Amen Erick. This situation highlights one of my biggest reservations about voting for Trump (which I did, only because the alternatives were always worse): he does NOT hire "the best people." He hires the people who fluff his ego the most and the people who happen to agree with him on his pet ideas. Oh, and the women who have the look that he likes. Well, we knew what we were getting. And we're getting it with fewer guardrails in his second term.
Americans are definitely feeling squeezed, but the overall economy is doing well. GDP may have shrunk in Q1, but it surged 3.8% in Q2, and Q3 growth estimates range between 2.3% and 4.0% - hardly the profile of a collapsing economy. Unemployment is still low, inflation has fallen sharply from the Biden years, household wealth hit record highs this year, and energy production is off the charts. People are frustrated, but the fundamentals simply don’t foretell economic collapse.
From the point of view of next year's midterms, I would reverse the order of your comments: put all of your data points first and then finish with "but Americans are definitely feeling squeezed." The problem is, we were promised we would not continue to be "squeezed" if Trump were elected. If this doesn't change, people who voted for this administration may just not vote. If Trump's diverse coalition doesn't show up for the midterms, you can kiss your fundamentals goodbye.
History says the party in the White House typically loses seats in the midterms. The real question is how many? I’m guessing not so many this time - maybe even a few gains. The BBB will play a "yuge" role next year because its pro-growth economic policies have been made permanent. Tax incentives for investment, stronger support for domestic manufacturing and energy production, and multi-year infrastructure projects create exactly the kind of stability businesses like.
Add to that another important factor: interest rates are finally trending lower. That affects everything - mortgages, car loans, small-business financing. When rates ease, the gap between economic frustration and economic reality starts to close.
If the investment trends continue and rate cuts filter through the system next year, the coalition isn’t going anywhere. This doesn’t look like the setup for a midterm collapse to me.
A number of years ago (pre Obama) I realized “a pox on the bunch of them”. I still vote and pray for whoever is in office. Erick is one of the few who actually give fair coverage of issues which is why I appreciate his insight.
When we depend on politicians and government for our peace and wellbeing, instead of our God Almighty, we get what we deserve.
The likes of CNN and NYT are beyond loathsome in thier bias.
One can only hope that new ownership guts the existing culture.
But again, Congressional Republicans need to confront Trump on tariffs, simply end the madness.
Tariffs are taxes.
Likewise, confront him on Ukraine. HIs legacy will be defined by his de facto acquiescence to Putin, and denial of defending the values that libereal democracy has always had to be based on.
The Democrats are beyond redemption. Even the 8 that voted to end the shutdown could have done that weeks ago, and spared the huge costs inflicted on the US economy.
The idiot Warren of Masschusettes is the prefect example - endless shutdown, endless pain, endless redistribution.
Reminds me of an anecdote from years ago, about a young man speaking with a old woman from Germany.
Here's what she had to say (paraphrased):
“When I was young, I believed the Kaiser. He took us to war, and my husband never came back. I was left a widow and single mother.
Then came Hitler, and I believed him too. He also took us to war, and my son never came back. Then I was just a middle-aged woman with no family.
Then the communists came, and said that this time, everything would be better. I believed them. They took away my beautiful house in our village and gave it to someone else. I had to move to the city to find work; I ended up finding an apartment in East Berlin.
The communists kept saying things would improve, if only we would sacrifice more. This time, I did not believe them.
In 1954, I packed a bag and walked over to West Berlin, then I immigrated to America. Several years later, the Berlin Wall went up and the East was completely sealed off from the West.
It took me a long time to learn this lesson: Don’t be as stupid as I was before, never trust any politician.”
I have to agree with you. I have been calling politicians nincompoops for some time. Lack of common sense, foolish, bonehead, making poor decisions, doesn"t think things through properly. When the Epstein conversation recently came back to light in the press, I thought "surprise, surprise" - NOT. Both sides always seem to pick up the baton and run with the same arguments against each other. It is a continuing revolving door.
