Trump's Economy

[surfgun]

The sociopaths are on your television and have been politicizing the Coronavirus for weeks. They are gleefully bashing Trump with the bones of your countrymen. Pull your S together.

[TopHatter]

The sociopaths are on your television and have been politicizing the Coronavirus for weeks. They are gleefully bashing Trump with the bones of your countrymen. Pull your S together.

I don't have a television, at least nothing hooked up to cable or satellite.

And because you're resorting to the usual deflection instead of trying to defend poor little crybaby Donald Trump, it looks like you haven't learned a Goddamn thing.

Gleefully bash Trump...well fuck me blind, why on Earth would someone do that?

Or don't you think that Donald Trump, his "Administration", Fox News and the Republican Party have the blood of your countryman on THEIR hands. Pull YOUR shit together!

[surfgun]

Okay then, the sociopaths that write for most newspapers and other news outlets. I stand corrected in your particular case.

[astralis]

surfgun,

Okay then, the sociopaths that write for most newspapers and other news outlets. I stand corrected in your particular case.

had the administration actually -given a sh*t- about the coronavirus early on, then there would be nothing to politicize. actually, i stand corrected: Trump could have been one of the few leaders, like Tsai Ingwen in Taiwan or Moon Jae-in in Korea, who could say they met the challenge and defeated the pandemic before things got out of hand.

his re-election spiel could have written itself. roaring economy, the leader whom ensured the US remained healthy while Europe and China got sick.

it's not the goddamn media that runs the lever of the federal government. it's the moron whom up until a week ago said this whole thing was contained and that the "number of cases was going substantially down".

[TopHatter]

surfgun,



had the administration actually -given a sh*t- about the coronavirus early on, then there would be nothing to politicize. actually, i stand corrected: Trump could have been one of the few leaders, like Tsai Ingwen in Taiwan or Moon Jae-in in Korea, who could say they met the challenge and defeated the pandemic before things got out of hand.

his re-election spiel could have written itself. roaring economy, the leader whom ensured the US remained healthy while Europe and China got sick.

it's not the goddamn media that runs the lever of the federal government. it's the moron whom up until a week ago said this whole thing was contained and that the "number of cases was going substantially down".

Forget it, his cognitive dissonance is beyond help. Donald Trump fucked up on a colossal scale but he'd rather cut his own throat than admit that.

Trump will forever remain a victim to him.

[tbm3fan]

The sociopaths are on your television and have been politicizing the Coronavirus for weeks. They are gleefully bashing Trump with the bones of your countrymen. Pull your S together.

Why not read the medical/psychiatry definition of sociopath you just might learn something and discover why Trump checks off many of the boxes.

[TopHatter]

Why not read the medical/psychiatry definition of sociopath you just might learn something and discover why Trump checks off many of the boxes.

It just dawned on me that he doesn't have the slightest idea of what a sociopath actually is....he thinks it's just another insult to throw around.

[DOR]

We can never get anywhere with The Trumpets as long as we look to science and facts for reference, and they don't.

[surfgun]

I seem to appear to remember that Trump took a lot of heat from stopping flights from China (the epicenter of the virus) to the USA? Joe Biden opposed this move, in fact still does. So, I’m sure his policies would have been far superior-(sarcasm). So please try to knock off the ghoulish enthusiasm.

[astralis]

I seem to appear to remember that Trump took a lot of heat from stopping flights from China (the epicenter of the virus) to the USA? Joe Biden opposed this move, in fact still does. So, I’m sure his policies would have been far superior-(sarcasm). So please try to knock off the ghoulish enthusiasm.

what heat? where did Biden oppose it?

Biden said that it was -insufficient- and -ineffective-, not that he opposed it. and this has proven to be manifestly true.

had Trump actually gone around taking it seriously from the start instead of calling this a Democrat media hoax, we could have reduced the number of cases by now. hell, even NOW a significant portion of Republicans still think it's a hoax!

as it is, the next two weeks will see a veritable explosion a la Italy.

[TopHatter]

I seem to appear to remember that Trump took a lot of heat from stopping flights from China (the epicenter of the virus) to the USA? Joe Biden opposed this move, in fact still does. So, I’m sure his policies would have been far superior-(sarcasm).

Deflect Deflect Deflect. It's a compulsion for you, isn't it. Just like Donald Trump and his compulsive lying.

You know how Biden's policies would've been superior? NOT destroying a pandemic response team set up for this very scenario:

"I’m a business person, I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them" ~ Donald Trump February 26th

And then of course compulsively lying about it just days later:

“And when you say ‘me,' I didn't do it. ... I don't know anything about it.” ~ Donald Trump March 18th

So please try to knock off the ghoulish enthusiasm.

Ghoulish enthusiasm? About WHAT? The fact that thanks to Donald Trump's anti-science and appalling self-interest, the US is unprepared for this catastrophe?

