While The Left Wants To Slow Down The Economy, The Economy Has Other Ideas

I’ve mentioned in the past that the economy is not helped by the fact that the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates a number of times since Trump’s presidency started (and they only raised them once during Obama’s tenure), and that they plan to raise them again, even though they don’t really know if the economy will do well enough in the future to warrant it (and I argue it hardly ever warrants it).
 
But regardless of how the Left might want to manipulate the economy, largely pointing towards the stock market as some sort of sign of an impending economic Armageddon, they can’t actually do as much damage to the economy as they would want.
 
Yeah, the stock market overall went down in the year 2018, but that’s not the biggest indication as to what the economy is looking like. Things like consumer confidence and unemployment rates and claims tend to be the more important factors.
 
And in that department, at least in the ones regarding jobs, the economy seems to be doing fairly well, all things considered.
 
Actually, that might well be an understatement.
 
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the jobs numbers for December 2018, and boy do they look good.
 
According to CNBC: “Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting job growth of just 176,000, though they projected the unemployment rate to fall to 3.6 percent.”
 
In reality, the BLS reported that we saw a job growth of 312,000, far surpassing expectations. And while the unemployment rate climbed back up to 3.9%, it’s for good reason, which even CNBC admits.
 
“The jobless rate, which was last higher in June, rose for the right reason as 419,000 new workers entered the workforce and the labor participation rate increased to 63.1 percent.”
 
In other words, the reason for the increase in unemployment was not because a significant amount of people lost their jobs, but because so many new people entered the workforce in December, that the number rose significantly. It’s a more natural reason for the unemployment to rise.
 
Job growth wasn’t the only thing to see some gains, with wages jumping 3.2% from a year ago and 0.4% from the previous month. Payrolls growth also totaled “2.6 million in 2018, the highest since 2015 and well above the 2.2 million in 2017,” according to CNBC.
 
The healthcare industry saw the biggest rise in jobs, with 50,000+ jobs added in December, followed by food and beverage services with 41,000+, construction (38,000+), manufacturing (32,000+) and retail (24,000+).
 
The unemployment rate, as I said before, rose back up to 3.9%, with adult males currently standing at 3.6%, blacks standing at 6.6%, adult women standing at 3.5%, teenagers standing at 12.5% (which makes sense because of the increase in work force), whites standing at 3.4%, Asians at 3.3% and Hispanics at 4.4%.
 
Actually, that number for Hispanics ties a record-low in the BLS system, which was previously set in October of 2018. So Hispanic unemployment sits at the lowest it ever has once again.
 
Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics said: “the far bigger than expected 312,000 jump in non-farm payrolls in December would seem to make a mockery of market fears of an impending recession.” He also says that the BLS report “suggests the US economy still has considerable forward momentum.”
 
Which really leads me to my overall point for this article. While sharing these fantastic and unexpected news regarding the jobs market is of utmost importance, I want to bring with it the main point that the Left can try as much as they want to create a recession, but if the economy is doing well, their efforts will be for naught.
 
Like I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t help whenever the Fed raises interest rates. It causes the economy to slow down a little and the stock markets to freak out. Some of the biggest single-day drops we’ve had were because of the Fed announcing interest rate hikes, including the latest one.
 
Ironically, I could consider this as a good thing for the economy as well. Now, I’m no economist, so I could well be wrong about what I’m about to say. But if the economy is doing well, with more people getting jobs and wages rising, that means more people have more money in their pockets. If the stock market goes down, or goes into a full-on crash, wouldn’t that seem like a fairly good opportunity for people to get into it, when stocks are cheaper than they normally would be, and thus make more money, which in turn would also help the economy grow even more and the stock market to climb back up?
 
I feel like that’d be the logical thing to occur, though that may not necessarily be what happens. People can be very panicky about the stock market. The media pointing towards the Dow Jones as a sign that Trump’s economic policies don’t work ought to provide proof of that previous statement. They think the Dow Jones is the end-all, be-all of how good the economy is, when that’s not necessarily the case.
 
During Obama’s years, the stock market tended to go up. But the economy was in free-fall and not getting any better. The stock market was going up, but not for the right reasons.
 
Lately, the stock markets are fairly volatile, going up a lot and going down a lot, not because of poor economic policies, but due to a number of things, including people being panicky about the stock market.
 
It’s often a self-fulfilling prophecy whenever the media says that “experts” expect a recession and the markets go down because people are so panicky. Currently, as Paul Ashworth mentioned, people think there is an impending recession, and they point towards the stock market as an indication of that coming recession.
 
In reality, while the stock market may be flaring, jobs are being created, wages are rising, and the economy is growing.
 
That’s the exact opposite of what the Left wants to see. For as much as the Left wants to see the economy crash and people suffer, there’s only so much they can do. There’s only so much the Fed can do. There’s only so much George Soros can do. There’s only so much a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives can do.
 
If we have solid and healthy economic policies in place, such as the ones Trump is implementing, then that will have a far greater impact on the economy than the apocalyptic alarms the Left wants to sound off.
 
And while I do expect the Left to create some damage in some instances because it’s simply in their nature to ruin things for everyone else, it is not up to them to decide what happens to the economy unless they have both chambers of Congress and the White House.
 
And the One who decides whether or not they get those things is the Almighty Himself. And even if He does put them back into those places of power, He still reigns supreme over them and knows precisely what is to come and what will occur to everyone in the end.
 
So the Left can manipulate the stock markets as much as they want with whatever narrative they want to drive and can have the Fed raising interest rates as often as they want, but it is God who decides whether or not they even are allowed to do anything one way or the other.
 
But for now, let us be thankful to the Lord that our economy is growing, more and more people are working, and they are getting some neat wage raises as well.
 
Psalm 106:1-2
“Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever! Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all His praise?”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.