It's the Economy, Stupid!

[Watermelon]

Fun fact. Almost all of the roads in West Africa when I was there in 2002-2005 were built by bin Laden's dad's company.

[rogue06]

Fun fact. Almost all of the roads in West Africa when I was there in 2002-2005 were built by bin Laden's dad's company.

Osama was the son of daddy's tenth wife who he divorced soon after he was born. Dad was one of the richest non-royal Saudi's in the country (making several billion dollars in the construction industry and was well-connected with the royal family. Osama inherited a rather sizable fortune after his dad's demise. According to The Economist:

Construction had made the bin Laden family fortune, $5 billion at least, from which he had inherited $25m-30m. (There had been much more, perhaps $250m, and a yearly stipend of $7m, until his native Saudi Arabia expelled him in 1991 and froze his assets; but Allah provided for his servant, and some of his several dozen half-brothers and sisters slipped him money.)

It also answers Watermelon's question

He made roads in Sudan, too, when he was exiled there in the 1990s, including a new highway from Khartoum to Port Sudan. But he was mostly building his terror network, starting with the guesthouses and weapons he provided in Afghanistan through his maktab al-khidamat

So while his dad had the huge company doing work in Africa and elsewhere, Osama also did construction work in Africa as well.

[demi-conservative]

The calculation here is a bit bunk unless you believe debt should be amortized within the year of borrowing it.

You are still misunderstanding the issue.

If the government borrowed 1 trillion more to spend in 2010, the GDP would be higher by about 1 trillion, if 2 trillion 2 trillion. Clearly and unarguably, debt needs to be taken into account.

What is bunk is judging the health of an economy by its GDP, which is a measure of the income account. A proper evaluation needs to take into account the balance sheet, and you start getting there by adding the debt incurred.

[seanD]

That is not quite true. The US in general is getting older, like Europe and other wealthy nations. Therefore more of its population is retiring. Therefore a lower labor participation rate in general. So if you want to look at relevant changes in the participation rate, you have to look at the seasonally adjusted rate for prime-age workers. Using that data, there was quite a bounce back under Obama as well.

It is also quite clear from this data, that most of the loss was solely due to the economic bubble burst in 2009, and most of it has been recovery since that point, and a near full bounce back happened under Obama.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trum...17-2?r=US&IR=T

It's a moot point anyway. It doesn't matter how many jobs are (supposedly) being created if they're low wage, thus because of this and rising inflation, folks are not only not saving, but incurring personal debt. These were some of the same things (minus the inflation) happening under Obama's "recovery," which Trump rightly pointed out before he got elected.

[Juvenal]

But did the trains run on time?

I went to Senegal with my buddy, who'd made a friend of Afia Loum, the brother of the prime minister at the time. Afia went to American University in DC, where he met my buddy because they were both learning finance. Afia needed to know finance because he was the finance minister. The whole country works like that. Offered me a job professin' at the university in Dakar. Thought hard about taking it, too.

Anyway, it was a formal visit, the kind where if you leave before you've stayed a full four weeks, it's a deadly insult to your host, so I had time to learn way too much about what they buy and how they pay for it. They don't really have an economy. They live on foreign aid. The biggest revenue source is the , LoNaSe. Just so happens I've still got the t-shirt.

One of the things they bought using foreign aid from us and other places, mostly France, was a railroad to cross the country. It gets really hot in the interior, and then really wet during the rainy season. Really hot followed by really wet doesn't do anything good for a railroad. So now they have a rotting railroad crossing the country.

Another fun fact.

[Juvenal]

Nah, just his dad's company, and their trucks and equipment were everywhere.

[shunyadragon]

I needed a good laugh. Thanks, Shuny.

Merry Christmas to you --- are you expecting snow?

Of course not in North Carolina. Not a coherent response. Can you do better.?

Check the unemployment rate trends in the Obama administration and the Trump administration.

[shunyadragon]

Right...

The economy was stagnant under Obama and barely hanging on. Of course the fact that it took off like a rocket after Trump started implementing policy changes is just a coincidence.

False assertions without evidence. Check out the unemployment rate trend in the Obama administration and the Trump administration.

[Mountain Man]

False assertions without evidence. Check out the unemployment rate trend in the Obama administration and the Trump administration.

Read the thread. We've covered that already.

[shunyadragon]

Right...

The economy was stagnant under Obama and barely hanging on. Of course the fact that it took off like a rocket after Trump started implementing policy changes is just a coincidence.

Since you have ignored looking up the facts of the economy and unemployment trends in the Obama administration I think 'Fact Check should bring you up to date.

Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/

By Brooks Jackson

Posted on September 29, 2017 | Updated on September 24, 2018


Summary
The numbers are nearly all in now. What they show about what really happened during the eight years that Barack Obama was president is sometimes different from what politicians claimed.

The economy gained a net 11.6 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm.
Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.0 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and nonsupervisory employees.
After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent.
The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before.
The federal debt owed to the public rose 128 percent. Deficits were rising as Obama departed.
Home prices rose 20 percent. But the home ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century.
Illegal immigration declined: The Border Patrol caught 35 percent fewer people trying to get into the U.S. from Mexico.
Wind and solar power increased 369 percent. Coal production declined 38 percent. Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel dropped 11 percent.
Production of handguns rose 192 percent, to a record level.
The murder rate dropped to the lowest on record in 2014, then rose and finished at the same rate as when Obama took office.

© Copyright Original Source

[Cow Poke]

Of course not in North Carolina. Not a coherent response. Can you do better.?

Check the unemployment rate trends in the Obama administration and the Trump administration.

Just asked a simple question, Shuny - not interested in a battle with you.

[seanD]

Since you have ignored looking up the facts of the economy and unemployment trends in the Obama administration I think 'Fact Check should bring you up to date.

Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/

By Brooks Jackson

Posted on September 29, 2017 | Updated on September 24, 2018


Summary
The numbers are nearly all in now. What they show about what really happened during the eight years that Barack Obama was president is sometimes different from what politicians claimed.

The economy gained a net 11.6 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm.
Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.0 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and nonsupervisory employees.
After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent.
The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before.
The federal debt owed to the public rose 128 percent. Deficits were rising as Obama departed.
Home prices rose 20 percent. But the home ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century.
Illegal immigration declined: The Border Patrol caught 35 percent fewer people trying to get into the U.S. from Mexico.
Wind and solar power increased 369 percent. Coal production declined 38 percent. Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel dropped 11 percent.
Production of handguns rose 192 percent, to a record level.
The murder rate dropped to the lowest on record in 2014, then rose and finished at the same rate as when Obama took office.

© Copyright Original Source

I'm curious how he got that adjusted weekly earnings average of 4%.

[shunyadragon]

Just asked a simple question, Shuny - not interested in a battle with you.

Why the question concerning the white Christmas? What was the point of your post?

[shunyadragon]

I'm curious how he got that adjusted weekly earnings average of 4%.

Ask the source. The main issue was the drop of unemployment and other economic indicators in the Obama administration in response to the assertions that the economy was stagnant under the Obama administration. Under Trump all you see is a natural extinction of the trends of the Obama Administration and the natural economic growth beyond that, and of course beyond that the rich got amazing ly richer and the national debt increased at rate greater than in the past.

[Cow Poke]

Why the question concerning the white Christmas? What was the point of your post?

I had no idea what the weather was in your area, Shuny - it was simply a friendly question. The point of my post was..... how likely is it that you'll get snow for Christmas.

That's all.