Thought Experiment-Biden as President

[Loki]

@jon-nyc said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

@Jolly said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

I know we have several on this board who are Biden supporters, but I seldom see them defending him.

Their lack of enthusiasm is dissappointing...

Who’s going to be enthusiastic about Joe Biden ferchrissakes?

I’m just glad he took it from Bernie at the relative last minute. Thank you, South Carolina.

So we’ve been reduced to rooting for the VP who we don’t even know who it’s going to be except his choices are limited to sex and now race or BLM is a sham.

It’s such an odd year. We fell into a candidate, not one that was really picked through a process. Think about that. Biden is the default candidate through a set of circumstances no one can describe as a strategic process.

[jon-nyc]

We lost strategy when the smoky rooms gave up their power.

I wish we could get those days back. Or at least the days where a handful of media companies policed the bounds of acceptability.

[Loki]

@jon-nyc said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

We lost strategy when the smoky rooms gave up their power.

I wish we could get those days back. Or at least the days where a handful of media companies policed the bounds of acceptability.

It’s a good point. Historians will certainly have a lot to write about, but to isolate Biden for a moment, we seem to be destined to elect a President who had one good night, who’s main strategy is to hide and has raised legitimate concerns about what is occurring with his cognitive abilities. I have to admit I did not see this 9 months ago but in the absence of evidence to the contrary I don’t believe my thoughts are unreasonable.

[Doctor Phibes]

The next election is basically going to be Dumb and Dumber 3. The only question is which one is which.

I know, I know, an idiot can't get elected President. It's in the Constitution.

[Jolly]

@taiwan_girl said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

@Larry said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

There is no way in hell the economy will grow under a Biden presidency. None.

Sure it will. In history, there has not been much difference between GDP growth of Democrat and Republic presidents.

If it is studied post world war 2, top five avg GDP growth:

Johnson
Kennedy
Clinton
Nixon and Reagan tied

GDP Growth per US president

Stock market, the same thing. (Actually, on a percent basis, it does a bit better under Democrat than Republic.

Stock market vs president

Job growth is the same thing. Not best strictly under Republics and not best strictly under Democrats

Job Growth vs President

My point is that the economy will keeping rolling forward regardless of who is US President.

President Trump re-elected. Economy will be good.
Vice President Biden elected. Economy will be good.

By your yardstick, there are no great leaders.

[Horace]

The implicit assumption behind TG’s oft repeated claim, which in fairness is widely repeated by many others - that republican/Democrat politics can be extrapolated from the past into the future in their effect on the economy - is pretty obviously dubious. The economic policies are getting fringy on the left and the past does not contain adequate precedent to extrapolate the future from.

[xenon]

@Horace Policies gotta go through congress. Getting anything notable done in congress seems laughable.

[Larry]

@taiwan_girl said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

@Larry said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

There is no way in hell the economy will grow under a Biden presidency. None.

Sure it will. In history, there has not been much difference between GDP growth of Democrat and Republic presidents.

If it is studied post world war 2, top five avg GDP growth:

Johnson
Kennedy
Clinton
Nixon and Reagan tied

GDP Growth per US president

Stock market, the same thing. (Actually, on a percent basis, it does a bit better under Democrat than Republic.

Stock market vs president

Job growth is the same thing. Not best strictly under Republics and not best strictly under Democrats

Job Growth vs President

My point is that the economy will keeping rolling forward regardless of who is US President.

President Trump re-elected. Economy will be good.
Vice President Biden elected. Economy will be good.

TG, I know that's what you believe, but you're incorrect.

[Horace]

@xenon said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

@Horace Policies gotta go through congress. Getting anything notable done in congress seems laughable.

And the Trump tax cuts happened how?

[xenon]

@Horace budget reconciliation.

Also I don’t think that changed the longer term trajectory of the country much.

We went into more debt to give a tax cut. Pay now or pay later.

I don’t think Obama got any tax policy done, did he? (Not sure)

I think there’s almost zero chance of the senate flipping this year.

I do take your point though. I hope someone plays to the center soon before the loonies swing back hard on the pendulum.

I don’t think Trump is holding the left at bay, I think he’s riling up their lunatics.

[Jolly]

@xenon said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

@Horace budget reconciliation.

Also I don’t think that changed the longer term trajectory of the country much.

We went into more debt to give a tax cut. Pay now or pay later.

I don’t think Obama got any tax policy done, did he? (Not sure)

I think there’s almost zero chance of the senate flipping this year.

I do take your point though. I hope someone plays to the center soon before the loonies swing back hard on the pendulum.

I don’t think Trump is holding the left at bay, I think he’s riling up their lunatics.

Between business confidence in a business friendly Trump and the tax cuts, the economy did very well.

[Horace]

Money exists and was invented to be a way to quantify everything quantifiable that people care about. To say that politics has no meaningful effect on people’s money is to say politics has no meaningful effect.

I think the main observation behind that side of the discussion is that the wheels of our government are complex and people who win elections don’t have magic wands. While that is true and while there appears to be a leftward bias over time, each election does something to temper the speed of that shift.

[taiwan_girl]

@Jolly said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

By your yardstick, there are no great leaders.

