Trump set up Biden for a rough Afghan withdrawal.

Stimulus worldwide pumping out liquidity and supply side restrictions. Yes, both parties over stimulated and yes that contributed. No single cause

 

Very good.

When we (the Gov) decided to shutdown “non essential “ business how were people supposed to pay their bills and feed themselves if they had no income? That was the crux of PPP right?

Or was it the way it was implemented?

FTR I think PPP and the first round of stimulus was a necessary evil, but then as time went of the GoV just kept spending away.

 

Your post exactly defines the dilemma we were in. As soon as the ink was dry on the capitulation agreement, the Taliban knew all they had to do was bide their time and be patient....they had won. We went down to a skeleton force in Afghanistan and they backed down on their attacks...all they had to do was be patient. We had extended the time to withdraw, had we either extended it again or repudiated the agreement altogether, the Taliban would have ramped things up again. As I said before, and you apparently agree, we'd be forced to send thousands of troops back in and spend billions of dollars. For what, a war we were never going to win?

The Trump peace plan is reminiscent to me of another Republican plan to end an unwinnable war, one from another era...Richard M. Nixon's "peace with honor" Paris Peace Accords to end the Viet Nam war.

 

Biden could make changes prospectively he couldn't make changes retrospectively and the debacle in Afghanistan was almost entirely attributable to decisions Trump made while he was in office. The inflation of late 2021 and 2022 was attributable primarily to the post-Covid related supply chain interruptions. The one cause of the inflation that could be attributable to Biden, the Covid stimulus was also supported by Trump when he was in office and in fact Trump pressured Congress to increase the amount of the stimulus checks. Biden received the blame because the inflation occurred while he was in office. Trump and the Republicans got off Scott free even though they were equally responsible.
Trump suggests he won't sign relief bill into law unless Congress makes changes including increasing stimulus checks to $2,000
Larry Summers blasts $1.9 T stimulus as ‘least responsible’ economic policy in 40 years
“I think this is the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years,” Summers said. “I think fundamentally, it’s driven by intransigence on the Democratic left and intransigence and completely unreasonable behavior on the whole of the Republican party,” he continued.

 

We’ve been screwing the Kurds, the interpreters, hell anybody that we call an allies. We excel at it. It’s not just the Trumpster.

 

If Biden reversed course and committed more US troops to Afghanistan the Taliban would have broken its agreement with the Trump Administration US causalities would have significantly increased and he would have received sh*t from both the right and left. He supported withdrawal and he was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Trump planted the seeds for failure leaving Biden to take the blame for the resulting mess.

 

The post Covid inflation was caused by both irresponsible fiscal policy and supply chain interruptions. The irresponsible fiscal policy was supported by Trump and Congressional Republicans as well as Biden and the Democrat. Unfortunately for Old Joe the inflationary consequences occurred while he was in office so he is receiving 100% of the blame including that component of the inflation that was attributable to causes other than the fiscal policy.

 

Trump is still taking credit for the defeat of ISIS even though most of the gains against the Islamic State occurred before he took office and over 11,000 Kurds who were much more involved in combat against ISIS than the US were killed in the process and their sacrifice notwithstanding they were still sold out by Trump who was more interested in pleasing Erdogan so that he could continue doing business in Turkey.
'Trump betrayed us': Fleeing Kurds condemn U.S. decision to leave Syria
Turkey, Syria, the Kurds, and Trump’s Abandonment of Foreign Policy
Did we betray the Kurds for Trump Towers? | Editorial
Trump’s (Insane) Conflict of Interest in the Turkey-Syria Dispute

 

Your posts on this issue are ignorantly foolish. Trump surrendered to the Taliban. The Afghan president fled the country. The Afghan military and police collapsed. An enormous amount of effort went into the decision to pull out the remaining forces from Afghanistan on a timetable that was set by the administration, the pentagon and the defense department. If you do your research, you can find a full discussion of what went into that decision. With the government of Afghanistan, its military and police in collapse, US casualties would’ve been enormous if the fighting started again in Afghanistan without an infusion of an extremely large amount of US soldiers. As an aside, the US, to my knowledge, did not leave any equipment behind. However, the military equipment owned by the Afghan government remained. The reality is that we were lucky to be able to get out of Afghanistan with only a single suicide bomber attack.

 

The main cause of inflation was worldwide supply disruptions. Secondary was fiscal stimulus both from Trump and Biden. But since Trumps was earlier during the initial downturn it didn’t have time to cause inflation, but ultimately it likely contributed.

I’m sure PPP helped in some cases but in many cases it was just a lot extra money and profit for businesses that weren’t likely to close.

worldwide supply chain was the primary factor but fiscal stimulus did play a part.

 

Obviously, Trump made every other option a lot worse for the U.S. Trump burned all the bridges and did not leave any good options.

 

Most economists would argue the initial PPP and stimulus kept us from going into a massive depression.

Perhaps giving money to people to just do what they want made things worse. Not sure how it could have been rolled out better to avoid spikes in demands is some areas.

I recall people buying boats and RVs and doing big home renovations, adding pools. Really odd things if you felt your job was on the line.

 

The stimulus certainly did help sustain the economy. It also helped juice a strong recovery that has lasted even until now.

The point is it can take a while for inflation to kick in, and a while to tame. It’s not unreasonable to think that the 2020 stimulus contributed to inflation as well as the 2021 stimulus.