Free Republic

In his bitter, five-year battle with the media, I’m not sure President Trump has ever leveled a more serious charge than he is making right now. He’s turned “fake news” into an indelible slogan. He has called such news “the enemy of the people.” He has suggested that some journalists are traitors. And look, all kinds of media people have said all kinds of terrible things about the president, so there is deep hostility on both sides. But I was still taken aback, in the midst of this virus crisis, when Trump tweeted this the other day:

All eyes are on Congress closing in on a much-needed stimulus bill to rescue the economy from the coronavirus damage. The stock market staged a huge turnaround with the Dow posting its best day since 1933. Here’s what happened: 4:40 pm: Investors says one key piece is missing for a bottom Many on Wall Street believe absent a clear sign that the coronavirus is contained, rallies like the 10% violent upswing in the Dow Tuesday will come and go. “We’re going to need to have to see the infections pass an inflection point,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at BNY...

Key Points Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that the Trump administration wants to get emergency funds in Americans’ pockets “immediately” amid the coronavirus crisis. The latest daily briefing came as stocks struggled to recover from one of the worst trading sessions ever. Markets have shed trillions of dollars amid the coronavirus spread, which has crippled major industries and forced governments around the world to take drastic steps to try to slow the spread of the disease. ==================================================================== Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that the Trump administration wants to get emergency funds in Americans’ pockets “immediately” amid the coronavirus...

utures contracts tied to the major U.S. stock indexes fell on Wednesday night after an address from President Donald Trump failed to quell concerns over the possible economic slowdown from the coronavirus. The move comes after the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended its historic 11-year bull market run by closing in a bear market. Dow futures were down 900 points, indicating a loss of about 860 points at Thursday’s open. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were also sharply lower.

U.S. stocks fell sharply once again on Thursday after an address from President Donald Trump failed to quell concerns over the possible economic slowdown from the coronavirus.The S&P 500 dropped 7% shortly after the open, triggering a 15-minute “circuit breaker,” which temporarily halts trading at the New York Stock Exchange. The broad index also joined the  Dow Jones Industrial Average in bear market territory. The 30-stock Dow slid more than 1,600 points, or 7.%. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 7%.  Before the open, futures contracts tied to the major indexes fell to their so-called limit down thresholds, sliding 5%. These limit down levels act as a as...

Some financial writers have claimed that stock market crashes such as followed the 2007 Bubble are unpredictable and rare, calling them “Black Swan” events. More recently, the Covid-19 health threat has been described as a “Black Swan” event. Making the two together about as “Black Swanny” as it gets. However, a review of history suggests that severe financial crashes have always followed great financial bubbles. The transitions to busts have had much in common and the methodical pattern strongly suggests that even the greatest of crashes since the first in 1720 have predictable characteristics. Therefore, severe financial panics cannot be...

Looks like another blood bath today.  The Coronavirus hysteria in the media is drving the market down. https://www.cnbc.com/pre-markets/   

President Donald Trump proposed eliminating federal payroll taxes altogether for the rest of the year, according to a report from CNBC Tuesday. The proposal would include eliminating both the employer and employee payroll taxes on Social Security and Medicare, according to the report. “There was also discussion of making the payroll tax rollback permanent,” CNBC reported.

Video at link Cramer's not the biggest Trump fan. Apparently doesn't like the current health system. But he does offer advice that is probably correct in this scenario.

Stocks tumbled on Monday as investors braced for the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus, while a shocking all-out oil price war added to the anxiety. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked more than 1,800 points at the open, while the S&P 500 dropped 7%. The massive sell-off triggered a key market circuit breaker in morning trading. Trading was halted for 15 minutes until 9:49 a.m. ET.

Stocks fell sharply in volatile trading on Tuesday as an emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve failed to assuage concerns of slower economic growth due to the coronavirus outbreak. The decision to cut rates by half a percentage point came two weeks before the Fed’s scheduled meeting as the central bank felt it was necessary to act quickly to combat the effect of the virus spreading worldwide. It’s the first such emergency action coming in between scheduled meetings since the financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 785.91 points lower, or nearly 3%, to 25,917.41; it rose more...

