Trump supporter billionaire investor Carl Icahn "I agree completely with Krugman"

[Jimmy Woods]

Billionaire Investor and one of the guys Trump proudly goes around saying is his supporter Carl Icahn in an interview on CNBC today said that when it comes to the US economy Paul Krugman, liberal economist and hated among the right, is completely right.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000513536

Icahn: "I do believe there will be a day of reckoning unless we get fiscal stimulus"
CNBC host: "What's the combination there, is it more tax cuts or more spending?"
Icahn: "well i think you certainly can do more spending. The republican party I used to be more sympathetic with. Im right in the middle now. As you know Im for Trump. Congress, is this massive gridlock, obsessed with the deficit to the point where I think it's almost pathological that you just worry about a deficit when you don't have inflation and you are the reserve currency of the world."

"Some of these politicians you talk to have no... I mean a lot of them are bright guys, but they have really no concept of what it means. A country is not a company. A company you borrow too much money you go bankrupt, somebody takes you over. They keep saying we owe all this money to China, but we're really not going to pay it back in the normal way. So China decides I want my money back. OK, well how do you want it back? you want dollar bills, you want treasuries? what do you want? So i don't understand this obsession that they have."

"I'm not saying you got to go crazy and borrow money and have money floating around and have rampant inflation and yeah the fed is there and everything is equilibrium. We are so obsessed with that deficit. And I never thought Id agree completely with guys like Krugman, but it is that he's sort of right. You absolutely need fiscal stimulus in this economy."


-----
So Trump's billionaire backer and man he looks to for economic advice says the US is in need of some major central government spending and Republicans in congress are wrecking the economy forcing the fed to interfere with cheap money which is creating potential for a huge bubble. Hillary wins or Trump wins, in 2017 there's going to be a president that's likely going to increase spending and hopefully end the Republican effort to destroy the middle class and the US economy.

[TrumpIsPresident]

end the Republican effort to destroy the middle class and the US economy.

Oh you mean this middle class:

#1 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale now earn less money than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.

#2 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale have a lower net worth than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.

#3 According to a Washington Post article published just a few days ago, more than 50 percent of the children in U.S. public schools now come from low income homes. This is the first time that this has happened in at least 50 years.

#4 According to a Census Bureau report that was recently released, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

#5 In 2008, the total number of business closures exceeded the total number of businesses being created for the first time ever, and that has continued to happen every single year since then.

#6 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”. But by 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans still considered themselves to be “middle class”.

#7 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be “lower class”. But in 2014, an astounding 49 percent of all Americans in that age range considered themselves to be “lower class”.

#8 Traditionally, owning a home has been one of the key indicators that you belong to the middle class. So what does the fact that the rate of homeownership in America has been falling for seven years in a row say about the Obama years?

#9 According to a survey that was conducted last year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.

#10 After accounting for inflation, median household income in the United States is 8 percent lower than it was when the last recession started in 2007.

#11 According to one recent survey, 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

#12 At this point, one out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is “in collections“.

#13 When Barack Obama first set foot in the Oval Office, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, that number is sitting at only 59.2 percent…

#14 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen from 19.8 weeks to 32.8 weeks.

#15 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#16 At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, our yearly trade deficit with China was 226 billion dollars. Last year, it was more than 314 billion dollars.

#17 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent. Today, it is over 101 percent.

#18 The U.S. national debt is on pace to approximately double during the eight years of the Obama administration. In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate about as much debt as it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.

#19 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

#20 The poverty rate in the United States has been at 15 percent or above for 3 consecutive years. This is the first time that has happened since 1965.

#21 From 2009 through 2013, the U.S. government spent a whopping 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs.

#22 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million.

#23 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had full-time jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin. But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have full-time jobs.

#24 One recent survey discovered that about 22 percent of all Americans have had to turn to a church food panty for assistance.

#25 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.

#26 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are living with only one parent are living in poverty.

#27 According to a report that was released late last year by the National Center on Family Homelessness, the number of homeless children in the United States has reached a new all-time record high of 2.5 million.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...s-barack-obama

Each item is sourced at the link above.

[Annoying]

Oh you mean this middle class:

"The 2008 economic crisis was the fault of the president inaugurated in 2009!"

[TrumpIsPresident]

"The 2008 economic crisis was the fault of the president inaugurated in 2009!"

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

[Deleted]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

"some scratches and dings"

lol

[Jotaux]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

You can't really do much when congress has your hands tied.

[unfilteredJW]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

I'm cracking up.

Never fail to disappoint.

[Annoying]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

I buy a car from you that's literally on fire. I put the fire out, but you insist that I put it out too slow, so the damage the fire caused is actually my fault.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that most of what you're posting has absolutely nothing to do with the president and everything to do with the legislative branch.