[tbm3fan]

I seem to appear to remember that Trump took a lot of heat from stopping flights from China (the epicenter of the virus) to the USA? Joe Biden opposed this move, in fact still does. So, I’m sure his policies would have been far superior-(sarcasm). So please try to knock off the ghoulish enthusiasm.

He didn't stop flights. Don't you ever read a god damn thing before you open your mouth? He stopped non-US citizens, who traveled to China in the previous two weeks, from re-entering the U.S. U.S citizens and those with permanent visas were allowed re-entry. So it was a travel restriction. Never mind that in the month before the restriction 300,000 people had already flown from China to the U.S. which pretty much meant the horses had already left the barn.

Now I sure wish I could call myself the "wartime President" because it sure seems like a tremendously powerful title and I like tremendously powerful words...

[DOR]

Zero reserve requirements are a weird thing

Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve Board announced that it was reducing commercial banks’ reserve requirements to zero. In other words, banks are now free to lend out 100% of their deposits, shareholders capital, and other funds.

WTF?

Some background may be useful.

The Fed is charged with maintaining the value of the dollar (i.e., keeping price movements to a reasonable pace), ensuring that the overall economy remain relatively robust (that is, keeping growth buoyant while holding down unemployment), and making sure the nation’s financial institutions don’t get out of control. The main monetary policy tools (setting to one side bank oversight) are the discount rate, reserve requirements, and open-market operations (buying and selling on the overnight repurchase [repo] market).

Contrary to popular belief, the Fed does not set bond rates or bank lending rates. Those are determined largely in response to what the Fed does, not directly. Sometimes, the Fed pushes interest rates in one direction, but the bond market moves against it, almost as if to say, “You’re either going the wrong way, or moving at the wrong speed.”

Commercial banks must increase their reserve requirements when the Fed tells them to, but they may tighten up at other times, too. If bankers feel there are not enough good borrowers, or that systemic risks are unacceptably high, they may elect to hold more cash. As a result of this tightening, the economy is likely to slow and unemployment rise.

Reserves above and beyond the minimum required by the Fed averaged just under $1.3 billion a week in the 24 years prior to September 15, 2008. Since then, the lowest excess reserve level was $67.9 billion and the average was $1.73 trillion. During third quarter of 2014, reserves rose as high as $2.7 trillion, nearly one-quarter of the money supply (M2), and equal to more than 15% of GDP. The data are here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/searchre...%20requirement.

Prior to September 2008, excess reserves averaged about 80% more than needed. Since then, they have been as high as 20 times requirements, and currently sit at more than seven times as much. Why would banks hold so much idle cash? The message banks are sending to the Fed is that they’d rather accept the level of interest paid by the Fed than take the risk of lending at market rates. In late February, that return was 1.6%, but it has since fallen to just about zero.

So, if the banks are happy to hold far, far more cash than normally considered prudent, what’s the point of having a reserve requirement at all? One interpretation is that the Fed is saying, “Fine. You think you know what you’re doing better than we do? OK, prove it.” Another view might be that the Fed is desperate to get banks to lend more, to stave off an even more severe recession.

[snapper]

This goes terribly wrong at some point. You cannot lend what you do not have.

[TopHatter]

Trump slams companies for using U.S. tax credit to buy back stocks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday took Boeing Co and some airlines to task for buying back shares with the cash boost from a 2018 tax break, vowing to ensure that companies benefiting from coronavirus stimulus won't follow suit.

Corporations buy back their own shares as a way to invest in themselves. By reducing the number of outstanding shares, a company can boost its stock price, and it is one way corporations add value for shareholders.

Earlier this week, Trump said he did not like share buybacks, when asked by reporters if they would be permitted by a stimulus package being hashed out in Congress to help the American economy recover from the coronavirus.

The Republican president doubled down on his comments on Friday, when asked by a reporter during a news conference if the buybacks like those by Boeing and some airlines were a "deal breaker" for him.

"I never liked stock buybacks from their standpoint. When we did a big tax cut, and when they took the money and did buybacks, that's not building a hangar, that's not buying aircraft, that is not doing the kind of things that I want them to do," he said.

Trump's views on potential buyback restrictions matter because he would need to sign any stimulus package approved by Congress.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Republican lawmakers in December 2017 - the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in more than 30 years - slashed the corporate income tax rate and charged multinationals a onetime tax on profits held overseas.

The move prompted major U.S. corporations to bring home cash from abroad and ratchet up share buybacks. However, there was little evidence of companies reinvesting much of that money to expand, one of the goals of the overhaul.

Trump said on Friday that restrictions were not placed on companies at the time because "we thought they would have known better but they didn't know better."

"I am fine with restricting buybacks," Trump added. "In fact, I would demand that there be no stock buybacks. I don't want them taking hundreds of millions of dollars and buying back their stock because that does nothing," he said.
___________

Retard McChucklefuck showing once again what kind of moron he is. What did he expect was going to happen??

My god who the hell puts an intellectually stunted child like Donald Trump in the Oval Office??

Oh, right.