Trump Was a Jerk as a President, but His Policies Were Exactly What America Needed

Really, for all his faults (and yes, he has a lot of them), probably the best President of my lifetime. Definitely in the top two.

Nationwide Poll: Voters Miss Trump’s Policies, Think Economy Is Heading In Wrong Direction | The Daily Wire

Voters were asked, “Regardless of how you may feel personally about each man, would you rather continue pursuing Joe Biden’s policies and proposals or return to Donald Trump’s policies and proposals?” According to the survey, 46% said they somewhat or strongly wanted to continue Biden’s policies while 48% said that they somewhat or strongly wanted to return to Trump’s policies.

When asked, “Specifically, would you say that the economy is going in the right direction or headed in the wrong direction?” a whopping 61% of voters said it was going in the “wrong direction.”

That just means that 39% of the country is either crazy or lying or both. Because the economy is absolutely going in the wrong direction. That’s an empirical fact.

I Wish My Food Bills Were ”Greatly Exaggerated”

Democrat Rep. Susan Wild claims economic woes are ‘greatly exaggerated’ | One America News Network (oann.com)

In a recent appearance on MSNBC, Susan Wild elaborated on a letter she co-authored with other vulnerable Democrats, expressing concern over inflation and the supply chain. She said that while it is important to keep economics at the forefront of people’s minds, jobs are being filled and the economy is doing very well.

“I want to make sure that we keep economic issues at the top of the priority list for our leadership,” stated the Democrat. “But at the same time, I think that the rumors of this economic demise are greatly exaggerated. I think we’re in really good shape headed into 2022.”

All politicians spin. Politicians in power spin even more.

But there’s spin, and there’s denial of reality.

This fits clearly in the latter category.

Oh Great, Now They’re Admitting It

This can’t be good.

Janet Yellen Admits Inflation Shouldn’t Be Labeled ‘Transitory’ | The Daily Wire

“I am ready to retire the word transitory,” Yellen said at an event sponsored by Reuters, as recorded by The New York Times. “I can agree that that hasn’t been an apt description of what we are dealing with.”

“What we don’t want to have develop is a wage-price spiral, in which inflation becomes its own self-reinforcing kind of phenomenon that would become chronic in the U.S. economy — something endemic,” Yellen added while endorsing the Federal Reserve’s decision to taper its aggressive monetary stimulus.

Yes, the inflation death spiral. I’ve spoken of it before. That doesn’t concern me nearly as much as the scary word in her last sentence.

Endemic.

We’ve gone from “transitory”, to “not transitory” and worrying about “endemic” in about 30 seconds.

Treasury Secretaries pick their words more carefully than probably any other Cabinet post. They know that the stock market parses every single thing they say. The stock market is going to react very negatively if she starts using the word “endemic” more frequently.

To Be Fair, He Probably Thinks This Is True

Biden Brags After Horrible November Jobs Report: ‘Our Jobs Recovery Is Going Very Strong’ | The Daily Wire

Biden told a press conference:

This year, we can reflect on an extraordinary bit of progress. Our economy is markedly stronger than it was a year ago, and today, the incredible news that our unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2%. At this point in the year, we’re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. Simply put, America is back to work and our jobs recovery is going very strong. Today’s historic drop in unemployment rate includes dramatic improvements for workers who have often seen higher wages and higher levels of unemployment. Excuse me, higher levels of unemployment — they are seeing higher wages. …

Nothing about the big miss on employment. Nothing about inflation. Nothing about the retail sector losing jobs in November, of all times.

But to be fair, with his declining mental faculties, he probably thinks it really was a great jobs report.

The Economy Is Going Great, Really!

November Jobs Report Falls Significantly Short Of Expectations In ‘A Huge Miss’ For U.S. Economy | The Daily Wire

The November jobs report that came out on Friday showed poor numbers for the U.S. economy, with growth in new jobs not even reaching 50% of what financial experts had predicted.

Making the news worse, the disastrous jobs numbers arrived before the U.S. government and the mainstream media triggered a panic over the new Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.

“Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 210,000 for the month,” CNBC reported, noting that the “Dow Jones estimate was for 573,000 new jobs.”

Spectacular.

The unemployment rate also fell slightly to 4.2%. The retail sector lost 20,000 jobs last month while transportation and warehousing added 50,000 jobs and professional and business services added 90,000.

The latest job numbers are another issue that the Biden administration has to contend with as polling has shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans are worried about skyrocketing inflation. Some experts have recently warned that Biden’s Build Back Better agenda could further exacerbate inflation problems.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this week that he expects high inflation to continue well into 2022 and that the U.S. government should stop trying to portray the situation as “transitory.”

And the hits just keep on comin’.

