President Donald Trump once again tried to gaslight America over the economy on Tuesday morning by claiming that markets are “up big” while whining about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates.
Trump’s economy is is a serious slump right now that threatens to turn into a recession, but he insisted on Twitter that the economy is soaring and would continue to do so if the Fed would keep interest rates at zero.
Economic numbers looking REALLY good. Can you imagine if I had long term ZERO interest rates to play with like the past administration, rather than the rapidly raised normalized rates we have today. That would have been SO EASY! Still, markets up BIG since 2016 Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2019
First, it should be pointed out that Trump’s election in 2016 had nothing to do with the markets breaking records. That was already happening under the Obama administration along with low unemployment rate and record jobs numbers that continued after Obama left office.
In fact, the stock markets did so well because of Obama’s policies that the Dow Jones reached nearly 27,000 points by this past October before Trump’s trade wars and tax cuts for the wealthy began to take their toll. By the end of 2018, the Dow had shed 6,000 points, suffered it’s worst December since the Great Depression and it’s the worst year of earnings since 1972.
The current slide has nothing to with the Fed, but Trump continues to bully and blame them for it.
And despite the job numbers for December, the unemployment rate actually ticked up to 3.9 percent from the 3.7 percent it had been previously. And let’s just take a moment to note that by the time Obama left office in January 2017, the unemployment rate had already dipped to 4.8 percent, which means the rate under Trump has only briefly moved a full point after two years and actually went up again.
Twitter users rained down facts and mockery.
Could you imagine if you took over an economy in the midst of the worst recession in 8 years instead of the best economy we had in decades?
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) January 8, 2019
dow 1 Year -6.93%
— anton newcombe (@antonnewcombe) January 8, 2019
Imagen if his mom had swallowed ?
— Lia (@LiaS0Kute) January 8, 2019
Imagine if you didn’t have Federal Employees’ lives to play with. People wouldn’t be hurting to pay bills today.
— Jeremy Newberger (@jeremynewberger) January 8, 2019
What this shows is that once he started his antics, his easy to win trade wars, his tariffs then the market went down. Prior to that it was rising on president Obama’s coattails
— Lastcall (@Lastcal56064443) January 8, 2019
That’s not how macroeconomics works…if you never raise interest rates, you risk a liquidity trap if we fall into a recession. Inflation would also skyrocket out of control and we’d be right back with what Volcker dealt with as Fed chair
— Chris Decker (@Chris_Decker3) January 8, 2019
Lies, lies, lies.
Obama inherited worst economy since the Great Depression, you’re wrecking the joint.
You gave $1T to your buddies in the tax scam, that would pay for your 14th century technology wall. Suggest you get it back. pic.twitter.com/BFdoUTE9nq
— (((Tam))) ??♀️Presidential Harasser??♀️ (@Tam_Resist) January 8, 2019
I’ve literally taken one macroeconomics class and I know why this would be a bad idea
— Charles (@CharlieK206) January 8, 2019
If this tweet is any indication, it’s clear that Trump is going to lie his ass off on Tuesday night when he delivers an immigration address from the Oval Office. Networks had best be ready to fact-check because while fact-checking Trump’s tweets are easy to do, it will be much harder to keep up with his lies in real time.
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