If You Watch The Mainstream Media, You Are Uninformed

Newsbusters posted an article today about some recent economic news reported by the major networks.

The article reports:

Another astounding market rally, another big chunk of good market news ABC’s, CBS’s and NBC’s evening news shows censor because it isn’t anti-Trump.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 27,000 Wednesday, “extending a market rally and returning the index to a level it first hit a year ago and last touched in early June,” according to The Hill. The new figure (27,006) put “the Dow within striking distance of erasing its losses for the year.” ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt all censored the news last night.

By contrast, consider when the Dow dropped 1,000 points beneath 25,000 before rallying a bit later Feb. 28 to cap off Wall Street’s “worst week since the [2008] financial crisis.” On that day, the Big Three gave the negative market news a whopping 313 seconds of coverage collectively — or more than five minutes.

That’s 313 seconds for negative news versus 0 seconds for positive news. Seems like a pretty massive bias. 

Fox News’s Bret Baier did report the stock market news Wednesday during his 6:00 pm broadcast of Special Report. Maybe the Big Three should take notes from Baier.

The article also notes:

Both CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in particular did find the time to boost presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s flat-out lie that President Donald Trump was a racist president.

But the Dow’s performance isn’t all the good market news yesterday had to offer last night. “Sales of previously owned homes rose 20.7% in June over the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million,” according to The Wall Street Journal July 22. This, according to The Journal, was “the biggest monthly increase on record going back to 1968.” [Emphasis added.]

It’s difficult to have a fair election when the news sources that many Americans depend on refuse to report the news in an unbiased manner. Hopefully, most Americans have learned to look beyond the propaganda and search for the facts.

The Trump Economy

Fox Business reported today that the Dow has gained 10,000 points since Trump’s election.

The article reports:

The stock market has been unstoppable under the influence of President Trump.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 28,332.74 on Monday, meaning it has rallied 10,000 points, or more than 54 percent, since Trump’s election victory on November 8, 2016. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained more than 46 percent.

“The rally has been driven by pro-growth measures, de-escalation of trade tensions, huge liquidity injections by central banks and a FOMO approach by investors worried about missing out on a remarkable U.S. market outperformance that has set one record high after the other.” Mohamed El-Arian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, told FOX Business.

So if you are an average working American, why does this matter to you? First of all, most Americans have 401k plans. As the stock market rises, the value of those plans rises. However, there is another often overlooked aspect of a growing stock market. Many communities, counties, and states have pension plans for former employees. These are unfunded liabilities. That means that those payments are not considered when drafting budgets. Those payments are made from investment accounts. As the stock market rises, the possibility of having to decrease these payments diminishes and the possibility of the municipality involved having to raise taxes to cover these payments also decreases. People who work gain by both having the value of their retirement accounts increase and by not having to pay higher taxes to cover retirement costs.

We Have Seen This Play Before

The American economy is based on consumerism. Americans buy things and the economy continues. It is a rather delicate balance that can be manipulated for political purposes. We are currently watching an attempt to manipulate that economy for political purposes–President Trump’s strongest positive for re-election is the impact his administration has had on the economy. If the Democrats can ruin the economy, they might have a chance to win the presidency in 2020. After watching their behavior for the past two years, I am not surprised by any tactic they might use. So how are the Democrats and their friends in the media attempting to impact the economy?

The Associated Press reported today:

The threat of a recession doesn’t seem so remote anymore for investors in financial markets.

The yield on the closely watched 10-year Treasury fell so low Wednesday that, for the first time since 2007, it briefly crossed a threshold that has correctly predicted many past recessions. Weak economic data from Germany and China added to recent signals of a global slowdown.

That spooked investors, who responded by dumping stocks, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average into an 800-point skid, its biggest drop of the year. The S&P 500 index dropped nearly 3% as the market erased all of its gains from a rally the day before. Tech stocks and banks led the broad sell-off. Retailers came under especially heavy selling pressure after Macy’s issued a dismal earnings report and cut its full-year forecast.

The article goes on to list things that the writer is convinced are evidence of an imminent recession. But let’s step back a minute. The American economy is cyclical. We have been in a growth spike for the past two years due to tax cuts and deregulation. Those factors are not changing. Unemployment is at historic lows. There are more jobs than workers. There is no evidence of that changing. We might be due for a correction in the stock market, but it’s not time to panic.