I just can’t wait for more and more inflation and higher unemployment. Oh, and more travel restrictions. All of that will make my job in a travel insurance company sooooo much easier.

I Don’t Know, the Bar Is Pretty High Here

And I brought the facts to prove it, courtesy of @TPPF pic.twitter.com/sSu075InAN

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 1, 2021

Thanks, Joe!

General Mills To Raise Prices On Yogurt, Cereal, Other Foods Due To Inflation | The Daily Wire

General Mills (GIS) notified retail customers that it’s raising prices in mid-January on hundreds of items across dozens of brands. They include Annie’s, Progresso, Yoplait, Fruit Roll-Ups, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charm’s, Wheaties, Reese’s Puffs, Trix and more, according to letters General Mills sent to at least one major regional wholesale supplier last week.

For some items, prices will go up by around 20% beginning next year.

The wholesaler shared General Mills’ letters with CNN Business on the condition of anonymity to protect the company’s relationship with its suppliers. A leader at the company said it plans to push along all of the increases to its grocery and convenience store customers. He expects they will then pass them down to shoppers.

Along with General Mills, Tyson Foods — the second-largest meat and poultry producer in the United States — is raising prices to deal with the “accelerating and unprecedented inflation” threatening all of its business units.

Wonderful. But according to Team Biden, this is only a problem for the rich. I don’t know about you, but I doubt that I’m getting a 20% raise next year.

You voted for this. I warned you, but you voted for it anyway.

If He Really Believes This, He Truly Is Suffering From Dementia

Biden Claims He Has Been Good for Jobs and Small Businesses – PJ Media

There’s no possible spin you can put on this and make it true.

Whoever writes Old Joe Biden’s tweets (which are, hallelujah, most emphatically not mean) may have been hitting the egg nog a bit ahead of the Christmas season: on Monday afternoon, Biden tweeted: “If you look at my presidency so far, it’s a jobs presidency and it’s a small business presidency.” Yes, really. The man who has done so very much to kill jobs and small businesses in America is now crowing about saving them. The Left’s sheer audacity in gaslighting the American people grows by orders of magnitude practically every day, but this one will go down in history as one of the most egregiously dishonest things this most mendacious of presidents has ever said.

Verily. That is so ridiculously bad it’s not even worth a fisking. That statement was true of Trump. Emphatically so. But totally not for Clueless Joe.

This Is Amazing

First, it’s amazing that President Joe Biden (D-USA) could be above water in any group on the economy. But the difference between white college grads and working class, wow.

New poll: massive chasm between credentialed laptop class and working-class.

On the Economy, Biden has a 1% surplus approval from white college grads, and a stunning -54% deficit among working-class.

Biden is great for credentialed ruling class, awful for everyday citizens. pic.twitter.com/Bcl0hm735U

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) November 18, 2021

Trump’s populism and Biden’s ineptness have caused the working class, once the core of the Democratic Party, to abandon the Democrats in droves.

I Told You So on This Too

I’ll have to look up the posts. They’re at least a decade old.

Inflation Will Make Government Budget Problems Worse (reason.com)

We financed our debt with short term low-interest loans. Now we must refinance at substantially higher rates. That makes our debt worse, which further slows down the economy and makes it more difficult for us to pay off our debt.

Right now is the worst possible time to be adding to our debt.

Now consider the public debt—especially the federal debt that ballooned from large deficits in recent years. (In 2020, federal revenues were $3.4 trillion and spending was $6.6 trillion.) The interest cost of the national debt in 2008 was $253 billion and remained at about that level through 2015. Even though the debt doubled in those years, sharply falling interest rates and low inflation worked to contain costs.

But that was yesterday. With today's higher inflation and rising interest rates (perhaps with more to come), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the interest cost of public debt to be $413 billion in 2021. Obviously, any dollar spent on interest cannot be spent on government benefits and services to taxpayers.

What's Next?

Looking ahead, the CBO expects much of the same. For 2026, the interest rate on the 10-year Treasury projects to 2.6 percent versus the current 1.5 percent, with the interest cost of the debt rising to $524 billion. For 2030, it's 2.8 percent and $829 billion, respectively.

Now, we are talking about real money. Just to put $829 billion into perspective, in 2020, the United States spent $714 billion on defense, $769 billion on Medicare, and $914 billion on all nondefense discretionary spending. Back-of-the-envelope calculations strongly suggest that some spending categories will have to give.

Yes, very soon the interest on our debt will be the largest part of our budget. That is unsustainable. Forget about the long term. That’s unsustainable in the very short term. We’ve been fortunate for the last 15 years that inflation and interest rates have been so low. Now we’re going to get slammed.

As It Should Be

Psaki Says Inflation Is Being Used As A ‘Political Cudgel’ | The Daily Wire

Good of you to notice. Now what are you going to do about it?

