The WSJ lead editorial from Friday, Nov. 1st (p. A14) was blunt and to the point in its lead paragraph:
"Americans are tired of spending-fueled inflation, stagnant wage growth and debt."
In other words, they'd find more mellow financial waters in a 2nd Trump presidency. Of course, this is balderdash and doesn't conform to economic reality but rather the steady drumbeat in the reactionary media to diss anything under the Biden-Harris administration. As a starting fact check we can go to the WSJ's own Exchange piece from Oct. 26-27, p. B12 with the headline:
'Most Consumers Are Doing Just Fine, Thanks'
With the lead sentence: "Capital One says its borrowers remain healthy overall, even those with lower incomes or credit scores."
The same piece notes that "while some borrower's incomes haven't kept up with cost increases, generally speaking we've seen strong relative income growth at the lower end of the distribution since 2020."
Ha! So much for the WSJ op-ed baloney about "stagnant wages"
Then there are the robust other factors, as displayed in the top graphs, which show the U.S. economy outperforming all the Eurozone nations. That includes in GDP, working hours and productivity. As noted by WSJ economy columnist Greg Ip (Nov. 1, p. A2):
"With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7% over the past year. It is outrunning every major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate."
Adding: "Most leaders from around the world would trade their economies for the U.S.'s in a heartbeat. Through the second quarter the U.S. grew 3%; none of the world's next six largest advanced economies grew more than 1 %..
So given this, can anyone explain how 70 % of Americans can still believe the country is "going in the wrong direction", especially on the economy? Well, true, as one TIME essay noted, millions have been "frustrated and disillusioned since the pandemic and shutdowns of 2020." But they seem to forget that Trump was at the core of all of this, basically because of his lax anti-Covid responses. But I also attribute much of this to the steady drumbeat from the reactionary right media in denigrating the Biden-Harris economic policies. This despite other objective sources (The Economist, Financial Times etc.) referring to a "Goldilocks economy" , i.e. one that has hit every measure for success, including low unemployment, steady growth - and still avoided recessionary pitfalls.
Still, too many - perhaps from lack of critical thinking skills - believe that Trump would be a better bet on the economy. This is bizarre given his billionaire bro Elon Musk has already openly admitted future hardship in any new Trump term - because of spending cuts, e.g. quoted in a recent issue of Rolling Stone:
"Elon
Musk, the world’s richest man, said that if Donald Trump wins
and gives him a role in government, Americans will suffer “hardship” as a
result of efforts to address the national debt. He made the comments Friday in
a virtual town hall on his website, X.
When asked about “tackling the nation’s debt,” he mentioned
changing the tax code, and then went on to say there would be some financial
difficulty imposed on some Americans. “Most importantly, we have to reduce
spending to live within our means,”
I.e. make cuts to Social Security, Medicare and the ACA. Why would a majority of 'Muricans be so obtuse as to put these imbeciles in power to wreck their lives? Turning over a Goldilocks economy with the potential to better their lives, for one which features malignant inflation, high unemployment and a serious recession? Also Project 2025 plans which will not only destroy whatever health care they have, but any secure retirement (by scuttling Social Security).
How would that happen anyway? Well, for starters, Trump has promised 20% tariffs across the board and a number of companies have already said they are planning price hikes to cover any loss of their profits, e.g.
Companies ready price hikes to offset Trump’s global tariff plans - The Washington Post
Wherein we read:
"Across the United States, companies that rely on foreign suppliers are preparing to raise prices in response to the massive import tariffs that former president Donald Trump promises if he wins the election Tuesday".
So again, why would so many Americans, given their present relative comfort, be prepared to trade that in for years of penury, doing without and inflation about 50 % worse than it is now? The only reason I can see is that they have been snookered by brainwashing, most likely from watching too much FOX - which many regard as more "entertaining" than MSNBC.
Then there is vast economic ignorance which feeds the brainwashing. This was exposed in a WSJ piece back in April:
What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data
Many Americans believe that the economy and their finances are worse than they really are.
