Best SCOTUS JUSTICES Money Has, Bidenomics-Inconvenient Facts, Civility, Principles, Decorum, Deficit, Debt & Other GOP Hits, Democratic Defector Caucus, Fake It ’till You Make It, FEIGNED OUTRAGE VS DIGNITY, Gish Gallop Debacle, God Bless the USA Bible, GUILTY-12 JURORS, 1 FELON, INFLATION WOES, Lend Me Your Ear…, Project 2025, Project 2025 Enabling Lawmaker, Smirking Mike Johnson, State of the Union Rebuttal, The Boy(s) Who Cried Wolf, The Facts, Please, Trump ’25-Make America Corrupt, Trump Absurdities, Unintended Consequences, VOTER APATHY 2024, Voter Motivations, Voters: DUI or Asleep??, What’ve You Done For Me Lately
Covid hit the US with a vengeance causing shutdowns and disrupting services beginning in March 2019, which, in turn, interrupted supply chains beginning February 2020. Between February 2020 and November 2020, more than 4 million people left the work force entirely. They were NOT counted as unemployed because you must either be on a temporary layoff or have been looking for a job in the past four weeks to be counted as unemployed. So, the unemployment figures were skewed, making their accuracy worthless.
Add to that the long-term unemployment figures (people unable to find work for greater than 6 months) which in January 2020, remained in the typical 20% range, but nearly doubled to 36.9% in November of 2020.
From September 2020 to November 2020, families with issues of housing insecurity rose from just over 10% to 12.7% (almost a 30% increase) and those with food insecurities rose from roughly 7% to 9.1% (also a 30% increase in just 2 months). The home price index rose 11% from January 2020 to November 2020 and rents increased 5.6% in that same period. More telling was the report of 52% of 18–29-year-olds living with their parents, the highest level since the Great Depression.
And then there was the obliteration of the generational trend toward a service industry economy. The service industry took a 7.8% hit while goods sold at a 7% increase as people bought their goods rather than go to bars or restaurants, for example.
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“Gasoline prices rose 8.3%…. after President Trump met with Saudis and demanded they slow production.”
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“Gasoline prices rose 8.3% in December 2020 after President Trump met with Saudis and demanded they slow production. PCE Consumer Price Index rose 5.2% in 2020 and continued to rise.
In case you failed to see the connection, all of the above data is from the final year of Trump’s presidency. It was NOT Bidenomics that brought on the inflation. It was well underway before he even won the election in November 2020. But unlike the recession of the 70’s that took almost a decade to get under control, Biden’s policies actually brought it under control in a roughly 18 months.
And then there is the fact that EVERY President, when first elected, inherits the previous President’s budget priorities. The Federal budget begins October 1st of each year and ends on September 30th of each year… meaning that the budget is already passed by election day for the fiscal year that follows. And when the President assumes office on the 3rd week of January, they are living by the budget priorities of their predecessor, so any criticisms or kudos actually belong to the prior administration that first year. Having said that, Trump’s budget lasted until September 30th, 2021. Meaning that the blame for the poor economy that first year was Trump’s doing and not Biden. Just like after this next election, any bad or good economic news would be Biden’s, regardless of who wins the election, until after September 30th of 2025. Of course, any president can cause economic turmoil with catastrophic actions like war or tariff-based trade wars (like Trump did in his presidency) and negatively affect the economy, but absent a major finacial issue or actions like those mentioned, the first 10 months of a president’s term are pretty much the result of a budget they had no hand in making or implementing.
SO now, let’s look at Bidenomics.
Under Biden, a first time ever record of Americans were insured…nearly 95% currently.
Salary increases are outpacing inflation and Biden’s policies have created more job creation in his first 3 years than ANY OTHER PRESIDENT IN US HISTORY FOR THE SAME PERIOD. In fact, his policies like the CHIPS ACT, The American Rescue Act, The Inflation Reduction Act and the Build Back Better Infrastructure Act are largely praised as being responsible for the immense job creation and the soft landing for the Inflation caused by Covid and Trump policies. This does not mean the price of goods has gone down… the high prices are due to GREED at the corporate level, not a thing to do with any president’s policies, but I’ll get to that a little later.
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“…household net worth increased to a record $156.2 TRILLION…”
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Inflation, which peaked in September of 2022 at 9.1% has since plummeted to an unprecedented rate of 2.5% while GDP expanded to 3.2%. This is unparalleled in modern history. And families are actually richer and in better financial shape on average, than ever before by almost every measure. A case in point is Federal Reserve data that shows household net worth increased to a record $156.2 TRILLION in Q4 2023 compared to $131.4 Trillion in Q4 2022. And yet, consumer sentiment has not caught up to reality.
I saw an article in Semafor The Flagship Asia edition from June 14th. It featured a picture of the G7 crew meeting in Italy for the Summit. Cleverly, they had a balloon text box over each of the G-7 leaders showing their net approval rating in their respective countries. The darling of the group was the recently elected Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Melani who herself had a negative 10 rating. Next was Biden at -18.5. But the remaining 5 ranged from -31 to -54. An editor from the Guardian wrote that Prime Minister Melani greeted the other 6 “Dead men walking,” in an obvious reference to the poor polling numbers all of them have been receiving at home.
The fact that the American economy is doing demonstrably better than our overseas G-7 colleagues who had instituted more austere measures in the post-Covid economies is a testament to the economic prowess of Biden’s Administration. Our economy is so much better that in June of this year, the World Bank stated, “The Global Economic outlook has been upgraded. Impressive U.S. Economy is powering the world.” …and still his message struggles. For some reason, mainstream media refuses to report on it or, if they do, it is buried in the minutia and given a polite wink and nod before checking the weather and traffic.
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“Greedflation….”
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Some of the issue is the fact that the cost of goods is artificially being maintained at a higher level, and blaming inflation when, in fact, it is “greedflation,” which is a term coined to describe the greed of corporations who take advantage of a one time inflationary event to boost prices but then keep those prices high even after their costs to produce come back down as inflation eases. A case in point, General Foods raised prices by 20% and cut back package contents at the same time, then gave shareholders $300 million in dividends, bought back $150 million in stocks and distributed that in bonuses to its management team and gave their CEO a $16 million salary, all while posting record profits.
In a recent report by Groundwork Collaborative, 53% of the inflation in Q2 and Q3 of last year was directly attributable to corporate profits, as well as one third of the inflation from the beginning of the pandemic to now. When you consider that for the 40 years prior to the pandemic corporate profits only accounted for 11% of all inflation, one can see the extent of the shift from fair and equitable pricing to the gouging consumers are currently facing. This has been the driving force behind calls from Biden and other Democrats to institute a “Windfall Profit Tax” of 50% on those corporations who are making record billions on the backs of consumers. Corporations will either pay a hefty tax, or roll back prices.
SO, when the morons at Fox News or the MAGA cultists claim you have to be stupid to want four more years of what we just had, consider the source… and realize that the noise you hear that sounds like a marble rolling around in a wheelbarrow is actually that singular brain cell rolling around in their skull…have pity on them.