Tag: Trump economy

CEO confidence sinks to lowest level since 2016

Axios logoConfidence among the nation’s top CEOs saw the biggest quarter-over-quarter drop in 7 years and hit a level not seen since the 4th quarter of 2016, according to a closely-watched survey by the Business Roundtable.

Why it matters: Corporate America’s level of optimism has dramatically receded from the levels when President Trump took office. Amid heightened trade war uncertainty, CEOs have downgraded expectations for hiring, capital spending and sales growth — potentially exacerbating fears that the record economic expansion could be coming to an end.

“American businesses now have their foot poised above the brake, and they’re tapping the brake periodically.”

— Joshua Bolten, president and CEO of Business Roundtable, in statement

View the complete September 18 article by Courtenay Brown on the Axios website here.

‘There’s more uncertainty, not less’: Recession fears are already gripping parts of the US — and jeopardizing Trump’s reelection

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump, during a recent speech in New Hampshire, told a crowd that no matter how much they might dislike him, they “have no choice” but to reelect him in 2020 in order to save the U.S. economy and keep their 401(k) plans from tanking. Some pundits have argued that whatever happens with Trump on immigration, abortion or foreign policy, the economy could save his presidency in the end. But a report by Shawn Donnan for Bloomberg News explains that with more and more evidence that the U.S. economy is slowing down, the economy might not be Trump’s strong point in the 2020 election.

“The surge in industrial jobs seen in the first two years of the Trump presidency has also gone into reverse in some parts of the country,” Donnan reports. “Nationally, the U.S. has added 44,000 manufacturing jobs so far this year, according to data released on Friday. But that’s way down from the 170,000 added in the same period last year.”

Donnan reports that “for all the debate on whether the U.S. is headed for a recession, there’s plenty of evidence that corners of the economy….. may already have tumbled into one.” And Donnan points to the area of Wisconsin where Kuhn North America is located as an example: at Kuhn North America, which has about 600 employees in its factory and manufactures farm equipment, roughly 250 workers were suffering a two-week furlough around Labor Day Weekend.

View the complete September 16 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Slowing job growth raises 2020 stakes for Trump

The Hill logoAn underwhelming August jobs report is adding to fears of an economic slowdown, raising the stakes for President Trump‘s reelection bid.

The U.S. added roughly 130,000 jobs in August, according to federal data released Friday, undershooting economists’ expectations as the labor market continues to slow.

The resilient job market has been one of Trump’s top selling points as he attempts to win re-election on the strength of the U.S. economy. But the disappointing August jobs report threatens to undercut Trump’s message ahead of a critical stretch for the economy.

View the complete September 6 article by Sylvan Lane on The Hill website here.

Economy adds 130K jobs in August, falling below expectations

The Hill logoThe U.S. added 130,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department reported Friday, falling below expectations amid an escalating trade war with China and a slowing global economy.

The August jobs report missed expectations after economists broadly projected employment growth closer to the 164,000 workers the U.S. added in July. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent, while the labor force participation rate rose to 63.2 percent, according to the release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While the U.S. economy has added jobs at a slower rate in 2019 than last year, it has remained largely resilient as European and Asian powers face sharper downturns amid rising trade tensions.

View the complete September 6 article by Sylvan Lane on The Hill website here.

Trump Says China Will Suffer as Data Shows Trade War Hurting U.S.

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — President Trump said on Tuesday that Chinese manufacturing would “crumble” if the country did not agree to the United States’ trade terms, as newly released data showed his trade war was washing back to American shores and hurting the factories that the president has aimed to protect.

Days after new tariffs went into effect on both sides of the Pacific, a closely watched index of American manufacturing activity fell to 49.1 from 51.2, signaling a contraction in United States factory activity for the first time since 2016. The companies responding to the Institute for Supply Management survey, which the index is based on, cited shrinking export orders as a result of the trade dispute, as well as the challenge of moving supply chains out of China to avoid the tariffs.

The manufacturing sector’s struggles are likely to increase as the world’s two largest economies continue to escalate their trade fight. On Sunday, Mr. Trump placed a new 15 percent tariff on a range of consumer goods, including clothing, lawn mowers, sewing machines, food and jewelry, and Beijing retaliated by increasing tariffs on $75 billion worth of American products. China also said on Monday that it was filing a complaint at the World Trade Organization over Mr. Trump’s new tariffs.

View the complete September 3 article by Ana Swanson on The New York Times website here.

Trump’s Economic Message: Everything Is Great, but We Need Huge Stimulus Now!

