For all the media and lefty expert bluster about how President Donald Trump was supposedly steering the U.S. economy into a recession iceberg, none of it materialized. And one top economist is finally admitting the obvious: The Trump economy is strong, and its obsessive detractors have been dead wrong.
Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Sløk reportedly wrote in a Wednesday note to clients that “‘The consensus has been wrong since January,’” according to Fortune magazine business editor Nick Lichtenberg. While the average economic forecasts have said the U.S. economy would slow down “for nine months running,” wrote Lichtenberg, Sløk conceded that “‘the reality is that it has simply not happened … We in the economics profession need to look ourselves in the mirror.’”
Lichtenberg dubbed Sløk as one “of Wall Street’s most closely watched voices.” Someone should do a wellness check on Paul Krugman.
The final GDP revision for Q2 by the Bureau of Economic Analysis saw economic growth spike 3.8 percent on a sizable uptick in consumer spending and dwarfing expectations in the process. As of October 1, the Atlanta Fed estimates that growth will also hit 3.8 percent in Q3.
Compare the aforementioned data with the nonstop anti-Trump media mudslinging by pundits and talking heads who were adamant that a recession is just on the horizon in recent months and you’ll have further proof why no one should take them seriously.
The Independent railed in a September 5 piece that “There’s no more denying it – Trump risks a recession on his watch.” The Washington Post struck similar tones in a September 6 propaganda item disguised as news: “The U.S. could tumble into recession before seeing Trump’s promised golden age.” Let’s go back further: How about this CNN August 6 headline, “The jobs report that enraged Trump was flashing a recession warning sign?” The New Republic was screeching RED ALERT! August 27: “The Trump Recession Is Coming.”
See a trend here? The "could" isn't news -- it's rooting for recession.
But as Sløk would later admit, “‘The bottom line is that the U.S. economy remains remarkably resilient … It is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that we are still waiting for the delayed negative effects of what happened six months ago.’” Oof, talk about being a buzzkill to all the anti-Trumper elitists in the media and pretentious think tanks just itching for his economic agenda to fail so they can whip out an endless supply of I told you so’s.
CNN, in particular, even tried to make the excellent upward GDP revision for Q2 seem like a bad thing by wielding a common Marxist talking point that the growth was contributing to growing inequality between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” No, we're not kidding.
Even Lichtenberg had to make a few concessions of his own:
Instead, the data tells a different story. Consumer spending has continued to prove resilient, and business investment, far from retreating, has strengthened in sectors tied to artificial intelligence, energy infrastructure, and manufacturing reshoring. Housing, often sensitive to interest rates, has shown surprising stability in key regional markets. Sløk did not dive into these particulars in Wednesday’s edition of his Daily Spark, except to address slowing job growth. ‘This is the result of slowing immigration,’ he wrote, not economic weakness.
These smug partisans who posed as so-called experts who spent years telling Americans that Bidenomics was the best thing ever while subsequently scaremongering that the Trump economy was close to Armageddon can't be taken seriously. The American people should tell them to go pound sand.