This tactic has been used before. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush agreed to a tax bill with the Democrats. The agreement broke his pledge of ‘no new taxes’, but it also did something else. The tax increase on luxury items worked its way through the economy causing a recession. Workers in industries making ‘luxury items’ lost their jobs are sales of these items decreased due to the tax increases. As those workers lost their jobs, they stopped going out to dinner, traveling, and doing the things that people do when economic times are good. People in service industries and tourism lost their jobs. The impact trickled through the economy, and we were in a recession. We were coming out of the recession during the campaign, but the media failed to note that.

In the coming days, watch for a media narrative of ‘the sky is falling’. That narrative will be in play for the next year in order to convince American voters to vote Democrat.

The only way to crash this economy is to panic the public. Large investors in the market with a political agenda can begin that process. The media can fan the flames.

The fundamentals of the American economy are strong. If Americans refuse to play along with a media-created financial panic, all will be well.

Sad News For The American Economy

One entity that controls the American economy is the Federal Reserve (which is not controlled by the government). It’s board members are nominated by the President and approved by Congress, but it is a private entity. Unfortunately it is part of the globalist cabal that seeks to undermine American sovereignty. President Trump has attempted to put two skilled businessmen on the Federal Reserve recently. The globalists in Congress have caused both men to withdraw their nominations. In the coming year, you can expect the Federal Reserve to subtly move to make the re-election of President Trump more difficult. I expect rate hikes leading up to the election to counter a healthy economy that is rapidly expanding. President Trump is not a globalist, and the globalists really want him gone. Globalists in Congress include both Democrats and Republicans (that is why it is so difficult to secure our borders).

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that Stephen Moore has withdrawn his nomination to the Federal Reserve Board.

The article reports:

Stephen Moore has a distinguished career in leadership roles at Heritage and The Wall Street Journal. Stephen Moore is a founder at the Club for Growth. Moore was an early Trump campaign supporter and wrote the book Trumponomics.

Moore is a presidential adviser and friend and is an architect of the greatest economic boom since Ronald Reagan.

In September Stephen Moore spoke at the Gateway Eagle Council in St. Louis, Missouri.

And in December Steve criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for his irresponsible and dangerous rate hikes and threats of rate hikes. Powell was able to unilaterally stall the US economic boom in its tracks and cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars.

Moore wrote that it was time for Powell to resign. Moore was right.

The article includes excerpts from a World Net Daily article explaining why Jerome Powell should resign:

The Fed had already reduced the monetary thrust that it provides to the economy eight times since Dec. 15, 2015, by raising its federal funds interest rate from 0.25 percent to 2.25 percent. Each time, the Fed claimed that it needed to guard our economic airliner from inflationary “overheating” – as if its job is to prevent too many people from working and to make sure that paychecks aren’t rising too quickly.

Unfortunately, if you cut engine power too far on a jetliner, it will stall and drop out of the sky.

On Wednesday, Dec. 19, despite the numerous market-based alarms that were sounding in the cockpit, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his co-pilots on the Federal Open Market Committee – a committee within the Federal Reserve System charged under the United States law with overseeing the nation’s open market operations and which makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the U.S. money supply – voted to raise the funds rate to 2.50 percent. This sucks more dollars out of the economy at a time when the world is demanding more dollars – thanks to Trump’s tax-cutting and deregulation policies.

Powell has been entirely tone-deaf to the financial markets he seeks to protect. The Dow Jones Industrial average, which had risen by 382 points on hopes that the Fed would listen to Trump and stop cutting power, plunged by 895 points after the 2 p.m. announcement, and closed the day down 352 points (1.49 percent). Poof. Trillions of dollars of wealth vanished.

The article at The Gateway Pundit concludes:

The Democrats and Deep State apparatus does not want Stephen Moore on the board of the Federal Reserve. Stephen is the perfect pick for the job. Now the deep state is attacking Steve and his family.

Republican Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Lisa Murkowsky (R-AL) and anti-Trumper Mitt Romney (R-UT) expressed reservations this week. The Republican senators effectively killed Steve Moore’s nomination.

The Republicans voiced concerns over Moore’s nomination for comments he made nearly 20 years ago about women earning as much as men in fields like women’s sports.

On Thursday Steve Moore withdrew his nomination for the Federal Reserve Board.

It was a victory for anti-Trump globalists everywhere.

Stephen Moore’s withdrawal of his nomination is America’s loss.

