Trumpanomics: The Art of the Con

Trump claimed that "In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline," by reversing the disastrous policies of the previous administration. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that this is probably not true, since he said it. I don't have time to address all of his lies (see this article in the Washington Post), but its not hard to show that there hasn't been any sharp break in terms of the economy

The unemployment rate is low, but it has been falling for about a decade. One could argue it was falling more rapidly before he too office. It fell 2 percentage points in the last three Obama years, but only 1.2 percentage points in the first three Trump years.

 

GDP is increasing, but again it has been since the last recession ended. Do you see any noticeable change in trend since he came to office?

There is no reversal of decline after he came to office because there was no decline before he came to office. You'd just as well ignore the fact that the sun rose everyday before he came to office and let him take credit for that as well.

There are some places where there appear to be some changes in trends. For instance, job openings have begun to decline.

And the size of investment relative to GDP has started to decrease ..