From Davos, Switzerland, Trump Supports the Wacky Planting of a Trillion Trees Initiative

President Trump at the World Economic Forum

President Trump is in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum. It's the biggest gathering of crony capitalists you are likely to see in any year.

They are all here, from the Trump entourage to George Soros to Han Zheng.

This morning Trump delivered a speech to the gathered.

During the speech, he took credit for U.S. economic growth that had little to do with him:

America’s economy was in a rather dismal state. Before my presidency began, the outlook for many economies was bleak. 

The economic ignorance in the above comment is astounding. The president has little to do with economic performance. He cam help only be staying out of the way--laissez faire. And Trump is nothing close to staying away from interventions in the economy with his silly trade wars and attempts to intimidate the Fed into more money printing.

To be sure, in the down phase of the Federal Reserve created business cycle there is elevated unemployment as the economy shifts to adjust to the new capital/consumption structure. But this is only for a limited period. The period can be extended by bad economic policy but that is another story.

In the current boom phase of the business cycle, you wouldn't expect significant unemployment and negative economic numbers even if the man in the White House did little but sit on the four-year throne and watch baseball on television.

But Trump, given his limited intellectual curiosity and abilities, probably does think he is responsible for the boom.

And although Trump denounced climate change alarmists in his speech. The erratic, inconsistent president then went on to announce, in the same damn speech, that the U.S. would join the economically illiterate World Economic Forum initiative to plant 1 trillion trees worldwide.

-RW