Reality Check - Trump Has The Worst Jobs Record Since Hoover

Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

As of this morning my bottom line on the week - Trump is in profound political and physical decline; we have the wind at our backs and strong candidates running all across the country; they are going to fight like hell and do “whatever it takes” to stay in power; and we must fight like hell every day to beat them this November and ensure there is a peaceful transfer of power in January.

Trump got a goods job report yesterday and then the stock market tanked. So that little bit of good news the White House got was tempered by the broader damage their domestic policies - tariffs, health care cuts, mass deportation, tax cuts/bigger deficits - and his failed war have done to the economic lives of Americans and our overall economy - soaring inflation, slowing GDP growth, real wage decline, rising health care costs and reduced access to care, struggle for farmers and small businesses.

It’s was a powerful and sobering reminder that there is no easy way out for Trump and the Rs from the historic failure of their government, and even the one thing that has gone right - the stock market - may be on shakier ground than they understood.

Paul Krugman’s morning post does a very good at explaining what happened yesterday. An excerpt:

Trump professed to be baffled that a good jobs number should make stocks go down. But of course, it’s actually quite straightforward. What’s happening here is that with the combination of elevated inflation, now largely driven by the effects of Iran, and a job market that is holding up — that is not, in fact, falling off a cliff, if anything, appears to be accelerating — there is no case for cutting interest rates. A few months ago it seemed plausible that there would be some reduction in interest rates, that the Fed would have a rate cut or two this year. Now the chance of a rate cut, according to the market implied probability uh is around one percent. So there’s essentially no chance that rates will be cut and last I saw the market implied probability that rates will actually be increased is about 70 percent. Not big rate hikes but the Fed is probably going to find itself wanting to lean against potential inflation, against the possibility that inflation might get entrenched in the economy which is always their great concern. That’s not going to lead to drastic action but by any historical criteria there are is no case for cutting rates and there’s starting to be a reasonable case for increasing rates. Lots of stuff can happen but probably not soon so your expectation about what’s going to happen to the fed funds rate which is a very short term rate, actually literally overnight, has risen substantially that in turn leads to higher rates on longer term stuff which is what matters for economic activity. And that rise in interest rates hurts stocks.