Trump: We have Serious Economic Concerns

Well, as a somewhat recently retired guy, the tax cuts were worth just about a thousand dollars to me. Good!

But now, thanks to Trump's constant bitching and intense pressure for the past year to crush interest rates back to to zero, it's costing me thousands of dollars (multiple) in lost interest on my savings accounts. Very damned bad!

Thus, for me personally, Trump is costing me money, even though it's actually done through the Federal Reserve central bank. The Fed was actually starting to raise interest rates to a point where they should be for a sound, healthy economy, but then Trump has to exert pressure on the Fed and it raised interest rates no less than THREE TIMES in 2019.

Even worse, it looks like they'll lower interest rates again this year because they think they need to 'rescue' the 'repo market' (some more), and they'll also use the excuse of the Coronavirus, which in the United States poses no real important economic threat at all....

If all the Democrat candidates weren't so flat-out BAD, I'd seriously consider voting for someone besides Trump this year....

 

I understand but,
When did we last have interest rates at or above 5%
I understand your questioning a low return on interest bearing accounts but are you also complaining about a 30% rise in any investments in the financial markets.
I balance my investments and personally I am very happy with my overall growth.

 

You should check up on your source. The Fraser Institute is as biased as advocates for the system are. There's navigating and gaming one must do to get the best their system has to offer. (I live in Canada, too, so I speak from personal experience and the experience of people I know.) I think a good parallel is the experience of Medicare patients in this country.

There's no doubt some of the best clinics in this country are superior to their system, but how many Americans get that kind of care?

Remember, we were talking about cost, not quality. The Canadian system costs less per person and I think Bomb Tossing Bernie can deliver on cost. That said, I will not vote for a guy who refuses to look at nuclear power generated electricity when that is the only solution we know at the moment can meet the world's demand for energy.

 

How many ways are you trying to have it? Pretty hypocritical of you to blather on about "real life training" while continuing to support universities. You self-taught "real life" wonders should do surgery on each other, design buildings that don't fall down, and home school your kids.

Red herring. I never expected taxpayers to keep employing me. It was their choice. I never needed my teacher salary as I had enough money without the job.

 

It might be nice to see them not get ripped off for a change.

 

You do realize that Fraser Institute study uses data from the "Canadian Institute for Health Information" which is headquartered in Canada?

 

I, my wife and my daughter all went to college. Most of what is required is crap and not necessary for a particular major.

 

I would add that Trump is pushing hard for lower interest rates in the hope he can stimulate the economy enough he can get reelected before an economic downturn. His position is irresponsible because he's driving up asset values and putting us on the road for a repeat of 2008--or worse.

I might be able to support Bloomberg, or even a Klobuchar, but I could never vote for Sanders who won't even consider nuclear power generated electricity to replace fossil fuels. Is Sanders lying to hold his support of the feet-in-the-clouds environmentalists or is he plain nuts? We need to address global warming, but at this point nuclear power electricity generation is the only certain way to rescue the planet.

 

I am glad you are happy. Many people who put money into this Fed-nurtured, 'fraud-balloon' stock market are very happy. For your sake, I hope the happiness continues. But....

In 2006, I smelled a very large, dying rat and by the end of May 2007 I got out of the stock market totally, and I did very well -- especially with some options I had been sitting on. Good. But, then I never went back in because I could see what the Fed was doing with all these "QE's", "Operation Twist", etc., etc. And now they're back at it again -- throwing billions upon billions of dollars at the "repo crisis" that upset their fraudulent little apple-cart starting last September. I never dreamed that a responsible central bank of a country with a free-market economic system could or WOULD do what Ben Bernanke and the Fed did from 2008 onward....

Interest rates? According to real experts, like Axel Weber, the renowned chairman of UBS, low interest rates are an unusual, useless distortion, and he's an enemy of the 'negative interest' fad that hasn't done anything good for any country that's played around with them! Weber had previously taken the position that in order for world economies to really recover to health again, increases in interest rates to 3.8% were needed by January 2019.... Obviously, that didn't happen, and now Europe is even deeper in economic trouble than it was a year ago, and we in the States have a "repo crisis" brought on by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and, of course, the precious, almighty-god stock market....

I have been and remain a Trump supporter, if only because every Democrat running disgusts or scares me! That said, it is also disgusting to see the way that Trump jawbones everybody for crushed interest rates when that is exactly the opposite of what a healthy economy needs. Put simply -- interest rates should be determined almost exclusively by what demand for credit actually is. Everything else is manipulative crap, designed to make an economy look *wonderful* before a national election... and that's as dangerous as it is fraudulent.