Thank God for neighbors, friends, and other sources that see what D.C. is doing and are stepping up to help others. Our church is helping out families in our zip codes for Thanksgiving meals. Our parishioners have given enough donations to fulfill the requests for food. And some of those parishioners are affected by the shutdown but their are finding ways to help others. Other organizations and individuals are helping in so many in their needs.
Erick - I am disappointed with your viewpoint today regarding the economy and how both parties screw it up. To me you sound just like the democrats when responding to their hateful rhetoric and enabling of potitically motivated violence - "Both Sides". I find that a weak argument and lacking objectivity. Of course Trump says some unfiltered and dumb things. The 50 yr mortgage is really bad thinking - but it was a tweet and it is my belief that it has zero chance of ever moving forward, so it was just Trump reacting reflexily without thinking. Trump saying tariffs don't raise prices but lower prices is another thing that was poorly thought through before he said it. Of course the democrats would never say anything that politically dumb, but crafting disengenous messages doesn't make them better when they think the same dumb things as well. But let me get to why I find your comments weak and lacking objectivity.
You dumb down tariffs to "they raise costs and Trump has not told the truth". Tariffs do a lot more than that and your viewpoint is very short term transactional.
1) The US has the worst trade imbalance in the world and has for the last few decades.Tariffs aren't contrary to "free trade" they are a tool to move back toward fair trade. Once countries start to accept "fair trade" with the US there is the potential to reduce tariffs on both side to move toward free trade. As long as their are no consequences to other countries taking advantage of the US, they have no incentiv to change. Tariffs are a tool to address the imbalance.
2) Tariff strategy has produced trillions of dollars of committed investment in the US both from US based global companies as well as foreign entities. These have potential huge benefits on increasing good jobs and positively impacting the US economy. The fact that the impact is immediate is not a mystery. You need the commitment, but it will take sometimes years before the full econmic impact is realized. The 1st 2nm wafer was produced in AZ from the TSMC plant that Taiwan build there just this last month. That is been a few years in planning, building the plant and getting to a commercialization of wafer production. It will be another two years before the microchip fabrication processes are at commercial production. This stuff takes years to mature, but they start with the decisions to move forward in the first place. The Biden admin chased these investments away from the US, reversing that damage will take years.
3). I think the Doge initiative was the most courageous effort to begin to address federal government bloat, waste, fraud and abuse in our lifetime. It has fallen way short of its potential but clearly has brought attention to how bad the government is with wasting our money. Government efficiency should be supported by both parties but the democrats and their media allies have obstructed progress in extreme ways. Just this latest twist to re-opening the government with a caveat that 4000 RIF;'ed gov't employees must be rehired with back pay and no RIF's for some longer period is egregious. The private sector routinely and just this past month announced 10's of thousands of job eliminations which is how business responds to changing demands. Yet, the Dems go ballistic about 4000 federal employees???. Frankly, if the federal government went about "right-sizing" in a business like manner, somewhere in the vicinity of 1 miilion jobs should be a target for reduction over a 3-5 year plan IMHO.
4) I read estimates of 2MM illegal immigrants have left the US in the past 10 months. They lived somewhere, how many to an apartment? For estimation purposes let us so 4 per unit. That would suggest about 500,000 units have been vacated. Supply & demand rationale would say if a half milion units have been freed up, that the supply side has expanded faster than demand that should result in lower rental costs. It may take months or more for the effect to be noticeable but the impact is clearly rationale.
5). A lot of regulatory burdens are being addressed that have stopped and slowed economic development in the past 10 months. These include egregious EPA regulations, some work on pharma pricing, opening new permitting on energy production, steps to streamline nuclear permitting and technology.
6) Retaining and making permanent the tax breaks from the first Trump admin, was a huge amount of political energy expended that otherwise would have had huge negative impacts economically.
This isn't an exhaustive list. Your perspective seems to totally ignore hard work that has been down despite the obstruction of the democrats, the abusive court intervention and the spin of the liberal media.
So, while I agree that Trump opens himself to a lot of criticism for shooting his mouth off and saying some abusive things, I believe this is the hardest working admin that achieved more than any I can recall. To come from a point that "both parties are bad and I may hate them both" is a very short term focus and emotional, not fact based perspective.