[Deleted]

I buy a car from you that's literally on fire. I put the fire out, but you insist that I put it out too slow, so the damage the fire caused is actually my fault.

You need to work on your negotiating skills when you buy a car on fire

[Stormspellz]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

to make this an appropriate analogy the seller is also preventing all the washing and maintenance of said vehicle.

[Zoldor]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

And you let about 535 kind of friends drive it around and do as they please with it. Some think changing the oil every 3k miles is good some think 10k some think never. Some don't let anyone drive the car for months at a time and let the tires go flat and the alternator die. Shit like that.

Yeah, all one dudes fault that shit isn't better. Not those 535 dickbags with no term limits. Nah, those guys have nothing to do with it.

[Deleted]

to make this an appropriate analogy the seller is also preventing all the washing and maintenance of said vehicle.

And those "scratches" means the engine is missing.

[Damajin]

Billionaire who owes a good chunk of his fortune to government largesse wants more government largesse, news at 11.

[PC2]

We spend almost $4 trillion a year. Increasing that with stimulus is not going to significantly increase the middle class or prosperity.

[TrumpIsPresident]

I buy a car from you that's literally on fire. I put the fire out, but you insist that I put it out too slow, so the damage the fire caused is actually my fault.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that most of what you're posting has absolutely nothing to do with the president and everything to do with the legislative branch.

Ehhh I can see where you're going with that one but it doesn't flow.

If I sold you a flaming car I wouldn't care how/if you put it out because I'd have my money.

What you could have said was:

I buy a car from you that's on fire
I let it burn, in fact I throw gas on it
I get my facebook friends to scream racist at everyone who mentions fire

But to say that none of those things has anything to do with the President is just wrong.

Government ..period ..is the enemy of the middle class, Left and Right.

Too many of the young ones here are blinded by the division to see they're being universally screwed.

Hell most people here are so blind they think I'm White, Republican, and Christian simply because I don't bow and worship the shit-bag tyrant currently occupying the WH.

The entire structure is built on convincing people they other guy is the blame for all their problems.

So given that fact why would I cure your disease if my entire business model is built on selling you the treatment?

If I can make you suffer on Monday to get your vote on Tuesday then why wouldn't I make you suffer on Wednesday so I can own you come Thursday?

[alexw]

I buy a used car from you
yea its got some scratches and dings
I drive it around for 8 years
running it into other cars
never washing it
letting my dogs tear up the interior
when I go to sell it I cant get a decent price
I blame you

Hilarious. You do realize that in 2009 the economy was on the verge of a second great depression, and one wrong policy move would have sent it all over the edge?

Scratches and dings my ass. The economy Obama was inherited from that incompetent idiot, Bush, was a total disaster zone.

[Mihalik]

Bla bla bla delusion bla bla bla Obama derangement syndrome bla bla bla Benghazi

I didn't know the President could pass laws and budgets without Congress. All these years that I spent living in delusion. I also didn't know that Black Presidents have the superpower of time travel where they can go back 10 years in time and start a couple of wars and cripple the government's revenue source by proposing sweeping and utterly absurd tax cuts during a high spending period.

All these new things I have learned today.

[alexw]

Billionaire who owes a good chunk of his fortune to government largesse wants more government largesse, news at 11.

No, he understands how the economy works, and he is, of course, 100% right.

Spending drives the economy and right now with wage growth so weak the consumer is really in no place to increase spending. As a result to keep the economy functioning the FED is keeping interest rates low, which reduces the cost of borrowing which enables non-wage based spending growth. However that policy is driving up debt levels and inflating economic bubbles globally. It would be far far better if the gov relied on fiscal policy (tax & spend) vs monetary (interest rates), since there is massive un-utilized capacity in the economy. How can we tell? Inflation rates of course! Which is what Icahn alludes to. Inflation is high = no spare economic capacity. Inflation is low = lots of spare capacity.

[Mihalik]

We spend almost $4 trillion a year. Increasing that with stimulus is not going to significantly increase the middle class or prosperity.

Depends where that stimulus goes and what form it takes.

Corporate tax cuts? That won't do squat.

Infrastructure spending and sales tax cuts? That would go pretty fucking far

[Damajin]

No, he understands how the economy works, and he is, of course, 100% right.

Spending drives the economy and right now with wage growth so weak the consumer is really in no place to increase spending. As a result to keep the economy functioning the FED is keeping interest rates low, which reduces the cost of borrowing which enables non-wage based spending growth. However that policy is driving up debt levels and inflating economic bubbles globally. It would be far far better if the gov relied on fiscal policy (tax & spend) vs monetary (interest rates), since there is massive un-utilized capacity in the economy. How can we tell? Inflation rates of course! Which is what Icahn alludes to. Inflation is high = no space economic capacity. Inflation is low = lots of space capacity.

You basically just said what I said, though I'm admittedly far more pessimistic towards the lobbying class and framed it as a justified attack.