Not at all. My comment was specifically related to the economics. If a plane or train or car is running straight down the highway on a sunlit day, you don't necessarily need to be a great driver to keep the car going at the right speed and in the right direction.

It is when the road is ice cover, there is an accident up ahead, a hurricane is in your path, then great driving skills are required.

Same with great leaders. In times of crisis are when you see who are great leaders. When you look back in history, and you think of great leaders, it is because they rose to some occasion.

Don't get me wrong, I do not think that Vice President Biden has the making of a great leader. Unfortunately, I do not think that President Trump has shown those trates either.

I know that @Horace orace and I have discussed this in circles previously (LOL). Yes, I agree that the president does have an impact on economy but not as much as people think. I am not saying that they have no impact!!!!

For example, in 1950, the US was almost 30% of world GDP. In 2008, it was about 18%. There are a lot of things that happen outside the control of the US that WILL impact the US economy.

For example, let us say that China and India go to war over what is happening in the Himalayas. What do you think will happen to the US economy? Is it President Trumps fault?

Or, lets say there is something like a global pandemic. What would happen to the US economy? Is it President Trumps fault?

[Larry]

The nice thing about analogies is that if you leave out the things that contradict the story line and just focus on bolstering your opinion, you can make then say almost anything.

[Jolly]

@taiwan_girl said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

@Jolly said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

By your yardstick, there are no great leaders.

Not at all. My comment was specifically related to the economics. If a plane or train or car is running straight down the highway on a sunlit day, you don't necessarily need to be a great driver to keep the car going at the right speed and in the right direction.

It is when the road is ice cover, there is an accident up ahead, a hurricane is in your path, then great driving skills are required.

Same with great leaders. In times of crisis are when you see who are great leaders. When you look back in history, and you think of great leaders, it is because they rose to some occasion.

Don't get me wrong, I do not think that Vice President Biden has the making of a great leader. Unfortunately, I do not think that President Trump has shown those trates either.

I know that @Horace orace and I have discussed this in circles previously (LOL). Yes, I agree that the president does have an impact on economy but not as much as people think. I am not saying that they have no impact!!!!

For example, in 1950, the US was almost 30% of world GDP. In 2008, it was about 18%. There are a lot of things that happen outside the control of the US that WILL impact the US economy.

For example, let us say that China and India go to war over what is happening in the Himalayas. What do you think will happen to the US economy? Is it President Trumps fault?

Or, lets say there is something like a global pandemic. What would happen to the US economy? Is it President Trumps fault?

Ok, so now you've admitted the President has an effect on the economy. All that's left is to quibble about how much...

[taiwan_girl]

@Jolly said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

Ok, so now you've admitted the President has an effect on the economy. All that's left is to quibble about how much...

Jolly, I have always said that (but am too lazy to go back to the former forum board to find my quotes form there. 5555). I just don't think that they have as much of an impact as they themselves (or others) like to claim.

If you are willing to say that President Trump had a great effect on the economy, then you have to "own" the fact that President Trump is doing a terrible job right now. Unemployment is worse than in eighty years, the US country is in a recession (almost close to depression), etc. etc.

I dont believe it is his fault and I place no blame with him for the current state.

If a President (Republic or Democrat) is going to accept credit for economic good things that happen on their term, then they have to be willing to stand up and accept the bad things also. As far as I know from an economy standpoint, when someone is elected President, it is not stated that they are only President when things are good.

[Rainman]

@taiwan_girl said in Thought Experiment-Biden as President:

I dont believe it is his fault and I place no blame with him for the current state.

Then what are you arguing for or against, other than nothing matters?
TG, you are delightful, really. You are always considerate of the other side of an argument or position.

[xenon]

If there was somehow a way to get data on all the drivers of the economy (or let's say the top 100) - you could run a regression on that data.

My view is similar to TG's - what you'd see is that the President is a non-zero coefficient, but other things like tech progress, size and health of global markets, earnings of domestic firms, etc., etc. - would dwarf any direct actions from the President.

Now you can see in the long arc of history the government sets the rules of the game (patent law, anti-trust law, regulations, etc., etc.) and the President has influence there - but those sort of changes have an effect on a scale of decades and even centuries.

In times of crises, the President's coefficient get's a lot bigger.

But if you were to make that equation, and look at the coefficient on Presidential actions - it wouldn't be accurate to say things like "Trump's economy" or "Obama's economy"

Maybe their coefficient is greater than any other single person - or maybe the Steve Jobs of the world beat them in some years.

[Horace]

Trump’s tax cuts moved enormous amounts of money around. Amounts that are on the order of a significant coefficient on the whole economy. You are free to argue the vagaries of all the effects that movement of that money had, but you’re not free to seriously claim that it was not important to the economy.

[Jolly]

My view is similar to TG's - what you'd see is that the President is a non-zero coefficient, but other things like tech progress, size and health of global markets, earnings of domestic firms, etc., etc. - would dwarf any direct actions from the President.

You're too much into quantifiable metrics. Economies are made up of businesses. Businesses are made up of people. Predicting people is somewhat akin to herding cats.

I'm not market smart like Jon or Horace, but very, very seldom have I had a negative quarter. I'm much more of a gut investor than they are.

I do believe that perception drives reality and large groups of people sometimes have common perceptions that defy logic. Therefore, I do believe sentiment can drive the market and the economy.