FORECASTS & TRENDS E-LETTER
by Gary D. Halbert
January 25, 2020

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Trump’s Amazing Economic & Policy Success In First Term

2. President Trump’s Long List of Accomplishments

3. Conservatives & Thoughtful Liberals Should Be Happy

4. Conclusions – Maybe You Don’t Like Trump… But

Trump’s Amazing Economic & Policy Success In First Term

Whether you like President Donald Trump, or you loathe him, he has enjoyed an incredible string of successes in just his first three years in office. Deroy Murdoch of NATIONAL REVIEW and a Fox News contributor chronicled all of Mr. Trump’s accomplishments in a column last week, and the list is most impressive, especially if you are a Conservative – which we know most of my readers are.

While I have made it no secret that I have problems with some of President Trump’s antics, I have also made it clear that I like his economic policies, tax policies and deregulation very much. I believe this is a big reason the economy is relatively strong, and the stock markets are the highest in history.

Given this long list of accomplishments, some of which I was not aware of until I read this article, I believe it will be next to impossible for any Democrat to beat him come Election Day, barring some big negative surprise. Even those who don’t like him will be hard-pressed to vote against the president and risk the Democrats unwinding all or most of what he has accomplished in just three years.

While I usually try to stay away from politics in this E-Letter, President Trump has more accomplishments than you may know, in many cases because the mainstream media has not reported them. If you aren’t certain about which party you’ll vote for in November, you’ll definitely want to read this article.

With that introduction, I have reprinted Mr. Murdoch’s excellent article for you below. Emphasis (bolding) and subtitles are mine. Enjoy!

“Trump Rounds Third With Enviable Big-League Record  

[Last] Wednesday was momentous for President Donald J. Trump. House Democrats voted, with zero Republican support, to send the Senate two anti-Trump Articles of Impeachment. [Trump] and Vice Premier Liu He signed a curtain-raising trade pact between America and China. Financial markets rejoiced as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed through the 29,000 mark and closed at a record-breaking 29,030.

With today [Jan. 20] marking three years since his inauguration, Wednesday’s events fit a familiar pattern: Democrats relentlessly gnaw like rats at Trump’s heels. Despite this sickening nuisance, Trump has stayed focused and crafted a stunning record of predominantly conservative accomplishments. Investors applaud Trump’s progress, as stocks, employment, growth, and prosperity spiral into the heavens.

Democrats have donned numerous disguises for their irrational, venomous Trumpophobia. The president’s unforgivable act? He did the forbidden and denied Hillary Clinton her birthright: The Oval Office.

Democrats have demanded Trump’s unreleased tax returns, claimed he is mentally ill, proposed his ouster via the 25th Amendment, and invoked Stormy Daniels, the emoluments clause, ‘Racism! Russiagate, Baltimore!’ and now the Ukraine-O-Rama impeachment saga. The donkeys [Dems] always try to trample Trump.

But they can’t.

President Trump’s Long List of Accomplishments

Despite all of this, President Trump rounds third [base] with an enviable big-league record. His economic, domestic, and foreign-policy hits merit the Hall of Fame:

• Since Election Day 2016, the S&P 500 is up 56 percent. The Dow has climbed 60 percent and closed Friday at a new record: 29,348. The NASDAQ has soared 81 percent.
• Unemployment is at 3.5 percent, the lowest since 1969. Adult-female unemployment is 3.2 percent, approximating levels seen under President Eisenhower. Joblessness for Blacks, Hispanics, and Americans of Asian descent are at or near record lows. A total of 260,181,000 Americans are employed [the most ever].
• Year-on-year median wages for November were up 3.6 percent. Those too often left behind moved more swiftly ahead: manufacturing workers (up 4.0 percent), non-whites (4.3 percent higher), and the bottom 25 percent (4.5 percent richer).
• Median household income after eight years of G. W. Bush rose $401, or 0.7 percent. Obama’s two terms yielded another $1,043, up 1.7 percent. Three years of Trump have added $5,070, an extra 8.3 percent. [Wow!]

These triumphs of Trumponomics are among the factors that propelled Bloomberg’s Index of Consumer Comfort to 66, its highest reading since October 2000. And much of this good news springs from the president’s other domestic victories:

