bloody great big wall.

Having built a wall across his desk in Duplo blocks and satisfied himself that the building plan made sense, he got down to business. He rang Tim. Tim supposedly ran a pretty big company that he'd vaguely heard of. They designed stuff in California. But, the traitors, they made their stuff in China (you know, that great big place across the ocean where his red hats were made). Tim received a stern lecture and promised to move all manufacturing facilities to Cupertino so it would read Designed and Made in Cupertino. Even though they didn't vote for the red hated buffoon Californians were eternally grateful that their employment figures received a big spike. The official graphs proved this point when a black marker added an impressive looking downward trend to the unemployment figures.

Flushed with success, he rang a few CEOs of US based multi-nationals. The multi-nationals were doing it tough on account of the Kenyan. Or so he'd heard. And they were planning to made American workers redundant and employing people in low wage jurisdictions like India to save some money and all. Red hat didn't like this. Not one bit. Even after someone found a map and showed him where India was. So, he barked at these penny pinching CEOs and they immediately dropped their plans of making workers redundant and promised to up recruiting.

Then he bought Greenland and rang his pals in the Ukraine to try and find those servers.

Anyone who disputes these alternate facts will receive a 140 character bollocking on Twitter.

[guido]

In U.K. Vote, Online Disinformation Is the New Normal - The New York Times

[Dallas Tex]

The unemployment rate has been on the same trajectory since 2010.

"trajectory", 'trend"...just talking points.... Have you ever heard "Past performance is no guarantee of future results" ?

Your 'logic' is the same as believing that since Widget.com stock-price was making gains 37 months ago when CEO Tim was replaced by Bill, any gains under the new CEO Bill for the past 3 years can only be attributed to Tim, not Bill. It's a good talking point, but it doesn't reflect reality.

Manufacturing output did rise in 2016 and early 2017. It has been mostly flat till the beginning of 2019 when it crashed.

Under what metric are you describing 2018 as flat? 2018 saw the largest increase in manufacturing job gains in 20 years. Aren't these the jobs the prior administration said aren't coming back? November 2019 jobs report saw a gain of 54,000 manufacturing jobs. I know people that work with their hands in flyover states aren't exactly a top priority of yours, but many think this kind of employment is important.

Wage growth is behind where it should be after a recession

You mean the recession that ended in 2009???? Yes, Obama oversaw one of the worst, slowest growth recovery....and that's while he was in office.

Gee I don't see a miracle in the actual data...

November +266,000 new jobs vs forecast 188,000
November +54,000 manufacturing jobs
Black unemployment at historical lows
Women's unemployment at historical lows
Hispanic unemployment at historical lows
Stock Market at record highs (this helps older folks retire after a lifetime of work)

If you don't see the good in that, you're expending enormous effort to not.

[mzilliox]

i think most likely good entrepreneurs did this, not the president, no matter what he thinks of himself (hes shit at business). we are not a communist nation yet, the government doesnt run the economy. he tries to, but hes mostly lost.
at what cost do all his antics come? pollution? loss of farmers? a nation divided?

ill take the normal economy, the untrump one any day of the week, if i also have to take all the shit storm that comes with the so called trump economy.

[djg714]

This never makes sense. Do you honestly believe that 3 years into the trump presidency the historical record breaking economic numbers are not due to trumps policies, but due to Obama policies?

What specific obama policies led to the stock market at historical highs, unemployment at historical lows, resurgence of manufacturing, the fastest wage growth in a decade.....all 3 years into the trump presidency?

When are you going to stop embarrassing yourself?

[Dallas Tex]

When are you going to stop embarrassing yourself?

When are you going to learn to think for yourself, instead of regurgitating indoctrination? Try it. Think logically, critically, honestly.

It speaks volumes that you didn't address either of the questions that you quoted.

Read the post above that you quoted and dig deep to respond intelligently. If you are capable of doing so.