shiftyandquick said:

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Trump is blaming the Democrats for the low GDP. Here is my surprised face.

Gotta love it when the party that controls every branch of the federal government blames the minority party. He must think that the American people are stupid (even beyond his base). His base will completely endorse this view.

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Who shut down the government?

The row crop farmer who has fewer export options because of tariffs and trade wars are more impacted by trade policy uncertainty than they are affected by AI
Pretty sure those guys are more than 1% of the economy

B-1 83 said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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Trump is blaming the Democrats for the low GDP. Here is my surprised face.

Gotta love it when the party that controls every branch of the federal government blames the minority party. He must think that the American people are stupid (even beyond his base). His base will completely endorse this view.

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Who shut down the government?

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He memory holed that and won't acknowledge it.

Sq 17 said:

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The row crop farmer who has fewer export options because of tariffs and trade wars are more impacted by trade policy uncertainty than they are affected by AI
Pretty sure those guys are more than 1% of the economy

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That is changing the subject.

The uncertainty of the market is intrinsic. To blame the tariffs as a huge headwind to the economy due to uncertainty is silly in the current technological age. I stand by my statement that the uncertainty of tariffs is only 1% as important as the uncertainty of AI in the market. I'm not sure how many more times I need to use uncertainty in this post to make sure I am getting my point across that my criticism was very narrow around uncertainty. You can focus in on specific areas of the economy that are more impacted by international trade than AI, but my comment that the uncertainty of tariff policy is only 1% of the uncertainty in the market caused by AI is valid.

And, if you don't think that the row crop farmer is at least a little worried by AI / robotics in 10 years, you are fooling yourself.

shiftyandquick said:

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Farmers not having enough people to pick crops?

Stuff like that?

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What percentage is hand picked currently? Personally, I've seen some crews attack some onion fields down in the valley along the border, but surely you can provide some hard statistics to back up this claim.

Silent For Too Long said:

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Disposable income and real wage have risen higher then inflation.

People have more real purchasing power, although whether they perceive it or not will be a factor.

Kicking out the illegals is going to effect GDP growth. It is still the right thing to do.

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Not only will the majority of them not perceive it, but they simply can't understand. The vast majority of Americans are really really dumb.

They simply do not possess the intellectual capacity to understand nuance when it comes to economics, or anything else for that matter.

And the scary thing is, they vote.

This is exactly why the founding fathers only allowed landowners and men to vote.

B-1 83 said:

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Who shut down the government?

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Both parties did, if you understand how our system of governing works.

You are correct you talked about the uncertainty of tariff policy
& I included the trade policy uncertainty that Row crop farmers are dealing with

DeschutesAg said:

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B-1 83 said:

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Who shut down the government?

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Both parties did, if you understand how our system of governing works.

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This one was clearly on the Dems. Not even debatable.

DeschutesAg said:

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B-1 83 said:

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Who shut down the government?

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Both parties did, if you understand how our system of governing works.

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Good lord.

YouBet said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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Disposable income and real wage have risen higher then inflation.

People have more real purchasing power, although whether they perceive it or not will be a factor.

Kicking out the illegals is going to effect GDP growth. It is still the right thing to do.

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Yep.

I'm still laughing at the Fed's 2% inflation goal though. Not sure how they can state that goal with a straight face considering reality.

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Yeah, they need to just set the target to 3%-4% and pat themselves on the back.

MemphisAg1 said:

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A lot can change between now and November, but so far this isn't setting up well for the midterms for the GOP.

Quote:

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Gross domestic produce rose at an annualized rate of just 1.4%, according to Commerce Department numbers adjusted for seasonality and inflation. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 2.5% gain.

At the same time, inflation held firm in December, according to the gauge most closely watched by Fed officials.

The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, rose 3% in December, according to a separate release. That matched the consensus forecast but kept the pivotal inflation measure well above the Fed's 2% target.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/pce-inflation-december-2025.html

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The 2 quarters before that grew around 4% each...That's pretty white hot for economic growth.