Ralph- your use of the phrase " it will take sometimes years before the full economic impact is realized: is comical since it has probably been used by prior US presidential administrations as an excuse why the voters in this country probably not buying this statement. you probably did not realize that the state of the economy was on the ballot this year's elections. Trump has recently admitted that the tariffs have increased prices. Tariffs should only be use as a "temporary" measure. Seems that Trump may be forced to pivot on tariffs if he has any political "street smarts" in him.
That's a lot of words, but I only made it through # 1 before realizing the rest was not worth my time to read. Until Trump, the average tariff on USA goods imposed by the EU was 2.5 percent and the average USA reciprocal tariff was essentially the same. Trump then added his across-the-board 10% to 15% tariffs on top of the 2.5 percent. I know this because my AMERICAN import company has paid more in tariffs this year than we have made in profits. And 25% of our employees, Americans all, have been laid off.
your AMERICAN import company, has ways of paying for the tariffs that you like so much, either they pass on the increase in cost to consumers (which include you, me and everyone else in this country) in the form of higher prices or they cut cost by laying off employees.
So what are small businesses in niche markets like myself supposed to do with 100% tariffs? Go out of business "for the greater good?" As I mentioned, there is no possibility for me to onshore my products and why should I have to? There is no local company missing out on the business as none can come even close to costs and I can't sell the items I do for 3-4x what I do as I am already a specialty item that is at the top of the market. Do I get to "take one for the team?". F that.
NONSENSE! The quality of our governing bodies and their members has deteriorated significantly in the 21st Century. In making that comment, I include both parties and all three branches of government, plus our armed forces (which in reality don't belong to any of the three). We are now in the same position as the Romans during the regime of Julius Caesar. Sad!
The decline in our government started long before … Richard Milhouse Nixon took us off the gold standard….. and it’s been downhill since ..,, and picking up steam. All fiat currencies end the same way, all economies and nations based of fiat end the same way.
I agree that all of this raises the danger of voters turning futher right and other voters turning toward socialism. Neither will accomplish anything to turn our economic hardships around.
Epstein and Trump have one thing in common - they’re both the gift that keeps on giving to be used against one’s political enemies. Epstein’s lasting gift for inept politicians and stupid voters. I once read Trump was the Clinton’s secret weapon to destroy the Republican Party - perhaps that conspiracy theory is true. 🤪
Pride cometh before the fall and unless Trump changes course (he won’t) we’re about to observe a big time fall. At least both political extremes can just blame the Jews and Israel for all their problems.
Good Morning People I‘m glad some people are starting to see the light that goverment is Defently not for the US but for themselves, We the people Need to through them All out and start over. God Bless America have a Great Day
I believe that the politicians although migrate towards a poll have a pole to gently shove up our butts and should you be fishing at the time the lake that was full of money they will be draining
with a smile on their face saying vote for me I am here to help.
Erick - yes, I too have been fed up with both parties since GW Bush senior and his breaking of his “no new taxes” pledge. Then, we got the Clinton debacle, then Bush junior after 9-11, then Obama. We went from working on balancing budgets to open continuing resolutions that just increase every 6 months and our debt is now so high it will never end short of utter disaster for the USA and the world. Politicians have no solutions because there is no solution. Just delay of the inevitable because people want free stuff and no consequences.
The do have a solution, one that benefits their ultimate constituents….. keep the party going until their true constituents have bought up as much real estate as possible …. And as much real assets as possible …., then and only then will the collapse begin…. The rug will be yanked out from the rest of us, and we will have new lords and ladies and kings and the like ….
Amen Erick. This situation highlights one of my biggest reservations about voting for Trump (which I did, only because the alternatives were always worse): he does NOT hire "the best people." He hires the people who fluff his ego the most and the people who happen to agree with him on his pet ideas. Oh, and the women who have the look that he likes. Well, we knew what we were getting. And we're getting it with fewer guardrails in his second term.
AMEN!