Exactly What Is The Federal Reserve Trying To Accomplish?

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today that included Economist Stephen Moore’s comments on the recent rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Mr. Moore does not pull his punches.

Mr. Moore states:

In one of the most remarkable Abbott and Costello routines in modern times, the economic wizards at the Fed again raised interest rates on Tuesday. Their cracker jack logic for doing so is to steer America on a course toward recession so they have the tools in hand to end the recession that THEY themselves created. Can anyone tell us who’s on first?

Worse, this Fed move doubles down on its blunderous interest rate rise in September. President Trump turned out to be exactly right: the central bank pull back on money would slow growth and crush the stock market in order to combat nonexistent inflation.

The Fed had already reduced the monetary thrust that it provides to the economy 8 times since December 15, 2015, by raising its Fed Funds interest rate from 0.25% to 2.25%. Each time, the Fed claimed that it needed to guard our economic airliner from inflationary “overheating” – as if its job is to prevent too many people from working and making sure that pay checks aren’t rising too quickly.

Unfortunately, if you cut engine power too far on a jetliner, it will stall and drop out of the sky.

On Wednesday, December 19, despite the numerous market-based alarms that were sounding in the cockpit, Chairman Powell and his co-pilots on the FOMC voted to raise the Fed Funds rate to 2.50%. This sucks more dollars out of the economy at a time when the world demanding more dollars – thanks to Trump’s Tax cutting and deregulation policies.

Chairman Powell has been entirely tone deaf to the financial markets he seeks to protect. The Dow Jones Industrial average, which had risen by 382 points on hopes that the Fed would listen to President Trump and stop cutting power, plunged by 895 points after the 2:00 PM announcement, and closed the day down 352 points (1.49%). Poof, trillions of dollars of wealth vanished.

Since its peak on October 3, which, not coincidentally, was right after Chairman Powell gave a speech suggesting that the Fed might be through tightening money, the Dow has fallen by more than 3,500 points [now 4,500]. Market fears about his bad judgment have cut the value of all U.S. stocks by about $4.5 trillion, which is enough to buy 16,000 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

The Fed economists use twisted logic that the economy is “strong enough” to absorb the rate hikes – which is simply an admission that their policy will slow growth.

And for what purpose?   Since the last rate hike the economy has slipped into an anti-growth deflationary cycle with commodity prices – oil, copper, cotton, lead, steel, silver among others – falling by about 10 percent. The new Fed policy is sure to accelerate the deflation and farmers, ranchers, coal miners, oil and gas drillers will get further crunched by the dollar shortage.

Can someone at the Fed Temple please explain how falling commodity prices indicates inflation? Inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods.

The commodities index is about the only read-out that a monetary pilot truly needs. And, right now, the CRB Index is blaring “Pull up!  Pull up!”

Mr. Powell warned of a slowing economy in 2019 – but he failed to acknowledge that the headwinds the economy is facing are the drag the Fed is itself creating. It was almost as if the Fed believes there is some weird Puritan-like virtue to slowing down the investment, employment and wage-growth spurt Trump policies have created.

What is to be done now? Trump wants to fire the Fed chairman though it is doubtful he has the authority to do that. Much better for Mr. Powell to do the honorable thing and admit that his policies have had disastrous economic and financial consequences and resign.

If not this, at least Mr. Powell should hold an emergency meeting of the Federal Reserve Board and immediately cancel the rate hikes. Better yet, the Fed should announce ways to inject money into the dollar-starved economy.

For much of the past two decades, America’s economic problems of slow growth and flat wages were due to the drag of fiscal and regulatory mistakes. Now at the very moment in time when we FINALLY have a president who is slashing tax rates and regulations and is making America a much more business-friendly nation, the Fed’s monetary policy has come unhinged.

Cockpit warnings have been sounding for months, not only from the markets, but from President Trump and many other growth economists – including ourselves. We are now suffering the financial ramifications of this “pilot error” on the part of Chairman Powell.

The article includes the following chart:

It’s time either to get rid of the Federal Reserve or put someone in charge without a political agenda. Crashing the economy is the only way the Democrats can take the presidency in 2020, and political insiders know that. The recent drastic rate increase are not done without purpose.

Raising Interest Rates Is Not The Right Move

Interest rates were kept artificially low during the Obama administration. This resulted in lower interest payments on the national debt, which increased from $7.27 trillion in 2009 when President Obama took office to $14 trillion at the end of fiscal 2016. The current national debt is $16 trillion. Increasing interest rates from 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent increases the amount of money all taxpayers will have to pay as interest on that debt.

