Posted on 11/04/2015 7:28:41 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - After the combative, vacuous questions CNBC reporters asked in the last Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump wants to set the terms of the next televised event for himself.
The billionaire real estate mogul wants to negotiate the rules for future debates directly with the network television executives. He announced his plan in the midst of an effort by the other GOP candidates and their party to set forth a list of demands on how the debates should be run.
Trump's unilateral move appeared to be an attempt to take control of the debates to suit his campaign style, after last week's televised fistfight largely avoided the economic issues the business news network promised to discuss at length.
With the economy in a sharp slow down this year, it was a broken promise and a missed opportunity for the GOP to remind voters how badly President Obama has handled the nation's economic problems.
Among a lengthening list of economic troubles that the administration reported last week:
Economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, slowed down to a mediocre 1.5 percent in the third quarter, as businesses cut production to prevent a buildup in inventories. It was the biggest reduction in three years.
The online Market Watch website said "the third-quarter drop off almost assures the U.S. will fail to break 3 percent annual growth in 2015 for the 10th straight year."
The economy's quarterly growth rates under President Obama's policies have been minuscule compared to the economic recovery under President Reagan in the 1980s.
His economy came roaring out of a two-year recession in 1983, posting GDP growth rates of 3.2%, 5.6%, and 7.7% between the second and fourth quarter.
In 1984, his tax cut-fueled recovery posted quarterly GDP growth rates of 8.5%, 7.9%, 6.9% and 5.8%.
There were other signs of a weakening economy in the past week that received little attention in the national news media, and was entirely unnoticed by the broadcast news networks.
New home sales, a critical component in the economy's strength, slumped in September to a ten-month low, falling 11.5 percent. They were revised lower by the Commerce Department in the two previous months.
The other economic shocker was consumer spending which accounts for two-thirds of our economy. It barely budged by 0.1 percent, the weakest rise since spending dropped in January.
Flat income growth has long been the hallmark of the Obama economy. It crept up by 0.1 percent in September - the smallest in four months.
These and other economic data should have dominated last week's Republican debate. More to the point, CNBC's moderators should have pounded them home, one by one, in a series of questions that focused on Obama's failure to strengthen the American economy.
But anyone who regularly watches CNBC -- and I do -- knows that in its treatment of the economy, the network anchors rarely discuss its troubles in the context of the president's policies.
The administration's policies are on one planet and the economy is on another, and neither have anything to do with one another.
But the networks can't cover up the truth forever, and the presidential candidates don't have to respond to the stupid questions they got last week.
The next candidate debate will follow this Friday's jobs report, will be a test of whether the Republican candidates can refocus the issues on what matters -- like getting a job and earning a living.
According to economic forecasters, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics "will issue another mediocre jobs report," says Peter Morici, business economist at the University of Maryland.
Private forecasters "estimate 190,000 jobs were created in October -- well below the 260,000 averaged in 2014," Morici says.
"The White House will tout the economy is doing quite well -- proclaiming 61 consecutive months of jobs creation -- and liberal commentators like New York Times columnist and CNBC analyst John Harwood may offer this as more proof that the economy does better with a Democrat in the White House," Morici writes in his weekly analysis.
But when he compares Obama's record with Reagan's, it isn't a close match.
Both faced deep recessions when they took office, but they dealt with them very differently and got very different results.
"Unemployment peaked at 10 percent in [Obama's] first term, but since [then] the economy has reclaimed and added 12.6 million jobs and employment rose 9.8 percent," he says.
However, the "Gipper faced tough times, too -- double-digit unemployment and interest rates and a bruising recession. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, but subsequently the economy added more than 17.2 million jobs and employment rose 19.4 percent."
The reason Reagan "created so many more jobs -- in a much smaller economy - is quite simple," he says.
"It wasn't just lower taxes…. but rather a reliance on private decisions to guide recovery. He cleared a path for business, large and small, to invest as they deemed fit and raise wages as they decided they could afford, and encouraged the unemployed to get out and look for work."
The result: "Through the first 25 quarters of Obama's recovery, GDP growth has averaged 2.1 percent, whereas during the comparable period for Reagan, GDP advanced at a 4.6 percent annual pace," Morici says.
The Republican Party's candidates should be pounding these comparisons in its future debates and focusing on the failed Obama economy like a lazier beam.
