Donald Trump presidency discussion thread V

everlast75

Penn wrote: »

Thing is, he'd probably lie and get away with it. There'd likely be no proof Cohen didn't say it to him, and even if they had proof Trump did order Cohen to do it, Hannity could still claim Cohen told him he didn't.

What it would throw up however, is Hannity admitting he talked to Cohen regularly and Cohen already named Hannity as one of his few clients. Which mean Cohen might decide to spill the beans on stuff Hannity may have been up to. Not sure if Hannity would want that.

Cohen said he had approximately 100 recordings, and when pressed he said there were Clients other than Trump.

The only two other Clients Cohen's lawyer stated to the Court were Cohen and Broidy.

Hopefully there are tapes

RIGOLO

Cohen has not only torpedoed the Mueller investigation, he has also blown up some of the anti-Trumper conspiracy theories...

Cohen just testified at the Democrat Senate Oversight Comitte hearing that HE WAS NEVER IN PRAGUE ..

20Cent wrote: »

Cohen's phone records show him being in Prague like the Steel dossier said. More bad news for Trump.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/investigations/article219016820.html

everlast75 wrote:

Interesting development (again).

The Steele dossier was much maligned and discredited by Republicans, with one of the main "facts" that went to its credibility was the allegation that Cohen went to Prague for nefarious purposes. Cohen never went, ergo the dossier was nonsense.

Cohen denied it at the time and tweeted a pic of the front of his passport to "prove" that he never has been to prague.

Two parties claim he was - Cohen issues proceedings.

In the last week or so, it was reported that Mueller has proof that Cohen was in Prague. It was reported with two strong sources as proof.

Lo and behold, Cohen today drops both defamation suits

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...lawsuit-537327

As I said, the "fact" that Cohen was never in Prague was the go-to argument for those that wanted to discredit and ridicule the dossier.

If it is proven that he was in Prague, then surely that is a huge concession and perhaps proves after all that DJT did have that golden shower party..

The Phantom Jipper

RIGOLO wrote: »

So more great news for the Trump administration this week on the economic front.

The Bureuau For Economic Affairs have released the numbers for Economic Growth Q4 and they are pretty stellar.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2019/initial-gross-domestic-product-4th-quarter-and-annual-2018

During 2018 (measured from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018), real GDP increased 3.1 percent, compared with an increase of 2.5 percent during 2017.

This is the first time in 10 years that the US has shown over 3% GDP for a 12 month period

Digging into the details the highlight for me is the NonResidential Fixed Investment growth, thats a key indicator of companies investing in their operations .

Growth matched the prediction of Donald Trump in 2018 budget ...
Growth EXCEEDED the predictions of the markets and liberal left main stream media commentators.

Not bad for a man who people said couldnt plan, 3.1% GDP .

Trump supporters have 3.1 % GDP Growth
Anti-Trump supporters have democrat representatives accusing a succesful black business woman of being a 'prop' .

I'm sceptical of these figures. The deep state dark actors and the blamestream media have been complicit in artificially inflating growth rates and understating unemployment figures for years now. The President has highlighted this previously when claiming the real unemployment rate was close to 42%. In my opinion these figures are still grossly inflated and the economy is likely in recession but the left wing globalists want to hoodwink us into thinking otherwise etc.

goat2

I watched Cohens interview yesterday , it was just mind boggling, what to believe, I do not know, the Hillary emails, the Russian meeting, but Mr Cohen was not believed, unless it could be proven with paper trails, he had cheques that he says were pay back for the hush he paid to storm, but trumps signature was on only one of these cheques,

Quin_Dub

RIGOLO wrote: »

Cohen has not only torpedoed the Mueller investigation, he has also blown up some of the anti-Trumper conspiracy theories...

Cohen just testified at the Democrat Senate Oversight Comitte hearing that HE WAS NEVER IN PRAGUE ..

Nothing Cohen said yesterday "Torpedos" anything , all he has said is that he Michael Cohen, does not have any evidence of "collusion".

That does not mean that the evidence doesn't exist , it just means that he doesn't have it.

Dytalus

RIGOLO wrote: »

Its all facts , easy to see on the link I sent, you dont even have to read it, the
CHART on the top of the page, clearly shows 3% avg for a 12 month period in 2018 .

https://www.bea.gov/news/2019/initial-gross-domestic-product-4th-quarter-and-annual-2018

I think calculating GDP growth for 2018 may be a bit more difficult than simply taking the 4 individual quarters and averaging them out. Otherwise how do you explain this:

2018 GDP

Real GDP increased 2.9 percent in 2018 (from the 2017 annual level to the 2018 annual level), compared with an increase of 2.2 percent in 2017 (table 1).

