Economy
June 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
President Biden spoke today at the AFL-CIO quadrennial convention in Philadelphia. I have posted a video of the whole thing at the bottom. Biden is in his element and the torrent of lies is tough to take. The White House has not posted a transcript. As usual, Biden builds himself up by comparison with “the last guy.” In the world according to Biden, life under Donald Trump was a nightmare
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June 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
President Biden has derided his “predecessor” or “the last guy” (as Biden likes to refer to him) for bragging about the performance of the stock market under his (President Trump’s) watch. Yet he (Biden) has also bragged about the performance of the stock market under his watch. As of the market close yesterday, however, all the Biden gains had been wiped out and the market had slipped into bear market
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June 10, 2022 — John Hinderaker
My wife filled up her gas tank this morning and took this picture: I filled up this afternoon and took this one: So we spent $248.71 on gasoline today. We are fortunate: we can still afford to eat dinner, and we aren’t canceling our trip to New Hampshire next week for my college reunion. Most Americans are not so lucky. And most Americans also understand that the Democratic Party is
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June 2, 2022 — John Hinderaker
I have always bristled at descriptions of the Republicans as the “stupid party” (as opposed to Democrats who are the “evil party”). But, to be fair, there have been plenty of times when the stereotype fit. These days, however, the Republicans are fighting a spirited and often creative battle against the worst administration since James Buchanan’s–coincidentally, another Democrat. I have no idea who Tommy Pigott is–it might even be a
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June 2, 2022 — John Hinderaker
On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that she was wrong when she said, last year, that she didn’t expect inflation to be much of a problem: "It wasn't just the president who got it wrong." After spending MONTHS insisting it was merely "transitory," Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen finally admits they were WRONG to downplay inflation. pic.twitter.com/IlJMvQsbrU — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 31, 2022 Of course, Yellen’s mea culpa
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May 31, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In its lineup this morning RealClearPolitics has done us the favor of retrieving Daniel Henninger’s weekly Wall Street Journal column of this past Thursday on “Joe Biden’s train-wreck economy” (behind the Journal’s paywall). We noted Biden’s reference in Tokyo to the “incredible transition” he is engineering to renewable energy and a green economy. A beautiful future awaits, if we can draw on our savings to pay $5.00 a gallon and
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May 29, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The infant formula shortage is a crisis for many American families, and the end is not in sight. What caused supplies of a staple product to run out? The most thorough explanation I have seen comes from Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute. (Numerous links in the original are omitted here.) Lincicome fingers government as the culprit, with protectionism as villain number one: U.S. policy has exacerbated the nation’s infant
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May 24, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In the course of his joint Tokyo press conference with the Japanese prime minister yesterday — the White House has posted the transcript here — a reporter asked President Biden about the economy: During your trip here to Asia, you’ve promoted the investments by Samsung and Hyundai. But back home in the United States, Americans are dealing with record-high inflation. The Fed has raised interest rates to try to address
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May 20, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In a banana republic, what do you do when your citizens don’t have enough money because of your socialist economic policies? Simple: print more money! There was a time when we thought American politics were above such insanity, but those days are gone. The Biden administration’s multi-trillion dollar money-printing spree has launched the worst inflation since the Carter administration and the longest collapse of the Dow since 1932. Nice going,
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May 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this week I quoted from President Biden’s May 10 remarks on the economy (correction in transcript): “Senator Rick Scott of Wisconsin [Florida], a member of the Senate Republican leadership, laid it all out in a plan. It’s the Ultra-MAGA Agenda.” If you wondered whence the “Ultra-MAGA” shtick suddenly materialized, as I have, Washington Post reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer have arrived with the answer. You had to know
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April 24, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In 1973, Time magazine famously praised Minnesota as “the state that works.” Its cover photo of Governor Wendell Anderson holding a Northern made Minnesota politicians, especially Democrats, delirious with joy. The Time article praised Minnesota’s political leadership for, among other things, having the courage to enact substantial tax increases. Unfortunately, in succeeding years our politicians have rarely lacked for “courage,” and things have not turned out as Time foretold in
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April 18, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The hottest new thing for Woke Wall Street is “ESG” investing, where ESG stands for “environment, social, and governance.” In other words, investing in politically correct sectors like “green” energy, media, and so forth, and avoiding investing in tobacco, arms manufacturers, and above all fossil fuel energy companies. ESG has become, Barron’s reports, “one of Wall Streets favorite buzzwords.” Only the name and acronym are new. Twenty years ago “sustainable”
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April 2, 2022 — John Hinderaker
For a number of years, Americans have been moving, on net, from blue states to red states. That trend was accentuated by the coronavirus epidemic, as living in red states was generally a lot more normal, and pleasant, than living in blue states. This chart shows the net migration of income in and out of states during the pandemic. There are no surprises: California, New York, and Illinois were huge
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March 11, 2022 — Steven Hayward
[P]resident Biden is likely looking to import one of those Canadian trucker bouncy houses for his poll numbers (and the economy), because his approval ratings are not getting any air. From the latest Wall Street Journal poll out today: Biden, Democrats Lose Ground on Key Issues, WSJ Poll Finds WASHINGTON—President Biden and his fellow Democrats have lost ground to Republicans on several of the issues most important to voters, a
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January 26, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Some jurisdictions pursued aggressive shutdown strategies to “fight” covid, while others did not. These shutdowns made no apparent difference in covid rates, but they had devastating consequences for the livelihoods of millions of Americans. Among the hardest hit businesses were restaurants. Here in Minnesota, the restaurant business has suffered severe and in many cases mortal blows. Things continue to trend downward, as the city has imposed yet another mask mandate
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January 24, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The stock market today opened down sharply—the Dow was off 900 points early in the day—before staging a late rally to close in the green. Still, the last week has been ugly. Strap in for a lot more volatility until the Fed is done finding its rear end with both hands—likely many many months from now. It is not news that traditional energy stocks—coal, natural gas, and oil—were the stock
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January 18, 2022 — Steven Hayward
• The Wall Street Journal reports this morning: Texas, Arizona Have Recovered All the Jobs Lost When Covid-19 Hit Texas and Arizona have joined two other states in recovering all the jobs they lost at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading a trend that is expected to include another dozen states by the middle of this year. The states, which also include Utah and Idaho, have benefited from demographic
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