There's a reason why jobs and the economy are at the top of America's foremost concerns. And the GOP should not let the liberal news networks get away with its coverup.
Finally someone - Trump - pointed out the interest rate debacle Obama is bringing down on the next president.
The next president will eventually have to raise the artificially depressed rates and when he does the national debt will explode, allowing the democrats to charge the GOP (assuming the next president is a republican) with mismanaging the economy.
There is virtually no data released by the Federal government that after seven years of Obama commissar control that is objective and not tainted with political bias.
One of the biggest running jokes was the unemployment rate dropping month after month at an unrealistic fantasy rate the year leading up to the 2012 election.
I think it was Rush that said they would have it below 6% even if the real rate was way over 20%.
Why are the Republicans negotiating with the netjerks at all?
Have Rush Limbaugh moderate it, and let the highest bidding netjerk air it. RNC controls everything, and the netjerk just runs the cameras and transmission.
Don’t expect much in the way of probing questions from Neal Cavuto. Hopefully, Maria Bartiromo will take up the slack.
I am looking forward to the debate and unlike CNBC’s “promise” that the debate will focus on the economy, which it did not. I am confident that the debate on FBN will do exactly that.
What do you have against Neil Cavuto?
Democrats leaving the mess and blaming Republicans for taking the pains to clean them up. The more things change...
Yet things are fundamentally different than in 1980. Our educational institutions of higher brainwashing are a lot worse. Our corporations have sold the family jewels of process technology. We now have real competitors at every level and far more debt. We have a whole generation of "service economy" kids who've never worked a productive job. We have robots capable of replacing even burger flippers and free capital to buy them. We have a retiring boomer bubble with great expectations and assets depleted by the bottomless needs of their parents. We have many more vicious enemies, some already within. Worst of all, many fewer love the Lord enough to avoid the temptations of fraud and corruption.
On the plus side, some of our kids are the most awesome talents we've ever produced, having grown up amid such liberal PC saturation as to hate it. They have an awful burden to carry.
I stopped watching the financial media years and years ago including Fox Business because there was no value to it and in fact, wasted my time which is valuable.
So I agree that one shouldn’t expect much in the way of informed debate.
Eventually, the cable networks will disappear to be replaced by streaming services which are growing now. But as it is the cable news media still have a large portion of the viewer market and that puts the political parties subordinate to the networks. The only way around it is to buy 2 hours of cable time which would be too expensive. On the other hand CSPAN could hold the debates with moderators selected and approved by the candidates.
Agree. The rot is all around.
Its astounding has fast ethics and integrity in general have gone down hill.
Oh I don’t watch FOX Business at all. I watch “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on FNC at 3 PM my time and some of the business programs on FNC after Fox and Friends weekend.
“Economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, slowed down to a mediocre 1.5 percent in the third quarter, as businesses cut production to prevent a buildup in inventories. It was the biggest reduction in three years.”
“The online Market Watch website said “the third-quarter drop off almost assures the U.S. will fail to break 3 percent annual growth in 2015 for the 10th straight year.”
Wouldn’t we all like to know what the REAL truth is? Anyone who is not refusing to open his eyes knows the truth is much worse than what is reported.
“I think it was Rush that said they would have it below 6% even if the real rate was way over 20%.”
He hit it dead on except that the “even if” was unnecessary, he could have just said the real rate WILL BE way over 20%.
“The next president will eventually have to raise the artificially depressed rates and when he does the national debt will explode, allowing the democrats to charge the GOP (assuming the next president is a republican) with mismanaging the economy.”
Very accurate.
And the msm is an enabler for the democrats.
Rubio did a good job in the last debate pointing out that the msm is superPAC for the democrats. Too bad very few people are listening and learning.
The corruption runs very deep and is very real! This is the point that Trump is making by saying he is owned by no one. No man owns Trump.
In “principle” Trump could operate without sparing a particular sacred ox from being gored.
In practice he might prove sympathetic to real estate interests, after all that’s the background he knows best.
But I don’t think there is anybody in this world who is utterly unbiased unless he or she has no experience with anything in the first place.
That is his great appeal. As is Cruz's money coming from small individual donors.
Hopefully if we are lucky enough for either one to win the White House they'll actually do something real about the scam the DC elite have been running on this country for years.
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