Breitbart reported today:

“In view of realized and expected labor market conditions and inflation, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 2-1/4 to 2‑1/2 percent,” the Federal Reserve announced. The Fed indicated the possibility of just two rate hikes in 2019.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose leading up to the announcement.

Predictions looked toward a likely rate hike ahead of the announcement and possible signaling to a slowing of potential future rate hikes. USA Today reported ahead of the announcement, “Most Wall Street pros expect the Fed, as it has signaled, to hike its key rate another quarter point to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent. This would be the fourth increase this year and ninth since late 2015.”

The Federal Reserve is not a government agency. They are supposed to be apolitical, but their actions in recent years bring that into question. Lower interest rates during the Obama administration kept the stock market high, paid dividends to those on Wall Street and any well-connected politicians. It provided the appearance of an okay economy despite decreases in the Workforce Participation Rate and the rapidly shrinking middle class. Since President Trump took office, the middle class is growing, and the Workforce Participation Rate is slowly climbing. This rate increase will increase the amount of money needed to pay interest on the national debt and will be a drag on the economy. I don’t mean to be cynical, but I believe that is by design. The Federal Reserve is part of the political establishment that does not want to see the economic success of President Trump’s economic policies. President Trump is not a member of the political establishment, and it will be more difficult to get rid of him in 2020 if the economy is growing. The rate hikes announced today will put a damper on economic growth. The question will be how much of a damper.

 

Some Perspective On The Debt

The 2-year spending bill has passed. The good news is that we will now be able to go two years without the threat of a government shutdown. The bad news is that in order to get the needed military spending and pass the bill, fiscal sanity went out the window. However, when you look at the bigger picture of where we are currently, things are actually getting better.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about the Trump Administration and debt increases.

The article included the following:

In spite of the fact that President Trump took over with nearly $20 trillion of debt and the related interest payments on the debt, and in spite of the Federal Reserve (FED) under Janet Yellen increasing interest rates by a full 1 percent since the 2016 election, President Donald Trump’s debt is one third and $1.2 trillion less than Obama’s.

The US Debt since President Trump was inaugurated on January 20th, 2016 through today has increased by only $547 billion. On inauguration day the debt was at $19.9 trillion and on February 7th, 2018 the debt stood at $20.5 trillion.

…Where President Trump increased the Debt to date by only 2.7% , Obama increased the debt by 16.2% or 13.5% more than President Trump.

President Obama inherited a US Debt amount of $10.6 trillion on his inauguration and increased it by more than $1.7 trillion by the end of his first year in office.

…CNBC reported in December 2015 that President Obama oversaw “seven years of the most accommodative monetary policy in U.S. history” (from the Fed). The Fed Funds rate was at zero for most of Obama’s time in office. Finally, in December 2015 the Fed announced its first increase in the Fed Funds rate during the Obama Presidency.

The only Fed Funds Rate increases since 2015 were after President Trump was elected President. The Fed increased the Fed Funds Rate on December 14, 2016, March 15th, 2017, June 14, 2017 and again on December 13, 2017. Four times the Fed has increased rates on President Trump after doing so only once on President Obama late in his 2nd term.

The article explains how the Fed Funds Rate impacts the economy:

Lower interest rates usually spur the economy by making corporate and consumer borrowing easier. Higher interest rates are intended to slow down the economy by making borrowing harder.

If the Federal Reserve was political and wanted to prevent Republican Presidents from successful economic growth and debt decreases, then the Fed would increase the Fed Funds rates during Republican Presidents’ terms while decreasing the Fed Funds rates under Democratic Presidents’ terms. This appears to be exactly what the Fed is doing and the market is reacting negatively this past week because of it..

One of the things to remember during the Trump Administration is that President Trump is truly swimming upstream. There are a lot of vested interests in Washington who feel that the success of President Trump would not be in their best interest. Among other things, shrinking the size of the bureaucracy would have a negative impact on real estate prices in the suburbs surrounding Washington–currently the wealthiest counties in the nation. President Trump is a serious threat to the deep state.

A Year Later

On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an article detailing the impact of President Trump‘s economic policies. The fact that President Trump is a businessman rather than a politician has had an impact on his economic decisions and thus on the American economy. How has that worked out?

