IMF Boosts Growth Forecast for US, Cites Trump Impact

[Calista241]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund is raising its forecast for the U.S. economy this year and in 2018, reflecting an expected boost from the economic policies of President-elect Donald Trump.

The IMF also increased 2017 growth projections for a number of other countries including China, Germany, Japan and Britain, but warned that the global economy faced a number of downside risks including rising protectionist trade pressures.

The 189-nation global lending agency's latest economic outlook, released Monday, took note of the significant impact Trump's election has already had in giving a boost to U.S. stock prices, interest rates and the dollar. The new outlook puts U.S. economic growth at 2.3 percent this year and 2.5 percent in 2018. That would be an improvement from lackluster U.S. growth around 1.6 percent in 2016.

Read more: https://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/01/16/us/politics/ap-us-world-economy-imf.html

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Mother%^^%%er!!

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Inflation is already humming

Historically you do not stimulate a full employment economy

You get what Lyndon Johnson got, and Richard Nixon got: inflation.

This is frighteningly bad news indeed

[hollowdweller]

10. We can deal with some inflation.

I think one problem with the economy now is the GOP has been too afraid of inflation.

Well actually they haven't been afraid, they just used the fear of it to fight any additional spending by Obama on things to help the economy.

I think they will spend and run up debt like drunken sailors now. All the stuff about shutting down the gov't over spending will be in the past.

What WILL happen is same thing happened last time they controlled everything. Major terrorist attack. Trump has already paved the way for that with his fights with intelligence. Some sort of war. Then a run up in the economy followed by either a very severe recession or all out economic collapse.

Here's the problem I think. Most of the money will go to the rich just like it has been doing. So instead of factory workers buying TV's etc, you will run into the same problem we ran into in 08. More and more money at the top chasing after too few actually decent investment opportunities. Wall Street will want that money and devise various new scams to get it. Dodd Frank will be weakened so nobody will stop them or toss up red flags. Then we'll have the same thing as 08.

We've seen it played out over and over every time we had a GOP president.

[Yo_Mama]

15. It's not really a full employment economy!

This is an economy that has been in an industrial recession for over a year:
See graph.

The 25-54 Emp/Pop rate is still low by historical standards:
See graph.

Federal tax receipts are slumping due to the industrial recession:
See graph

Real Gross Domestic Income growth has again fallen below the historical recession line (2.5%):
See graph.

Real Final Sales of Domestic product (rolling 4 quarter change, likewise):
See graph.

Real Gross Private Domestic Investment, likewise into recession:
See graph.

The last is most important, because it is the fundamental economic driver:
See graph.

This is actually a failing economy staggering along on massive interest-rate subsidy. We have a lot of room to grow!

[erpowers]

2. That is Just Stupid

They may turn out to be right, but their reasoning seems to be stupid. So, they are going to claim that the U.S. economy will grow due to Donald Trump's policies even though he has not be sworn in and he has not had any of his policies passed. They are basing their conclusion on the fact that after he was elected the stock market, which had been increasing for years, rose and interests rates increased. The interest rate increase was due to the fact that for the past 7-8 years the U.S. economy has been growing and producing 100,000+ jobs per month.

[Igel]

13. There's a lot of that kind of thinking going on.

It's often biased, and not reasonable because what's going to happen is simply unknowable and people are trying to base predictions on an unknown.

As an example of bias, take a talk show the morning after the election. The stock markets were headed down, and it was most definitely, they said, because of Trump's apparent win. Causality was not implicitly assumed, it was explicitly given as the cause. Doom and gloom, folks. Know your audience.

The same talk show, that same evening, mentioned a stock-market rally and said absolutely nothing could be inferred from that and there'd be no point in doing any more than playing the "we're in the money music". However, bond prices were down and that most definitely was absolutely, positively causally connected with Trump's win. One more time, doom and gloom, folks. And again, know your audience.

So we assume that Trump's going to actually produce a policy that has details, that it'll go to Congress, won't be dramatically changed, and will then pass; moreover, we assume that the spending will be in large enough quantities and occur in a reasonably quick time period to trigger high inflation. Why? Doom and gloom, folks.

There was massive disappointment with many of Obama's policies. They took too long, they weren't spendy enough (or were too spendy), they weren't always realized or they were realized in ways that were judged by many (esp. courts) to be overreach. It'll be the same with Trump's policies. Should he actually be able to make any detailed enough or workable enough to be submitted to Congress.

It's the same with every new Congress. Idjits make all kinds of proposals, and every proposal of one is considered a proposal by the majority. We just notice the idjits when they're the idjits we distrust. Our idjits, well, their heart's in the right place but the ideas'll go nowhere so it doesn't matter. Their idjits, well, they're evil and we know their ideas'll be implemented at once, unchanged.

Reality's seldom that biased.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. This must be PRIOR

To his tax plan being enacted - the one where mortgage interest tax credits are eliminated - right?

[AJT]

4. Getting rid of regulations will

be a boost. Look at China.......look really hard, the pollution can make it tough to see anything. They have uber rich people, a small middle class and vast poverty. Then there's India......what a fabulous place to live. That is what deregulation will get us. We will be the Paul Ryan dream of no safety net, no minimum wage, no social welfare. A country of poor cheap labor and vast wealth at the top. That's the whole point of the last 30 years of demonizing unions, poor people, regulations, and taxes. Being a 3rd world country is only bad for the bottom......it's great at the top.

[Sunlei]

6. yes, why (R)ussia wanted to get rid of pesky 'regulated'TPP, trade with slave labor is profitable++

super profitable.

[Sunlei]

5. consumers will help increase those lovely profits

[Blue Idaho]

7. The IMF is not your friend.

No matter which nation you reside in, the IMF only looks out for the "winners" and let's the other 99.9% starve. It's nothing more than international corporate welfare.

[ck4829]

8. The guys at the top are fine, so the economy must be doing great

[Liberalagogo]

9. It'll be a boom I tells ya

Just like the 1920s.

And we all know what that led to in the 1930s, and then what that led to in the 1940s, and so on and so on.

[roomtomove]

11. The international corporate banker cabal........?

of course they would love Trump.........

[IronLionZion]

12. So that means the opposite will happen

since shitgibbon is already threatening tariffs and trade wars to completely wreck our economy

[Vinca]

14. I'm not an economic genius, but I predict the elimination of regulations and pissing off of our

trading partners will result in a recession that makes 2008 look like the good old days.