already, if there are a couple of things that they can do proactively, i think that they would work with the president. i don t know. all we ve seen from chuck schumer is the party of no and the personified negative politics. when i think of the resistance, i think unemployment at the lowest time and the lowest level in maybe 20 years, 5 trillion new dollars added to the economy because of the stock market growth. opportunities because of less regulation of businesses, lower energy costs, interest rates have stayed low. illegal border crossings are down and i don t know what the resistance will do for itself, and i think the democrats would be better to get onboard for the president and say let s work with infrastructure and let s do something on daca and let s deal with the budget because the budget will be right in the president s face on the 19th of january and it will have to be dealt with. with the president striking the tone, the very strident tone
so what is the economic forecast for 2018? joining me now is cnn global economic analyst rana fruhar. rana, let s start with what the president said there, is he right about jobs pouring into the country? what is the economic outlook in your view? i think pouring is a little bit too strong. we ve had pretty good job growth over the last couple of years. i think that that s going to continue certainly in the first half of 2018, but a lot of the prosperity that some people are feeling has really been predicated on the stock market being so high. that s really what s been driving the economy. the big question for me is, yeah, i think we ll continue to see some stock market growth, some asset prices going up in the next six months or so, but if the stock market fails, and i can talk a little bit more about that, then are you going to see job growth also start to sputter? that s a big question and that s something to look ahead to in the second half of 2018 as a potential risk. well,
benefits the wealthy. so what is in it for the lower to middle income earners? and even for small business owners? depends how small. if you re an s-corp or a portnership, depending on how much you make there could be some benefits. those are tilted towards people who make over $500,000 or $600,000 in their businesses. the middle and lower income brackets will not necessarily benefit all that much. if you re making $25,000 a year or less, you ll get $60 or $5 a month more. $25,000 to $75,000 you may get something in the neighborhood of 500 bucks which would be again about $40 a month. it s not nothing. but it s not enough to make the economy grow. again, most of the benefits accrue to corporate america, and some then to the wealthiest americans in the country. and, ron, some analysts are predicting up to 10% of the stock market growth in the next year. how does that growth, republicans, if they re predicting this, how does that benefit the average american? we do have to remember
administration promised? not in the slightest bit. that s just the latest example. we could look at kansas in tis country. also something that s overlooked, when corporations have more money, they do reinvest it. they improve their productivity. they improve their operations. and that does potentially stimulate the economy. but what it doesn t do is serve the low wage worker. that low wage worker has a higher probability of losing his or her job when those companies reinvest. and they invest in things like automation and technology. so it might help the it s good for profitability and gdp in some cases, stock market growth. not good for wages. zblit might help certain parts of the economy. what it doesn t do is address income inequality which it claims to. wait a second. corporations are currently sitting on literally trillions of dollars of retained earnings. that is cash on hand. also if they wanted to borrow, interest rates are extremely
of this. what they re trying to do, neil, they re trying to bring it home for the folks. when they hear tax cuts, it doesn t mean enough until they can put it into numbers. let me share what he had to say on twitter. the president loves to tweet. he was talking about taxes and the need for tax reform. he said this. i think you ll appreciate this. he s talking about the fake news media as well. he said it would be nice in the fake news media would report the unprecedented stock market growth since the election. need tax cuts. he added that if congress gives us the tax cuts and reform i m asking for, those numbers will grow by leaps and bounds. make america great again. he did not talk about taxes and tax reform during the oval office frey with the prime minister of canada. they did talk about nafta. i ll let you handle that. let me give you highlights of what we expect the president to