all right? 3.2% gdp growth. that s great and moving in the rye direction. trump inherited a recovering economy. president obama inherited a mess. the federal reserve says our gdp growth should be closer to 4% to meet the cost of living an the economic growth of the country. he s not up to par with what the federal reserve says he should be. all right. rashad richie, ned rye yun, a spirited debate as always. thanks, jo. the high cost of paying with plastic. why your credit card is weakening your buying power, next. r, next get away who used expedia to book the vacation rental that led to the ride which took them to the place where they discovered that sometimes a little down time can lift you right up. flights, hotels, cars,
and the administration scaling back. the officials saying 10 million americans to be insured from the obamacare. the nation s budget deficit falling to the lowest level since president obama took office. it stands at $439 billion. a $44 billion decline from last year. according to the treasury department, that represents the fastest sustained deficit reduction since after world war ii. the office of management and budget credits increase of tax receipts thanks to the recovering economy. and asian stocks higher. u.s. future are barely moving. the dow climbed 217 points. the nasdaq and s&p closed higher. what drove that rally?
seems this is failing to sway the voters. according to the latest polls, the socialists party is trailing the ruling coalition by six points. favoring the current prime minister is a recovering economy. gdp is expected to grow 1.6% this year and this mostly driven by exports. however, unemployment remains one of the highest in the eurozone, just over 12%. but that s not the main problem. this is. debt. 130% of gdp, but that is not all. in terms of the fiscal deficit, the number one thing that led to the deficit is basically an example of the changes that portugal faces in the near term. in the short term voters seem indifferent this election, fatigued by austerity. kis enchanted by the promises of politics.
better than the status quo? i don t think it is actually. right now iran is in a very weak state. its economy is under severe pressure. the iranians desperately need a deal. they desperately need their economy to recover. because without a recovering economy it may precipitate a political change in iran that the supreme leader and hard liners do not want to see. without this agreement, the argument is they will return to full-scale uranium enrichment. they don t engage in massive nuclear expansion. the problem with this deal, if iran complies with the deal within a decade or so they will have a massive nuclear program, near zero nuclear breakout and a powerful economy immunized against political pressure. that s the criticism, iran doesn t have to do anything, bide its time and by 2030 it will be a nuclear arms state and have a good economy to boot.
minimum wage, does it create jobs? i don t know. i ve been struggling with that for some 50 years. but we do know brianna, more and more states and municipalities are raising the minimum wage. some could argue that jobs growth has been slowly accelerating over the past 22 months, so it could be a recovering economy, not necessarily raising the minimum wage that is the reason here, but no question, no question that this debate is still very, very brisk, both in washington but also in states and cities. yes, and speaking of one los angeles, we re seeing this play out there, a proposal for a minimum wage more than $15 for some folks, right? this would be the highest minimum wage in the country, no question, $15.37, and this would be for about 10,000 hotel industry workers. l.a. lawmakers want to get this done and signed by labor day, and here s the idea, this proposal 1537 far above the federal minimum wage and what the president proposed, more than what you re seeing in