Source: You should know it, it's the same page you just linked.

Indeed, when you take the recorded GDP of the United States for 2018 and 2017 (sourced from here) and perform some maths to get the growth over 2018 you get the 2.9% figure (when rounded).

(18.571 trillion - 18.050 trillion)/18.050 trillion = ~0.288 = 2.88%


Which is still pretty close to Trump's goal of 3% growth - but is identical to the growth from 2014 to 2015. So there goes the "best in 10 years" bit.

(17.386 trillion-16.899 trillion)/16.899 trillion = ~0.288 = 2.88%

I'll fully admit I'm not an economist, perhaps there's some subtlety I'm missing. But the same page you're pointing at for 3.1% growth actually lists the growth as being 2.9%.

Quin_Dub

goat2 wrote: »

I watched Cohens interview yesterday , it was just mind boggling, what to believe, I do not know, the Hillary emails, the Russian meeting, but Mr Cohen was not believed, unless it could be proven with paper trails, he had cheques that he says were pay back for the hush he paid to storm, but trumps signature was on only one of these cheques,

Absolutely - Anything he says (not unlike anyone tbh) should be taken at face value and only believed if supported by documentation (like the cheque) or corroboration from other sources.

Leroy42

And yesterday we found out that Trump, Ivanka and Kushner have all been lying about the process of Jared getting his security clearances.

If they are prepared to lie about something the POTUS is actually completely legally allowed to do, but would appear somewhat poor from a PR POV, then it stands to reason that they would lie about pretty much anything.

20Cent

RIGOLO wrote: »

Cohen has not only torpedoed the Mueller investigation, he has also blown up some of the anti-Trumper conspiracy theories...

Cohen just testified at the Democrat Senate Oversight Comitte hearing that HE WAS NEVER IN PRAGUE ..

Is he a total liar or telling the truth?

I'd ignore what he says and concentrate on the documents that were siezed.

everlast75

RIGOLO wrote: »

Cohen has not only torpedoed the Mueller investigation, he has also blown up some of the anti-Trumper conspiracy theories...

Cohen just testified at the Democrat Senate Oversight Comitte hearing that HE WAS NEVER IN PRAGUE ..

So, like Trump, are you being selective?

You are saying he should be believed when he said he was never in Prague.

Does that mean everything else he said is true?

RIGOLO

Dytalus wrote: »

I think calculating GDP growth for 2018 may be a bit more difficult than simply taking the 4 individual quarters and averaging them out. Otherwise how do you explain this:



Source: You should know it, it's the same page you just linked.

Indeed, when you take the recorded GDP of the United States for 2018 and 2017 (sourced from here) and perform some maths to get the growth over 2018 you get the 2.9% figure (when rounded).

(18.571 trillion - 18.050 trillion)/18.050 trillion = ~0.288 = 2.88%


Which is still pretty close to Trump's goal of 3% growth - but is identical to the growth from 2014 to 2015. So there goes the "best in 10 years" bit.

(17.386 trillion-16.899 trillion)/16.899 trillion = ~0.288 = 2.88%

I'll fully admit I'm not an economist, perhaps there's some subtlety I'm missing. But the same page you're pointing at for 3.1% growth actually lists the growth as being 2.9%.

I accept your not an economist, otherwise you might have read the WHOLE report.
There no subtlety , its in the FULL REPORT

During 2018 (measured from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018), real GDP increased 3.1 percent

My best in 10 years bit , still stands .:D

RIGOLO This is the first time in 10 years that the US has shown over 3% GDP for a 12 month period

Feel free to come back to me and tell the other '12 month period in the last 10 years where GDP was over 3% .
I can wait.

mcmoustache

RIGOLO wrote: »

I dont think you read what I said .

Reading your posts can be tricky to be fair and I'm not sure that much good comes from it. I concede that I missed the arbitrary annual average.

Since you like moving goalposts, how's Trump's deficit doing?

RIGOLO

mcmoustache wrote: »

Reading your posts can be tricky to be fair and I'm not sure that much good comes from it. I concede that I missed the arbitrary annual average.

Since you like moving goalposts, how's Trump's deficit doing?

mcmoustache wrote: »

...the rest of your North Korean propaganda-style cheerleading is about as accurate as a North Korean news bulletin. ...

Not that I needed your confirmation my numbers were correct , but before you go accusing someone of NK style Propaganda you should make sure of your own ..

