Democrat bigwigs fear an economic upswing before November
…Furman laid out a detailed case for why the months preceding the November election could offer Trump the chance to brag — truthfully — about the most explosive monthly employment numbers and gross domestic product growth ever.
Since the Zoom call, Furman has been making the same case to anyone who will listen, especially the close-knit network of Democratic wonks who have traversed the Clinton and Obama administrations together, including top members of the Biden campaign.
Furman’s counterintuitive pitch has caused some Democrats, especially Obama alumni, around Washington to panic. “This is my big worry,” said a former Obama White House official who is still close to the former president. Asked about the level of concern among top party officials, he said, “It’s high — high, high, high, high.”
And top policy officials on the Biden campaign are preparing for a fall economic debate that might look very different than the one predicted at the start of the pandemic in March. “They are very much aware of this,” said an informal adviser.
Of course they’re worried, and of course they’re very aware. What goes down sometimes goes back up. Many Democratic governors are doing their best to prevent that possibility. But will it be enough to keep things down?
I don’t know. I hope not; I certainly am hoping for a recovery and hope it takes place before November. But I imagine that a lot of rank-and-file Democrats – you know, working people (or formerly working people) who are not solid leftists but who nevertheless vote Democratic – would agree with me. This is particularly true if they are out of work either temporarily or permanently.
Do the Democrat operatives realize this? Or have they written those people off already? Have they calculated they won’t need them?
More:
“In absolute terms, the economy will look historically terrible come November,” said Kenneth Baer, a Democratic strategist who worked in a senior role at the Office of Management and Budget under Obama. “But relative to the depths of April, it will be on an upswing — 12 percent unemployment, for example, is better than 20, but historically terrible. On Election Day, we Democrats need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ Republicans need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four months ago?’”
Actually, I would hope (and almost certainly in vain) that voters would ask both questions, and if either answer is “no,” then they’d ask themselves a follow-up: and whose fault is that? And if I lived in a blue state, the answer certainly wouldn’t be “Donald Trump’s fault.”
Hmmm, might that be why the Democrats have been cozying up to Beijing?
While the whole world’s looking for a vaccine, could it be that the Democrats are imploring Xi to come up with something new?
Personally, I don’t know why they just don’t throw another impeachment party. You know, go with their strength.
(If only they could figure out how to time that second wave correctly….)
On the other hand, maybe they’ll leverage their xyz trillion dollar Democratic State bailout gambit, which the GOP-held Senate warned was dead in the water, into another “WE-CAN’T-TAKE-IT-ANY-MORE-THIS-TIME-WE-MEAN-IT stunt to shut down the government.
Not exactly a novel plan, but hey, maybe, just maybe…it’ll work this time!
I live in Michigan. Blue state. Swing state. Governor as blue as Cuomo and as incompetent–if you aren’t looking at malice as the motivator–abut getting through this. She looks like a grad of HOA school who can’t believe she just died and went to heaven. I don’t mean her looks–which don’t help–but how her actions look.
She’s making enemies left and right–meaning it politically. There are many, though, on the left who either believe the lockdown needs to be harsh and unending, or find it politically useful to insist on it. They’re not going anyplace.
The illogicality of it all is impressing a good many people. I think a number of voters heretofore uninterested in the process may turn out against her, party affiliation notwithstanding.
In a walk and talk with my wife I predicted that this would happen (and my stocks show this to have already started)…
What is missing from the equation is the math or formula that makes it happen
A kind of Annealing or Tempering (i know they are not the same)
the economy was starting to boom, and by a wide margin compared to before
but this boom grew out of the previous malaise and condition
One of the things that happen in a stock pull back is a readjustment of funds
ie. annealing or tempering
a situation like what we just had will have the effect of culling the economic herd of the weaker performers, and the weak businesses that squat in locations anemically trundling on…
The dip by the dems was actually the worst thing they could do if they wanted an economy to fail. They just culled out the 20% of weak marginal businesses at the bottom… gave companies an excuse to remove the weak marginal workers and find new ones… the companies and workers that remain and are renewed are going to lend strength to these early risers in place to benefit… and the desire to get back to work will have new firms with new ideas have locations to open and workers to work (once they are off unemployment and CARES money).
