It always amazing how Americans think presidents have much of an impact on things like economics and housing markets.

It the same mistake people make everywhere, correlation is not causation. The Great Depression was not Hoovers fault. Hitler was not some amazing economic genius its just that he got to power after the worst of the recession was over.

Trump certainty did some thing bad things in terms of trade, but that likely doesn't explain most of the numbers.

> Obama had international inspectors in Iran’s nuke plants, Trump pulled the US out and now the situation is far worse with respect to th nuke profliferation issue.

That actually is something the president has much influence on.

They have some influence. The fed chief is nominated by them. Laws they support get priority. Their policies can have effects on consumer confidence and economic activity, I mean americans belive the president is powerful so true or not their economic behavior is affected, and that isn't just consumers but investors as well. Let's say biden threatened nuke war against russia, that will crash stocks or mention tariffs on China which will affect some stocks more than others. CEOs also use what they say as an excuse to do things.

I didn't say Obama was the cause of these things, merely that they happened on his term. This is in response to Trump fans who like to trash Obama and celebrate Trump. My point is, if you want to blame Obama for the bad economics that happens on his term, you also have to credit him for the good things, and likewise for Trump.

I have long said that Presidents don't have much effect on the economy, unless they trigger some major mal-investment or war (or a trade war). It's the Republicans who OBSESS about tinkering with marginal tax rates, as if cutting a rich guy's taxes from 39% marginal rate to 36% marginal rate transforms the economy. As Warren Buffet said, no real entrepreneur is scared away by marginal taxes, it's a nice problem to have if you manage to make it to that tier.

But again, if you're going to play the President comparison game by crediting them for trends that happen when they take office, you have to apply it consistently, regardless of political party.

(I will say that Presidents CAN have a major effect if they radically change the rules of the game suddenly, like Smoot-Hawley, or the creation Bretton-Woods/collapse of Bretton-Woods)

Also, it's not just "Americans" who think political leaders control the economy, you see this in the UK, and you see it playing out in Italy right now. People overall ignore trends and forces that take a decade to unfold, from housing prices to regional sector collapses, by the time the political system realizes it, the actual change has already happened, and there's often political response that promises to "restore" what's already gone.

Trump's year by year numbers are not that bad either, as can be seen in [1]

Final numbers have been heavily affected by 2020 covid, so cannot be compared directly. That being said:

> failed to beat Obama’s final 3 years in terms of gdp growth or job growth Obama's YoY for the final three years are 2.3%, 2.7% and 1.7%. Trump's first three years are 2.3%, 2.9%, 2.3%. [1]

> Unemployment fell from 10% to 4.7% Employment rate under Trump's presidency has been also growing steadily until covid [2]

[1] https://www.factcheck.org/2021/10/trumps-final-numbers/

[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate

"Obama's YoY for the final three years are 2.3%, 2.7% and 1.7%"

Yes, but those were brought down by a unlucky quarters in between. If you look at quarter-by-quarter GDP growth from 2012-2020, you'll see Obama had way more quarters above 3%, 4%, even 5% than Trump ever did. Trump came into office promising 4%+ GDP growth, he never achieved it in any quarter.

Let me give you an example: Q1'2014 had a post-xmas slump of -1.4% growth. But Q2'2014, Q3'2014 had 5.2, 4.7, with Q4 hitting 1.8. So yeah, if you average that out, it's ~2.4%, but that's obscurring that there were two blistering quarters.

"Unemployment fell from 10% to 4.7% Employment rate under Trump's presidency has been also growing steadily until covid"

Yes, but the scale of the change from what Obama started with was much larger and deeper hole: a banking crisis. (If you look at IMF/WB studies of historical banking crises from the Great Depression up through Japan's lost decade, over 400 in their study, they're the worst recessions to dig out of, not V shaped at all). If you look at total number of jobs created, it was 10 million in Obama's second term. Trump ended up with -3 million, but if we're fair, and just compare Trump's best 3 years, with Obama's last 3 years, Obama had 3.0, 2.7, and 2.3 million jobs. Trump had 2.2, 2.7, 2.1, or 8 million vs 7 million.

There's no sense in which the Obama economy was "bad" compared with Trump's first 3 years. Except for the fact that they didn't rescue home owners, just the wealthy and business internets, and so a ton of people lost generational wealth, and permanently exited the job market when their only factory or sector rolled up.

Which is one more thing to say about recessions: There are some business sectors that are zombies -- dead men walking. Dying a slow death, everyone can feel it, going through the motions, and it is generally not until there is a recession that these businesses are killed, never to return, often replaced by new sectors or disruptive new tech or business models.

In a way, recessions act as garbage collection, often spurring innovation. The Bush Sr recession lead to one of the greatest economic expansions since 60s.

> Yes, but those were brought down by a unlucky quarters in between.

Am I reading it right: "Under Obama economy was great if we ignore periods when it was not"?

Well, when those periods were due to freak weather and rebounded immediately the next quarter?

Q1'2014 analysis from Economists:

"Data such as employment, manufacturing and services sectors point to a sharp acceleration in growth early in the second quarter. However, the pace of expansion could fall short of expectations, which range as high as a 3.6 percent rate. Economists estimate severe weather could have slashed as much as 1.5 percentage points from GDP growth in the first quarter. The government, however, gave no details on the impact of the weather.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 1.0 percent rate. It was previously reported to have advanced at a 3.1 percent pace. Exports declined at a 8.9 percent rate, instead of 6.0 percent pace, resulting in a trade deficit that sliced off 1.53 percentage points from GDP growth. Weak export growth has been tied to frigid temperatures during the winter."

So basically, consumer spending increased, but exports declined, supposedly due to freak weather.

I mean, what if I said "Trump's economic growth was great, if we ignore the pandemic", do you really think it's wrong to separate out external factors like once-in-a-century pandemics, weather events, or major external wars in order to consider what impact fiscal policy or leadership may have had?