TRUST AND VERIFY .. an old Russian saying I like .

Stallingrad

mcmoustache wrote: »

Since you like moving goalposts, how's Trump's deficit doing?

Don't expect an answer to that any time soon, or the countless other questions avoided in favour of his press releases.

Dytalus

RIGOLO wrote: »

I accept your not an economist, otherwise you might have read the WHOLE report.
There no subtlety , its in the FULL REPORT



My best in 10 years bit , still stands .:D



Feel free to come back to me and tell the other '12 month period in the last 10 years where GDP was over 3% .
I can wait.

Not going to lie, I did miss that bit. I saw the heading "real GDP", saw the growth figure given and assumed that it was, in fact, 2018's figure. I'm not going to say I was wrong because now I'm just wondering why they have two different figures for the same thing. How is GDP growth for 2018 2.9%, while growth between Q4 2017 and Q4 2018 (fundamentally....2018) 3.1%? Is it including some of Q4 2017 in that - except that won't work because Q4 2017 is below 3% so it would only drag the average down. It also can't be the 12 month period from start of Q4 2017 to the start of Q4 2018 (thereby leaving out Q4 2018), because 2017's fourth quarter had lower growth than 2018's...which would again, only drag down the overall value.

In fact, in their actual report documents (rather than the news release) on historical comparisons and release highlights they also list the 2.9% figure.

I know it's off-topic, but I'd love if someone could explain the discrepancy - what's taken into account that's different between the two figures that gives one "12 month period" as being different to another "12 month period" when both look to be functionally the same thing.

In the meantime, I won't outright say which of us has a point...because I feel like there's something here that we're both missing.

Never mind, I get what you mean now. You do mean the average of the 4 quarters - which is a ridiculous way to gauge growth over 12 months instead of just getting the actual figure of growth for those 12 months. On that (misleading) technicality, you are correct.

aloyisious

In other W/house staffing matters, Mike Pence's new COS is Marc Short, returning to the W/House where he had been director of legislative affairs under Don Trump It seems, from his previous public utterances, that he is of conservative mind when it comes to other US citizens sexual proclivities so I cant help but wonder what he does when Don is in the same room.

FatherTed

Dytalus wrote: »

Not going to lie, I did miss that bit. I saw the heading "real GDP", saw the growth figure given and assumed that it was, in fact, 2018's figure. I'm not going to say I was wrong because now I'm just wondering why they have two different figures for the same thing. How is GDP growth for 2018 2.9%, while growth between Q4 2017 and Q4 2018 (fundamentally....2018) 3.1%? Is it including some of Q4 2017 in that - except that won't work because Q4 2017 is below 3% so it would only drag the average down. It also can't be the 12 month period from start of Q4 2017 to the start of Q4 2018 (thereby leaving out Q4 2018), because 2017's fourth quarter had lower growth than 2018's...which would again, only drag down the overall value.

In fact, in their actual report documents (rather than the news release) on historical comparisons and release highlights they also list the 2.9% figure.

I know it's off-topic, but I'd love if someone could explain the discrepancy - what's taken into account that's different between the two figures that gives one "12 month period" as being different to another "12 month period" when both look to be functionally the same thing.

In the meantime, I won't outright say which of us has a point...because I feel like there's something here that we're both missing.

Never mind, I get what you mean now. You do mean the average of the 4 quarters - which is a ridiculous way to gauge growth over 12 months instead of just getting the actual figure of growth for those 12 months. On that (misleading) technicality, you are correct.

It's really twisting of the figures. I don't think any sensible economist would look at 2018 and calculate the GDP on a per quarter basis and average them out. They would look at 2018 as a whole.

I can also saw that from Q2(4.2%) to Q4(2.6), the US GDP dropped whopping 38%.

Brian?

RIGOLO wrote: »

So more great news for the Trump administration this week on the economic front.

The Bureuau For Economic Affairs have released the numbers for Economic Growth Q4 and they are pretty stellar.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2019/initial-gross-domestic-product-4th-quarter-and-annual-2018



This is the first time in 10 years that the US has shown over 3% GDP for a 12 month period

Digging into the details the highlight for me is the NonResidential Fixed Investment growth, thats a key indicator of companies investing in their operations .

Growth matched the prediction of Donald Trump in 2018 budget ...
Growth EXCEEDED the predictions of the markets and liberal left main stream media commentators.

Not bad for a man who people said couldnt plan, 3.1% GDP .

