Economy

A Tweet For Everything: What Trump Said About the Stock Market Just Six Months Ago

Posted by on June 25, 2018 at 3:53 pm. 1 Comments :

The current President of the United States has shown repeatedly that he is an unstable and ill-informed custodian of the nation’s resources. Donald Trump has a tenuous grip on the complexities of economics, and reacts out of panic and vengeance more than careful study and reason. As a result the country has been burdened with policies that work against the interests of its citizens.

Donald Trump, Stock Market

About six months ago Trump joined with the Republican Congress to pass a tax reform bill that was widely criticized as a giveaway to the wealthy that would balloon the national debt by trillions of dollars. Trump celebrated the legislative victory at a White House ceremony where he reduced it to flagrantly personal terms saying that “It’s always a lot of fun when you win.” It didn’t get a single vote from Democrats.

Republicans, however, were swelling with pride, despite the unfavorable public response shown in most polls. The Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, said confidently that “When people see their paychecks getting bigger in February […] that’s going to change its popularity, I am convinced.” The GOP Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, gloated that “My view of this is, if we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work.”

I hope he’s dusted off his resume, because the latest polling shows that the Trump Tax Scam is less popular now than ever. It currently has about thirty-four percent approval from the American people. Which isn’t surprising considering the fact that it was crafted to benefit corporations and the rich. Which makes this Trump tweet from December 14, 2017, all the more ironic and sad:

Well, that rosy scenario has wilted. Trump told reporters when the bill passed that “the results will speak for themselves.” Six months later it’s clear that his prediction is true, in the worst possible way. Workers have not received the benefits they were promised. Businesses are taking their profits and putting them into stock buybacks that benefit the executives. Harley Davidson announced today that is the latest company to be moving some of their operations (and jobs) out of the country.

On top of that, the stock market suffered a serious decline on Monday with the Dow Jones down 328 points (1.33%), and the Nasdaq down 160 points (2.09%). The market is negative by almost two percent year-to-date, and is down over 500 points since the tax bill was signed. Even more troubling is that it is off about 2,300 points from its high in January. You don’t hear Trump talking about any of that.

Short term movement in the market is never a good indicator of trends over time. But Trump’s boasting about the market’s performance has blown up in his face because he doesn’t understand it in even the simplest terms. And the trading in the wake of the tax bill, Trump’s punitive tariffs, and associated red flags in bonds and overseas markets are telling us a cautionary tale. At some point the markets are going to reverse course, as they always do, and it may come sooner rather than later. But Trump’s mismanagement of the economy has left us with few and/or weak tools with which to respond. The smart money is taking protective measures, and so should we all.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump Threatens to ‘Take Away Credentials’ of Media that Doesn’t Slobber Him with Praise

Posted by on May 9, 2018 at 11:21 am. 4 Comments :

Reporters Without Borders publishes an annual World Press Freedom Index. The most recent study reported that the United States fell to 45th place, a new low. Much of that decline was attributed explicitly to Donald Trump, whose open hostility to the media has been a core component of his presidency.

Donald Trump

Continuing to push forward with his aggressively anti-First Amendment agenda, Trump took to his official presidential policy platform – Twitter – and posted a comment that is a further demonstration of just how extreme his hatred of the free press is. This tweet should frighten all Americans who value constitutional principles and the indispensable role the press plays in democracy:

There is so much wrong with that tweet that it’s hard to know where to begin. First of all, the economy has been expanding for nearly ten years, and that expansion began near the beginning of President Obama’s first term. Contrary to Trump’s claim, for which he provides no factual support, the economy has largely stalled as of late. The Dow Jones is down year-to-date. And Trump has been undeservedly taking credit for an economy whose performance has trailed that of Obama’s.

Secondly, Trump is actually admitting that, in his view, any media that is negative is therefore fake. It isn’t surprising to learn that he feels that way, but it’s a little surprising that he says so publicly.

Third, Trump’s reference to network news being ninety-one percent negative about him was likely taken from Sean Hannity’s program last night. Hannity reported that statistic based on a dubious study by the ultra-rightist media watchdogs at NewsBusters. And he wrapped the biased data in the same package as Trump, fretting about his negative coverage despite the utopia he’s supposedly presiding over. This is another example of Hannity serving as a close advisor to this fumbling president (video below):

Hannity: “President Trump’s poll numbers, they’re rising. This despite a Newsbusters study showed that newtwork news broadcasts in this country featured negative stories about the President 90% of the time. Wow. And I told you journalism is dead.”