Trump has the same degree Reagan had, but from Excelsior..
he is probably aware of this effect… its like a mini recession, but better
better because a long drawn out period takes a long drawn out time to eject this weakness, but a sharp short one does not… it just cuts weak off at the knees and leaves stronger in place.
The lefts failure to understand how things naturally operate
have them losing to such actions, being wrong about the ideas, and perplexed having to invent conspiracies of the opposite side being better at trickery than they are (as their only explanation).
buy popcorn before the price goes up and enjoy the show…
[note china and india are in conflict. China is trying to convince australia who they are in conflict with that the US will let them hang without help… Taiwan is right now scared of an invasion war game in their southern waters with two new air craft carriers… among a lot of other things most dont pay attention to, but i do]
Mark my words the 2nd wave is scheduled for October with an economy-killing lock down.
Regardless of whether the virus comes back, that 2nd wave will be declared for political purposes.
momo:
Agreed. But if it’s not an actual second wave of large proportions, and only the blue state governors lockdown, there is a good chance of an anti-blue backlash.
Pretty sick when a major party cheers on an epidemic and hopes people won’t get their jobs and lives back.
Richard Aubrey:
Hope you’re correct.
… anti-blue backlash …
It seems as if a whole lot of my fellow Illini went north to the Free State of Wisconsin over the Memorial Day weekend.
The Cheeseheads were not happy.
Perhaps more will vote for President Trump just to tick off our privileged ( HIS family can travel … not so us hoi polloi ) multi-Billionaire – by inheritance and not personal effort – Governor.
This is our national IQ test. Trump may not have handled this pandemic perfectly but not only is it objectively true that the United States has handled it better than other developed countries, but about half the cases and two-thirds of U.S. deaths are in just seven states. I believe six of those states have Democratic governors.
If the public let’s itself get fooled about this, the public will get what it deserves. The stupid tax always gets paid.
Mike
“have they written those people off already? Have they calculated they won’t need them?”
They wrote those people off years ago. That is why Trump got elected in the first place. In the early 2000s a couple of leftist pundits, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, wrote a book, “The Emerging Democratic Majority”. The idea was that the “Republican majority” – Nixon through Bush – was on the decline and that Democrats would dominate through a coalition of minorities and educated urban whites. It worked well enough to elect Obama twice.
The flaw though was that they assumed Democrats would hold on to their white working-class base. Consider the two issues that initially propelled Trump – trade and immigration. He took the positions that had been held for decades by the industrial trade unions that had been the backbone of the Democrat party since at least the New Deal. They opposed illegal immigration because it meant cheap labor undercutting American workers. And they were skeptical of “free trade” because they saw good American jobs leaving the country. Now these people are Trump’s core constituency.
Furthermore a lot of those minorities who are legal citizens have also been impacted by trade and illegal immigration and some of them may be waking up. Somebody tell me exactly how American blacks have benefited from the illegal immigration that Democrats have been trying to enable now for decades.
Fun fact: Mexican-American icon Cesar Chavez, who made his name as a labor union leader, was strongly opposed to illegal immigration. While surfing the internet I found the following quote, ” ‘The Crusades of Cesar Chavez’ [a book published in 2014] has the iconic Hispanic hero sounding at times like a typical nativist bigot and acting like a right-wing militia member”. Makes him sound, well, deplorable.
“The Emerging Democratic Majority”.
I think that may be one of the most pernicious books in American history. It helped convince one of the country’s two major political parties that it no longer needed to, you know, practice politics because inevitable demographic destiny would sweep it to victory without having to make any change or even any effort.
Mike
MBunge:
The Democrats seem to believe they won’t go broke underestimating the American public’s IQ.