Strategists at Goldman Sachs just reminded investors why they are dumping stocks hand over fist right now. The coronavirus may wipe out corporate growth in 2020, perhaps completely. Goldman Sachs said Thursday in a note U.S. companies will generate no earnings growth in 2020. Underlying the call is Goldman’s view that the coronavirus is expected to spread around the globe and severely harm economic activity. For 2020, Goldman slashed its S&P 500 earnings estimate by $9 and expects no earnings growth. Looking out into 2021, Goldman now sees $8 less in S&P 500 earnings and a modest 6% growth rate....

It's hard to tell if the superheated response by the Left (the media) to the coronavirus outbreak from China is due to there being a slow news cycle (which is hard to believe), a legitimate news story with U.S. ramifications, or as something to tattoo Donald Trump with a 'Hurricane Katrina' moment. As the media have amply shown, their zeal to tag President Trump with the most cockamamie accusations knows no bounds. Remember, some of these people still cling to the fiction that Trump is a Russian agent. They won't take "no" and multiple exhaustive investigations for an answer. As...

The mainstream media will never admit it, but Donald Trump is responsible for the most remarkable economic boom that Black America has ever seen.  For the past three years, this president has worked to ensure that America’s strong and growing economy works for all Americans, not just corporations and wealthy investors — and his efforts are already paying major dividends in our community.  I’ve said this before and I will say it again — the best social program in the world is a good-paying job, not a welfare handout. Thanks to President Trump’s policies — including massive tax cuts...

A majority of Americans in a new poll say they are better off now than they were three years ago. Just over six in ten Americans, 61 percent, told Gallup pollsters that they are decidedly in better shape than they were shortly after President Trump took office in 2017, a sign of a recovering U.S. economy. A little more than a third, 36 percent, said they are definitely not better off than they were in early 2017, while just 3 percent said their prospects remain the same. In early 2012, months before former President Obama won reelection over now-Sen. Mitt...

PHILADELPHIA — On a brisk January morning Markus Mitchell arrives at his desk at 8:30, his phone ringing before he can even log in to his computer. An employee at the giant nonprofit where Mr. Mitchell works is locked out of the organization’s network and needs the 24-year-old’s help. Mr. Mitchell became a full-fledged employee at JEVS Human Services in Philadelphia in October, after a year as an apprentice. Just three years ago, he was making $13,000 working in the kitchen at a Chick-fil-A, feeling unsure about his future. Landing the $38,000-a-year position was the latest step in a rapid...

The year 2020 could emerge as the start of the era of relative global chaos or major upheaval. It is the era we have been anticipating, as the impact of core population decline meets economic dislocation, and security and structural uncertainty. Changes in the fundamental sociological framework of global society, due to the end of the population growth cycle - and with it the end of the economic growth cycle based on expanding market size - were beginning to become evident by the beginning of 2020. It was apparent that 2020 was likely to see a major evolution in this...

[T]he data on the economy are giving [Trump] something genuinely worth boasting about. That was especially evident in the first employment numbers of 2020, released Friday morning. It was about as good a jobs report as an incumbent president could hope for nine months before Election Day — and not just in obvious ways. The big headline out of the latest numbers was that employers added 225,000 jobs in January, comfortably more than analysts had expected. That alone suggests that economic growth is steady at a minimum, and maybe accelerating as the year begins. The seemingly bad news in the...

"Every day, we are helping our forgotten communities and Americans achieve their full potential and live the American dream." President Donald J. Trump BUILDING A BRIGHTER FUTURE: The booming economy is lifting millions of Americans out of poverty and providing all people with the opportunity for a brighter future. Since President Trump was elected, 7 million jobs have been added to our economy, and the unemployment rate remains near its lowest level in half a century. The unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans have all reached record lows under President Trump. Wages are rising, with...

A tight U.S. labor market is drawing Americans off the sidelines at a record rate. Nearly three of four Americans who became newly employed in recent months came from outside the labor force—meaning they weren’t actively looking for work prior to the month they accepted a job. That is the highest ratio in three decades of records and helps explain how employers have consistently added jobs without stoking stronger wage growth. The unemployment rate, 3.6% in January according to the Labor Department, is trending near a 50-year low. That leaves employers with a shallow pool of candidates actively searching for...