Trump supporters have 3.1 % GDP Growth
Anti-Trump supporters have democrat representatives accusing a succesful black business woman of being a 'prop' .

The Obama recovery delivers again. He really does deserve an awful lot more credit than he gets for handing over such a buoyant economy.

TomOnBoard

everlast75 wrote: »

Cohen said he had approximately 100 recordings, and when pressed he said there were Clients other than Trump.

The only two other Clients Cohen's lawyer stated to the Court were Cohen and Broidy.

Hopefully there are tapes

i assume you meant Hannity and Broidy.

And most speculation at the time was that Broidy was being a front for Trump.

everlast75

TomOnBoard wrote: »

i assume you meant Hannity and Broidy.

And most speculation at the time was that Broidy was being a front for Trump.

yes, sorry.

Penn

TomOnBoard wrote: »

i assume you meant Hannity and Broidy.

And most speculation at the time was that Broidy was being a front for Trump.

Well one bit of speculation was that Broidy was covering for getting one of Trump's mistresses an abortion, but Cohen testified that to his knowledge Trump had never paid or organised for a woman to have a medical procedure of that type (can't remember exactly how the question was phrased). If that rumour had been true, Cohen would have committed perjury with the answer he gave, I believe.

It's part of what lends credence to Cohen's testimony. He defended Trump on several points.

listermint

I think this rather accurately displays the current state of American Politics.
And there are those that will stonecold defend the Republican position.

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1101197006435827712



I think they should rename the party to something else. Perhaps 1% ? or something

Leroy42

Penn wrote: »

It's part of what lends credence to Cohen's testimony. He defended Trump on several points.

And that really is the sticky bit about it all. Even Trump has tweeted that Cohen told the truth in relation to Russia (I think he said 95% of it was lies instead of the expected 100%) but then which bits can supporters trust and which not?

Of course any reasonable and non biased person would take everything that Cohen said with a massive pinch of salt and await for evidence to back up a claim. Which is on the whole what has happened here.

The major problem for Trump is that this is a man that Trump trusted with almost everything for 10 years. He isn't a coffee boy, or only on the team for a few months. This is a very trusted employee. So either Trump is a terrible judge of character or he has some very serious questions to answer. The story that he lied about gettin Jared security clearance is yet another example of Trump lying. But Cohen made the point that all the evidence is available in the Trump Org, so it would be very easy for Trump to blow Cohen out of the water by releasing his tax returns on other related documents.

I think it was Rigolo that came on during that day asking why everything was so quiet on the forum and that that proved Cohen was a damp squib. When, certainly for me, it was that I took nothing he said as right or wrong, simply that he had said it and that it now made sense for people to investigate it.

RIGOLO

Brian? wrote: »

The Obama recovery delivers again. He really does deserve an awful lot more credit than he gets for handing over such a buoyant economy.

I did a search of Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , ( these paywalls cost me a fortune, but I digress)
And I couldnt find a single mention of OBAMA 's name in relation to the record breaking GDP numbers just announced by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.
I found quite a lot of mentions of Donald J Trump and the Trump Administration , but not one mention of Obama.

Perhaps you have an insight that the contributors to Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , dont have that will explain to us all how a man who left office nearly 800 days ago had an influence on a stellar 12 month GDP streak , non residential fixed investment growth, personal savings rate growth, disposable personal income growth...

TomOnBoard

RIGOLO wrote: »

I did a search of Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , ( these paywalls cost me a fortune, but I digress)
And I couldnt find a single mention of OBAMA 's name in relation to the record breaking GDP numbers just announced by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.
I found quite a lot of mentions of Donald J Trump and the Trump Administration , but not one mention of Obama.

Perhaps you have an insight that the contributors to Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , dont have that will explain to us all how a man who left office nearly 800 days ago had an influence on a stellar 12 month GDP streak , non residential fixed investment growth, personal savings rate growth, disposable personal income growth...

If you don't understand the basic economics underpinning economic cycles, then I reckon those paywall costs you're incurring could be better spent..

jobbridge4life

RIGOLO wrote: »

I did a search of Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , ( these paywalls cost me a fortune, but I digress)

Donald Trump is building upon a stable foundation provided by Obama, something that Obama was not provided with upon entering the presidencuy because of policies very similar to those being pursued by Trump now.

BTW given the staggering increases in debt being accumulated by the US Treasuery growth is almost a given. We will see the durability in times ahead.

Brian?

