The United States last year posted a $891.2 billion merchandise trade deficit, the largest in the nation’s 243-year history

[MomentsofSanity]

Called it!

Hey now I think I won for precision of the comments. I was bang on!

 

[Jhhnn]

What is your metric to define winning here?

Whatever Trump says, of course. Well, at least whatever he said last. If it's different 5 minutes from now, he'll still believe.

Trump is an infallible God!

 

[ivwshane]

What is your metric to define winning here?

Literally whatever trump is doing.

 

[ivwshane]

Hey now I think I won for precision of the comments. I was bang on!

Sadly we both lose despite both of us being right

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Let's take a lemon and turn it into some lemonade:

Trump is like a bad idea pipe-cleaner. Here all these these "Ivory-Coast-Liberal-Tower-Buttery-Male elitists" saying the stuff they say "blah blah blah" and then there is Trump doing the exact opposite; and of course the exact opposite thing is not working (not saying its making the problem worse, but its costing Americans real dollars and its not slowing down the problem at any measurable pace).

If nothing else, Trump is like a real world experiment in what doesn't work. Hopefully a lot of scholarly types of collecting reams of data on this to help refine or reinforce economic theory ad the practical application of such in the future. Additionally, we will always and forever have "Trump tried that exact bad idea, and it didn't work".

Theory is nice, but there is nothing better than actual real world data. Unfortunate that the entire US, nay, the entire world, had to be the petrie dish but whadyagonnado?

 

[Victorian Gray]

What is your metric to define winning here?

The total destruction of the United States as a functioning nation?

 

[MomentsofSanity]

The total destruction of the United States as a functioning nation?

I’m intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

Potential argument Trumpsters could've used:
Find a citation of the projected 2018 deficit and compare with the actual result. If the actual is smaller, argue trade policies did not eliminate it but at least reduced it.

Actual argument Trumpsters use:
NO WE'RE WINNING! MAGA MAGA MAGA!


It's incredible. They're just like their hero and choose the dumbest responses possible.

 

[DrDoug]

When we go socialist, these numbers won't matter any more.

Unfortunately for you we aren't going to fulfill your socialist dreams any time soon so guess what? These number matter RIGHT NOW and it's on Commander Fucknoodle and the Lost Planet Airheads (aka GOP).

 

[sdifox]

Dotard is gonna dotard.

 

[Mai72]

Economist are saying that the next crash is going to be much much worse than the 2006-07 one. And, that's because of automation. Many companies are starting the process of implementing automation into their business. When the economy goes south, it's going to crash and burn. Once that happens, my guess is they''ll ramp up/intensify automation which deepen the recession. Thanks Trump!

 

[brycejones]

Economist are saying that the next crash is going to be much much worse than the 2006-07 one. And, that's because of automation. Many companies are starting the process of implementing automation into their business. When the economy goes south, it's going to crash and burn. Once that happens, my guess is they''ll ramp up/intensify automation which deepen the recession. Thanks Trump!

People are saying, many are talking about it. Should I buy gold now?

Seriously though, who is saying this?

 

[cytg111]

Economist are saying that the next crash is going to be much much worse than the 2006-07 one. And, that's because of automation. Many companies are starting the process of implementing automation into their business. When the economy goes south, it's going to crash and burn. Once that happens, my guess is they''ll ramp up/intensify automation which deepen the recession. Thanks Trump!

One thing is for sure, with a nation wide spread FYGM ideology its going to crash hard and fast once it begins. Solution : Ditch FYGM.

 

[brandonbull]

Every Trumpster lies to protect Trump, just like Cohen did for 10 years.

Bless your heart.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Trump on trade deficits:

Originally Posted by Presidential Candidate Donald Trump

Trade reform and the negotiation of great trade deals is the quickest way to bring our jobs back to our country.

To understand why trade reform creates jobs, and it creates a lot of them, we need to understand how all nations grow and prosper. Massive trade deficits subtract directly from our gross domestic product. From 1947 to 2001, a span of over five decades, our inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product grew at a rate of 3.5 percent. However, since 2002, the year after we fully opened our markets to Chinese imports, the GDP growth rate has been cut in half.

But is this mean for Americans? Not good. For every 1 percent of GDP growth, we failed to generate in any given year, we failed to create over one million jobs.

What a waste, and what a sad, sad thing.

He's growing the economy, but he has no idea how. Or maybe our current economic conditions still don't really have that much to do with the Trump Administration's policies; which, apart from a giant tax cut and concomitant enormous increase in the federal budget deficit haven't really amounted to much. I don't actually think either Republican or Democratic, conservative or progressive Presidents have some kind of magical "GROW JOBS" button on their desks in the Oval Office.

In that same speech Candidate Trump complained about our "massive budget deficit"; now of course the federal budget deficit is even more massive.

Trump tilted at the windmill of trade deficits. He started a trade war, including with Canada on national security grounds?!, the effects of which I don't think have fully played out. But without cracking the trade deficit. Some speculate he is using exemptions to tariffs as goodies he corruptly hands out to favored entities.