“One in four Americans, according to a new survey, have experienced some kind of loss of income as a result of higher prices,” noted one reporter. “The president has expressed concern about this. I know that you were working on different fronts… to address this, but, I mean, how urgent is it? And … is there any sort of specific concern that this is going to affect not just political outcomes, but just the overall economy?”

“First, let me say that, you know, a lot of talk about inflation — I’m not saying from you, but in general out there… it’s become a political cudgel and it shouldn’t be,” Psaki responded. “It’s impacting, as you said, millions of Americans, no matter their political party. And that’s certainly of concern to the president.”

No, actually it should be. It’s the economy, stupid, remember? And inflation hits the pocketbook faster than almost anything else. So far it appears that you have no clear plans on how to deal with it, just “hope”. Hope isn’t going to make my turkey dinner next week cost any less. America needs answers, not hopes and your word that it’s going to go down next year. ‘Cause you haven’t given us any reasons yet to believe your word.

3 more years of this. Oh. My. God.

As I Said About Inflation

When the covid crisis hit the Fed´s balance sheet was $4.1T in size, after asset purchases - today it's $8.6T. Where would the 10 year US Treasury bond yield in a free market, allowing for price discovery?

— Lawrence McDonald (@Convertbond) November 12, 2021

We’re in Carter territory already. And you can tell that yourself every time you go to the store, or every time you eat out.

Welcome to Biden’s America. #IToldYouSo

You voted for this.

This Can’t Be Good

Record 4.4 Million People Quit Their Jobs in September – PJ Media

It exceeded the previous record set in August.

In August, 4.3 million people — a record number — quit their jobs for a variety of reasons. It was believed that once the labor market began to settle down after the disruptions caused by the pandemic those numbers would ease and the demand for work would catch up with the supply of jobs.

That may be the case, but not in September. A record 4.4 million workers decided to leave their jobs, raising the specter that the disconnect between the number of jobs and people looking for work would continue to dampen economic growth.

The specific industries being affected by people leaving their jobs reveal one aspect of the crisis: In a flush labor market, many workers have the luxury of changing careers for better pay, benefits, or both.

Washington Post:

In September, the number of quits increased in arts, entertainment, and recreation (+56,000); a category labeled “other services” (+47,000); and state and local government education (+30,000). In general, industries with the highest percentages of workers quitting include trade, transportation, and utilities, particularly retail, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality industries like arts and entertainment, and hotels and restaurants. A whopping 6.6 percent of workers in accommodation and food services quit their job in the month.

The South, the West and Midwest have the highest numbers of workers quitting their jobs, at 3.3, 3.1 and 3.0 percent, while only 2.2 percent of workers in the Northeast are quitting jobs.

You see this if you go out to eat or even get takeout. There are no workers in restaurants. I took my daughter out to eat for her birthday. We had a 45 minute wait to get a table and the restaurant was almost empty. They didn’t have enough servers or kitchen staff to handle even a light capacity.

All of this is driven by mask and vaccine mandates and the fear of the China virus that we have instilled in the American people. We have got to get over this and return to our lives. It’s the only way this is going to get better. it’s the only way the Global Supply Chain is going to get better. It’s the only way the economy is going to get better.

Then What Are Your Policy Plans to Fix It?

Fed Vice Chair Clarida says another year of inflation like this one would not be 'a policy success' (msn.com)

Though Clarida still subscribes to the broader description of current price pressures as "transitory," he said they are more intense than expected and will be higher this year than the Fed's most recent forecast.

"Realized inflation so far this year represents to me much more than a moderate overshoot of our 2% longer-run goal, and I would certainly not consider a repeat performance a policy success," he said during a virtual conference presented by the Brookings Institution.

No, it’s not transitory. It has definite and obvious causes. Until you address the root causes, inflation is here to stay. Team Biden isn’t doing that.

Welcome to Biden’s America.

#IToldYouSo

Because the Democrats Are Still in Charge?

Why higher inflation may no longer be considered "transitory" - CBS News

Inflation spiked higher this year due to the confluence of several pandemic trends, economists say. First, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in early 2021 spurred pent-up demand from consumers, millions of whom were flush with cash due to stimulus checks and extra unemployment aid.

But at the same time, the U.S. workforce hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic. There are still 3.2 million fewer workers today than in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the economy. Among the businesses impacted by the labor force shortage are those in the supply chain — transportation companies, warehouses and other businesses that help move goods around the U.S.

That's created what Bostjancic calls "sticky supply-driven inflation."

"There was huge pent-up consumer demand, and demand came back sharply, and supply couldn't keep up," she added.

But there's a risk if the Fed boosts interest rates more quickly than expected, Bostjancic noted. "You could have a double-jeopardy risk that they raise rates now to combat inflation, but that it kicks in just as supply comes online and demand moderates," she said.

