The headline in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Dow Hurtles Past 25,000 to Record.” The Journal also pointed out that “the S&P 500 also extended its gains to make its current long-running rally its greatest period of growth since WWII.” The Dow had been muddling along at around 18,000 until the election of Donald Trump, and since then the path has been steadily upward. You don’t hear those on the left talking much about the stock market and its spectacular recent performance, because they know that these market gains over the last year are because of Mr. Trump and his policies. Certainly a stock market correction is coming, and I suspect that the talking heads will then somehow blame the inevitable correction on President Trump.
In 1992 James Carville, a campaign manager for Bill Clinton during Clinton’s successful presidential campaign, said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” If it is truly the economy, then I am having a hard time believing the most recent poll numbers which supposedly demonstrate a continued low approval rating for President Trump.
(Yes, these are the same pollsters who predicted Hillary to win.)
Other than the Dow surging to record highs, there are multiple other favorable economic stats and job stats that are also due to Mr. Trump’s policies.
The GDP has increased >3%, and unemployment is down to 4.1% – coupled with the creation of 2.1million new jobs in 2017. I wonder if those 2.1 million with new jobs were included in these polls.
He has prioritized woman-owned business for $500 million in SBA loans. Were these business women who received these loans and their employees included in these polls?
He has issued an executive order to boost apprenticeships and has moved to bolster computer sciences in the Education Department. Were the beneficiaries of these policies included in these polls?
It will be interesting to see what happens to these polling numbers when the middle class realizes the benefits of the recently passed tax reform. With more money in the pockets of millions, I predict that the polls will show increasing favorability of Mr. Trump. If the pollsters are then somewhat bewildered, we can clear things up for them, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Happy New Year; It’s Only a Matter of Time
For those of us in California January 1 is always a mixed blessing as each January 1 we have to begin to live with the new dumb laws that our brilliant Democratic legislature passed and our even more brilliant governor signed into law. This year is no different. I could take a deep breath and live with the chaos that they have created if I thought that it would be the end. However, it is only a matter of time before our non-thinking legislature passes a slurry of new “OMG, how bad can they get ‘laws’.” I am going to surmise that it won’t take long into 2018 for them to surpass their prior record of incompetence they they achieved in 2017.
Anyway here is a short summary of some of the damage that the new laws will cause:
SB 54 states that the entire state will now ignore U.S. immigration law as it forbids law enforcement from cooperating with customs officials concerning individuals that have already been convicted of a crime, or have been arrested because they have just possibly committed a crime. The legislators somehow think that allowing bad guys back into the community is a good idea. This despite the fact that over 70% of Californians and over 60% of Hispanics in California think that this is a bad idea. These californians do not want these convicted criminals or potentially dangerous, just arrested, criminals back in their neighborhoods. Keep in mind that these individuals have come into the purview of local law enforcement because they are suspected of some criminal behavior, or have just finished serving time because of their criminal behavior. It is only a matter of time before local authorities release an individual without contacting ICE, and that individual commits a heinous crime in California.
AB 291 prohibits landlords from reporting renters who are in the country illegally. Here it is also only a matter of time before a landlord gets arrested because he went to authorities because the tenant was not paying his rent, and the tenant says that the landlord reported him only because he was illegal or the landlord had a friend report him as being illegal. This will usher in only more chaos as the legislature interferes in the lives of private citizens.
AB 168 prohibits employers from asking job applicants certain questions during a job interview. It’s only a matter of time before a “he said, she said” situation occurs, when a job applicant does not get the job for which he was being interviewed. Keep in mind that here again the legislature is interfering in the lives of private citizens.
SB 3 is the new minimum wage standards in the state. Beginning on January 1 the minimum wage will go from $10.50 to $11.00 per hour, and this will increase each year until it becomes $15.00 per hour in 2022. Businesses exist in order to make a profit, and so it is only a matter of time before one of the following occurs because employers will have only four choices as the minimum wage goes up.
1. Lay off employees because they are not worth the new minimum wage. Businesses cannot survive if they have to pay an individual $11.00 per hour and that individual only produces $10.50 worth of work each hour.
2. Pay the individual employees the new wage and pass this cost onto the customers. This is already happening and I have already stopped frequenting some businesses because their prices are too high. It is only a matter of time before others stop being customers of these same businesses, and the result will either be current employee layoffs or the putting up of the “Going out of business” sign.
3. Move out of California and relocate to states with a lower minimum wage. This is already happened in NorCal with companies moving across the border to Nevada, and it is only a matter of time before more companies are driven to relocate to more business friendly states.
4. Companies will increase automation and low skilled employees will lose their jobs. This is already started to happen with automated grocery checkout (Albertson’s), and automated ordering at fast food restaurants (McDonald’s). It is only a matter of time before this automation expands into other low skill type jobs such as robots making pizza in Mountain View, Ca. CaliBurger has recently said that it plans to use a robot to man the grill at 50 of its restaurants. Bye-bye more low skilled jobs!
And finally, in the “you can’t make this stuff up” category, starting in 2019 the gender choices on all official state IDs will include male, female, and “non-binary!” It is only a matter of time before some male pervert demands to use the woman’s restroom, because he is “non-binary,” and some female gets molested.
I wish they I could say that it’s only a matter of time before these non-thinking, no concept of real life consequences, Democratic politicians are voted out of office, but I doubt that I will live that long!