The Real Economic Numbers

On Tuesday, Breitbart posted a cheat sheet for anyone watching the debate who might wonder about the economic information cited. The cheat sheet came in very handy, as much of what Vice-President Harris cited in terms of economic numbers was pure fiction.

Here are the numbers on the Trump economy and the Biden economy:

  • Peak Inflation for Trump: 2.85%
  • Peak Inflation for Biden-Harris: 8.98%
  • Peak annualized inflation for Trump: 6.3% in September 2017
  • Peak annualized inflation for Biden-harris: 16.05% in June 2022
  • Cumulative Trump Inflation: 5.9%
  • Cumulative Biden-Harris Inflation: 19%
  • Cumulative Trump grocery inflation: 6%
  • Cumulative Biden-Harris grocery inflation: 20.9%
  • Rent increase under Trump: 12.5%
  • Rent increase under Biden-Harris: 22.1%
  • Months of PCE inflation above two percent under Trump: 5
  • Months of PCE inflation above two percent under Biden-Harris: 40
  • Manufacturing Jobs Added under Trump: 414,500
  • Manufacturing Jobs Added under Biden-Harris: 138,000
  • Growth of Manufacturing Jobs under Trump: 3.5%
  • Growth of Manufacturing Jobs Under Biden-Harris: 1.07%
  • Trump employment growth: 6.5 million
  • Percent Trump employment growth: 4.3%
  • Biden-Harris employment growth: 2.6 million
  • Percent Biden-Harris employment growth: 1.7%
  • Trump wage gain: 6.46%
  • Biden-Harris wage gain: 5.17%
  • Trump wage gain: 6.54%
  • Biden-Harris wage gain: 0.00%
  • Foreign born population growth under Trump: 2.2%
  • Foreign born population growth under Biden-Harris: 12.6%
  • Foreign-born employment growth under Trump: 7.5%.
  • Foreign-born employment growth under Biden-Harris: 14.2%.
  • Foreign-born workers as a percentage of all U.S. workers under Trump: 17.4%
  • Foreign-born workers as a percentage of all U.S. workers under Biden-Harris: 19.6%
  • Trump average budget deficit 2018-2019: $809 billion
  • Biden-Harris average budget deficit 2022-2023: $1.5 trillion
  • Trump budget deficit as share of GDP in 2018: 3.8%
  • Trump budget deficit as share of GDP in 2019: 4.6%
  • Biden-Harris budget deficit as share of GDP in 2022: 5.3%
  • Biden-Harris budget deficit as share of GDP in 2023: 6.2%
  • Average economic growth in first three years of Trump administration: 2.7%
  • Average economic growth in first three years of Biden-Harris administration: 3.4%
  • Average economic growth under Biden-Harris excluding 2021 pandemic rebound: 2.2%
  • Average return of S&P 500 in first three years of Trump administration: 16.3%
  • Average return of S&P 500 in first three years of Biden-Harris administration: 12.3%
  • Peak 30-year mortgage interest rate under Trump: 4.94%
  • Peak 30-year mortgage interest rate under Biden-Harris: 7.76%

If Vice-President Harris truly cared for the financial well being of American families, she would tell them to vote for President Trump!

Can Lies Get Him Re-elected?

Recently President Biden did a sit-down interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett. She didn’t ask him any really hard questions, but she did ask about his current low standing in the polls. On Wednesday, Red State posted some highlights from the interview and also did some fact checking.

The article reports:

Burnett said that the polls showed that voters trusted former President Donald Trump more on the economy. She ticked off several problems with the Biden economy including the cost of buying a home which has doubled, real income is down, economic growth is down “far short of expectations,” and consumer confidence was at a “two-year low.”

“With less than six months to go until Election Day, are you worried you’re running out of time to turn that around?” she asked him. Biden looked out of it while she was talking, and his response was pure denial of reality.

…”We’ve already turned around,” Biden claimed falsely. He simply refuses to accept the facts, claiming the polling data “has been wrong.”

Bottom line? Trump is ahead in the polls, including in all the swing states. That’s what Joe can’t deal with.

…Then he straight-up lied and said that inflation was at 9 percent when he came into office.

In fact, inflation was at 1.4 percent when he came in and he helped to drive it up above 9 percent.

Recently President Biden blamed corporate greed for the inflation problem. What he fails to note is that corporations are in business to make money. It is not up to him to decide how much money corporations make. Generally speaking, the free market determines profit margins. If the government would get out of the way of the free market, they might see the beginning of a true economic recovery.

