Trump Lies About GDP, Imagines Conversation With Uzbekistan

Look, I know this is a world where facts no longer matter, and I’m sure this will fall of largely deaf ears among Trump’s base, but I just want to highlight a few things he said today in Missouri, because he is bold-face lying on national television.

On the way to touting this morning’s GDP revision which showed the U.S. economy grew at 3% in Q2, Trump said the following:

 

There are (at least) two demonstrable lies in there.

For one thing, what the hell is he talking about when he says we never hit 3% during the previous administration? He even says “as you know.”

Actually no, we don’t “know” – probably because it isn’t fucking true. Look:

GDP

And he kinda tries to hedge a little bit by saying “on a yearly basis” but it’s not at all clear that he understands what he’s saying.

But before he even gets to that, he recreates a conversation he most assuredly did not have with leaders of unspecified “other countries”:

Trump: You look at other countries and they’re unhappy when their GDP is 7, 8, 9. And I speak to them, leaders of other countries: ‘how are you doing?’

Imaginary other countries: ‘Not well, Not well.’

Trump: ‘Why?’

Imaginary other countries: ‘GDP is 7%.’

Ok, so which countries would those be? According to the IMF, they would be:

  1. Nauru
  2. Iraq
  3. Ethiopia
  4. Uzbekistan
  5. Cote D’Ivoire
  6. Iceland
  7. Cambodia

Now what do you think the chances are that Donald Trump has talked to the leaders of those countries and asked them how they feel about their GDP?

Let me help: the chances are zero.

So you know, just be advised that this is a man who is peddling lies on a daily basis and Wednesday was no exception.

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16 thoughts on “Trump Lies About GDP, Imagines Conversation With Uzbekistan

  1. So, what he’s saying is something heard last year, repeated in October 2016, i.e., that “Obama is the first president in modern history not to have a single year of 3 percent growth,” which PolitiFact dealt with here:
    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/31/donald-trump/trumps-claim-about-weak-economic-growth-under-obam/

    Although not applicable to quarterly numbers, he decided to use the same pitch today and he simply squeezed the October line together with the quarterly number because it “sounded” like “he” finally, omg, finally, bested Obama. Of course, he didn’t. Not a chance.

    1. but just try to wrap your head around the dumbest part of the whole thing: he’s trying to equate quarterly growth with yearly growth but you can be sure that he doesn’t even understand that.

      that is, it would be a faulty comparison in the first place, but he doesn’t even realize that’s he’s making a faulty comparison. it’s stupidity squared.

      all he knows is 3%.

      1. He figures right about the “3%”: his crowd and cult followers want to believe anything he says negative about Obama. The fact that he’s #1 #fakenews source doesn’t matter. It’s simply an out of dimension experience they occupy. He could have said the GDP number for Q2 was 5%, the largest ever, and they’d believe him.

  2. Ignorant cocksuckers like Trump lie quite a bit. There are the times they intentionally deceive, where they actually know something, but lie about it. Then there are the times they simply display their ignorance, by saying something that is not true (i.e. “a lie”), but have no idea that they are lying. This whack job scores pretty high in both categories. Unfortunately, there are many of similar ilk in high places in both politics and industry.

    BTW, Mr H, I’ve been reading your posts for over a year now, and I must say it’s been a joy to follow someone with similar political leanings, who educates me in the field of macro. I’m an investing newbie (based on when I started paying attention and trying to learn, not by how long I’ve had invesrtments). Love your writing style, and also really appreciate having been introduced to some of the other folks that you include in your guest posts.

  3. the most absurd thing about it (again), is that he could have made the point he wanted to make using facts. all he had to do was ask his staff to tell him how to correctly communicate that the Obama era wasn’t characterized by blockbuster growth.

    he’s so goddamn lazy, dumb, and dishonest that he can’t even be bothered to check and see if there’s a factual way to make the same point which in this case there actually was.

    that’s the worst thing about it.

    1. So true. But he doesn’t care about facts, even when he could use them to his advantage. Hopefully that will turn out to be his Achilles heel.

    2. just to expand on that point, there is a veritable laundry list of real data you can cite to argue that Obama’s economy was a mirage. and he literally decided that instead of asking someone to feed him those real statistics, he’d rather just wing it.

      it would be like if I wanted to communicate that stock prices were too high and instead of citing valuations I simply said: “well look at that chart, who has ever seen the S&P this high?”

      1. As far as I can reason he is doing what he has always done in business but on a larger scale. He is a business cheerleader that rounds the facts to excite his base and pontificates in bullshit to bring others to the “table” on his dealings. Problem is that he is doing this with what belongs to all of us. His next step upon failure is to wipe the books with default / chapter 11 bankruptcy.

        Reference
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/live-updates/general-election/real-time-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-the-first-presidential-debate/fact-check-has-trump-declared-bankruptcy-four-or-six-times/?utm_term=.57524e5e81c0

  4. That’s because he’s must be “the smartest guy in the room,” (Enron, anybody?), he can’t ask others for what he’s been telling everyone for years he already knows, he doesn’t listen to staff because he knows better than them, he doesn’t read beyond the headline so there’s no help there, he picks up most of his information from Fox News and the Positive Trump News Report placed on his desk every day, and essentially, to quote Up is Down, “Ignorant cocksuckers like Trump lie quite a bit.” The state of affairs shall never change or vary, in part, because he knows that his lies and half-lies invite controversy which will then suck the media into headlining Trump’s name for next 24-hour new cycle which is an addiction for him. For his disease, his addiction, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad press, as long as they spell his name correctly.

  5. Sorry, I failed to be boggled here. Hmm, Trump lies – yeah, I think people are aware of that. But these two do not seem to stand out as the most relevant lies of all time. Things like smoking gun in Iraq etc do come to mind.

    Also, I think it is possible that he understands qtr vs ann GDP figures. No reason to have to fade him that far.

    I am reminded of a scene from a favorite movie:

    Louis: You guys are snobs.

    Dick: No, we’re not.

    Louis: Yeah, seriously, you’re totally elitist. You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit onto people who know lesser than you.

    Rob , Barry , Dick: No!

    Louis: Which is everybody…

    Rob , Barry , Dick: Yeah…

  6. I don’t think any of the prior comments suggested that these lies stood out as the “the most relevant lies of all time”. They are simply more of the “lies de jour”. I do suspect, however, that if Trump somehow manages to survive his first full term, that he will be able to lay claim to having the largest area under the curve of “lies vs time”. If that happens to play out, then someone will have to educate the dear man about another definition of “integration”.

    1. Fair enough, but I still think LBJ would come out the winner on lies vs time, and would have devastated many more lives than DJT, if you want ty look at lies vs lives.

      Also, 7,8,9 could refer to China, with whom we know he talks. Those numbers fall within Xi’s time in office.

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