Notice the similarities between Hannity’s commentary and Trump’s tweet. But the most troubling part of Trump’s tweet is his threat to revoke press credentials for any media that fails to exalt the Dear Leader. Trump has long pined for a submissive press corps that only celebrates his every word and deed. This isn’t the first (or twentieth) time that Trump has attempted to punish the press by banishing them from the White House or worse, challenge their licenses. Last October he explicitly tweeted that threat saying:

The fact that Trump repeatedly takes this censorious position is evidence that it isn’t just an offhand remark that he doesn’t mean literally. He is deadly serious about his intention to gag any media that dares to criticize him. And in advance of that he has been avoiding any independent media for most of the last year. He’s only held one solo news conference (February 2017, just after the inauguration) during his entire presidency. And he hasn’t given an interview to a non-friendly (i.e. Fox News) outlet in the past year. What’s he afraid of?

The World Press Freedom study noticed these disturbing trends for American journalism. They addressed them specifically in their report as reasons for downgrading the U.S. position:

“In 2017, the 45th President of the United States helped sink the country to 45th place by labeling the press an ‘enemy of the American people’ in a series of verbal attacks toward journalists, attempts to block White House access to multiple media outlets, routine use of the term ‘fake news’ in retaliation for critical reporting, and calling for media outlets’ broadcasting licenses to be revoked.”

The American people need to be alert with regard to the threat that Trump represents to the freedom of the press and the sustainability of democracy. These are not idle threats made as political rhetoric. They are dangerous challenges made by a wannabe dictator who truly believes he has the right to muzzle the media and mislead the people. We the people cannot let that happen.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

It’s Tax Day and Donald Trump is Tweeting Up a Storm to Celebrate, But…

Posted by on April 17, 2018 at 11:12 am. 0 Comments :

Never one to care anything about facts or truthful dialogue, Donald Trump is attacking the arrival of Tax Day with a celebratory zeal that is entirely out of whack with reality. So what else is new?

Donald Trump

Trump’s day always begins with his most pressing presidential duty: post nonsense and/or rage on Twitter. This Tuesday morning is no different. So here is what the Tweeter-in-Chief is obsessing over while waiting for his tee time in Palm Beach:

Indeed, everybody is talking. Unfortunately for Trump, they are mostly saying that his tax scam bill isn’t helping to do anything but blow up the federal deficit. A poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal show that a pitiful twenty-seven percent think Trump’s tax bill is a good idea. Another poll by Gallup puts those who disapprove in the majority at fifty-two percent. And an analysis by Bloomberg shows that Republicans are going to find it difficult to run on the tax issue in the 2018 midterms.

So happy tax day everybody. We may have a bill that is only benefiting the wealthy, but it is also likely to throw the members of Congress who forced it on us out on their asses.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Donald Trump’s Ignorance of Wall Street Would Be Hilarious if it Weren’t So Dangerous

Posted by on March 27, 2018 at 7:39 pm. 1 Comments :

The topics Donald Trump takes up on Twitter almost always fall into one of two categories. Either he is lashing out at a perceived enemy (fake news, Alec Baldwin, etc), or he is exalting himself for something for which he doesn’t deserve any credit. The patterns are predictable and invariably involve childish outbursts.

Donald Trump

One of the most frequent subjects of his self-praise involves the performance of the stock market. He likes to point it out whenever it goes up and baselessly attribute that activity to his unique awesomeness. And for some reason, he never mentions it when it goes down. News Corpse noted this peculiarity back in January, which was the last time that Trump tweeted about an up day in the market. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet on this subject until yesterday. The article warned that Trump’s bragging would come back to “Bite Him in His Sh*thole Country” and said in part that…

“It’s always dangerous to rely on stock market performance to validate the economy. There are too many factors that can shift investor sentiment. It is a fluid indicator that could reverse course tomorrow. Indeed, many stock analysts regard the market’s current position as overvalued. These analysts are predicting a ‘correction’ that could send the markets down significantly.”

Apparently Trump failed to heed my warning. Yesterday he posted a tweet congratulating himself again on a big market gain. He’s Replying to a CNBC tweet that notes “Dow posts third best one-day point gain ever.”

Indeed the market soared 669 points on Monday. What Trump failed to mention was that on Thursday it dropped 725 points, and went down another 424 points on Friday. That’s a total of 1,149 points. So Monday’s gain didn’t come close to making up last week’s losses. And to make matters worse, the market took another dive today of 344 points. So the market is still down 824 points since Thursday. In fact, it’s down 2,759 points in the past thirty days, which puts it deep in “correction” territory.