The article reports:

Stock market: The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 31% over the past year, “more than any other president since Franklin Roosevelt,” CNBC.com reminds us. Total stock market wealth added since Trump’s first inauguration: $5.5 trillion.

Jobs: Over the last year, 2.2 million jobs were added to the economy, as the unemployment rate fell from 4.8% to 4.1% currently. Minorities experienced their lowest unemployment rates ever in December 2017, after a year of solid gains. Unemployment claims, meanwhile, are at a 45-year low.

GDP: President Trump entered office amid what appeared to be a dangerously slowing economy, with just 1.2% growth in the first quarter of 2017. But growth immediately picked up, rising to 3.1% in the second quarter, 3.2% in the third quarter, and, based on recent data, 3% or higher in the final quarter of 2017 — making the longest stretch of 3%-plus GDP growth since 2005.

Tax cuts: Trump’s $1.5 trillion in tax cuts lowered the corporate marginal rate from 35% to 21%, and cut rates sharply for middle-class and lower-income Americans. The results are in: Less than three weeks after the tax bill became law, more than 164 companies — ranging from AT&T and Apple to Visa and Wal-Mart — have announced pay hikes and special bonuses for their workers. Apple stunned markets last week, announcing it would bring $245 billion back from overseas, hire about 20,000 new workers and hand out bonuses of around $2,500 for each of its employees due to tax cuts.

Confidence: Our IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index stands at 55.1, well above the 49.3 average over that measure’s lifetime, signaling continued confidence in the strength of the economy. The optimism index is close to its all-time high and has now been positive — above 50 — for 16 months. Meanwhile, a separate IBD/TIPP index for financial stress is at its lowest since we began measuring it in 2007.

Regulation: Trump fulfilled his promise to cut more rules than he enacted. Indeed, he eliminated 22 regulations for every regulation he added, cutting some $8.1 billion in costs. More important, he pulled out of the ruinous Paris Climate Deal, which the NERA economic consulting group estimated would cost the U.S. some $3 trillion in compliance costs over the lifetime of the deal.

I can’t help but wonder if those who are protesting President Trump have 401k accounts and if they have checked their balances lately. Are the people protesting invested in the American economy in any way? Do they have jobs? Are they looking for jobs? And last of all, are we again dealing with paid protesters?

A Picture Of The Obvious

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the media’s coverage of President Trump as compared to previous Presidents.

The graph below is from the article:

Wow.

On November 23,  The National Review posted a list of some of President Trump’s accomplishments as of Thanksgiving:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 all hit record highs on Tuesday. The Wilshire 5000 Index calculates that some $3.4 trillion in new wealth has been created since President Trump’s inauguration and $5.4 trillion since his election. Fueled by the reality of deregulation, expectations of lower taxes, and a new tone in Washington that applauds free enterprise rather than excoriate it, the economy is on fire. 

Atop the second quarter’s 3.1 percent increase in real GDP, and 3.0 in 3Q, the New York Federal Reserve Bank predicts that 4Q output will expand by 3.8 percent. This far outpaces the feeble average-annual GDP growth rate of 1.5 percent on President Obama’s watch. Meanwhile, the IMF expects global GDP to rise by 3.5 percent this year. So much for a Trump-inspired “global recession.”

Unemployment is at 4.1 percent, a 17-year low. New unemployment claims in September were at their most modest since 1974. Goldman Sachs on November 20 “lowered our unemployment rate forecast to 3.7 percent by end-2018 and 3.5 percent by end-2019.” According to the Wall Street powerhouse’s chief economist Jan Hatzius, “Such a scenario would take the U.S. labor market into territory almost never seen outside of a major wartime mobilization.”

American companies have been expanding operations here rather than shipping jobs overseas. Corning, for instance, announced a $500 million investment in new U.S. production, launching 1,000 positions. 

Foreign firms have been unveiling facilities and creating jobs in America. Insourcing is now a thing. Taiwan’s Foxconn will spend $10 billion on a new Wisconsin electronics plant with 3,000 new employees. During Trump’s recent visit to China, Beijing agreed to invest $84 billion in new energy projects in West Virginia.

Add to that the future impact of the tax cuts and the repeal of the ObamaCare mandate, and most Americans will be better off next year than they have been for a number of years. To paraphrase a recent campaign slogan, “Are you better off now than you were before President Trump took office?” Hopefully enough people will answer that question honestly before they vote in the mid-term elections.

