Tag: economy
Joe Biden

Biden's America Is Doing Fabulously Well, In Fact

Life is not perfect in Joe Biden's America, but when was it ever perfect? Just looking at the numbers, though, things are pretty great.

Stock prices are hitting record highs. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 50 years. Violent crime — murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery — has dropped to a near 50-year low. The net worth of American households stands at record levels.

Higher prices remain a concern for many, but inflation has much moderated. Inflation last month was zero, and some prices are coming down. For example, the average price of gasoline, which hit $5.816 a gallon two years ago, is now down to $3.452.

The U.S. economy is, in The Wall Street Journal's words, "the envy of the world." Since shortly before the pandemic, the real GDP has grown 9.4 percent. By contrast, Britain's has risen just one percent, and in Germany and Japan, it's up less than one percent.

Jamie Dimon, the boss at JP Morgan, has called the booming American economy "unbelievable" with the average consumer "much wealthier than before."

And that's why the world's investors are flooding into American markets.

"The US has the biggest and most innovative companies with strong earnings growth but profit also from its safe haven status," explained Ulrich Urbahn, an analyst at Hamburg-based Berenberg Bank.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is taking on China as the world's producer of green energy and microchips. This didn't just happen. America is charging ahead in this competitive race because of Biden's three big invest-in-America bills.

After recently observing the massive factory construction in Georgia, BBC economics editor Faisal Islam wrote, "In 20 years of reporting around the world, what I have seen in the US over the past year can only compare to what I saw in China in the mid-2000s."

Granted, many Americans feel pressed by prices at the supermarket or McDonald's. In reality, inflation had been a worldwide phenomenon.

That may account for consumer sentiment numbers that reflect unwarranted pessimism (though there's been some improvement). Consumer behavior in the real world suggests otherwise. Americans are continuing to spend at levels that baffle economists.

No one who follows news delivered straight can believe that the economy was better under Donald Trump. There's hardly a number to support that claim. It's a tribute to the ex-president's powers to con that much of the public thinks the four-time bankrupt is an economic wizard.

We know that Trump can put on a show. But the show of late has turned more bizarre than entertaining — witness his crazy verbal meanderings about electric boats and sharks, one of which bit off a "young lady's leg."

Trump recently spoke to corporate bigwigs at a Business Roundtable meeting in New York. Some in attendance had been predisposed to Trump based on his talk of tax cuts and looser regulations.

But they were shocked by his mental confusion. "Trump doesn't know what he's talking about," one CEO told Andrew Sorkin, host of CNBC's Squawk Box.

Several of them, Sorkin reported, "said that [Trump] was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map." He offered few details on how he would reduce taxes and cut back on business regulations.

Trump recently quoted his doctor who years ago said he was mentally competent, but he mangled the doctor's name. And no, Donald, World War II is in the past, not the future.

The numbers say the U.S. economy is amazingly strong under Biden. And the non-economic numbers are not too shabby either. The murder rate, for one, is well below pre-pandemic levels -- that is, when Donald Trump was president.

Face it, Biden's America is doing fabulously well.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

With Trump, America Declines From Plutocracy To Kleptocracy

With Trump, America Declines From Plutocracy To Kleptocracy

One group of oppressed Americans has become especially outspoken this election year, contending that top government officials (Democrats in particular) are ignoring their community's basic needs and stifling their pursuit of economic advancement.

I speak, of course, about the tragic plight of our nation's downtrodden multibillionaire class. While it's true that Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and these other Silicon Valley sad sackers and weepy Wall Streeters have vastly increased their wealth under Joe Biden's presidency, they wail that he has not properly courted and coddled them. Indeed, Biden set their hair on fire this March by calling out their outrageous tax-dodging ploys, demanding they start providing their fair share of support for America by paying a "billionaire tax."

Thus, these poor, put-upon moneyed elites have been jetting around to Hollywood, Palm Beach and other posh enclaves, holding secret strategy sessions and rallying the uber-rich class to defeat Biden this fall. Of course, since self-centered, plutocratic billionaires are less popular than bed bugs, they can't win with their ideas and votes but only by buying elections — and these gilded conspirators intend to do just that, amassing billions to bury Biden.

But, oops, one money confab in April exploded into public view when some 20 poobahs of such oil giants as Chevron, Exxon and Occidental conferred with Trump himself. In a straight-out bribery offer, he pledged to repeal environmental protections the industry dislikes — if they pony up $1 billion for his presidential campaign.