About Those Jobs Numbers

We have all read the reports of some major manufacturing companies and retail stores laying off employees and shutting down stores. So why is the Biden administration so enthusiastically touting their jobs numbers? Could it be that those numbers do not actually reflect what is actually happening?

On Wednesday, The Federalist reported the following:

Last week, the Labor Department issued its jobs report for March 2024. Democrats will tell you the report is rosy and bright, that the economy is heading in the right direction, and that your negative instincts and impressions about the economy are wrong. In reality, the report is abysmal. Below are the facts about employment that Democrats won’t mention: Fewer Americans have full-time jobs, and more of those with full-time jobs are also working part-time jobs to make ends meet.

Democrats claim that the economy added 303,000 jobs in March — but it added no full-time jobs at all in March. The economy actually shed 6,000 full-time jobs that month. In fact, full-time employment in the United States has dropped in each of the past four months. Since November, there are 1,787,000 fewer Americans with full-time employment.

So how do Democrats claim the economy added 303,000 jobs in March? What Democrats do not tell you is that the vast majority of these jobs — 75 percent — are second jobs. Under the Biden economy, the number of people who have had to simultaneously work both a full-time job and a second part-time job just to make ends meet has hovered at historical highs. In March, the number of people who added a second part-time job on top of their other full-time employment totaled 225,000. The Democrats’ “good news” is just you having to work longer and harder to survive.

The article also notes that there is much more growth in government jobs than jobs in the private sector. This is NOT good economic news.

The article reports:

The U.S. has faced another insidious problem for decades that gets little attention. There are more than 3,000 counties or county equivalents in the United States. Yet, half of the 10 wealthiest counties in the U.S., measured in terms of median household income, are suburbs of Washington, D.C. According to U.S. Census data, 50 years ago only five suburban D.C. counties made the list of the top 50 richest U.S. counties or equivalents. By 2020, this figure had more than tripled to 17. 

It’s long past time to shrink government and cut taxes!

Behind The Jobs Numbers

On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted an honest analysis of the jobs report that recently came out. It may be the only honest analysis out there. All of us know that the Biden economy is a problem for middle America–food inflation is in double digits, gas prices are lower than they have been but still a dollar or so a gallon more than they were under President Trump, and utility bills have increased dramatically in some places. President Biden may tell us that the economy is wonderful, but many of us living in it are not convinced. Just as an example, the total increase in my husband’s and my Social Security this year (after deducting the cost of Medicare) was about $115. I suspect that a lot of retirees didn’t even see that much of an increase. I can assure you that our grocery bill has gone up more than that.

The article at Zero Hedge is complicated and detailed. I suggest that  you follow the link and read it for yourselves. I will try to highlight some of it.

The article reports:

The headline data was stellar across the board, starting with the unemployment rate which once again failed to rise – denying expectations from “Sahm’s Rule” that a recession may have already started – all the way to average hourly earnings, which unexpectedly spiked from 4.1% (pre-revision) to 4.5%, the highest since last September, and a slap in the face to the Fed’s disinflation narrative…

… or it would be if one didn’t think of checking how the average rose: well, it turns out that, since average hourly earnings is a fraction, it did not rise due to a jump in actual wages but – since it is earnings over a period of time – “rose” because the BLS decided to sharply slash the number of estimated hours that everyone was workingfrom 34.3 to just 34.1, which may not sound like a lot until one realizes that the last time the workweek was this low was when the economy was shut down during covid Excluding the covid lockdowns, one would have to go back to 2010 to find a workweek that was this anemic.

The article concludes:

…Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 4 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers, but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since July 2018!

This is a huge issue – especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the border – and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened – i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why the Biden admin will do everything in his power to insure there is no official recession before November… and is why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get more and more ridiculous.

A New Level Of Spin

On Thursday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about some recent statements by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. The statements would be comical if the subject were not so serious.

The article reports:

It is also obvious to those who have followed Biden personnel decisions, that KJP was selected because she would spout the information given to her by Chief-of-Staff Ron Klain without a moment’s hesitation.  She is not intelligent enough to know the talking points are complete nonsense.  She spouts the most ridiculous talking points in a manner that reflects she believes them.  That said, her capacity to stumble through nonsense and pretend it is real is only surpassed by Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.

Today from the White House podium, Ms. Karine Jean-Pierre actually made the claim that our current economy is the strongest in our nation’s history. 

WATCH:

It’s a great economy as long as you don’t have to buy food, gasoline, electricity, or pay for a place to live.