He gave away the strategy though. They will pretend none of this happen and just harp on the 12% unemployment and leave out the 35% unemployment from six months earlier and the media will drill it all home.
And the others are correct there will be a second wave in October even if it’s not real because there has to be at this point to fit the narrative but there are more and more countries saying no second lockdown so this will probably be a tough sell.
MBunge on May 26, 2020 at 5:13 pm said: This is our national IQ test.
Thanks for the leadin MBunge… to answer towards the question of national IQ, i turn the podium over to Judge McHaney.. (who in a way is commenting on the mental illness as displayed by democrat leadership)
The full order can be read here…
https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19997671/ruling.pdf
Of course they’re worried, and of course they’re very aware. What goes down sometimes goes back up. Many Democratic governors are doing their best to prevent that possibility. But will it be enough to keep things down?
________
That’s their 2nd biggest worry. Even bigger is that Joe will hear about it, and let it slip in mid-ramble.
BTW, I still see Whitmer’s popularity cited as being at 61%. But that was some months ago. I wonder why I’ve seen no new numbers. (OK, I confess. I don’t actually wonder.)
The great playwright David Mamet said: “In order for genuine liberals to continue their illogical belief systems they have to pretend not to know a lot of things.”
I would add that the current stable of Democratic governors and mayors who seem bent on stifling their recovering economies, don’t seem to understand that their actions are unsupported by the actual disease data. And, within their belief systems, they are pretending not to notice that their choices are not supported by the majority of their citizens, many of whom are seeing their businesses, their jobs, and their savings collapse. But I guess they still have the support of the highly vocal, die-hard progressive minority. That’s a dangerous feedback loop when you’re losing the independent voter though.
I’m guessing that it won’t be much longer before pretending not to notice a lot of things is no longer an option for these leaders. I guess they’ll be joining Stacy Abrams to insist they’ve actually won.
I used to fear inflation because of too much gov’t deficits, especially wasted spending. Money goes up in amount, prices go up, interest rates go up, in a circle — we had that under Dem Jimmy Carter (’77-’80), the only Dem President I voted for. (He was a USNA grad!)
With interest rates at 0, or negative (see Miles Kimball, supply side liberal), there is no general inflation push, altho a LOT of new gov’t money goes into asset inflation: house prices and stock prices. The rich getting richer faster than the poor are getting richer.
Trump’s not even pretending to fight against big, bigger, biggest ever deficits. And, when those deficits come thru lower taxes, they do support more economic growth.
The last $2 trillion isn’t even close to being spent, so there’s not yet any need for more – altho the over-spending Dem states are asking for bailouts.
Trump had a great 3 years, and the 4 year of truly unprecedented lockdown against the Wuhan virus will provide some unknown (lots? little? middle?) protection from economy critiques. Tho the conservative critique of too much debt and spending is unlikely to be echoed by the Dems.
Neo,
I really disagree with the statement that ‘Democratic governors are doing their best to prevent that possibility.’
These governors are trusted with the lives of people as much as they are in the livelihood of people but when the choice is the economy or people’s lives they will usually choose people’s lives. At this point all states are attempting to open [some slowly some quicker depending on population]. But there has to be a plan. You cannot just lift the orders and let everything go back to normal in a short time because it would undermine all efforts to keep safe and may put us right back where we were in March. So I think it’s very easy to second guess and do the armchair QB thing. But, anyway, as much as Democrats want to beat Trump the idea that they will keep everything shut down until November is both inaccurate, conspiratorial and too cynical. We’ll be back in some form by August for sure and the economy and market will have a good uptick by November.
Let me add that many who will vote for Biden won’t be doing it because of the economy. Trump is very easy to dislike. In fact, a recent poll [I know Republicans hate most polls] shows voters trust Trump more than Biden on the economy 45% to 42%. But on everything else Biden gets the better percentages. Which if you think about it is amazing since Biden has pretty much done nothing to earn that right. How does he do it? It’s because Trump often does himself no favors and because of it he is hated more than any president in my lifetime. [Since the mid 60’s]. Of course he is loved too but by a much smaller percentage. The question is will he be tolerated by John Q Public on election day? Maybe? I say not. We’ll see.
