For those rooting for the U.S. economy, there’s been plenty of good news worth celebrating lately. The combination of historically low unemployment, economic growth, shrinking inflation, rising wages, and a rising stock market have given Americans renewed optimism about the health of the resilient economy.
Just as notably, the economy in the United States isn’t just strong from a historical perspective, it’s also strong by an international perspective. The Washington Post reported over the weekend on an underappreciated detail: Our economy is outpacing our peer nations abroad, which means Americans are experiencing “the world’s best recovery.”
The European economy, hobbled by unfamiliar weakness in Germany, is barely growing. China is struggling to recapture its sizzle. And Japan continues to disappoint. But in the United States, it’s a different story. Here, despite lingering consumer angst over inflation, the surprisingly strong economy is outperforming all of its major trading partners.
The Post quoted Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist, who said, “The U.S. has really come out of this into a place of strength and is moving forward like covid never happened. We earned this; it wasn’t just a fluke.”
From a purely political perspective, this creates some serious challenges for Republicans. Part of the problem, of course, is that GOP officials were hoping to capitalize on perceptions of a weak economy in this year’s elections, and reality is clearly getting in the way.
Making matters worse, the reason the U.S. economy is outpacing recoveries elsewhere is that the federal government has invested heavily in the economy in recent years — which is necessarily at odds with Republican orthodoxy that says government spending does not fuel growth.
But for Trump, the challenges are especially acute.
As regular readers might recall, ahead of Election Day 2020, the then-president repeatedly warned the public that if Joe Biden were elected, the U.S. economy would collapse. His rhetoric wasn’t based on anything real or substantive; he just hoped to scare voters into re-electing him.
It led the Republican to declare at the final debate of the 2020 cycle, “They say the stock market will rule if I’m elected. If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.” Around the same time, Trump also told supporters that Democratic policies would “unleash an economic disaster of epic proportions” and force the country “into depression.”
Everything he said and predicted was wrong — which leaves the GOP’s presumptive nominee in a bit of a bind.
On the one hand, Trump appears desperate to convince people that the healthy U.S. economy isn’t healthy at all. On Dec. 29, he published an item to his social media account assuring the public that the national economy is “TERRIBLE,” the truth notwithstanding, adding a prediction that if President Biden is re-elected, we’ll suffer a “‘CRASH’ WORSE THAN THAT OF 1929 — A GREAT DEPRESSION!!!”
The former president soon after campaigned in New Hampshire and described a dystopia that bore no resemblance to our reality. “[B]anks are collapsing,” Trump said, pointing to events that are unfolding only in his imagination. He added, “We are a nation whose economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin, whose supply chain is broken, whose stores are not stocked.”
None of this was even remotely true. It was also soon contradicted by Trump’s own attempts to claim credit for good economic news. CNBC reported:
Former President Donald Trump on Monday admitted that the stock market is on the rise under his successor, President Joe Biden — but Trump still tried to take credit for it. “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET,” Trump wrote in an all-caps Truth Social post.
So let’s take stock of what the likely Republican presidential nominee wants voters to believe. First, the economy is terrible, and people should definitely blame Biden. Second, parts of the economy are great, and people should definitely credit Trump.
And third, when people see economic data that might make them feel better about the resilient U.S. economy, they should assume that the figures are “fake,” unless Trump likes the data, in which case he’ll claim credit for the good news.
The former president, impervious to shame, is pushing each of these lines simultaneously, creating an utterly incoherent message.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets also climbed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in the base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 172.18 points at 23,383.35.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 34.99 points at 40,826.72. The S&P 500 index was up 10.56 points at 5,564.69, while the Nasdaq composite was up 74.84 points at 17,470.37.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.55 cents US compared with 73.59 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up $2.00 at US$69.31 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up five cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$40.00 at US$2,582.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was up six cents at US$4.20 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
