President Trump economic policy -vs- Joe Biden economic policy
When wages (blue line) are above inflation (red line) our income is growing, life is good and the working class has more disposable income to enjoy life. However, when wages (blue line) are lower than inflation (red line) our income is shrinking, life is a struggle and the working class has less disposable income to enjoy life.
♦ Point One – Nothing happens accidentally. The road to a “service-driven economy” is paved with a great disparity between financial classes. The wealth gap is directly related to the inability of the middle class to thrive.
♦ Point Two – There is nothing of value behind the obtuse term “service-driven economy.” The multinationals are paying for this administration, just like they paid the Obama administration; paying for economic policy that advances their interests. Congress goes along with the K-Street demands, because Wall Street is now the primary benefactor of legislative intent. Nothing about their effort is done with American interests in mind.
At the most troubling level, Joe Biden believes what people tell him to say for the reason they tell him to say it. This reality underscores the reason why Barack Obama’s network selected Biden as their disposable front man in 2020. Biden sounds convinced, because Biden is convinced. He’s wrong, factually and fundamentally wrong, but he believes what he repeats in public.
The most painfully obvious examples of this dynamic are present when Joe Biden explains economic things based on what other people have told him. The guy really is the modern personification of the naked emperor parading around to show off an invisible coat that he genuinely believes he’s wearing. The self-deception would be embarrassing except for the fact he is only deceiving himself; so people laugh…. but this is dangerous.
Questioned today about inflation, Joe Biden starts talking about his Build Back Better program. It really is worth watching to see how oddly emphatic he is in the belief that if government pays for a thing (childcare, healthcare, prescriptions) the cost of that thing somehow mysteriously disappears.
Biden believes that if government subsidizes something there is no longer a cost associated with it. He believes this.
Setting aside the historic fact/truth that anything government pays or subsidizes ultimately costs more, the real cognitive dissonance in Biden’s worldview is that any cost associate with a ‘thing‘ disappears if the government pays for that ‘thing’. From that bizarre viewpoint, the disappearance of public expense for that government subsidized thing then creates “deflation”, or a lowering in overall prices.
This claim is abject nonsense. Truly and genuinely batshit crazy nonsense.
Example. According to Joe Biden’s talking point: if government pays for college education, the price of a college student’s car drops. It doesn’t. To make that claim is absurd in the extreme. The college student may have more money to pay for a car if they are not paying for tuition, but the car itself doesn’t change in price.
A person may have more money to pay for groceries if they are not paying for childcare expenses, but the price of the groceries doesn’t change. The inflation on the prices of products at the grocery store does not change just because some families no longer have daycare expenses. But Joe Biden believes it does. (more…)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was seemingly channeling his inner Galt during a video interview with Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal at the CEO Council Summit. Apparently Mr. Musk can see what’s on the other side of this spending horizon and doesn’t want to experience it. WATCH:
U.S. nonfarm productivity is a measure of economic activity within the engine of the U.S. economy. The U.S. productivity rate is a measure of how much value is produced by the economy through demand for the products and services, and the labor associated with the creation of those products and services.
I have often used the example of making bread {Go Deep}. If you are making 10 loaves of bread, there is a set amount of cost associated with each loaf created. The total cost of each loaf is the total cost to produce the entire batch divided by ten. However, if you have customers demanding 15 loaves of bread, you make more profit on the last five because it doesn’t cost 50% more in material or labor to make 50% more loaves.
Your productivity in the last five loaves is higher because the fixed costs of production (raw materials, energy) barely change, and the labor is only slightly higher. The opposite is also true. It costs more per loaf to make fewer than ten loaves because the fixed costs and your labor are pretty consistent, yet the finished value of 7 loaves is less than the finished value of ten.
Anecdotally, it has looked for quite some time that around May of this year the economy peaked, plateaued for a few weeks, and then began a slow downward progression. Today the Bureau of Labor statistics puts some revised data to that third quarter (July, August and Sept) economic activity {data here}. The quantified results align with what we sensed was taking place.