• The $1.5 trillion Trump/GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act features individual and family tax relief, a business-friendly 21 percent corporate tax rate, and the consequent repatriation of $1 trillion in business profits previously stranded abroad, awaiting lower taxes. Not one congressional Democrat voted for this legislation.
• Trump promised to cut two old regulations for every new one imposed. He actually has junked eight federal rules for every new one concocted. [Another Wow!]
• Obamacare’s individual-mandate tax is dead. Health Savings Accounts have expanded. Price transparency soon will let patients compare costs as they do everywhere else. The new Right to Try law gives the terminally ill access to previously verboten [forbidden] experimental drugs.
• Veterans now enjoy wider, faster medical choices, and some 8,000 VA slackers have been fired for their careless-to-abusive treatment of America’s beloved Vets.
• Free speech at colleges has been protected. Schools that promote anti-Semitism will pay dearly for promoting Jew hatred. And Title IX’s Obama-era assault on due process in campus sex cases has been scrapped.
• The GOP Senate has confirmed 187 of Trump’s federal-bench nominees, including Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brent Kavanaugh. Trump has filled all but one circuit-court vacancy that he has encountered.
• Trump has signed numerous pro-life measures, partially defunded Planned Parenthood, shielded religious liberty, and stopped Obama’s morally repugnant War on the Little Sisters of the Poor.
• Trump’s authorization of the Dakota and Keystone XL pipelines, faster answers on permit applications, and other reforms have made America energy-independent and a net oil exporter for the first time since 1973.
• About 100 miles of new southern-border wall are in place. Some 450 miles of protective barrier should be installed by year’s end. President Trump persuaded El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to discourage their citizens from fleeing north and illegally entering America. Trump also strong-armed Mexico into deploying its troops along the perimeter, to stem this human traffic. Consequently, illegal-alien apprehensions there have plunged from a peak of 144,116 in May to 40,620 in December down 72 percent. [Yeah!]
• The Senate adopted the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement on Thursday [Jan. 20], one day after Trump signed the U.S.-China trade measure. He has secured commercial compacts with Japan and South Korea. Once Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Great Britain gets Brexit done, an Anglo-American trade treaty should follow.
• America has abandoned the foolish and costly Paris global-warming pact, trashed Obama’s corresponding Clean Power Plan fiasco, and ditched his tragicomic Iran nuclear deal. Iran’s chief terrorist leader, Qasem Soleimani, succumbed January 3 to sudden, severe ‘dronitis.’
• Trump has modernized America’s military and boosted its morale sky-high. He has persuaded NATO allies to boost their collective-defense contributions by $130 billion.
• While the president’s personal diplomacy with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is unfinished business, their bilateral summits and Pyongyang’s continued lack of nuclear tests and long-range missile launches represent the most progress in this nettlesome relationship since 1953.
• Trump visited the Western Wall as president, declared the Golan Heights part of Israel, recognized Jerusalem as its capital, and moved America’s embassy there. Not one Democrat attended the ceremony that marked the U.S. mission’s relocation from Tel Aviv to the seat of the Jewish state.
• Once the size of two New Jerseys, ISIS’s territorial caliphate is completely erased. It is now infinitely smaller than a pair of dice on an Atlantic City craps table. Chased by U.S. GIs and hounded by Conan, an intrepid canine soldier, ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself to bits.

Conservatives & Even Thoughtful Liberals Should Be Happy

Conservatives should cheer perhaps 90 percent of what President Trump has achieved while enduring 90 MPH headwinds -- courtesy of the Left and the 90 percent anti-Trump media.

[On the other hand,] Federal spending has climbed too high and too quickly for most Righties. (In part, Trump has paid Democrats’ ransom for greenlighting vital defense outlays [with] higher domestic expenditures.

Tariffs are taxes on foreign goods that Americans want. They should be tossed. That said, if this water torture stopped China from swiping American innovations and breaking its agreements, then it’s tough to spurn success.

With few other exceptions (paid family leave, drug-price meddling, anti-vaping nannyism), nearly all of what President Trump has done is what conservatives would expect of a GOP president. Many right-wing dreams have come true -- D.C. school vouchers reauthorized! Net neutrality incinerated! ANWR open for drilling!

Nearly all of this must appall the Left. But even Donald J. Trump’s fiercest critics — who still insist that he is ‘unfit to be president’ -- must admit that he has shoehorned at least two terms’ full of wins into his three years in office.” END QUOTE

Conclusions – Maybe You Don’t Like Trump… But

I know all too well that many of my clients and readers don’t like President Trump and some, I suspect, actually despise him. So, why would I devote an issue of this E-Letter to his successes in his first three years in office?

Well, there are two reasons. First, I don’t care for President Trump personally that much either, but I applaud his many economic and other policy successes. He has been a great president in that regard, and I don’t believe any of us on the conservative side want to see his policies dismantled by the liberal left.

Second, there are many on the left who so vehemently despise Trump that they would be happy to see the economy fall into recession this year -- if that would doom Mr. Trump in the November presidential election.

I believe that is very destructive thinking, especially in light of all the president’s accomplishments in his first term so far. Just something to think about, especially if you despise President Trump.

Best regards,

Gary D. Halbert

 

Forecasts & Trends is published by Halbert Wealth Management, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Information contained herein is taken from sources believed to be reliable but cannot be guaranteed as to its accuracy. Opinions and recommendations herein generally reflect the judgement of the named author and may change at any time without written notice. Market opinions contained herein are intended as general observations and are not intended as specific advice. Readers are urged to check with their financial counselors before making any decisions. This does not constitute an offer of sale of any securities. Halbert Wealth Management, Inc., and its affiliated companies, its officers, directors and/or employees may or may not have their own money in markets or programs mentioned herein. Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. All investments have a risk of loss. Be sure to read all offering materials and disclosures before making a decision to invest. Reprinting for family or friends is allowed with proper credit. However, republishing (written or electronically) in its entirety or through the use of extensive quotes is prohibited without prior written consent.