TL;DR

The Democrats are still in charge.

Once Again, My Adage About the Minimum Wage Is Shown to Be True

McDonald’s Partners With IBM To Automate Drive-Thrus As Labor Shortages Persist | The Daily Wire

As employers compete for a diminished pool of available labor, many are instead relying upon technology. Morning Consult’s Small Business Recovery Survey — which surveyed 608 small to midsize businesses between August 5 and August 16 — found that roughly three in ten have turned to automation.

The labor shortage is also triggering high prices in other sectors. For example, online real estate marketplace Zillow is halting its recent home-buying spree amid a lack of workers in the construction industry.

“We’re operating within a labor- and supply-constrained economy inside a competitive real estate market, especially in the construction, renovation and closing spaces,” explained Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Wacksman. “We have not been exempt from these market and capacity issues.”

The true minimum wage is always $0.

They Don’t Care About That or the Economic Effects of It

‘We Will Lose Several Thousand People’: Top Boss Warns Against Biden Vax Mandate | The Daily Wire

Raytheon Technologies Chief Executive Greg Hayes warned Tuesday of the thousands of employees he’ll lose due to President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on all federal workers and some private businesses.

“We will lose several thousand people,” Hayes said during a CNBC interview, Reuters reported. The company is planning to comply with Biden’s vaccine order, set to go in effect on December 8.

Raytheon Technologies, which makes Tomahawk missiles, has a total of 125,000 U.S. employees, the report noted.

The top boss also said he “expects Biden’s vaccine mandate to cause ‘some disruption’ in the supply chain in a post-earnings conference call,” Reuters noted.

The vax mandate will cause higher unemployment as employees refuse to comply, and it will make it harder to hire new people. My company is already feeling the effects of it. I get asked if we require vaccinations in almost every interview. We’re a government contractor, so we do.

This is going to get worse before it gets better. And every day brings evidence that a vax mandate is less and less necessary.

DeSantis Has an Inconvenient Truth Moment With Politifact

NEW: Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “The nation reported adding 194,000 jobs in September, and Florida accounted for 84,500.” The numbers are real, but they aren't really comparable. https://t.co/PGawkNcfnK pic.twitter.com/yiZMBg2yyJ

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) October 27, 2021

True, but…we need to provide “context” in the guise of “Democrat talking points”.

Here, these headlines are more truthful:

Ron DeSantis Is Doing More Than His Fair Share to Prop Up the U.S. Economy – PJ Media

Florida Has The Fastest Job Growth Rate In The Nation, Significantly Faster Than National Average | The Daily Wire

According to a statement from the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL):

Florida’s economy accelerated in September 2021, growing at three times the rate over the month compared to the nation. Overall for the month, Florida gained 84,500 total jobs, including nearly 73,000 private-sector jobs. This month marks 17 months of private-sector job growth, increasing by 5.6% over the year. Florida has experienced this magnitude of monthly private sector job growth on only four other occasions in the past 30 years.

In addition, Florida has experienced 11 consecutive months of labor force increases, adding 50,000 workers over the month. Florida’s labor force growth represents a 5.4% increase over-the-year, which is significantly higher than the national rate of 0.8%. In total, Florida has gained more than one million jobs since April 2020.

Their message? Florida is ready to help

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is doing an amazing job. He’s charismatic. He is a great speaker. He fights. The left is terrified of him. And rightly so.

Well, That Will Put a Damper on My T-Day Shopping

Americans Face Most Expensive Thanksgiving in History (townhall.com)

The New York Times published a story Monday explaining how nearly every aspect of Americans' Turkey Day feasts will be more expensive this year from spices and ingredients to the aluminum pan that holds the bird and fixings. It's not just a few extra cents here and there, it's everything. And, as The New York Times concludes, "Thanksgiving 2021 could be the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday."

Well, that’s just peachy. Bidenflation is a wonderful thing, ain’t it?

Even the star of Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey, is setting price records. As Mika noted, the "price per pound is expected to rise above $1.36, surpassing the record benchmark price set back in 2015."

Great. I get a 25+ pound bird (we like leftovers).  The wallet will be leaner this year.

And now, a point from MSNBC, a network that rarely makes it on this blog except satirically.

MSNBC: this year’s Thanksgiving will be “the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday.” pic.twitter.com/Zj1LpE8Kfo

— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) October 26, 2021

And They Wonder Why People Are Unhappy

For the first time in a long time, all US state have an average retail gasoline price above $3 per gallon (even Oklahoma and Mississippi which traditionally enjoy the lowest average prices). California’s average is now above $4.5 per gallon (according to @AAAnews data) #OOTT pic.twitter.com/2UuTe2JFtq

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) October 24, 2021

Biden’s America.

#IToldYouSo