The most often cited cause for this recent decline is Trump’s ill-considered and reckless declaration of a trade war with Asia and Europe. And his recent tax scam legislation that gave corporations and the wealthy big tax cuts and exploded the national debt by over a trillion dollars didn’t help matters either. Knowledgeable analysts recognize that Trump and the Republican Congress are squarely to blame for our current state of economic crisis.

The actual damage that Trump does is only one part of what makes him so dangerous. His insistence on lying about his failures afterward congeals the whole mess into a spreading catastrophe. The dimwitted disciples who can never find fault with Trump will believe whatever he tells them to believe. Consequently, they have no idea of where the market is now or what reasonable steps should be taken to mitigate any further harm to the American families who rely on their investment earnings for current or future needs. And the GOP Congress and Trump have shown clearly that they couldn’t care less. But then, we already knew that.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump’s Lawyer Tries to Deflect Crimes with Desperate and Obviously False Attacks on the Media

Posted by on March 10, 2018 at 2:21 pm. 4 Comments :

The Stormy Daniels affair is turning into one of the most persistent scandals of Donald Trump’s presidency. And given the sheer volume of scandals, that’s really saying something. It doesn’t help that this incident involves Trump’s own personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who arranged the $130,000 in hush money to keep Trump’s infidelity out of the news. Cohen is a long-time Trump toady who can always be relied on to prop up his pal, no matter how repulsive his behavior.

Michael Cohen

Having made himself the subject of the Stormy affair by asserting that he paid her from his own funds, Cohen is now as much an accomplice as he is an attorney. And his story that he ponied up the cash out of the kindness of his heart is falling apart. Consequently, he is adopting the tactics of his boss in order to deflect attention from his own potential criminal liability. On Saturday morning he tweeted this:

Cohen has somehow gotten the impression that the media is obsessed with his email account. In fact, they are just being responsible journalists by reporting that his contacts with Stormy were made using his Trump Organization email address. That’s relevant due to his prior insistence that the arrangements he made with Stormy had nothing to do with Trump and Trump knew nothing about them. By the way, that would be a violation of the New York Bar Association’s standards of conduct. An attorney may not take actions on behalf of a client without full disclosure and permission.

Having no other defense, Cohen is resorting to attacking the media on a completely different topic. And, much like Trump, his attack is rooted in deliberate falsification of reality. Cohen saying that he didn’t see reporting about the jobs numbers anywhere except for Fox News is really just a confession that he doesn’t watch anything but Fox News. Every other major news organization reported these numbers, as they do every time they are released. Just a few obvious examples:

So Cohen didn’t see or hear any of this? Is he blind and deaf? Or is he just a lying, propaganda sewer who parrots the anti-media bullshit of Donald Trump? If nothing else, he’s exposing his fear about the legal walls that are closing in around him. This painfully desperate tweet is evidence of his knowledge that he and his favorite client are going down fast. And there’s nothing he an do about it.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The Trump Stock Market Meltdown: Make No Mistake, This is Trump’s Fault

Posted by on February 5, 2018 at 1:39 pm. 2 Comments :

The Stock Market closed down today by more than 1,100 points. That would make it almost 2,000 points lower in the last three days. This is the worst decline in over two years. And it totally belongs to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump

For the past year Trump has been bragging about the performance of the stock market and taking credit for its rise. That was a pretty stupid thing to do given the vast array of influences on the market and its volatility. Particularly when we have been stretching out the second longest bull market in history.

Three weeks ago, while stocks were still rising, I wrote an article warning that Trump’s bragging would come back to “Bite Him in His Sh*thole Country.” The article said in part that…

“It’s always dangerous to rely on stock market performance to validate the economy. There are too many factors that can shift investor sentiment. It is a fluid indicator that could reverse course tomorrow. Indeed, many stock analysts regard the market’s current position as overvalued. These analysts are predicting a ‘correction’ that could send the markets down significantly.”

But Trump continued to boast about numbers that he obviously knows nothing about. And now the market is trending lower as if to mock the President’s arrogance. But it needs to be noted that there are tangible reasons why Trump is to blame for this sell off. Many economists are citing something that Trump regards as one of his greatest (only?) accomplishments. And even Trump himself raised it during his speech in Ohio today. When he wasn’t accusing Democrats of “treason” for not applauding him at the State of the Union address, he said this:

The tax cuts that Trump was obsessed with were never a good idea. Their benefits were heavily slanted toward corporations and the wealthy. But they were also an unnecessary stimulus to an economy that was already overheated. That was all that Wall Street needed to justify dumping stocks whose valuations were out of sync with reality. His tax bill also produced new debt in excess of $1.5 trillion. That makes investors nervous about rising inflation and interest rates.