Americans are definitely feeling squeezed, but the overall economy is doing well. GDP may have shrunk in Q1, but it surged 3.8% in Q2, and Q3 growth estimates range between 2.3% and 4.0% - hardly the profile of a collapsing economy. Unemployment is still low, inflation has fallen sharply from the Biden years, household wealth hit record highs this year, and energy production is off the charts. People are frustrated, but the fundamentals simply don’t foretell economic collapse.
Nah. They foretell a political collapse for Republicans. You MAGA economy cheerleaders need a theme song. How about “Tomorrow, Tomorrow” from Annie?
From the point of view of next year's midterms, I would reverse the order of your comments: put all of your data points first and then finish with "but Americans are definitely feeling squeezed." The problem is, we were promised we would not continue to be "squeezed" if Trump were elected. If this doesn't change, people who voted for this administration may just not vote. If Trump's diverse coalition doesn't show up for the midterms, you can kiss your fundamentals goodbye.
History says the party in the White House typically loses seats in the midterms. The real question is how many? I’m guessing not so many this time - maybe even a few gains. The BBB will play a "yuge" role next year because its pro-growth economic policies have been made permanent. Tax incentives for investment, stronger support for domestic manufacturing and energy production, and multi-year infrastructure projects create exactly the kind of stability businesses like.
Add to that another important factor: interest rates are finally trending lower. That affects everything - mortgages, car loans, small-business financing. When rates ease, the gap between economic frustration and economic reality starts to close.
If the investment trends continue and rate cuts filter through the system next year, the coalition isn’t going anywhere. This doesn’t look like the setup for a midterm collapse to me.
Tomorrow, tomorrow….
Thank you for the work you do, and the words you write.
Prayers for you and your family. 🙏
A number of years ago (pre Obama) I realized “a pox on the bunch of them”. I still vote and pray for whoever is in office. Erick is one of the few who actually give fair coverage of issues which is why I appreciate his insight.
When we depend on politicians and government for our peace and wellbeing, instead of our God Almighty, we get what we deserve.
Amen.
The likes of CNN and NYT are beyond loathsome in thier bias.
One can only hope that new ownership guts the existing culture.
But again, Congressional Republicans need to confront Trump on tariffs, simply end the madness.
Tariffs are taxes.
Likewise, confront him on Ukraine. HIs legacy will be defined by his de facto acquiescence to Putin, and denial of defending the values that libereal democracy has always had to be based on.
The Democrats are beyond redemption. Even the 8 that voted to end the shutdown could have done that weeks ago, and spared the huge costs inflicted on the US economy.
The idiot Warren of Masschusettes is the prefect example - endless shutdown, endless pain, endless redistribution.
Re: "I Hate Them All"
Reminds me of an anecdote from years ago, about a young man speaking with a old woman from Germany.
Here's what she had to say (paraphrased):
“When I was young, I believed the Kaiser. He took us to war, and my husband never came back. I was left a widow and single mother.
Then came Hitler, and I believed him too. He also took us to war, and my son never came back. Then I was just a middle-aged woman with no family.
Then the communists came, and said that this time, everything would be better. I believed them. They took away my beautiful house in our village and gave it to someone else. I had to move to the city to find work; I ended up finding an apartment in East Berlin.
The communists kept saying things would improve, if only we would sacrifice more. This time, I did not believe them.
In 1954, I packed a bag and walked over to West Berlin, then I immigrated to America. Several years later, the Berlin Wall went up and the East was completely sealed off from the West.
It took me a long time to learn this lesson: Don’t be as stupid as I was before, never trust any politician.”
I have to agree with you. I have been calling politicians nincompoops for some time. Lack of common sense, foolish, bonehead, making poor decisions, doesn"t think things through properly. When the Epstein conversation recently came back to light in the press, I thought "surprise, surprise" - NOT. Both sides always seem to pick up the baton and run with the same arguments against each other. It is a continuing revolving door.
Thank God for neighbors, friends, and other sources that see what D.C. is doing and are stepping up to help others. Our church is helping out families in our zip codes for Thanksgiving meals. Our parishioners have given enough donations to fulfill the requests for food. And some of those parishioners are affected by the shutdown but their are finding ways to help others. Other organizations and individuals are helping in so many in their needs.