@Montage: Joe Biden is so obviously suffering from cognitive decline that I assume he will not be the nominee. If I am wrong, and Biden is the nominee, then that will be, to me, a sign that the Democrats expect to lose in November and think they might as well give Joe his “turn,” as a reward for his years of service (cf. Bob Dole, 1996). That thought aside, if the Democrats actually do run Biden, along with a woman (of color?) still to be named (and presumably to ascend to the presidency in very short order), many independents and even some Democratic voters will recoil at this cynical insult to their intelligence and punish the Democrats accordingly.
Montage:
The country (not “we”) knows a bit more about the Chinese contagion now that it did in March or do you deny that? Such as the a better estimate of the fatality rates for various age groups (including comorbidity factors), estimates of asymptomatic carriers, whether those asymptomatic are effective vectors, whether or not children are vectors or victims, methods of treatment for various types of patients. what not to do with certain types of patients (Cuomo effect), and lots of things that weren’t really known in March. That isn’t saying the current knowledge is perfect. But we also know the models that the lockdown Governors relied on and continue to rely on were “less than reliable” IMO (actually they were crap). So don’t try to sell the “it could be just like March 2020 all over again.”
Most people learn from mistakes, except those who are of the Dunning-Kreuger cohort, don’t be in that group.
Om
Covid-19 is a contagious virus. That means people can catch it. We have no vaccine and a higher percentage than flu are asymptomatic and therefore spread it to people who will show symptoms. If we open the country without some distancing guidelines we will be worse than in March, actually.
But, anyway, as much as Democrats want to beat Trump the idea that they will keep everything shut down until November is both inaccurate, conspiratorial and too cynical.
Montage: That’s your opinion.
One would like to assume that as much as Democrats want to beat Trump, they would do it at the ballot box and not with serial, groundless attempts to impeach Trump, subverting the DOJ, FBI and the Constitution in the process.
At least that’s the opinion of many here and so far the facts bear that out, more than any good faith interpretation of the Democrats’ actions.
So, if you’re shocked, shocked, that we have blown past worrying that we might be cynical or conspiratorial, that’s too bad. We don’t see Democrats operating in good faith, just constant dishonest attempts to take power, whatever the cost to the country.
I’m sure you disagree, but that’s where things stand. Chiding us with your opinions as though they were facts will have no effect.
If we open the country without some distancing guidelines we will be worse than in March, actually.
Montage: Actually, that’s another of your opinions. No one knows for sure. I’d bet the other way myself.
@Montage:
“If we open the country without some distancing guidelines we will be worse than in March, actually.“
That is an opinion, as huxley correctly notes. It is also a straw man argument. But maybe I missed the part where Neo, om, or someone else proposed that we lift all the lockdowns with no social distancing guidelines in place.
Montage on May 26, 2020 at 8:41 pm said:
Neo,
I really disagree with the statement that ‘Democratic governors are doing their best to prevent that possibility.’
These governors are trusted with the lives of people …
* * *
AND they failed spectacularly to keep many of them alive.
CuomoCare (which was replicated in other Democrat-run states) proved that Cuomo did not, in fact, care at all about elderly people’s lives.
Your implication that Republican governors DON’T care about the lives of the people THEY are trusted with has been amply answered in other posts by Neo.
“But there has to be a plan. You cannot just lift the orders and let everything go back to normal in a short time ”
NOBODY is doing that anywhere in America; all of the opening states are doing it by plan. And guess what – you can go back to normal in a very short time if you protect the elderly in nursing homes from governors who demand that infected patients be housed there.
“ut on everything else Biden gets the better percentages. Which if you think about it is amazing since Biden has pretty much done nothing to earn that right. How does he do it?”