Finally, when an economic stimulus is used at a time when it isn’t needed, that means that it won’t be available in the future when it might actually be useful. So investors are looking forward to a future market correction, or even a bear market, and the government will have no tools to respond or mitigate the damage. Therefore, many are getting out now and moving their assets into safer investments or cash. And none of this would be happening were it not for the greed and ignorance of Donald Trump and his allies in Congress.

Trump’s relentless bragging about the market when it was up presents an interesting problem for him. Who will he blame for the decline? He got exactly what he wanted with the tax bill, which received no Democratic votes. There is no one other than himself to which this can be attributed. Of course, that won’t stop him from inventing some culprit to point his bony fingers at. His narcissism is all-consuming and his GOP supporters still seem unwilling to put their country above their noxious party. So be prepared for more scapegoating as Trump continues to panic and his fear drives him further into desperation.

UPDATE: And that didn’t take long. Sean Hannity is blaming Obama for the Trump Meltdown.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Stock Market Down Over 300 Points in Advance of Trump’s State of the Union Speech

Posted by on January 30, 2018 at 11:13 am. 0 Comments :

For some reason Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted about the stock market this week. That’s peculiar because Trump has made it a sacrament of his presidency that the performance of the stock market is an indicator of his success. That has always been a downright stupid idea. Firstly because he has had nothing to do with it. We have been in the second longest bull market in history, and it started in 2009, at the beginning of President Obama’s first term. And despite Trump’s wild and unsupported claims that the market would have tanked if Democrats were in charge, the market actually performed better during Obama’s last year than it has during Trump’s first.

Donald Trump

But that isn’t the only reason Trump is foolish to stake his presidency on the market. Investors will notice that the Dow Industrials are down about 300 points today, and nearly 500 points this week. This may be a temporary blip, or a sign of a coming correction. But it reveals the ignorance of the President tying himself to the whims of the market. As News Corpse noted just two weeks ago:

“Trump is going to regret his shameless boasting if he continues to insist that he is the primary driver of the market’s success. And it’ll be an epic backfire that puts real teeth into Trump’s backside. It’s always dangerous to rely on stock market performance to validate the economy. There are too many factors that can shift investor sentiment. It is a fluid indicator that could reverse course tomorrow. Indeed, many stock analysts regard the market’s current position as overvalued. These analysts are predicting a “correction” that could send the markets down significantly. Furthermore, the market does not reflect the economic realities of most Americans. Other economic indicators (i.e. wages) are showing only small advances. The beneficiaries of stock gains are predominantly the usual suspects of the GOP (Greedy One Percent).”

Trump’s obsession with market performance is recorded for posterity in his Twitter feed. Just this month he has bragged about the “Record Stock Market,” the “Most explosive Stock Market rally that we’ve seen in modern times,” that “The stock market has gained an incredible 7.8 Trillion dollars,” and “another big day for jobs and the Stock Market.” And there have been dozens of similar boasts since his inauguration.

However, Trump is silent today about the stock market that has commanded so much of his attention. If he really thinks that he deserves credit when the market goes up, then shouldn’t he be accepting the blame when it goes down? Of course not. In Trump’s world only greatness and glory are recognized. He will never admit fault or apologize for whatever disaster he causes. But he will take great pains to find someone else to blame. Probably President Obama, Hillary Clinton, the “fake” news, or the Deep State. And without a scapegoat, Trump will ignore the whole thing. So don’t expect him to mention this market decline tonight during his lie-filled SOTU. He has too many other lies, and his Russia collusion, to worry about.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump’s Pitiful Ignorance of the Stock Market is Going to Bite Him Right in His ‘Sh*thole Country’

Posted by on January 13, 2018 at 11:15 am. 4 Comments :

One of Donald Trump’s favorite pastimes is exalting himself and his deranged belief in his omnipotent awesomeness. He is constantly bragging that he is the best at whatever is occupying his cartoon brain at the moment, and he thinks he knows more about everything than anyone else. It’s symptomatic of his pathological conceit and malignant narcissism.

