Bidenomics
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The Editorial Board at WSJ
President Biden claims that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but this isn’t close to true. The economy in January 2021 was fast recovering from the pandemic as vaccines rolled out and state lockdowns eased. GDP grew 34.8% in the third quarter of 2020, 4.2% in the fourth, and 5.2% in the first quarter of 2021. By the end of that first quarter, real GDP had returned to its pre-pandemic high. All Mr. Biden had to do was let the recovery unfold.
Instead, Democrats in March 2021 used Covid relief as a pretext to pass $1.9 trillion in new spending. This was more than double Barack Obama’s 2009 spending bonanza. State and local governments were the biggest beneficiaries, receiving $350 billion in direct aid, $122 billion for K-12 schools and $30 billion for mass transit. Insolvent union pension funds received a $86 billion rescue.
The rest was mostly transfer payments to individuals, including a five-month extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, a $3,600 fully refundable child tax credit, $1,400 stimulus payments per person, sweetened Affordable Care Act subsidies, an increased earned income tax credit including for folks who didn’t work, housing subsidies and so much more.
In November 2021, Congress passed a $1 trillion bill full of green pork and more money for states. Then came the $280 billion Chips Act and Mr. Biden’s Green New Deal—aka the Inflation Reduction Act—which Goldman Sachs estimates will cost $1.2 trillion over a decade. Such heaps of government spending have distorted private investment.
While investment in new factories has grown, spending on research and development and new equipment has slowed. Overall private fixed investment has grown at roughly half the rate under Mr. Biden as it did under Mr. Trump. Manufacturing output remains lower than before the pandemic.
Magnifying market misallocations, the Administration conditioned subsidies on businesses advancing its priorities such as paying union-level wages and providing child care to workers. It also boosted food stamps, expanded eligibility for ObamaCare subsidies and waved away hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt. The result: $5.8 trillion in deficits during Mr. Biden’s first three years—about twice as much as during Donald Trump’s—and the highest inflation in four decades.
Ms. Harris boasts that the economy has added nearly 16 million jobs during the Biden Presidency—compared to about 6.4 million during Mr. Trump’s first three years. But most of these “new” jobs are backfilling losses from the pandemic lockdowns. The U.S. has fewer jobs than it was on track to add before the pandemic.
What’s more, all the Biden-Harris spending has yielded little economic bang for the taxpayer buck. Washington has borrowed more than $400,000 for every additional job added under Mr. Biden compared to Mr. Trump’s first three years. Most new jobs are concentrated in government, healthcare and social assistance—60% of new jobs in the last year.
The economy is still expanding, but business investment has slowed. And although the affluent are doing relatively well because of buoyant asset prices, surveys show that most Americans feel financially insecure. Thus another political paradox of the Biden-Harris years: Socioeconomic disparities have increased.
Ms. Harris is promising the same economic policies with a shinier countenance. Don’t expect better results.
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The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the second quarter amid strong consumer spending, while corporate profits rebounded, which should help to sustain the expansion.
Gross domestic product increased at a 3.0% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its second estimate of second-quarter GDP on Thursday. That was an upward revision from the 2.8% rate reported last month.
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401(k) and IRA millionaires club rapidly expanded:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/08/30/401k-millionaires-secret/
The number of 401(k) accounts with $1 million or more increased 31 percent, to 497,000 in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Fidelity Investments, one of the largest administrators of workplace retirement plans. The number of IRA millionaires hit a record 398,594, up 14 percent.
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Inflation.
Did you know that less than $800/month in the Weimar Republic would buy you a multi-bedroom apartment, a live-in butler/cook, all other living expenses and a full-time mistress? OTOH, you couldn't even pay the apartment rent with a wheelbarrow load of marks.
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Nope. YoY inflation as of this month was 2.9%. The change in the S&P was 20.34%.
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https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/cpi-inflation-august-2024
The Labor Department on Wednesday said the consumer price index (CPI) — a broad measure of how much everyday goods like gasoline, groceries and rent cost — rose 0.2% in August from the prior month, in line with the expectations of economists polled by LSEG.
Prices climbed 2.5% in August from the same time last year, slightly less than LSEG estimates and down from 2.9% in July.
Overall, the report indicates that inflationary pressures in the U.S. economy are continuing to ease, though prices remain above the Federal Reserve's 2% target.
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Pretty much locks in a rate cut too. Nice.
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Another quarter of solid economic growth.
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/30/gdp-report-q3-release-economy-inflation
U.S. economy grew at 2.8% rate in the third quarter
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King cotton, baby!
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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If there's one thing the Harris campaign has taught us all, in this precious learning moment, it's that jokes don't exist, and humor is deeply unsettling. So, I really don't know if anybody is trying to make "jokes" in this "forum", but if you are, I suggest you stop. Our democracy is on the brink. I, for one, am not laughing.