New York Times logoA tension between preparing for bad outcomes and scaring the public.

Every time the economy trembles, the president and White House staff face a quandary.

On one hand, they wish to instill confidence and project optimism. No president wants to talk down the economy, and a pessimistic tone from the highest office of the land could be self-fulfilling.

On the other hand, they need to be ready with the right policy plans in case things do start to sour, to help prevent a mild downturn from becoming a severe recession. The problem is that publicly talking about those contingency plans tends to undermine the goal of projecting optimism.

View the complete August 21 article by Neil Irwin on The New York Times website here.

Soaring deficits could put Trump in a corner if there’s a recession

The Hill logoA sea of red ink may make it politically difficult for President Trump and Congress to use the traditional tools for stimulating growth if a recession kicks in sometime next year.

Cutting taxes and increasing spending are seen as ways of stimulating the economy to recover from a recession, but that could be difficult with an annual budget deficit soaring above $1 trillion — at a time of positive economic growth.

“There may not be the political appetite to borrow more,” says Marc Goldwein, the head of policy at the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), which advocates for lower debt.

View the complete August 22 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

A 2008-style crash may not be far away — and once again, Republican delusions are to blame

AlterNet logoAmericans suffer from frustratingly short attention spans and even shorter memories. Case in point: Following the dark ride of the George W. Bush years, during which there were two wars, apocalyptic terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, torture as national security policy, warrantless eavesdropping and the most catastrophic economic crash since the Great Depression, I was foolish enough to believe Americans would banish the Republican Party to the hinterlands of our politics for a good long while.

I was horribly wrong. Eight years later, 62 million voters recklessly ignored the lessons of 2001 to 2009 by installing an even more incompetent, dangerous and unstable Republican administration in the White House. Donald Trump’s ascendancy isn’t so much a win for him as much as it’s a win for the propaganda efforts of Fox News, talk radio and Russian internet memes, collectively suckering “conservative” voters by bathing them in enough counterfactual nonsense to “neuralyze” all memories of what happened last time around.

That bottomless slagheap of propaganda convinced Trump’s base that the steadily improving economy of the Barack Obama administration was “American carnage,” requiring a return to the stewardship of Republicans who had been responsible for a $1.4 trillion deficit, the collapse of the stock market, more than 800,000 jobs lost in a single month and the near disintegration of both the housing market and America’s auto industry, to name two sectors.

View the complete August 13 commentary by Bob Cesca from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Trump Is Falling Almost 1 Million Jobs Short Vs. Obama

The U.S. Bureau of Labor announced that the economy added 224,000 jobs in June vs. expectations of 160,000 and May’s revised result of 72,000. The 224,000 is still strong, but there were revisions to April and May that subtracted 11,000 people hired in those months and government employment added 33,000. Overall private payrolls added 191,000 employees.

The stock markets are reacting negatively due to the jobs number being stronger than expected since investors are lowering their expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates by 50 basis points later this month. A 25 basis point downward move is still being priced into the market, but that may wind up being optimistic due to the strong report.

Over 29 months Obama added almost 1 million more jobs than Trump

Trump entered office on January 20, 2017, and starting with February 2017 he has been President for 29 months. Total job growth during that time has been 5.613 million or 194,000 per month with those results being helped by the tax cut.

View the complete July 5 article by Chuck Jones on The Forbes Magazine website here.

Aided by a strong economy, Trump approval rises, but a majority also see him as ‘unpresidential’

Washington Post logoAided by a strong economy and perceptions that he has dealt with it effectively, President Trump’s approval rating has risen to the highest point of his presidency, though a slight majority of Americans continue to say they disapprove of his performance in office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey highlights the degree to which Trump has a narrow but real path to reelection. His approval rating on most issues is net negative, and more than 6 in 10 Americans say he has acted in ways that are unpresidential since he was sworn into office. Still, roughly one-fifth of those who say he is not presidential say they approve of the job he is doing, and he runs even against four possible Democratic nominees in hypothetical general-election matchups. He trails decisively only to former vice president Joe Biden.

[Read full Post-ABC poll results ]

Trump’s approval rating among voting-age Americans stands at 44 percent, edging up from 39 percent in April, with 53 percent saying they disapprove of him. Among registered voters, 47 percent say they approve of Trump while 50 percent disapprove. In April, 42 percent of registered voters said they approved while 54 percent said they disapproved.

View the complete July 7 article by Dan Balz and Emily Guskin on The Washington Post website here.