Donald Trump

Among the subjects that Trump regards as proof of his greatness is the state of the economy. But his tedious and misleading assertions about the soaring stock market only expose how little he understands it. In a tweet on Saturday morning Trump said that:

For the record, that tweet replaced one he posted earlier but deleted. It said that:

“Yesterday was another big day for jobs and the Stock Market. Chrysler coming back to U.S. (Michigan) from Mexico and many more companies paying out Tax Cut money to employees. If Dems won in November, Market would have TANKED! It was headed for disaster.”

While it’s true that the stock market has risen steadily during Trump’s short residency at the White House, the whole truth is that investors are currently enjoying the second longest bull market in history. And it started in 2009, at the beginning of President Obama’s first term. There is no indication that the market was “headed for disaster” as Obama’s presidency wound down. In fact, the market performed better during Obama’s last year than it has during Trump’s first. What’s more, the performance of the stock market, the economy, and employment, has to be credited to the Obama administration because all of those metrics were ascending throughout his term and were the result of his policies. There has not been a single Trump initiative implemented that would impact any of them

But Trump is going to regret his shameless boasting if he continues to insist that he is the primary driver of the market’s success. And it’ll be an epic backfire that puts real teeth into Trump’s backside. It’s always dangerous to rely on stock market performance to validate the economy. There are too many factors that can shift investor sentiment. It is a fluid indicator that could reverse course tomorrow. Indeed, many stock analysts regard the market’s current position as overvalued. These analysts are predicting a “correction” that could send the markets down significantly. Furthermore, the market does not reflect the economic realities of most Americans. Other economic indicators (i.e. wages) are showing only small advances. The beneficiaries of stock gains are predominantly the usual suspects of the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

The most profound insight into market activity I ever heard was that “the stock market always goes up – just not in a straight line.” The coming correction, and perhaps a bear market, is a certainty. When it occurs Trump will no longer be able to pretend that he is the Creator of all wealth. He will cease to have this data to point at and falsely take credit for. And when that happens he will be held to account by anyone who took his proclamations of economic genius seriously.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The one person who will not hold Trump accountable, though, is Trump. He will surely rush to blame whoever is convenient. The most likely target will be Obama, but with Trump it could also be Hillary Clinton, Kim Jong Un, the fake news, the “Deep State,” or the aliens of Area 51. So smart investors should be prepared for both a market downturn and a ludicrous justification for it by a certifiably insane president who has never been fit for service.

Trump Shill: If You Get Your News From Fox News You Probably Like the GOP Tax Scam

Posted by on December 14, 2017 at 1:59 pm. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress are hurtling headlong into passage of tax bill that will materially alter the tax code in ways that harm most Americans. It is flagrantly biased in favor of corporations and the wealthy with toxic provisions that will sabotage healthcare and cripple Social Security and Medicare. The GOP refused to hold hearings on the bill or even allow Democrats to review it prior to voting. Much of it was written by corporate lobbyists. And without any justification for their haste, Republicans are ramming it through before the already strong opposition becomes impossible to ignore.

foxnews-mulvaney

As usual, whenever Republicans require a boost in propaganda they turn to Fox News. They know that they can present whatever bullshit they want and that there will be no one to challenge their lies. They took advantage of that Thursday morning when they sent Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, to the studios of Fox and Friends to pimp the tax bill. He received precisely the welcome that he expected as co-host Steve Doocy offered up a softball for Mulvaney to hit out of the park. Surprisingly, Mulvaney took a wild swing that landed in foul territory (video below):

Doocy: People don’t like to pay taxes so you would think that this would be a good story for you. And yet, Mick, the Quinnipiac poll came out and shows that fifty-five percent of Americans don’t like it, as opposed to twenty-six percent who do. Can you explain to me why people don’t like the idea of a tax cut?
Mulvaney: Sure, because if you turn to any channel besides this one, all you’re going to hear is bad news about this particular bill. […] No one is focusing, as you folks do, on what’s good for people in this bill. So if you get your news here, you probably like it because your focused on what’s good for you. But if not, you don’t.

So the only reason Mulvaney had for people not liking the bill was that they weren’t watching enough Fox News. Or worse, they drifted from their “news” teet at Fox and were exposed to actual facts and honest scrutiny. Doocy was taking a chance by citing the Quinnipiac poll which he correctly quoted as showing a historic disapproval rating, especially for something being pitched as a tax cut. The poll provided an explanation for that which Fox News left out entirely. Nearly seventy percent of those polled said the bill favors the wealthy and only twenty-one percent think that it will help the middle class. In other words, people can see through the GOP spin and recognize a fraud when it’s right in front of their faces.

