DOW Breaks 20K for First Time: "Great Again" Yet?

[Brian Essi]

With the so called "Trump Rally", the DOW is up nearly 9% since Trump was elected. Some predicted a crash.

Meanwhile, the "Good News--Summers Rally" has cost Lakewood 1,100 jobs and $100M in public assets under the all "Democrat" City Hall.

Tom Bullock declared to "good news" on December 21, 2015.

How can Lakewood be "great again"?

Where is "good news" Mr. Bullock?

[Michael Deneen]

This stock market rally mirrors the Lakewood housing market...both a house of cards.

While it lasts, a lot of politicians will claim credit.
When the poop hits the fan, the politicians will offer excuses.

[m buckley]

This stock market rally mirrors the Lakewood housing market...both a house of cards.

Mr.Deneen,
It's all a house of cards. You can't be rotting from the head while declaring yourself a success.
.
2017. Marx. Bullock. Nowlin.
Kick them to the curb.

[Nadhal Eadeh]

Mr. Bullock endorses the "healthcare is changing" mantra fed by the now defunct Subsidium while ignoring a report released at the same time from the Bureau of Labor Statistics titled "Healthcare: Millions of Jobs Now and in the Future".

https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2014/spring/art03.pdf

Another so called "democrat" on council tells folks to "move on" after siding with the Cleveland Clinic, the states largest employer.

The Lakewood establishment strives to be the "healthiest city in America" while spending years stonewalling groups of residents that want outdoor basketball to return to the city.

Here are some facts of life:

1. Healthcare spending is increasing nationally and Lakewood is left with nothing? Shopping Centers really?

2. Where is the accountability in the Lakewood Democratic Party?

3. How can any democrat claim that this hospital deal is good for Lakewood while fighting to preserve the Affordable Care Act and Medicare?

Finally, Mr. Bullock and the rest of his democratic colleagues should be so proud to have destroyed an institution that has been in the Lakewood community for over 100 years. The local party needs to be able to sense the national anti-establishment mood. The Lakewood Democratic Club should reexamine its definition of what a "democrat" truly is.

Nadhal

[Kate McCarthy]

With the so called "Trump Rally", the DOW is up nearly 9% since Trump was elected. Some predicted a crash.

I feel our country has been in a nosedive since wealth has become the ascendant value, pushing aside the prestige of professions such as medicine, law, education, and more. So we should celebrate that a mentally ill, alleged rapist, narcissist is president because the stock market is rallying?

[Michael Deneen]

2. Where is the accountability in the Lakewood Democratic Party?

There is none.

If you haven't already, please read my recent post "Twilight's Last Gleaming".

http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/v ... =7&t=23734

[Brian Essi]

This stock market rally mirrors the Lakewood housing market...both a house of cards.

While it lasts, a lot of politicians will claim credit.
When the poop hits the fan, the politicians will offer excuses.

Mr. Deneen,

I would agree that politicians generally have little to do with the fundamentals or long term market returns and that Summers and City Hall can take no credit for the Lakewood housing gains.

However, in the short term, markets react to things like emotional teenagers.

The market is now somewhat overvalued based upon historical returns and dividend yields are only down slightly:

http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-peyield.html

For the wealthy folks or the average worker with a small pension, the stock market is still the only place to be--the "risk" is not being in the stock market. Where else can you preserve capital and get greater returns (as long as you don't have to sell in a down market)?

So we have 2 and 1/2 months so far of being "greater than ever...again," but it is all based upon the markets' high expectations of the new president's "talk" about policies.

The expectation that lower taxes, particularly lower corporate taxes will attract jobs and investment to the US (and perhaps help Lakewood families) is a rational driver:

https://taxfoundation.org/what-evidence ... and-growth "In this review of the literature, I find twenty-six such studies going back to 1983, and all but three of those studies, and every study in the last fifteen years, find a negative effect of taxes on growth. Of those studies that distinguish between types of taxes, corporate income taxes are found to be most harmful, followed by personal income taxes, consumption taxes and property taxes....Corporate and shareholder taxes reduce the incentive to invest and to build capital. Less investment means fewer productive workers and correspondingly lower wages. Taxes on income and wages reduce the incentive to work. Progressive income taxes, where higher income is taxed at higher rates, reduce the returns to education, since high incomes are associated with high levels of education, and so reduce the incentive to build human capital. Progressive taxation also reduces investment, risk taking, and entrepreneurial activity since a disproportionately large share of these activities is done by high income earners."

I would argue that it is somewhat beyond debate from a historical standpoint, that the lower the taxes in a country, the greater the productivity (GDP).
As a self-described "fiscal conservative" (likely at odds with most Deckers), I am cautiously optimistic for American workers under the Trump Administration. Labor leaders were in the White House this week, and by all accounts things went well.

The stock market will rise and fall...forever. Trump did not make it rise 9% any more than George W. Bush made if drop 50+% in 2008 or Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton made it rise so high in the 1990's or Reagan in the 1980's.

But I think that high corporate taxes hurt America workers and consumers---Corporations may initially "pay" the tax, but ultimately workers and consumers pay for it. And if Lakewood raises taxes because of City Hall's blunders, all of Lakewood will suffer.

With Trump's action via TPP etc., markets will react. Right now Trump has organized labor paying attention to him. It remains to be seen whether he can and will actually help a majority of America workers and the economy.

So we are not so "great again"...yet..., and in Lakewood, the increased taxes on the horizon will surely hurt us all.

[Michael Deneen]

The expectation that lower taxes, particularly lower corporate taxes will attract jobs and investment to the US (and perhaps help Lakewood families) is a rational driver:

Spoken like a true Republican.
Sadly, lower corporate taxes have not created jobs......Trickle-Down economics has been decimating our nation for 35 years. Sadly, corporate Dems now espouse the same failed policies as the GOP (not conincidentally, they have the same donors) . That's why we have Trump......a large chunk of the electorate despises the entire political establishment and decided to throw a rock through the window.
Unfortunately that "rock" is actually the bunch of billionaires that comprise this disastrous Cabinet.

The market is rallying because: Corporations know Trump will allow the oil companies to rape our planet (even more than Obama did), corporations will be able to poison us to fatten their profits; The Big Bank execs know that Trump will allow them to crash the market again with no punishment; They expect to bring home their profits that they've been storing offshore virtually tax-free.

Once Trump starts trying to put up trade barriers, the GOP Establishment will execute "Order 66". President Pence will hand them TPP and end all the "exporting jobs is bad" talk.

Meanwhile, working folks and the poor (the majority of Lakewood) will be faced with higher health care costs, continued low wages, and job losses as the economy unravels.
Plus, federal funding will be cut, further aggravating our Ohio and Lakewood budget problems.
In other words: "Here comes Team Summers with a tax increase!"