Economy
September 28, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Times are tough, although the elites that run our country probably haven’t noticed. But for most of us, the rising costs of gasoline, electricity, manufactured goods and groceries, along with a decline in the value of our savings and the prospect of paying for trillions in new federal deficits, are alarming. How worried are Americans? This worried: Rasmussen finds that 57% of Americans are expecting a depression: The latest Rasmussen
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September 24, 2022 — John Hinderaker
British Prime Minister Liz Truss is going big. Her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, has unveiled an aggressive program of permanent tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal likes the plan: Mr. Kwarteng axed the 2.5-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax imposed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and canceled a planned increase in the corporate income tax rate to 26% from 19%. … Kwarteng also surprised by eliminating the 45% tax rate
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September 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Dow was down 1,276 points today, or 4%. Why? The August inflation number came in worse than expected: The new data showed the consumer-price index rose 8.3% in August from the same month a year ago. That was down from 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June—the highest inflation rate in four decades. But on a month-to-month basis, the figures showed inflation accelerating in August, dashing investors’ hopes that
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September 11, 2022 — Scott Johnson
On Friday the White House released “the Biden-Harris economic blueprint” a/k/a “the President’s Economic Blueprint” (press release here, 58-page document here). It’s a “blueprint” with “five pillars” that have done so much for us already and promise to do more and worse in the future. Performing the work that our native media fact-check workers refuse to do, James Bovard assesses the veracity of claims made in the “blueprint.” He introduces
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August 23, 2022 — Steven Hayward
As you may have heard, Robert Reich, who increasingly looks like a parody of an old man yelling at clouds, is very concerned about equality. Very very concerned. Almost obsessively concerned. Actually, strike “almost” from the previous sentence. His egalitarianism extends to the WNBA. Reich finds it scandalous that WNBA players aren’t paid the same as NBA players. Never mind getting schooled by any libertarian walking down the street, as
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August 19, 2022 — John Hinderaker
This Research Brief from the Institute of Governmental Studies at Berkeley measures the extent to which cities and, specifically, downtowns have recovered from the covid shutdowns. The piece is noteworthy because of its methodology: it uses cell phone data to track the extent to which people are returning to various cities and the downtown areas within those cities, so it is based on objective reality. I encourage you to follow
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August 11, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In their own way President Biden’s White House minders must be just about as far gone as he is. With the announcement that Consumer Price Index had declined year-over-year from 9.1 percent to 8.5 percent, they thought it made sense to push the line that the numbers reflect “zero inflation last month” (i.e., on a month to month basis). The Bureau of Labor Statistics data are compiled here (home page)
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August 3, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Biden administration has tried to redefine “recession” to avoid responsibility for two consecutive quarters of GDP decline. Has that rather pitiful effort worked? No, according to Rasmussen Reports: Despite denials from the White House, most voters think the American economy is in a recession – and agree that Democrats are to blame for it. A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports finds that 62% of Likely
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July 31, 2022 — Scott Johnson
White House Economic Council Director joined White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for the July 26 press briefing last week. The White House has posted the transcript here. Talking up the strength of our economy by comparison with others, Deese actually said this: Well, look, I think that our — our economy is more resilient to the — to the types of challenges that we’ve faced. For example, you know,
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July 28, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Biden administration is continuing its effort to spin bad economic news. Biden’s statement on today’s negative GDP report avoided any reference to recession, or even to the fact that the GDP number was negative. Coming off of last year’s historic economic growth – and regaining all the private sector jobs lost during the pandemic crisis – it’s no surprise that the economy is slowing down as the Federal Reserve
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July 28, 2022 — Scott Johnson
As we inferred from the Biden administration’s verbal gymnastics this week, today’s Commerce Department report indicates that we are in a conventionally understood recession. According to the department, the economy contracted for a second straight quarter, with growth falling at a 0.9 percent annual rate in the April-June period. The Bureau of Economic Analysis explains: “Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the
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July 26, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration continues to prepare the battlefield for the Commerce Department’s second-quarter 2022 GDP estimate on Thursday. Administration officials must anticipate an estimate reflecting that we are in a recession, because they are making fools of themselves to deflect it in the meantime. What they really need to do is bring back the late Carter administration economic official Alfred Kahn and dub it the banana. “Between 1973 and 1975
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July 25, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The White House is prepping the battlefield for next Thursday’s Commerce Department estimate of second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth or contraction. Students of ancient history may recall that real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2022, according to the most recent estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. A second quarter of contraction would suggest that we are in a
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July 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Inflation hit a new four-decade high in June as prices rose 9.1 percent from last year — 1.3 percent from the prior month — according to the data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning. The BLS’s “all items index increased 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981.” I put it this way: We see it everywhere
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June 17, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Let’s review the record. Here’s what Biden said about energy while campaigning for office: So how’s that “end fossil fuel” working out for you Joe? The Wall Street Journal reports this afternoon: President Biden came to office vowing to cut dependence on fossil fuels, putting environmentalists in charge of energy policy and asking Congress for billions of dollars to fund a transition to cleaner energy. Seventeen months later, greenhouse gas
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June 16, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Who will unwind the torrent of bizarreries, misrepresentations, lies, and howlers unleashed by President Biden in his remarks at the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia earlier this week? I doubt this is work the professional fact-checkers at the Washington Post and elsewhere will do. They certainly wouldn’t have their heart in it. The New York Post commissioned James Bovard to do the job. Unfortunately, limitations of space confined Citizen Bovard to
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June 15, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I was looking for transcript in all the wrong places, i.e., for the official White House transcript of President Biden’s fabulations at the 29th quadrennial convention of the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia yesterday morning. The White House posted it under Statements and Releases here. I commented on it here based on the PBS video (below). Today’s New York Post devotes a good editorial to Biden’s speech under the heading “The Post
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