However, what was most interesting about Mulvaney’s response was that he explicitly admitted that Fox News was a pit of partisan bias where viewers would get only the conservative perspective peddled by the White House. He praised the “Curvy Couch” potatoes for being sycophantic hucksters upon whom he could rely to spew the government line. Just like state-run TV outlets are supposed to do. Heaven forbid that the American people might ever get an unbiased analysis of this bill that contained actual facts derived from independent experts. That isn’t what Fox News was created for, and it surely isn’t what they did this morning. Welcome to the American Pravda, now proudly out of the propaganda closet.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

All Foxed Up: The Humiliating Attempt By Fox News to Credit Trump for Obama’s Economy

Posted by on December 9, 2017 at 4:28 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s no secret that Fox News is the official PR division of Donald Trump’s administration. They relentlessly defend the President from any and all criticism and attack his political opponents in the most vile and dishonest terms. Fox News is worse than state-run TV. They are fully involved co-conspirators to the criminal enterprise operating out of the White House.

Fox News

Another example of just how far Fox News will go to fluff Trump occurred on his favorite TV show, Fox and Friends. This episode featured a feverishly biased “economist” who managed to get through an entire interview without citing a single economic fact. The segment began with co-host Pete Hegseth introducing a thoroughly false premise (video below):

“Under President Trump the U.S. economy continues to surge. Last month alone saw 40,000 new manufacturing jobs. Big number. And that’s just one example. But a familiar face is trying to steal President Trump’s credit.”

Hegseth’s opening was hardly fair and balanced (a slogan that Fox doesn’t use anymore). Besides cherry-picking data regarding the state of the economy, he states as a matter of fact that credit is being stolen from Trump. And the thief is, predictably, an unemployed black man. Then he plays a clip of President Obama:

“As we took these actions we saw the U.S. economy grow consistently. We saw the longest streak of job creation in American history, by far. A streak that still continues, by the way. Thanks Obama.”

Upon completion of the clip Hegseth abandons any editorial independence and asks “Shouldn’t we be thanking President Trump?” That question was thrown to University of Maryland Professor Peter Morici, who unhesitatingly agrees with Hegseth that Trump deserves all the credit for the current state of the economy. His scholarly justification for that assessment is that:

“President Obama reads from a very simple textbook of economics. All the problems in the world are caused by Republicans and when Republicans are in they cause nothing but problems.”

What’s missing from that economic analysis is anything remotely related to economics. It’s a brazenly political insult that completely avoids any factual basis. In other words, Morici has done his job as a Fox News analyst perfectly. Never get bogged down with facts when smear tactics are available.

Morici went on to concede that “during the Obama administration they created jobs, for sure,” but then he falsely asserted that it was at a slow pace. He compared Obama’s record to that of Ronald Reagan. Which makes you wonder why he didn’t bother to compare it to Trump’s. Perhaps because in the past ten months of Trump’s presidency job growth has significantly slowed. In fact, it has been the slowest ten months in over five years.

Hegseth interrupted Morici to provide additional ammunition for the argument that Trump is the savior of the American economy. He cited the thirty percent growth of the stack market (but left out that it more than doubled during the Obama years). He noted that GDP had grown in a couple of quarters by three precent (which also happened during Obama’s administration). And he praised Trump for the 4.1 percent unemployment rate (a figure that was an extension of Obama’s jobs policies).

What both Hegseth and Morici ignored is that there isn’t any Trump economy. He has done literally nothing that might have impacted any economic metrics. There has been no legislation passed relating to jobs, budget, debt, or anything else economy related. Consequently, the nation is still running on the programs put in place during Obama’s administration. The only thing that Republicans can cite as evidence of their impact is a vague claim to a “mood” in the country that has allegedly advanced the economy. So their whole argument is based on a feeling. How cute.

Morici’s closing argument was rooted firmly in typical “trickle-down” economics that have been proven repeatedly to be a right-wing hoax. And he had the gall to assert that after eight years of record growth, a continuation of the Obama plan would reduce America’s economy to that of North Korea’s. Of course, he never bothered to substantiate that bit of ultra-nonsense. And then he rattled of some of the Trumpian things he said help the economy, including tax cuts, infrastructure spending, immigration reform, and cutting entitlements. None of which have been implemented.

So in the end, Morici and Hegseth relied solely on emotional irrelevancies and their political biases to celebrate Trump’s successes that don’t exist. And somehow from that they conclude that Obama was the one stealing credit. But at least they can rest easily that their audience will believe whatever unfounded crap they dish out. That’s the benefit of having Fox News around to spread propaganda to the gullible yokels who are dumb enough to watch.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.