Opinion | The great Trump economy is a myth

LTC Kevin B. - Of all the economic shocks, there is only one where the cure was to stop working. And yes, he initiated the don't go to work, but I am old enough to remember that he's the same guy who said go back to work because the cure can't be worse than the disease, yet it devolved into a red state go to work and blue state stay at home paradigm. 22M is a lot of people, I'd like to believe I'd know a few of them, but for the folks I do know -- one man's paid sabbatical is another's unemployment; they weren't fired, they were told to stay home. Again, the folks I know. But again, it is incredulous to believe "unemployment" went from ~2% to almost 15% in the span of a month without considering mitigating factors, just as the reverse is similar -- pandemic over, get back to working all those ready-made unfilled positions.

CSM Chuck Stafford - He owns the fallout. His administration told everyone to stay home. He then undermined his administration's experts by telling everyone to open back up (because he was worried about his reelection). Yes, we had a red state/blue state divide in their responses, but the blue states followed the science and even Trump's initial guidance, whereas the red states followed his initial guidance and then quickly flip-flopped right after Trump flip-flopped. Plus, Trump was touting his administration's vaccine development efforts, and then he undermined his own administration's vaccine by telling people not to get it. It's insane that people still try to deflect the fallout from his poor decisions, his waffling, and his putting people's lives at risk for his own political ambitions.

LTC Kevin B. - I can agree with a lot of that, and the macroeconomics of it all will be an interesting and compelling case study in the outyears, but the recovery could have also been handled better. I also see plenty of deflection from poor decisions, senility, and putting peoples lives at risk for one's own political ambitions. That's sadly the nature of the game -- and then back to square one regarding the myths --> there's stats and statisticians.

This time around, he's not simply denying, ignoring and then mismanaging the crisis - he's CREATING the economic crisis before our eyes!