Wages have actually outpaced inflation since Trump took office...



The reason the public thinks it sucks is that every news outlet is telling them the economy suck under the Orange Man Bad.

In Q1, everyone imported a year's worth of goods to avoid tariffs and in Q2 there a huge surge in physical gold exports to Switzerland causing distortions in the import/export portion of nominal GDP.

And that's with Trump's hand picked economists. Wonder how bad it really is.

TRM said:

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In Q1, everyone imported a year's worth of goods to avoid tariffs and in Q2 there a huge surge in physical gold exports to Switzerland causing distortions in the import/export portion of nominal GDP.

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And Q3?

And then Q4 was still 1.4%...

BTW, how does importing all those goods increase the GDP if they didn't sell all of them?

Importing decreases the GDP, so if you don't import you're not subtracting as much from the GDP calculation. That's why you saw a negative GDP in Q1 since imports increased subtracting more away.

TRM said:

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Importing decreases the GDP, so if you don't import you're not subtracting as much from the GDP calculation. That's why you saw a negative GDP in Q1 since imports increased subtracting more away.

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Fact Check: Does an increase in imports directly reduce GDP?

Quote:

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Imports are first added to GDP before being subtracted out, meaning they have a net-zero effect on GDP.

One measure of GDP is the sum of consumption, investment, government spending, and exports minus imports.

The first three categories initially include the value of purchased imported goods and services but these are subtracted out to avoid artificially inflating the value of domestic consumption. Thus, imports have no direct effect on GDP, positive or negative.

For example, if a consumer buys a $1,000 imported laptop, consumer spending in their country increases by $1,000 while net-exports decrease by $1,000, with no net effect on GDP.

Imports may indirectly lower GDP if they replace domestic consumption of goods and services, or if companies reduce investment to stockpile imports. Whether this is happening in a given period requires an analysis of macroeconomic trends, as imports in the GDP calculation are zeroed out.

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[url=https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-does-an-increase-in-imports-directly-reduce-gdp][/url]
[url=https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-does-an-increase-in-imports-directly-reduce-gdp][/url]

They have to actually BUY the goods that quarter to have no effect on the quarterly calculation. They were stockpiling goods in Q1 for later in the year.

[This thread is about current and recent inflation, not what happened during Joe Biden's term. Feel free to start a different thread on that topic if you want to explore it -- Staff]

Does anyone think the current US economy is the greatest in history?

Aggie1205 said:

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Does anyone think the current US economy is the greatest in history?

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If fears of ANTHROPIC stopped destroying every industry...

then yes, it would be.

It's interesting to me that it's being argued that reducing supply in the past doesn't cause increase inflationary pressure.

shiftyandquick said:

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Ronald Reagan would say this is exactly what you should expect when you implement a massive new tax. You shrink the economy.

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All I see are tax cuts and a massive effort to limit the Federal Government's dominance over the lives of the American people, things one who actually voted for Reagan would know if they weren't in actuality an Obama fan boy.

[We're not going to debate moderation with you on this thread -- Staff]

Aggie1205 said:

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Does anyone think the current US economy is the greatest in history?

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Most likely not.
Because our economy is in transition. Everyone was looting it and showing short term profits at the cost of long term health. Looks good for now but long term will fail.
Trump is doing some difficult things which will look bad now but good in the long term.

So if things go well, we will get better LONG TERM.

We as a people are too short term minded. Shoot and scoot.

LMCane said:

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Aggie1205 said:

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Does anyone think the current US economy is the greatest in history?

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If fears of ANTHROPIC stopped destroying every industry...

then yes, it would be.

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Don't believe them blindly. Every company says they will take over the world. Then it will be a damp squib.
They say it to get investors and stay relevant. Perplexity is silent, they will come up with a "our new models will make politicians irrelevant" announcement soon.

LMCane said:

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Aggie1205 said:

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Does anyone think the current US economy is the greatest in history?

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If fears of ANTHROPIC stopped destroying every industry...

then yes, it would be.

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How are the fears of Anthropic ruining everything?