RIGOLO wrote: »

I did a search of Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , ( these paywalls cost me a fortune, but I digress)
And I couldnt find a single mention of OBAMA 's name in relation to the record breaking GDP numbers just announced by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.
I found quite a lot of mentions of Donald J Trump and the Trump Administration , but not one mention of Obama.

Perhaps you have an insight that the contributors to Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , dont have that will explain to us all how a man who left office nearly 800 days ago had an influence on a stellar 12 month GDP streak , non residential fixed investment growth, personal savings rate growth, disposable personal income growth...

Is this a joke or are you being willfully ignorant? Obama was elected when the US economy was on it's knees and turned it around. The performance of the economy from 2009-2017 was pretty great, wouldn't you agree?

Trump took over a buoyant economy. He deserves credit for not crashing it so far. That's all he really deserves credit for, he's ridden the coat tails of the economic recovery that got Obama elected for a 2nd term and continued all the way through his 2nd term and into Trump's first.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/18/trump-economy-versus-obama-economy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6d6e19b514e6

Jobs

Trump regularly (and incorrectly) brags he’s added 4 million jobs since taking office. Regular readers may remember we gave the president Two Pinocchios for claiming that he created 1 million jobs about six months into his term.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added 2,188,000 jobs in 2017 — Trump’s first year in office. So far, it has added 1,306,000 jobs in 2018. But the economy added more jobs in every year of Obama’s second term than it did in Trump’s first year. This holds true when examining the average number of jobs added per month. (We are counting average monthly jobs created from February to January because the January data is collected the week of Jan. 12, before a president takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.)

GDP growth

Over the course of Obama’s first year in office, GDP dropped 2.5 percent. In 2010, GDP growth recovered, surging 2.5 percent. Growth was already positive when Trump took office, jumping from 1.6 percent in 2016 to 2.2 percent in 2017. Trump might point us to quarterly GDP growth. The economy is estimated to have gained 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2018, but that still pales in comparison with the 5.1 percent and 4.9 percent growth in the second and third quarters of 2014 under Obama.

Still, Trump has beaten the expectations set by the Obama administration, which at the start of 2017 predicted growth of 2.4 percent in 2017 (fourth quarter to fourth quarter) and 2.3 percent in 2018. The big difference is Trump’s tax cuts and the huge spending bill he signed, which economists estimate added almost 1 percent in short-term GDP growth. Most forecasters did not raise long-run growth projection after passage of the tax cut; falling unemployment rates make it even more difficult to sustain economic growth at the current level.

Itssoeasy

I see Otto Warmbier's parents released a statement saying the exact opposite of what Trump said in Hanoi during the week. From reading what Trump said were his reasons for walking away, I can't see any American not agreeing with his position. He nearly left Hanoi with a non ballsing it up summit but he once again decided to believe someone word when this person doesn't deserve to be believed. It's baffling really.

Midlife

RIGOLO wrote: »

I did a search of Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , ( these paywalls cost me a fortune, but I digress)
And I couldnt find a single mention of OBAMA 's name in relation to the record breaking GDP numbers just announced by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.
I found quite a lot of mentions of Donald J Trump and the Trump Administration , but not one mention of Obama.

Perhaps you have an insight that the contributors to Reuters, Bloomberg, YAHOO FINANCE, money.cnn, Buisness Insider, THe Economist, The Guardian, The FT , dont have that will explain to us all how a man who left office nearly 800 days ago had an influence on a stellar 12 month GDP streak , non residential fixed investment growth, personal savings rate growth, disposable personal income growth...

Rigolo. We nearly had a good conversation last week and I admire you in a way for sticking to your guns.

I'm just wondering if you have an opinion of defecit or national debt when you're talking economics. Do they matter at all.

When it comes to economics are you on the conservative or libetarian end of the right? (obviously I'm assuming you're on the right here)

RIGOLO

Brian? wrote: »

Is this a joke or are you being willfully ignorant? Obama was elected when the US economy was on it's knees and turned it around. The performance of the economy from 2009-2017 was pretty great, wouldn't you agree?

Trump took over a buoyant economy. He deserves credit for not crashing it so far. That's all he really deserves credit for, he's ridden the coat tails of the economic recovery that got Obama elected for a 2nd term and continued all the way through his 2nd term and into Trump's first.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/18/trump-economy-versus-obama-economy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6d6e19b514e6

Only an anti-Trumper economist could think averaging less than 2% real GDP growth whilst adding $9 Trillion to the national debt was an achievement.

Edit ( and as any decent economist would know , Obamas limp 2% GDP rates were on a 15 trillion dollar economy,
Trump is hitting 4% on a 20 trillion dollar economy. )