compiled by Rich Wang

During his State of the Union speech last Tuesday night, President Trump remarked about how under his leadership, the stock market “smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value.” Those comments were just the most recent of many examples of the president claiming responsibility for a strong stock market. During the speech, he said that the tax cut bill “set off a tidal wave of good news that continues to grow every single day.” But his message was contradicted by chyrons detailing how the market was actually dropping instead.

Trump’s conflation of the stock market and the broader economy does not match with the current nature of the stock market, since less than half of the country has invested in the market. Trump took credit for a stock market that has been gaining steadily since it recovered from the financial collapse of 2008. While the stock market made steady gains during Trump’s first year in office, other metrics indicated that the economy wasn’t booming as much as he wanted believe to people. Job growth in 2017 was the most lowest since 2011, when the economy was still recovering from a recession. However, that didn’t stop Trump from claiming that he presided over a jobs boom.

Likewise, even as the market tanked on Monday, Trump pondered on the impact the tax cut bill is having on the economy. Monday’s stock market losses come on the heels of the Dow dropping 666 points on Friday. Not coincidentally, Trump avoided mentioning the stock market during his speech in Ohio. Instead, he accused Democrats who didn’t applaud him during the State of the Union of treason and called them “un-American.” At close, the Dow Jones average was down over 1,100 points on Monday, the largest single day loss in history. The stock plunge was the worst in six and a half years, despite Trump’s repeated insistence that the economy is thriving under his leadership.

Eastvale resident Tony Wang feels that “foreigners should invest in the United States.” He says that “it will bring in money and open up new jobs” which will make the economy things better.