Due Credit

   When something good happens, politicians claim credit. When something ungood happens, they blame someone else, typically a predecessor.
   While it is true that the U.S. economy has steadily improved in the past 14 months since Donald Trump was elected, as he himself has noted, it is also true that the growth streak began eight years ago, and the 14 month period he claimed as a credit for himself included three months between his election and his inauguration, a time in which Democratic President Barack Obama was still in office.
   So realistically, how much of the growth streak can be attributed to Trump, and how much was due to the momentum of an improving prosperity that began long before his nomination, much less his election and inauguration?
   As a practical matter, how much influence can a new president have on a national economy during his first year in office?
   Politicians would have you believe they have an economic magic wand that they can wave and instantly spark prosperity. This ignores the reality that a national economy has a life of its own, and is often vulnerable to the fickle winds of emotional over-confidence unsupported by rational expectations.
   So while prosperity can be driven by self-fulfilling prophecies of success, it can also be tripped up and tumbled by similar emotionally driven forecasts.
   Meanwhile, apart from stock market data that reflect investor attitudes more than economic performance, there are statistics that show continuing growth.
   As the year ended, the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.6 percent during the fourth quarter, compared to 3.2 percent in the third quarter, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
   That's a preliminary estimate, of course, and is likely to be changed as more information becomes available to the government agency.
   Nonetheless, it's lower than the third quarter number, and a lot lower than the Trumpian hope of as much as 4 percent.
   The Federal Reserve Board, which monitors the economy and has indicated a preference for a growth rate of around 2 percent, will soon welcome a new chairman -- a Trump appointee.
   But whether the new chairman follows the desires of the president who appointed him or adopts the independent attitude traditional for Fed members remains to be seen.
   Already, several close allies have jumped the Trump ship, and the investigation into possible presidential wrongdoing has been collecting evidence despite Trump's attempts to shut down the investigation and dismiss the special counsel leading the probe.
   So the questions become this: Whose rules will be followed, and who's in charge? Will America follow the rule of law, or the Trumpian code of "Me First and everyone else do as I say, not as I do"?