 

Raising pay by 1%, is increasing spending.

 

I agree about Trump, who seems hell-bent on making the economy look *SPECTACULAR* by flushing everybody out of secure savings accounts and into the stock market casinos -- right on cue to the November elections. I will probably vote for Trump, as I did in 2016, even though NOW I'm less and less happy about the idea of it.

Bloomberg could be acceptable to me (barely) if he'd stop attacking the right of citizens to defend themselves and their property with firearms -- a constitutional RIGHT. I do respect his mentality, his ability to run a highly-successful business, and the fact that obviously he actually knows what an economy is! But, the mere idea that he might choose Hillary as a running mate nauseates me all over again....

Klobuchar has an absolutely revolting track record in her performance in the Senate! Hers is a template for lock-step, hyperliberal partisan Democrat politics from day-one on everything! Not surprising, since her base is in Minneapolis -- a hotbed of some of the worst of the liberal-machine goon-squad, and which has given us, among other things, creatures like Ilhan Omar!

Sanders? I could never vote for him in 2020, but I LIKE the man. Maybe because, a million years ago, he was a vocal, energetic opponent of what is still the biggest post-WWII tragedy we've ever gotten in -- the Vietnam War! I'll always feel like he's my 'brother' in a sense because of that, and I do have a great deal of respect for his honesty, clarity, ethics, and integrity -- even though Socialism, per se, is nothing but a crutch used by parasites who trade their votes as a last resort in failed states....

F*CK THE WAR IN VIETNAM! -- "I'll always admire you for that, Bernie!"

 

I fully understand your situation. I officially retired in 2011 and followed the advice of my financial managers who promoted cautious but balanced investments, thankfully I have enjoyed the runup to where we are today.
Is the market scary high? Yep. Have people been saying that for years? Yep
The question is,
if the Dow were to drop 50% tomorrow, would it affect my retirement plan? Probably not based on the gains made over the last decade.
That said, today I took my 2020 RMD just because of the market highs.
Life is a crapshoot and if Komrad Bernie wins, everything will be free anyway.

 

I congratulate you on your success and for your good fortune in finding good financial managers. In the 1980's I lost $12,000 fooling around with some of these 'experts' at a big-name brokerage, and I guess I just never really got over it (that was a lot of money for me back then).

Trump is likely to win the election (particularly if he will ever learn to keep his mouth shut), and I'll probably vote for him... again. But, all in all, we've got a real 'house of cards' thing going on now throughout the whole world, and the more I read about what the Federal Reserve combine is doing, the more I worry for ALL of us in the United States.

Too bad Burr didn't kill Hamilton about five years sooner than he did -- we just might have escaped from EVER being saddled with a central bank....

 

Agreed.

 

The Fraser Institute is also headquartered in Canada. While I happen to agree with much of their political positions, I recognize they're propagandizing people and their waiting list data for health care services is nonsense.

I broke my ankle on the golf course (my cleats caught on a muddy hillside and I slipped). I got home, my wife took me to our GP who ordered x-rays, saw it was broken, sent me to the hospital where I had my ankle put in a cast by an orthopedic surgeon. Broken ankle, home, GP, x-rays, GP, orthopedic surgeon--four hours.

It's not the Mayo Clinic, but what is ... other than the Mayo Clinic?

I think the closet parallel here is Medicare. We could lose some aspects of innovation if we go with cradle-to-grave public medicine. Just my opinion.

 

It's a longstanding debate in universities. You might save a year out of four.

 

Two out of four is more like it.

 

Not sure what you're talking about, but government has to compete in the labor market just like private sector employers.

 

Bloomberg isn't going to choose Useless Hillary--that's Trumper fake news.

She wouldn't wreck the economy.

John Kerry opposed the war--how about him? Slick Willie, too.

Bernie is like a broken watch that's accurate twice a day.

 

We're pointing out the dishonest hypocrisy

Republicans NEVER actually reduce the debt

 

And Trump had DOUBLED the deficit in three years

One TRILLION dollars

 

The deficit was on the rise starting in 2016.

 

On the contrary. Late 1990s.

 

That was Clinton who forced the GOP Congress to knuckle.

Once they had Bush in, the GOP Congress went on a wild spending spree.