In the aftermath of the White House demanding that media pundits put a positive spin on economic news, the National Economic Council Chairman, Brian Deese, appears at the Brady Room podium today [Full Video Here] to put the finishing touches on their Potemkin village of economics.
The statistics cited by Deese were jaw dropping in the level of spin used to create them. First, the economic council cite their own national employment forecasts for economic recovery (under their ‘American Rescue Plan’), then celebrate they are ahead of schedule for a timeline they created.
When asked about inflation, Deese then proclaims he is not going to get into the business of economic predictions; which the media just accept without reminding him that his economic policies are entirely based on his own predictions… which he just cited in the prior moment of self-congratulation. Additionally, according to Deese (without any citation to demonstrate validity for his claim), the NEC Chairman says “real household income” is at its pre-pandemic level; which seems highly unlikely given the scale of inflation.
When asked if inflation will continue into next year, Deese refused to answer the question. Keep in mind, the discussion of inflation is a percentage of change from a previous price 12 months earlier. If an item doubles in price this year (from $2 to $4), and then goes up to $4.50 in the following year, you can claim that inflation is dramatically decreasing. However, that does not mean prices will ever return to the prior level, or that the next year price is any more affordable. WATCH:
The fact remains that White House energy, regulatory, fiscal and monetary policies are devastating for Main Street. All of those policies impact the domestic economy with increased costs from field to fork.
Cumulatively, all of the White House economic policies are increasing housing costs, transportation costs, medical costs, food costs, retail costs and service costs. At the same time, wages are only modestly rising to keep up with those massive cost increases. No amount of spin is going to stop the reality of the inflation storm from hitting U.S. consumers.
As we shared during the Obama-era baseline budget spending and deficit mess: “Half of something you just quadrupled is not less than you started with.”
This one minute segment from Anthony Fauci’s discussion with MSBNC journalist Andrea Mitchell is eye-opening and alarming. Within the interview, Dr. Fauci states that individual rights to medical autonomy must be *forcibly* removed by the state under the premise of a communal good. This is the exact mindset of the Fabian Socialists throughout history.
Dr. Fauci stated, “Free will. I respect that, but these are unusual times.” Pull your chair a little closer, and allow me to whisper in your ear: ‘There will always be unusual times.’
Historically, this type of communal outlook has been used as a talking point to justify some of the darkest times in world history. Politicians, eugenicists and some very disturbed world leaders with grand opinions of their own importance, have long espoused this same ideology. It is a twisted and sick worldview that eventually leads to the same repeated conclusion. WATCH [1 minute]:
The most sovereign of all human conditions is the right of an individual to be free. As soon as the state begins eroding the right of the individual, bad things start to happen. The communal mob is a fickle assembly who will always cull itself with ever-changing denominators of purity….
Considering the recent Democrat freakout over the ‘economic narrative‘, which included a request for corporate media to circle the wagons, their desperation is starting to make sense.
Patrick Murray is a notoriously partisan pollster from Monmouth University {use searchbar}. Leftist favorite Murray puts the spin in spin-master when it comes to media polling and narrative engineering.
The Monmouth engineer recently released a heavily spun poll warning the communists and leftist Democrats, showing checkbook issues are the top concern priority for Americans – far beyond any concern about the COVID madness.
Keep in mind, Murray skews polls in extraordinary ways; however, yet even Monmouth cannot avoid seeing that 29% of leftist Americans are very concerned with inflation, while only 18% are concerned with COVID [pdf here]. Monmouth’s polls are always skewed with responses from the DNC base, so consider that result amid their own tribe. Democrats are twice as worried about their household bills and inflation as they are worried about Omicron or any variant therein.
This explains the massive freakout in the backrooms of the White House and DNC at the moment. Their economic policy chickens are coming home to roost.
“Concerns about inflation have taken center stage in discussions around America’s kitchen tables. And, as one would expect, many are placing the blame squarely on Washington,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. (link)
When you ignore the public spin Murray puts on the polling (Republicans horrible etc), the bottom line is devastating for Democrats. This aligns with a recent Wall Street Journal survey showing that Latinos are flocking to the Republican Party, and there is now an even 50/50 split amid Hispanic voters.