This piece, which incidentally told it straight unlike the WSJ op-ed pages, revealed stark ignorance in the general population including:
- Half of the respondents defined inflation incorrectly, conflating high prices with high inflation. The sobering fact is that once prices rise they seldom go back down to what normal plebes believe to be 'proper' levels, in this case pre-pandemic. ( The true guide for high inflation is whether the overall year's average rate is higher than the long term average inflation rate. For example, the U.S. Inflation Rate is currently at 2.7%, compared to 6.04% last year, and 8.3 percent in 2022.)
- By 47% to 41% more Journal respondents think their retirement accounts and investments "went in the wrong direction" in the past year. A period in which the stock market "roared to record highs, home values held steady or rose, and interest on savings went up."
- By more than 2-to-1 (56% to 25%) respondents "said the economy had gotten worse, rather than gotten better over the past two years." As the WSJ goes on to point out:
"That is difficult to square with the robust employment growth, unemployment near its lowest in a half century, and in gross domestic product (GDP) which actually accelerated last year."
Even more gobsmacking, showing voters' detachment from reality:
"As the saying goes you can't eat gross domestic product, but what you eat is part of GDP and while many people say they are cutting back on groceries and eating out, the data show that collectively they are not."
The Stantcheva study also showed that while economists associate lower unemployment with higher inflation (natural, given more people working injects more $$ into the economy), the public believes weak growth, high unemployment and high inflation all go together.
In other words, we are dealing with a vast, ignorant populace devoid of familiarity with even basic economics. What the hell has happened to our schools, our education system? It is this enormous economic ignorance, I maintain, in conjunction with media disparaging of the Biden-Harris success- that has distorted voters' perceptions. Including believing that the GOP and Trump are better at the economy when they are not.
Another pithy point made by Stantcheva (ibid.) was that "bad feelings about the country might make people more pessimistic about inflation". As well as the nation's direction overall. She insists that "media negativity doesn't necessarily cause pessimism" but perhaps she hasn't been paying attention to the literal dozens of WSJ op-eds about Biden and inflation since 2022. In fact, it's a damned disgrace how many columns have been churned out exaggerating inflation to the WSJ readers, as well as being reinforced on FOX News.
So it's no wonder too many of our citizens have been brainwashed by the torrent of economic misrepresentations which have turned brains and perceptions to mush. I still am convinced a majority of sane, rethinking voters will have the last say tomorrow, over the rash ones prepared to junk their best economic hopes for a Trumpian econ dystopia.
See Also:
by Thom Hartmann | November 2, 2024 - 5:54am | permalink
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”
Most Republican voters aren’t taking his embrace of a recession or a short-term depression like George W. Bush brought us seriously.
And:
by Max Richtman | November 4, 2024 - 5:53am | permalink
For seniors and their families, the choice in this election couldn’t be clearer. Before Donald Trump took office, our organization did not endorse candidates for president of the United States. But Trump was such a four-alarm fire for us and our members (older Americans across the country), that we felt a duty to endorse Joe Biden in 2020, breaking with nearly 40 years of precedent. This cycle, we have endorsed Kamala Harris as the candidate who will genuinely protect seniors’ interests, including the two programs in our organization’s name, Social Security and Medicare. We have also endorsed scores of candidates for House and Senate as “champions” for older Americans.
From a policy standpoint, this is a no-brainer. Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, has pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare from Republican proposals to cut both programs—by raising the retirement age, means testing, and reducing COLAs. But she also has endorsed the idea that the wealthy should begin contributing their fair share in payroll taxes, which would go a long way toward safeguarding the financial health of both Social Security and Medicare. With additional revenue flowing in—plus billions of dollars in savings on prescription drugs from the Inflation Reduction Act—we could not only strengthen, but expand, seniors’ earned benefits.
And:
Wisconsin Voters Would Change To Trump Because Of Housing Costs? A Colossally Dumb Move
And:
Donald Trump & GOP "Better For Economy" ? This Delusion Is Belied By The Facts
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