By taking advantage of the MSM’s studied avoidance of his worst gaffes (since years ago) and his mental decline (since months ago).
“Trump often does himself no favors and because of it he is hated more than any president in my lifetime.”
He is hated by Democrats on general principles (I remember BushHitler even if you don’t — or maybe the hate was just for show?).
Most of the hate today is generated by the Democrat-media and the Institutional Left who are mortally afraid of having the rest of their lawlessness exposed and curbed.
Your really need to do better, but thanks for letting us see how the Democrats are structuring their playbook.
@Montage:
This would put it as less of a problem than the flu
I said this from the beginning as i was using slope angle as the judge
and even more illustrious knowlegable were saying it too but ignored as it wasnt the message the press, the liberals, the dems, and agit prop wanted
— missed the edit window for typos — reading the Politico piece.
“This is going to be extremely difficult no matter what. It’s existential that we figure it out. In any of these economic scenarios Democrats are going to have to win the argument that our public health and economy are much worse off because of Donald Trump’s failure of leadership.”
That’s why the MSM tries so frantically to make that case in the press briefings and their stories. I won’t rehearse in detail here the myriad ways in which they (a) complained that he went overboard with travel bans followed by complaints that he didn’t do enough faster; (b) complained that he wasn’t giving the states enough federal help, then didn’t use what he sent (hint hint NY hospital ship etc); (c) objected when he said he could direct everything from the WH, then complained that he … wasn’t directing everything from the WH.
Maybe the MSM viewer/reader cohort hasn’t noticed, but a lot of other people have.
Artfldgr on May 26, 2020 at 3:45 pm said:
…
The dip by the dems was actually the worst thing they could do if they wanted an economy to fail. They just culled out the 20% of weak marginal businesses at the bottom…
* * *
Bingo.
I was looking at a list of companies that were planning to file for bankruptcy; some of them should have folded their cards years ago.
It’s called “free market capitalism” — there are always companies going out of business and others coming in. Crony capitalism is where the government puts its hand in the revolving door, for a fee.
This government-engineered, deliberate recession is not even-handed in its effects, but I don’t think it was particularly driven by the usual roster of corporate rent-seekers, although they got hit the least because, too big to fail.
Artfldgr:
Tried again to give Monatage the benefit of the doubt; that he wasn’t a Dunning-Kreuger but no, he shows that he is.
Contrary to Montage’s opinion even republicans and conservatives know that the Chinese contagion is a virus and thus is contagious. Contagion and contagious, hmmm, can those words be related? But his opinion on the role that asymptomatic people and their spread of the Chinese contagion is pre-March or March “knowledge.” For one who is governed by “science” he seems impervious to the feature of science that it a process of learning new things and testing the validity of things thought to be “known.” Turns out asymptomatic individuals aren’t the spreaders. Well golleee Gomer!
@Om: Surprise Surprise Surprise! [boy could he sing though]
Why a Former Obama Economist Just Offered the Biden 2020 Campaign a Very Stark Warning
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/05/26/former-obama-economist-the-2020-election-scenario-that-keeps-democrats-up-at-nig-n2569457
We’re about to experience a massive economic boom, folks. And it will occur in the key months prior to Election Day. It’s a V-shaped recovery. And this isn’t just the Trump economic team making these projections. Former Obama economist Jason Furman has gone on record to declare, “We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country.”
This has reportedly sent his former colleagues in the Obama administration into panic mode. The concerns among Democrats are high.
[snip]
Furman’s case begins with the premise that the 2020 pandemic-triggered economic collapse is categorically different than the Great Depression or the Great Recession, which both had slow, grinding recoveries.
Instead, he believes, the way to think about the current economic drop-off, at least in the first two phases, is more like what happens to a thriving economy during and after a natural disaster: a quick and steep decline in economic activity followed by a quick and steep rebound.
[snip]
“The Trump argument will be he’s producing the fastest job growth and fastest economic growth in history. If he has any ability to do nuance he would say, ‘We are not there yet, reelect me to finish the job,’” Furman said.