According to media reports of the meetings, the people responsible for the Biden administration are instructing U.S. media outlets to report on the economy as if things are going well.
Unfortunately, massive Biden spending programs, in combination with fiscal policy, monetary policy, energy policy and mandatory vaccination policy, have created a perfect storm of inflation. That storm is growing in scale and scope and is likely to get much worse before it stalls.
The White House demands that media must ignore stunning price increases at the supermarket, jaw dropping home heating costs this winter, prices at the gas pumps that are 50 percent higher than last year, backlogs in the supply chain due to environmental regulation at West Coast ports, and a shortage of critical blue collar workers inside the U.S. Main Street economy due to the vaccine mandate. “Other than that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?”
In short, the White House wants the U.S. media to apply more cowbell to their propaganda.
The White House, not happy with the news media’s coverage of the supply chain and economy, has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor. Senior White House and admin officials — including NEC Deputy Directors David Kamin and Bharat Ramamurti, along with Ports Envoy John Porcari — have been briefing major newsrooms over the past week, a source tells me.
There’s a lot of convoluted internal stuff, but essentially Mitch McConnell is going to set up a process for Democrats in the Senate to raise the debt ceiling by themselves.
Mitch will enlist the usual Decepticon suspects to change the senate rules, for one-time only, allowing democrats to raise the debt ceiling without having to enter negotiations and concessions for anything republican lawmakers want (like eliminating the Biden spending bill).
McConnell will need nine more republicans to change the process, but it looks like he’s going to be successful.
This will permit Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by approximately $2 trillion, so they can continue debate on Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Yeah, Uniparty gonna Uniparty.
WASHINGTON DC – […] The Senate minority leader spent Tuesday selling his members on a convoluted strategy that would require at least 10 Republicans to approve legislation that would later allow Senate Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by a simple majority vote. After a leadership meeting and a Senate GOP lunch, McConnell said he’d done enough work to clinch the deal in a vote expected on Thursday. (read more)
So the Senate DeceptiCons will *claim* to be against the multi-trillion ‘Build Back Better’, fundamental change, spending bill. Yet they will have facilitated the Democrats not having to negotiate or eliminate anything inside the BBB bill, by removing the leverage of the debt ceiling raise. Yep, Uniparty gotta Uniparty – all courtesy of the DeceptiCon caucus. I hate them.
President Donald Trump notes the Mitch McConnell nonsense in a statement:
There has been a lot of chatter behind a Washington Post report about the White House planning to introduce new COVID travel and quarantine restrictions tomorrow (Thursday). However, tuning out the noise – remember which agency of the Fourth Branch uses the Washington Post and things make sense.
The problem for the White House is the public reaction to the new COVID variant Omicron did not meet their expectations.
The White House needs more concern, more fear, more panic to enhance their larger objective {Go Deep}. The Biden team really need Omicron fear to permeate the American psyche, in order to achieve the Build Back Better agenda. They desperately need it.
If people just shake it off and go about living their lives, the White House will be facing an electorate angry about inflation; that’s a problem.
The Washington Post report is framed around new international travel restrictions, increased COVID testing, and quarantine mandates as an outcome of the Omicron variant arrival. However, given the nature of the 48 hour advanced notice provided to The WaPo, it’s likely the announcement tomorrow will contain the change that all vaccine advocates have been demanding, mandatory vaccination prior to any domestic airline travel. Forcing domestic airline travelers to prove their vaccinated status has been a goal of the vaccine media for several months.
The worker vaccine mandate was unconstitutional federal overreach; the Biden administration knew that in advance and did it anyway because the vaccine isn’t really the end goal, it’s just a tool. An airline traveler vaccine mandate would be similar federal overreach, and also likely to lose in court; however, that is not going to stop them from announcing one for the same reason they announced the worker vaccine mandate.