This sordid palace intrigue is the product of the right-wing Supreme Court's 2010 edict letting selfish wealthy interests secretly dump unlimited sums of corporate money into our elections. They're turning our democratic ideals into a kleptocracy.

Making A Mockery Of Democracy

Remember Donald Trump, the "swamp drainer"?

In 2016, candidate Trump promised to end the grubby money corruption of American politics. "The special interests, lobbyists, donors," he rightly and righteously noted, "make large contributions to politicians, and they have total control over those politicians." Asserting that he knows the political rot better than anyone, he said he'd "fix that system, because that system is wrong."

Eight years later, here comes the Donald again — but the swamp is bigger and suckier than ever. And instead of bold talk about draining it, Trump is auctioning off the swamp, flagrantly offering direct presidential benefits to Big Oil, Wall Street hucksters, high-tech tycoons and all other moneyed interests that "make large contributions" to him.

How large? The Washington Post reports that one businessman asked to have lunch with Trump, promising a million-dollar check. "I'm not having lunch," Trump retorted. "You've got to make it $25 million." He has also demanded a cool billion bucks from a covey of Big Oil executives. Promising to cut their corporate taxes and deliver an array of other special benefits, the presidential wannabe punctuated his itemization of political goodies with an unsubtle monetary nudge, saying, "be generous, please."

Since a Supreme Court majority of extreme partisans opened the floodgates 14 years ago, corrupt corporate cash has gone from merely polluting American democracy to now swamping it. Trump is not the only bribe huckster, but he is the most blatant, shamelessly nuclearizing the going rate for buying public policy, mocking the ideal of a citizens' government. Trump himself is fond of telling fat-cat donors that he doesn't spend 10 minutes with anyone who can't give $10 million. Hello — where does that leave you and me? And our country?

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

On Wisconsin Jobs, Biden Won And Trump Lost -- So Fox Whines About 'Trolling'

On Wisconsin Jobs, Biden Won And Trump Lost -- So Fox Whines About 'Trolling'

President Joe Biden traveled to Wisconsin on Wednesday to announce a new multibillion-dollar project by Microsoft, which stands in contrast to a notorious failure of local economic development in the state during the Trump administration. In response, Fox News’ purported “straight news” coverage accused Biden of “trying to troll” the public and otherwise dismissed the new project.

Biden traveled to Racine County to tout Microsoft’s $3.3 billion investment in a data center, which builds on other university partnerships and business projects the company has in the state. Notably, the data center will be constructed on land that was previously allocated for a factory to be built by Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, in a deal pushed in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump and then-Gov. Scott Walker (R).

“Foxconn turned out to be just that,” Biden said Wednesday. “A con.”

The Vergereported in 2020 on the colossal failure of the Foxconn project. Though state and local governments spent at least $400 million on land and infrastructure, the factory never went into operation. And, far short of the 13,000 jobs that were promised, the company had hired fewer than 300 people by the end of 2019 and made a failed attempt to fill out its payrolls enough to qualify for state tax subsidies.

On the May 8 edition of MSNBC’s All In, host Chris Hayes said the Foxconn deal — along with many other Trump promises about saving jobs, reviving American manufacturing, or building important infrastructure — was “a big, glitzy announcement that turns into nothing.”

Hayes also revisited Trump’s remarks at a 2018 groundbreaking event in Racine County, in which he claimed the factory would be “the eighth wonder of the world.”

In Fox News’ telling, however, it was Biden’s event, rather than Trump’s failed promises on the Foxconn deal, that was politically suspect, and a cover-up for a supposedly failing economy to boot. (The American economy is objectively strong, despite the right-wing smear campaign to convince the public otherwise.)

  • Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner said people in Racine should ask the president why his economic policy “doesn’t … work for us, the American people.” “If anybody would like to raise their hand there — you don’t need to be a reporter, just be a citizen who is curious,” Faulkner said. “Mr. President, why doesn’t your economic policy work for us, the American people? Why is it not working for millions of people? And do you know when you wipe away the tax breaks you’re gonna hurt middle-class Americans too?” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 5/8/24]
  • Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich claimed that Biden “turned to a new strategy of trying to troll voters” by touting the new data center at the site of the failed Foxconn project: “Is that what he’s left with, to just troll Trump?” Fox News anchor John Roberts added that the Microsoft AI center is “scheduled to be built — we’ll see if they actually break ground on it. We’ll find out soon.” Roberts then dismissed Biden’s remarks on job creation, saying, “Take off the rose-colored aviators” and changing the subject to attack Biden on the issue of inflation. [Fox News, America Reports, 5/8/24]
  • Fox Business host and former Trump administration economic adviser Larry Kudlow accused Biden of “trying to buy votes” while defending Trump’s failure on the Foxconn project. “And I might add, the Trump years, the money was allocated to Foxconn, but the foreign investor pulled out so it never got done,” Kudlow said. “So, such is life, nothing you can do about that.” (Right-wing commentators often accuse Democrats of “buying votes” through various government programs, even as people like Kudlow defend economic interventions by Republican administrations regardless of whether they succeeded or failed.) [Fox Business, The Big Money Show, 5/8/24; Media Matters, 9/29/15, 4/9/24]
  • Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