Artfldgr on May 26, 2020 at 6:37 pm said:
MBunge on May 26, 2020 at 5:13 pm said: This is our national IQ test.
Thanks for the leadin MBunge… to answer towards the question of national IQ, i turn the podium over to Judge McHaney.. (who in a way is commenting on the mental illness as displayed by democrat leadership)
* * *
I couldn’t get the docs link to work for me, but here are a news post with the back story on the lawsuit, and the quotation the ‘Dodger posted.
https://www.westernjournal.com/judge-rules-illinois-governors-stay-home-order/
https://tolleystopics.com/2020/05/24/judge-mchaney-speaks-his-mind-in-friday-afternoon-case/
Bonus from the Western Journal – a Florida Man with a mission that went viral.
https://www.westernjournal.com/covid-survivor-banned-flying-trump-flag-thank-potus-new-tribute-much-better/
Bonus from Tolley’s Topics.
Time to have a few laughs.
https://tolleystopics.com/2020/05/26/smiles-via-meme/
Yesterday, J E Dyer addressed the lockdowns & quarantines & Democrat dementia (as detailed in Judge McHaney’s censure), in the context of Memorial Day.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/05/25/memorial-day-2020-about-freedom/
Now we understand – the Democrats just want members of closed churches to ask themselves WWJD?
https://babylonbee.com/news/scholars-claim-jesus-actually-told-lepers-stay-home-save-lives
Whereas, like the Chinese, they have only our good in mind.
https://babylonbee.com/news/china-issues-stay-at-home-order-to-hong-kong-to-prevent-spread-of-democracy
Party of Science and #BelieveAllExperts doesn’t read the news.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/party-science-dems-far-more-likely-gop-reject-or-be-unaware-covid-19
Some of the stories on Judge McHaney are conflating two cases, as did the one I linked above.
This one clarifies that situation.
https://www.redstate.com/smoosieq/2020/05/26/americans-dont-get-ruled-illinois-judge-unloads-on-pritzkers-stay-at-home-order/
“Following Bailey’s challenge, James Mainer, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and small business owner in Clay City, filed a similar suit in Clay County. Judge McHaney issued his ruling in that matter this past Friday and, although he again limited the scope of the restraining order to the individual plaintiff, he had some choice words for the Governor and his stay-at-home order “
Democrats once more doing the usual thing after being involved in a scandal: eliminate the evidence.
Sadly for them, the internet is forever — unlike Hillary’s server or Lois Lerner’s records or FBI 302s.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-coronavirus-order-forcing-nursing-homes-to-take-covid-19-patients-scrubbed-from-new-york-state-website/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=first
The Brits have a meme for this crisis –
https://lockdownsceptics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/media_virus.png
Good site if you are interested in what’s happening in the UK, or just like snark & facts (rather like tea & crumpets, what?).
One of the stories from the front page.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/25/the-public-must-lead-us-out-of-the-lockdown/
by Brendan O’Neill
Om
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there’s a 20%-to-50% chance that those infected with the coronavirus do not show symptoms. Yet even those asymptomatic people may be just as capable of transmitting the disease as other infected people who eventually become visibly sick, the CDC said.
Notice the word ‘may’ in there? You would have to agree that your opinion that “asymptomatic individuals aren’t’ the spreaders” is more definitive and not based on the current science. It doesn’t mean everything should stay shut down. It means let’s use caution. And so most of America is doing that as we re-open. [Even Sean Hannity agrees – watch his bit on Land of the Ozarks last night.]
Los Angeles just opened most retail today. Churches too can open with 25% capacity [the same capacity Texas recommended in early May]. As I said before, the business and a good part of the economy will be back even in blue states well before November.
Somebody actually plans to convince humanity that if they don’t Obey, a billion fatalities will result. Gee, I wonder who that would be in 2020.
Only a billion? How many will be dancing on the head of a pin when they get their first cough? Do tell us.