Gross Domestic Product grew by 33.1 percent in the third quarter of 2020, the Commerce Department reported today. President Donald Trump was ecstatic about the news and tweeted triumphantly. But the financial press had already explained that a growth figure of this size was coming, and that it wouldn’t mean all that much. Even Fox News pointed out that we are still very much in a Covid recession.
And the stock market? It fell 200 points. Later, stocks rebounded, but only because of expected good news on tech company earnings, according to the Wall Street Journal. The stock market, which has been President Donald Trump’s North Star, has turned unstable in the week preceding Election Day. It’s hard to say why, but Wall Street sure as hell doesn’t seem to anticipate, or even necessarily desire, four more years of a Trump presidency.
My latest, for the New Republic.