The Trump-controlled statistics department says the inflation rate is under 2%. The Federal Reserve uses the same statistics to determine their policies. I remember one of Trump’s offhand remarks that he had told the department head to keep inflation numbers low and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers at least 1% higher than Obama’s. Whether the numbers are accurate, I don’t know. We do know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics just announced the hiring pace for the last year, on average over 50,000 per month, was too high. Trump’s people say 2018 GDP was 3.1%; it was actually 2.5%

Did you know Trump just forced the Mexican tomato growers to raise prices by 40% on regular tomatoes and 85% on organic tomatoes? This has been done on a wide range of products we buy from abroad. When we import more expensive items, the domestic producer raises their price to increase profit raising inflation.

Trump put high tariffs on China so most of the companies which have moved their production out went to Viet Nam where labor is even cheaper. Now he is looking at putting tariffs on Viet Nam.

Recently he said “one of the fun things about being President is putting tariffs on other countries.” Tariffs are just toys to amuse him. His tariff toy has real world consequences. He wants businesses to move away from China but where can they safely go? Businesses are afraid to invest in new projects because they don’t know what he will do next. An example is USS Steel beefed up production to meet the demand caused by sanctions. Sanctions went away and now they are laying off jobs. Manufacturing jobs have been decreasing for over a year, not increasing as he constantly proclaims.

The new statistics shows the Emperor has no clothes!