Erick - I am disappointed with your viewpoint today regarding the economy and how both parties screw it up. To me you sound just like the democrats when responding to their hateful rhetoric and enabling of potitically motivated violence - "Both Sides". I find that a weak argument and lacking objectivity. Of course Trump says some unfiltered and dumb things. The 50 yr mortgage is really bad thinking - but it was a tweet and it is my belief that it has zero chance of ever moving forward, so it was just Trump reacting reflexily without thinking. Trump saying tariffs don't raise prices but lower prices is another thing that was poorly thought through before he said it. Of course the democrats would never say anything that politically dumb, but crafting disengenous messages doesn't make them better when they think the same dumb things as well. But let me get to why I find your comments weak and lacking objectivity.
You dumb down tariffs to "they raise costs and Trump has not told the truth". Tariffs do a lot more than that and your viewpoint is very short term transactional.
1) The US has the worst trade imbalance in the world and has for the last few decades.Tariffs aren't contrary to "free trade" they are a tool to move back toward fair trade. Once countries start to accept "fair trade" with the US there is the potential to reduce tariffs on both side to move toward free trade. As long as their are no consequences to other countries taking advantage of the US, they have no incentiv to change. Tariffs are a tool to address the imbalance.
2) Tariff strategy has produced trillions of dollars of committed investment in the US both from US based global companies as well as foreign entities. These have potential huge benefits on increasing good jobs and positively impacting the US economy. The fact that the impact is immediate is not a mystery. You need the commitment, but it will take sometimes years before the full econmic impact is realized. The 1st 2nm wafer was produced in AZ from the TSMC plant that Taiwan build there just this last month. That is been a few years in planning, building the plant and getting to a commercialization of wafer production. It will be another two years before the microchip fabrication processes are at commercial production. This stuff takes years to mature, but they start with the decisions to move forward in the first place. The Biden admin chased these investments away from the US, reversing that damage will take years.
3). I think the Doge initiative was the most courageous effort to begin to address federal government bloat, waste, fraud and abuse in our lifetime. It has fallen way short of its potential but clearly has brought attention to how bad the government is with wasting our money. Government efficiency should be supported by both parties but the democrats and their media allies have obstructed progress in extreme ways. Just this latest twist to re-opening the government with a caveat that 4000 RIF;'ed gov't employees must be rehired with back pay and no RIF's for some longer period is egregious. The private sector routinely and just this past month announced 10's of thousands of job eliminations which is how business responds to changing demands. Yet, the Dems go ballistic about 4000 federal employees???. Frankly, if the federal government went about "right-sizing" in a business like manner, somewhere in the vicinity of 1 miilion jobs should be a target for reduction over a 3-5 year plan IMHO.
4) I read estimates of 2MM illegal immigrants have left the US in the past 10 months. They lived somewhere, how many to an apartment? For estimation purposes let us so 4 per unit. That would suggest about 500,000 units have been vacated. Supply & demand rationale would say if a half milion units have been freed up, that the supply side has expanded faster than demand that should result in lower rental costs. It may take months or more for the effect to be noticeable but the impact is clearly rationale.
5). A lot of regulatory burdens are being addressed that have stopped and slowed economic development in the past 10 months. These include egregious EPA regulations, some work on pharma pricing, opening new permitting on energy production, steps to streamline nuclear permitting and technology.
6) Retaining and making permanent the tax breaks from the first Trump admin, was a huge amount of political energy expended that otherwise would have had huge negative impacts economically.
This isn't an exhaustive list. Your perspective seems to totally ignore hard work that has been down despite the obstruction of the democrats, the abusive court intervention and the spin of the liberal media.
So, while I agree that Trump opens himself to a lot of criticism for shooting his mouth off and saying some abusive things, I believe this is the hardest working admin that achieved more than any I can recall. To come from a point that "both parties are bad and I may hate them both" is a very short term focus and emotional, not fact based perspective.
