The economy could look pretty good in four years. But it's tough to say for sure. We're due for a market correction and that could come fairly soon. It might be a relatively smooth one if the fed raises interest rates this month. But if the markets continue to rise and we really are in another housing bubble, it's a question of when either --or both-- reach a peak. If the economy tanks in 2017, it could be on the rebound in 2020 and Trump would need only blame the outgoing administration for saddling him with a ticking time bomb and boast that he turned things around.
But some moves and decisions can take time to develop. Trump just announced that a Japanese business agreed to a $50 billion investment and 50,000 jobs in the US. This is likely to mean a merger of Sprint and T-Mobile (which had been blocked by the Obama administration on anti-trust concerns). How soon will that money and those jobs become available? Even if this goes through and things go smoothly, it might still take a few years for the benefits to become obvious. If the economy is weak in the meantime, we could end up with a different president starting 2021 with an economic boost that helps his/her approval ratings while Trump goes down as a failure.
Timing is very important and history shows us that the economy is unpredictable and can make a president seem like a disaster or a legend. Can Trump ride out an inevitable slump, and will his patience be rewarded with a timely recovery?
But some moves and decisions can take time to develop. Trump just announced that a Japanese business agreed to a $50 billion investment and 50,000 jobs in the US. This is likely to mean a merger of Sprint and T-Mobile (which had been blocked by the Obama administration on anti-trust concerns). How soon will that money and those jobs become available? Even if this goes through and things go smoothly, it might still take a few years for the benefits to become obvious. If the economy is weak in the meantime, we could end up with a different president starting 2021 with an economic boost that helps his/her approval ratings while Trump goes down as a failure.
Timing is very important and history shows us that the economy is unpredictable and can make a president seem like a disaster or a legend. Can Trump ride out an inevitable slump, and will his patience be rewarded with a timely recovery?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
