Golly, that was bad, Donald Trump. Where to begin?

Well, the nuttiest part of last night’s presidential debate was probably Republican nominee Donald J. Trump positing his 10-year-old son as an expert on cybersecurity because, well, actually he didn’t give a reason.

Unless it was Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton telling Trump to “just join the debate by saying more crazy things.” Or Trump flatly lying about Clinton handing Trump the signature issue he rode for years — specifically, claiming President Barack Obama may have been born in Kenya — by referring the audience to a CNN interview with Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager. Unfortunately for Trump, the manager said the exact opposite in that interview: ”We did not start the birther movement, period. End of story.”

Oh, and when he said “my strongest asset by far is my temperament?” After he spent 90 minutes interrupting Clinton and rolling his eyes? And kvetching about comedian Rosie O’Donnell, who insulted him in 2006 by making the completely accurate observation that Trump cheated on his first wife? Comedy gold.

Almost as good as when he denied ever claiming global warming was invented by China to denude U.S. manufacturing. Which he had only put on Twitter.

John Kasich’s erstwhile campaign manager, John Weaver, put it best, also on Twitter: “A) She Kicked His Ass. B) he helped.”

But this is an economics column, so let’s stick to economics, an area where some benighted Washington pundits (Ross Douthat, call your office) charmingly thought Trump made sense early in the debate before getting tired.

His arguments were familiar: America is becoming a third world country. America is bleeding jobs because they are all going to Mexico. The Federal Reserve is propping up markets in a giant financial bubble that is the only thing the U.S. economy has going for it, because Janet Yellen wants President Clinton and it’s all rigged. And Trump will become the biggest job creator since Ronald Reagan by reprising and extending the tax and regulatory policies of George W. Bush.

Uh, no.

Easiest first. The biggest job creator since Ronald Reagan is actually President Bill Clinton. Actually, that’s not true either — Clinton presided over 6.6 million more new jobs than Reagan.

First Presidential Debate in Three Minutes

Hillary didn’t even point that out, the equivalent of missing a batting-practice pitch tossed by a Little Leaguer. Her little gentleman even created more jobs, as a percentage of the economy, than Harry Truman in the post-World War II boom. (Adjusted for the fact he served only one term, even Jimmy Carter added jobs faster than Reagan — but with nasty inflation).

Hillary did, however, point out that W presided over the beginnings of a recession that caused 8.7 million job losses and 5 million (according to Clinton) home foreclosures. She had stamina enough, to coin a phrase, to remember that.

Mexico is not taking America’s jobs. U.S. exports to Mexico have risen about ninefold to $235 billion since 1993, when the North American Free Trade Agreement happened. There is, indeed, a $36 billion merchandise trade deficit (net of crude oil imports) with Mexico, all of it effectively in autos and auto parts. But most Mexican auto factories actually belong to European and Asian brands, who also make cars in the U.S. If Germany wants to get exercised about BMW making vehicles in Mexico or in South Carolina, it can be our guest. But the idea that trade has killed U.S. jobs on net is ludicrous.

Besides, the U.S. has added 15 million jobs since the employment recession hit bottom in February 2010. And manufacturing has come back — it’s just leaner now, creating more value with fewer people.

Memo to Trump: If you say something, and it’s wrong, saying it again, louder, doesn’t make it so.

America’s in a bubble. The U.S. economy has grown at a moderate 2.4% clip each of the last two years, and is growing a bit more slowly this year. The S&P 500 is trading at 16 times next year’s estimated earnings, a little above historical averages. And Fed policy is actually less accommodative than what’s coming out of Japan and much of Europe these days.

Housing in the U.S. is much more affordable than when we were in a real bubble last, and stocks are far cheaper than early-2000 technology shares, the bubble before that. Instead, consumer balance sheets are the least leveraged they’ve been since stats have been kept, according to Moody’s Analytics. Real median incomes rose 5% last year.

So you have moderate growth, underpinned by rising wages, a solid job market and financially healthy consumers, with normal stock valuations. Kind of like 2007 with housing, but completely the opposite.

The only message that came through the word salad clearly was that, while Donald Trump claims to love his decidedly first-world country, he doesn’t like it very much. Or know much about it.