At some point Americans who depend on the mainstream media for their news are going to look at the contrast between what they are being told and what they actually see. That may be the end of the mainstream media.

How Is He Doing?

Today The Gateway Pundit posted an evaluation of President Trump’s first five months in office. The evaluation will come as a shock to anyone who watches the mainstream media, but to those Americans who do their own research, the results are not surprising.

The article reports President Trump’s impact on the Stock Market:

* The DOW daily closing stock market average has risen 17% since the election on November 8th. (On November 9th the DOW closed at 18,332 – on June 16th the DOW closed at 21,384 for another all time record closing high).
* Since the Inauguration on January 20th the DOW is up 8%. (It was at 19,827 at January 20th.)
* The DOW took just 66 days to climb from 19,000 to above 21,000, the fastest 2,000 point run ever. The DOW closed above 19,000 for the first time on November 22nd and closed above 21,000 on March 1st.
* The DOW closed above 20,000 on January 25th and the March 1st rally matched the fastest-ever 1,000 point increase in the DOW at 24 days.
* On February 28th President Trump matched President Reagan’s 1987 record for most continuous closing high trading days when the DOW reached a new high for its 12th day in a row!
* The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have both set new all-time highs during this period.
* The US Stock Market gained $2 trillion in wealth since Trump was elected!
* The S&P 500 also broke $20 Trillion for the first time in its history.
 

So how does this compare with President Obama’s first few months? The stock markets under President Obama moved in the exact opposite direction in the seven months after President Obama’s election win in November 2008.

The article then reminds us of the impact President Trump has had on the national debt:

President Trump has also had a positive impact on the overall economic outlook:

Economic Outlook

The US Manufacturing Index soared to a 33 year high in February 2017 shortly after President Trump was sworn into office. The index reached 43 in February which was the best outlook since 1983 under President Reagan.

In Obama’s first five months in office (January through May of 2009) the best manufacturing index activity rating was a negative -22.

The difference here is greater than 50% with Obama again in the wrong direction.

It is time to leave this man alone and let him do his job. Even with the garbage that is being thrown at him, he is accomplishing things that need to be accomplished. Please follow the link to The Gateway Pundit article to see the entire list of achievements since January.

 

Why Is Anyone Surprised?

Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial today about the current state of the economy. The editorial reminds us that under President Trump, the economy is growing rapidly.

The editorial reports:

Growth: For eight years, economic indicators repeatedly came below forecasts. Now, there’s been a string of reports — the latest one is on jobs — that have outperformed economist predictions. What’s changed, we wonder?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the economy added 235,000 jobs in February, when economists expected 200,000 new jobs. And that comes after January’s 227,000 gain, which also beat economists’ forecasts by a substantial margin.

That’s not all. Other recent indicators have come in better than economists had expected.

Orders for capital goods were higher in December than forecast.

There were supposed to be 5.55 million existing-home sales in January. The actual number was close to 5.7 million — which was the highest level since 2007.

Retail sales in January climbed 0.4%, where economists had predicted they’d advance only 0.1%. At the same time, the Commerce Department revised the December sales increase upward to 1%.

Now, obviously we can’t draw any broad conclusions from a few unexpectedly good economic results.

But it’s worth pointing out that this is a dramatic change from the Obama years, when about the only thing that you could predict with any degree of accuracy was that the economy would underperform economists’ predictions.

This is an example of soft bias on the part of the media. When the economic numbers are changed during the month following their release, they may not receive the media coverage that the numbers received when they were originally released.

The editorial concludes:

…The National Federation of Independent Business‘ small business optimism index hit a 12-year high in January. The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index was the highest it’s been since October 2004. The Dow has gained nearly 17% since the November elections.

This sudden change of heart appears to be having an immediate impact on the economy. The unexpected rise in home sales, for example, is being driven in part by “a postelection jump in mortgage rates, led by optimism about President Donald Trump‘s plans to ease regulations and spur economic growth,” noted Crain’s Business. The jump in capital goods orders “is a sign that businesses might be following up buoyant postelection sentiment by spending more after years of tepid global growth,” according to Bloomberg.

Whether this will last depends on whether Trump gets his economic policies in place.

In the meantime, it’s worth asking why it is that economists consistently overestimated the economic impact of Obama’s tax-regulate-and-spend policies, and now appear to be underestimating Trump’s pro-business agenda.

It’s time to get on board–it seems that the train has left the station.