Top Five Reasons the Biden Economy Stinks
Don’t buy into media propaganda, see the dismal data…
The complicit corporate media continually attempts to trick Americans into believing that the very real economic angst of citizens is somehow invalid. There has perhaps never been a wider chasm on the issue of the economy than right now.
Biased media cheerleaders lavish praise on the Biden economy from Washington newsrooms and New York TV studios. Meanwhile, out in “flyover” America, working-class citizens struggle to even afford the basics of life.
No wonder trust in mainstream media falls so precipitously, with only 32% of Americans expressing general trust in media, the lowest mark in a survey going back five decades. A stunning 39% of Americans reported to Gallup that they have “no trust” in media. This current economic cognitive dissonance surely explains a large part of this collapse.
Most recently, the media leaps to promote the upbeat GDP report as a sign that Bidenomics actually works. The economic evidence says otherwise, especially for Americans of modest means.
So, here is the truth…the top five reasons this Biden economy stinks (with five more to follow in a Part Two column next week):
1. GDP – let’s start with the ostensibly good news on overall macro growth. While the 3.3% figure did indeed surpass expectations, the harsh underlying reality is that most of that growth is debt financed, and flowing to asset owners, rather than the masses of workers.
As EJ Antoni of Heritage Foundation pointed out, government consumption has now exceeded personal consumption for 6 straight quarters. This level of exorbitant borrowing and spending is unsustainable, especially as rates rise, and explains away the supposedly “good news” of a temporary GDP sugar high on borrowed Beltway largesse.
2. Real Wages – GDP provides a shaky barometer for overall broad prosperity, anyway, because the top line can grow but accrue to a small group of connected companies and credentialed elites, and not the broader population.
As such, Real Wages provide a much better gauge of kitchen table prosperity, meaning incomes adjusted for inflation. On this basis, even with recent improvements, Real Wages remain demonstrably lower for Biden’s tenure. Americans work harder to afford less, that is the brutal reality of Biden. Standards of living crash, and people know it.
3. Sentiment – even with recent rebounds, consumers remain troubled. The University of Michigan confidence index remains lower since Biden took office, and hit an all-time low just 8 months ago, for an index that goes back to the 1950’s.
Moreover, my organization the League of American Workers just polled the swing state of Georgia, and found that only 39% of voters approve of Biden on the economy, with 56% disapprove.
Only 7% of Georgians have a very favorable view of the term “Bidenomics” while 35% have a very unfavorable view of that concept. People are deeply unhappy with the economy, and for good reasons, in a poll sampling that questioned an exactly even number of Trump vs. Biden 2020 voters.
4. Housing Affordability – there has never been a worse time to try to buy a home, especially for the aspirational first-time potential buyers. Given the spike in interest rates under Biden’s watch, the Goldman Sachs housing affordability index just hit the worst levels ever, even worse than during the debt-fueled mania of the housing boom in 2006-07 that led to the Great Financial Crisis.
5. Lingering Inflation – price spikes that punish households are still a stinging reality that crushes pocketbooks and saps spirits. Media mavens want to hold a political parade for Biden just because price increases are not quite as awful as the levels seen a year ago.
But crippling inflation persists and bedevils pessimistic Americans. These elevated prices prove especially pronounced in the key Services sector. This kind of inflation is far stickier than Commodity-based inflation, which is more volatile. When prices for services head higher, they almost never retreat back down, for everything from haircuts to healthcare.
Even with Services inflation off the worst levels of a year ago, it is still more than 3 times higher than when Biden took office, see the chart:
As these troubling numbers prove, Main Street experiences a very different reality from the narratives spread by the Biden Administration and its dutiful PR agents in the corporate media.
Americans are struggling, and they know it!
Those of us working to defeat Joe Biden in November should actually give thanks that the Democrats insist on owning the phrase and concept of “Bidenomics.” If they want to embrace the brutal economic reality that Biden creates, all the better for opposition candidates, from the presidential race on down.
"Bidenomics" Explaining a complex topic like this, thanks Steve. Mainstream loons must have some kind of inflation blindness the rest of us do not. When forking over real dollars it hurts.