    Greg Abbott

    How Texas Gov. Abbott Ruined Eclipse Bonanza For A Small Border Town

    The local economy of Eagle Pass, Texas was all set to rake in a huge financial windfall this weekend, when the town was expected to play host to tens of thousands of visitors eager to be the first in the US to see Monday's solar eclipse. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's ongoing border standoff with the federal government ended up scaring most tourists away.

    According to the Daily Beast, Aide Castano — the municipality's marketing and tourism director — told a meeting of the local Rotary Club last year that the town of 28,000 residents could expect to see its population temporarily swell to more than 100,000 people on the first weekend of April for the eclipse boom. The city scheduled a music festival to take place dubbed the "57 South Music Festival" set to last three nights, featuring 17 bands on two separate stages.

    "If you’re a music lover and a celestial enthusiast, then there’s no better time to start planning your trip to Eagle Pass, Texas!" An advertisement from the city read.

    "Mark your calendar for the eclipse, get your grocery shopping done, we’re gonna have 100,000 people in Eagle Pass, we’re gonna have millions of dollars in sales for downtown Eagle Pass," local resident Amerika Garcia-Grewell recalled Castano saying. In an interview with Texas Monthly, Castano said planning for this eclipse weekend first began in 2002, telling the publication that one of her coworkers said "this is like our Super Bowl."

    "One of the real estate agents is like, ‘Airbnb will make $10,000 in the eclipse weekend,'" Garcia-Grewell recalled in an interview with the Beast.

    However, Eagle Pass' economy became a secondary concern for Gov. Abbott, who heavily militarized the town's border crossing at the Rio Grande River center stage as part of his $10.5 billion Operation Lone Star protest of federal immigration policy under the Biden administration. Earlier this year, Abbott ordered a length of razor wire to be built along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass to deter immigrants from crossing. The Supreme Court ordered Abbott to take it down, stating that international borders were under the jurisdiction of the federal government, not state governments.

    After federal agents cut the razor wire, Abbott retaliated by building even more, and ordering national guardsmen to stand by at the border crossing in a show of force. Former President Donald Trump commended Abbott for his defiance of the Supreme Court, and posted a call to action to his Truth Social platform encouraging Republican governors to likewise deploy their national guard troops to the Southern border in Eagle Pass.

    Meanwhile, the intimidating presence of troops and razor wire at the Rio Grande ended up scuttling the original plans for the 57 South Music Festival in Eagle Pass for the weekend of the solar eclipse. The Beast reported that the location for the festival was moved to the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino, which is a 20-minute drive by car. As a result of the change, tickets for the festival dropped significantly in price. And at a March 14 town hall meeting, the town lowered their expectations for eclipse visitors from more than 100,000 to approximately 50,000.

    Garcia-Grewell, the Eagle Pass resident, recalled to the Beast that she was told the city spent roughly $3.5 million on the festival, yet sold only 2,500 tickets. She further elaborated that the city would have had to sell tickets at $1,400 apiece just to break even when accounting for the total cost.

    The 57 South Music Festival kicked off Friday afternoon, though crowds were sparse. Local music producer Tony Rodriguez said that he counted just 30 people at 4 PM local time, and only 150 people by 6 o'clock.

    "The worst flop ever," he said.

    Garcia-Grewell maintained that despite the swarm of soldiers and razor wire barrier, Eagle Pass was safe. Border crossings went from 2,000 per day in December to just a few dozen months later. While some of that could be attributed to Operation Lone Star, Mexico's government also stepped up their efforts to stem migrant traffic into the US.

    "The State of Texas is making it look like a war zone, even though we’re one of the safest places in Texas,” she said. “And the city of Eagle Pass was not able to counter that. They won’t say anything against the state of Texas because Eagle Pass is so dependent on state funding."

    Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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