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What makes an economy boom? The economists will usually say it booms if there is greater productivity, if there's more foreign investment,

if interest rates are reasonable and down a little bit, if there is plentiful deregulation,

tax cuts, and energy production. Let's ask ourselves if any of that might happen in 2026.

Thank you. might happen in 2026. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.

If you notice this use of the adverb unexpectedly, it's all over the Wall Street

Journal, it's all over the financial sites, it's all over the popular culture and the media culture.

It's never used in association with Democrats. Usually they tell us things are going rosy,

and then when they're not rosy, they just leave it blank.

But with Trump, we were told, remember repeatedly, that the trade war, so-called trade war, would sink the economy that terrorists would ruin prosperity.

We would be in a recession by now.

The stock market was going to collapse,

that interest rates would have to go again and again.

And now all of a sudden, in the last few days,

we see unexpectedly, third quarter growth of the economy

was 4.3.

That's a booming economy in the third quarter. That was unexpectedly a new

development. We were told inflation would probably be hyperinflation because of the trade.

And what do we find out? In the third quarter, it was about 2.7, and some months it was three, some months,

2.4, but 2.7, 2.8. That was pretty good, especially given Joe Biden's average over

four years of 5.2 every year. And then there was the unemployment we were told.

...