How's your 401k?

OK, I am being sarcastic. But I recall during the Trump years that many of his defenders would fall back on that phrase in response to ciricism of Trump for racist dog whistles, lying, hyperbole, or stuff like extorting a foreign government to help himself get reelected. And Trump himself rather consistentantly (until Spring 2020 for some reason) kept bragging aboout "new highs" for the Stock market on Twitter.

So I made a couple of blog posts like this one basically arguing that the economy under Trump was nothing special. And of course, I disclaimed that President's are way over credited good or bad on what the economy does.

Fast forward to today. So, this week, we recieved the horrible news that under Biden, "only" 199K jobs were created December and the unemployment rate is 3.9%. Nevermind that in 2018, the GOP was bragging about nearly identical numbers. So, I thought, I should update my graphs. So here they are:

1. S&P500
2. The unemployment rate
3. Jobs creattion
4. GDP growth.



Stock Market Note that Trump said that the stock market would crash if Biden got elected.

Unemployment

Job Creation Remember, this is supposedly a disaster.

This is hard to see because of large values when the pandemic hit, so I made a rescaled version.

And finally,

GDP Growth (Q4 21 not reported yet).

My conclusion? If the Trump economy was "great", so was the Obama economy and so is Biden's. Alternatively, if the Biden economy is terrible, same for Trump's. I must of course repeat my disclaimer, crediting or blaming Presidents for economic numbers is really not justified by either theory or emprical evidence. But at least if people are going to spin it, they should do so consistently.

American Christianity

This is not an exhaustively long essay. It's just a few thoughts that have been percolating in me for a bit. I mentioned this to Sonja and I said that of course, I don't really get to have an opinion because I am not a Christian. She correctly pointed out that this would be like saying that ex-Muslims can't comment on Islam. Yes they can. In fact, non-Muslims can comment on Islam. And non-Christians can comment on Christianity. And in any event, I am an ex-Christian.

I was raised Catholic. I went to a Catholic College and took 3 (yes 3) semester long and required theology courses. But I am also someone who grew up in America and has been surrounded by various kinds of Christians his entire life. Evangelicals, Lutherans, Mormons. Etc. I know a bit, even if I am not a believer.

Why the disclaimer? This is why. I think the current version of Christianity widely held by White Evangelicals in America is at the very best, bad theology. But more accurately, it's a horrible perversion of the message of Jesus (to anyone who actually takes it seriously). It is also idolatry.

Here is my thesis (which should be obvious): To anyone who actually takes the religion seriously, Christianity has NOTHING to with America - much less the Republican party. Christianity doesn't care about your Red, White and Blue flag (Nor does it care about your Conferdate flag for that matter). It doesn't care about your support for Donald Trump, the Democrats, saying "Merry Christmas", or any of that. If you think that these are defining issues for Christians, you seriously do not understand the religion. You just don't. Instead, you subscribe to a bullshit theology perpetuated by mostly White Protestants that has great currency in American history; but is otherwise, provincial, self-serving, and about as far removed from the message of the Gospels as one could imagine. I mean you my Christian friends. If you mix up religion and your love of the GOP, guns, and flag-waving, I am directing this at you: You don't understand your own religion. You have perverted it.

End of rant.

Afternote: Of course, "Christians are as Christians do". I get that. If American Christianity is a perversion of the "origninal message", so are most religions. But who am I to say definitively what the "original message" is? So, I could adopt the understanding that American Christianity is in fact, "Christianity" (or some version of it). It's whatever American Christians make it out to be. Fine. In that case, I simply reject the religion as being morally repugnant. Enough said.

Seems like the right time to update this

I made a post nearly a year ago basically arguing that nothing really new has been happening economically since Trump took office. Suffice to say that since many seem to falling into the trap of "good economy = good POTUS" (oh, never mind the daily lying, the racist dog-whistles, the contempt for rule of law, etc), I thought this update would be helpful for non-members of Cult45 but who are nevertheless confused about how awesome Trump must be because of the "economy".   Ask yourselves, "Did I feel the same way about Obama?"


But, with refreshed numbers, here are the graphs of

1) S&P500
2) Unemployment
3) Job Creation
4) GDP growth

 So, without further ado.


S&P500







Unemployment





Job Creation








GDP Growth