The tax cuts help those that need it least, in exchange for ballooning the deficit which is in turn goading the Fed to raise rates. Tthe theme here is "effects have not fully played out." The 10+ years of expansion is characterized by, among other things, loose Fed policy. Under Trump, that is changing.

The stock market is out of step with fundamentals:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/05/...t-stories.html

Things are still going OK, but the market is running away from economic indicators. Eventually something has to give. Careful hanging your hat on the stock market!

We can't credit Trump too much until he is in retrospect. The changes Trump has introduced carry consequences that... haven't fully played out yet.

 

[fskimospy]

GDPNow is currently predicting 0.5% growth for the first quarter of 2019. Now clearly that’s a projection and doesn’t have to be right but it would be continuing the trend of a sharp slowdown in growth that started in the middle of last year. So Trump may get his wish after all, as the surest way to trim a trade deficit is to have a recession.

I think the most amusing thing about this is that Trump is such a moron that he didn’t realize that if the economy was doing well the trade deficit would rise and if the economy was doing poorly it would fall, meaning he would only get to brag about his success if everything else went in the shitter.

 

[IronWing]

My bad, I bought a camera before the tariffs hit. Next time I'll be sure to buy an American made camera.

 

[Genx87]

GDPNow is currently predicting 0.5% growth for the first quarter of 2019. Now clearly that’s a projection and doesn’t have to be right but it would be continuing the trend of a sharp slowdown in growth that started in the middle of last year. So Trump may get his wish after all, as the surest way to trim a trade deficit is to have a recession.

I think the most amusing thing about this is that Trump is such a moron that he didn’t realize that if the economy was doing well the trade deficit would rise and if the economy was doing poorly it would fall, meaning he would only get to brag about his success if everything else went in the shitter.

I think the saddest part is many Murricans will look at a destroyed economy from Drumpfs policies and blame the free market and international trade. Expanding govt control and closing down trade. Which will only make the economic hardship worse.

 

[PJFrylar]

Let's take a lemon and turn it into some lemonade:

Trump is like a bad idea pipe-cleaner. Here all these these "Ivory-Coast-Liberal-Tower-Buttery-Male elitists" saying the stuff they say "blah blah blah" and then there is Trump doing the exact opposite; and of course the exact opposite thing is not working (not saying its making the problem worse, but its costing Americans real dollars and its not slowing down the problem at any measurable pace).

If nothing else, Trump is like a real world experiment in what doesn't work. Hopefully a lot of scholarly types of collecting reams of data on this to help refine or reinforce economic theory ad the practical application of such in the future. Additionally, we will always and forever have "Trump tried that exact bad idea, and it didn't work".

Theory is nice, but there is nothing better than actual real world data. Unfortunate that the entire US, nay, the entire world, had to be the petrie dish but whadyagonnado?

I hear you, and I hope that is what we eventually take away from all of this. My hopes are not high though. An example from the 2 people I have an iota of respect for from FoxNews:

So what has changed since then? I don't know about anyone else, but my experience with conservatives I know is that they still think the Mueller investigation is a liberal conspiracy to usurp power from Trump. I'm beginning to doubt their ability to wake up and question how they got there. Quite frankly, I have no idea what to do about that. I've said it before on this forum and in real life; it is fine to disagree about things but please don't be disingenuous about it. How can we have real discussion about positions A and B on a topic, when you just want to paint us as having position C and spend all your time beating the crap out of C?

 

[nakedfrog]

People are saying, many are talking about it. Should I buy gold now?

Seriously though, who is saying this?

Probably people with something to sell.

 

[theeedude]

Merchandise trade balance is a stupid metric to me, because it ignores the IP value added by design and branding, which is the vast majority of the profit. But since our orangutan in chief focused on it, it's hilarious that it moved in precisely the opposite direction that he was pushing for.

 

[fskimospy]

I think the saddest part is many Murricans will look at a destroyed economy from Drumpfs policies and blame the free market and international trade. Expanding govt control and closing down trade. Which will only make the economic hardship worse.

I'm sure that people will look back on this and decide that regardless of what happens it confirms whatever they thought about economics going in.

 

[UNCjigga]

I'm sure that people will look back on this and decide that regardless of what happens it confirms whatever they thought about economics going in.

I think it’s time for another white hot load of trickle-down...who’s with me?

 

[Bitek]

So to be clear:

1) Trade deficits are bad.
2) Trade deficits are going up.
3) Ergo, we are winning the trade war.

lolwut.

You idiots should have listened to us a while back when we told you that trade deficits aren't inherently bad things and that Trump didn't know what he was talking about, lol.

As well as noting the things he was doing were going to make the test deficit worse, completely counter to his stated goal.

Sorta like NK and the tax cuts too, but hey, dumb ivory tower elitist libtards with their data, science and facts.

 

[Jaskalas]

What?! 200 years ago we had less than a hundreds of billions of dollars trade deficit? Need a little more sensationalism bud!

Ahahahaha, tell that to Trump who campaigned on waging a WAR on the trade deficit. And how cutting the trade deficit meant the wall will pay for itself.