Ralph- your use of the phrase " it will take sometimes years before the full economic impact is realized: is comical since it has probably been used by prior US presidential administrations as an excuse why the voters in this country probably not buying this statement. you probably did not realize that the state of the economy was on the ballot this year's elections. Trump has recently admitted that the tariffs have increased prices. Tariffs should only be use as a "temporary" measure. Seems that Trump may be forced to pivot on tariffs if he has any political "street smarts" in him.
That's a lot of words, but I only made it through # 1 before realizing the rest was not worth my time to read. Until Trump, the average tariff on USA goods imposed by the EU was 2.5 percent and the average USA reciprocal tariff was essentially the same. Trump then added his across-the-board 10% to 15% tariffs on top of the 2.5 percent. I know this because my AMERICAN import company has paid more in tariffs this year than we have made in profits. And 25% of our employees, Americans all, have been laid off.
your AMERICAN import company, has ways of paying for the tariffs that you like so much, either they pass on the increase in cost to consumers (which include you, me and everyone else in this country) in the form of higher prices or they cut cost by laying off employees.
That is true, but I don't like paying tariffs or raising prices or laying off employees. Unfortunately, the tariffs give us no choice.
So what are small businesses in niche markets like myself supposed to do with 100% tariffs? Go out of business "for the greater good?" As I mentioned, there is no possibility for me to onshore my products and why should I have to? There is no local company missing out on the business as none can come even close to costs and I can't sell the items I do for 3-4x what I do as I am already a specialty item that is at the top of the market. Do I get to "take one for the team?". F that.
NONSENSE! The quality of our governing bodies and their members has deteriorated significantly in the 21st Century. In making that comment, I include both parties and all three branches of government, plus our armed forces (which in reality don't belong to any of the three). We are now in the same position as the Romans during the regime of Julius Caesar. Sad!
The decline in our government started long before … Richard Milhouse Nixon took us off the gold standard….. and it’s been downhill since ..,, and picking up steam. All fiat currencies end the same way, all economies and nations based of fiat end the same way.
I agree that all of this raises the danger of voters turning futher right and other voters turning toward socialism. Neither will accomplish anything to turn our economic hardships around.
The adept devotees of Marx have been long laying the groundwork for a takeover
I feel the same Erick. We are bound and tied on a ship of fools.
So sad that these elected officials continue to promise …. but do-not follow through with the promises they ran on.
It used to be Gun Control- Women’s Rights - or abortion volleying back and forth- now they’ve added Epstein to the bull jive cycle.
Stop the blame game. You are all to blame for not doing your jobs for the greater good.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
They need to focus on America and the people.
Shame on them all.
Epstein and Trump have one thing in common - they’re both the gift that keeps on giving to be used against one’s political enemies. Epstein’s lasting gift for inept politicians and stupid voters. I once read Trump was the Clinton’s secret weapon to destroy the Republican Party - perhaps that conspiracy theory is true. 🤪
Pride cometh before the fall and unless Trump changes course (he won’t) we’re about to observe a big time fall. At least both political extremes can just blame the Jews and Israel for all their problems.
Good Morning People I‘m glad some people are starting to see the light that goverment is Defently not for the US but for themselves, We the people Need to through them All out and start over. God Bless America have a Great Day
I believe that the politicians although migrate towards a poll have a pole to gently shove up our butts and should you be fishing at the time the lake that was full of money they will be draining
with a smile on their face saying vote for me I am here to help.
Erick - yes, I too have been fed up with both parties since GW Bush senior and his breaking of his “no new taxes” pledge. Then, we got the Clinton debacle, then Bush junior after 9-11, then Obama. We went from working on balancing budgets to open continuing resolutions that just increase every 6 months and our debt is now so high it will never end short of utter disaster for the USA and the world. Politicians have no solutions because there is no solution. Just delay of the inevitable because people want free stuff and no consequences.
The do have a solution, one that benefits their ultimate constituents….. keep the party going until their true constituents have bought up as much real estate as possible …. And as much real assets as possible …., then and only then will the collapse begin…. The rug will be yanked out from the rest of us, and we will have new lords and ladies and kings and the like ….