With Bated Breath… Economic Report of the President, 2018

Fact-check please!

From CDN:

President Donald Trump’s Schedule for Wednesday, February 21, 2018

President Donald Trump will receive his daily briefing as prepared by the intelligence community then discuss the Economic Report of the President with the Council of Economic Advisers.

This could be my chance for some fiction reading, if this previous CEA report is any guide.

Update, 2/21 12:41PM Pacific: And the ERP 2018 is here!

11 thoughts on “With Bated Breath… Economic Report of the President, 2018”

  1. Moses Herzog

    Well, it’s late at night, I’m watching Lindsey Vonn in the Downhill, when I should be catching up on my reading, and I got my RSS up always checking Menzie’s feed. You know, every once in awhile people will surprise you and do stuff out of their normal expected behavior. And I don’t mean this in any deriding, judgmental, or derogatory way. God knows I have visited some weird and degenerate websites (BOTH wholly intentionally and by wandering around randomly). Much worse than “CDN”, but I gotta say “CDN” is not the kind of site I imagine Menzie surfing.

    Hey, whatever comes out in that CEA report tomorrow, we know it’s going to be entertaining don’t we??? ……….even if it is entertaining in a Silas the albino monk kind of way. I’m gonna save you guys from the youtube link on that reference.

  2. Ed Hanson

    Menzie

    Although I disagree with the estimates you so emphatically promoted about the little effect that the tax rated decreases would have in GDP growth,
    for argument sake, lets assume that you were correct and its affect is .01% or less.

    So what has caused GDP growth to be so much higher than the CBO projection. Already with only one year of regulation reduction GDP growth is 0.4% greater than projection. And with GDP growth looking excellent for the next few quarters, along with the CBO 2018 estimate of 2.1% growth, the 0.8% deregulation effect seems quite accurate.

    Ed

    1. pgl

      “Although I disagree with the estimates you so emphatically promoted about the little effect that the tax rated decreases would have in GDP growth, for argument sake, lets assume that you were correct and its affect is .01% or less.”

      Brad DeLong’s recent post suggest that this tax cut will lower long-term growth. Check it out as it is a classic application of the Solow growth model. Right wingers pretend that it is their basic model but they have never explained how a reduction in the national savings rate enhances long-term growth. Not once in almost 40 years of this stupid debate.

    2. Moses Herzog

      @Ed Hanson
      Ed, I am no economic forecaster (although I have tried my hand a few times and not been to far off). I am what most people would call “an amateur observer of events”. Because I’m lazy and don’t always want to use the mathematical tools, I do things in what Paul Krugman calls an “ad hoc” way or as Menzie sometimes says an “intuitive” way. And breaking down the math is often, if not ALWAYS the best way to do economic forecasting. But I would put a question to you in very plain terms—-

      When President Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited an economy where official unemployment hit 10%. When he left, it was officially under 5%. Now here we are discussing a different barometer—GDP. If you think that 1 year of deregulation is “the real reason” for economic growth, then you must also think that most of the “latent negative effects” of an Obama Presidency have now been untethered. My question to you, Ed, is, who the F___ are you going to blame bad economic numbers on (never mind record budget deficits passed by a REPUBLICAN House and a REPUBLICAN Senate) when the economy doesn’t do so well?? Because “cherry-picking” always shows the partisan uneducated redneck (and/or Republican propagandist) for what they truly are.

      1. Bruce Hall

        “Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge. ”
        –Lao Tzu, 6th Century BC Chinese Poet

  3. rtd

    For what it is worth (although one certain think gdp and the S&P500 are one in the same), I’ve seen credible analyses suggesting the tax bill being responsible for 2-6 percentage points of the roughly 25% increase in the post-election market.

    I’m really here to disparage Menzie’s partisan and emotional blog post. If Trump were an econo-blogger, I imagine he would generate shinola such as this.

    1. rtd

      I really should stop editing my posts so much and/or stop using a smartphone… should read “although one certainly should not think gdp and the S&P500 are one in the same”

      1. rtd

        Moses Herzog, you say that I “don’t know sh*t from shinola” but I agree with what you just posted. What do we do now?
        ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  4. Moses herzog

    DAMN that ERP is a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG MOFO. I guess all the ERP are. The lazy part of me (which comprises about 75% of my being) says we should let Menzie “parse” this ERP out for us. The semi-arrogant intelligent part of me says I should do an “all-nighter” digging out the humorous parts, hypocritical parts, and no doubt 100+ spelling errors.

    What do you think guys???
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYFLUz1ZY-A

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