Trump
2017-$670B
2018-$780B
2019-$980B
2020-$3130B
4 YR TOTAL --- $5.56T
Joe
2021-$2770B
2022-$1380B
2023-$1700B
3 YR TOTAL ---$5.85T
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/
Bidenomics
- Thread starter binsfeldcyhawk2
- Start date
2017-$670B
2018-$780B
2019-$980B
2020-$3130B
4 YR TOTAL --- $5.56T
Joe
2021-$2770B
2022-$1380B
2023-$1700B
3 YR TOTAL ---$5.85T
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/
‘Deficit’ numbers always exclude certain categories of outlays to make the picture look rosier.
For a true picture of the Federal annual deficit just measure the increase y-o-y of Federal debt:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
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It's amazing how much you hear from people and both sides of the media on bad the economy is. I'm not saying its great but it's time for people to stop talking so negatively about the economy. Inflation is down from where it was last year, stock market is up overall for the year, GDP growth is through the roof, wages are outpacing inflation, and unemployment is super low.
In what ****ing world is that considered a terrible economy?
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The entity I work for just handed out 5-10% raises across the board. Jobs are plentiful and paying more. People who whine about the bad economy are either lazy or lying.
I listened to an economics podcast episode the other day (maybe it was marketplace, can't recall) where they asked people two questions. The first one was is the economy good? Most said no. The second one was are you personally doing well financially? Almost everyone said yes.
There is a major disconnect where people are actually doing well but view the economy as bad because the media and GOP keep hammering the lies.
Mortgage rates 23 year high
New vehicle loans at 10%
Credit card interest rates all time high
A bad deal gets worse — interest rates on retail credit cards hit a record high, here's what to consider instead
Retail credit card interest rates have hit a record high. Here are a few alternative credit cards for your shopping needs
That shit leaves a mark on peoples perception of the economy....GDP numbers are meaningless to peoples day to day lives.
Right but that doesn't change the fact that the economy is doing pretty well. Also, for most people who already own homes at low interest rates, this economy actually kicks ass. You are locked into a super low interest rate, you can actually make some money in CDs and savings accounts again. And you are likely getting good raises (my company just gave 8% raises this past year for example.)Mortgage rates 23 year high
New vehicle loans at 10%
Credit card interest rates all time high
A bad deal gets worse — interest rates on retail credit cards hit a record high, here's what to consider instead
Retail credit card interest rates have hit a record high. Here are a few alternative credit cards for your shopping needswww.cnbc.com
That shit leaves a mark on peoples perception of the economy....GDP numbers are meaningless to peoples day to day lives.
I don’t disagree, I’m doing fine.
I’m just talking about polling which has everything to do with perception.
The things I listed all affect people directly…they’re tangible. GDP and National unemployment numbers aren’t.
It isn’t “messaging” that’s the problem in regards to Joes polling on the economy. It’s that all the negative indicators are things that actually effect a large number of folks pocket books.
It seems like there’s just a nonstop feeling that we’re being incrementalized to death. The thousand cuts syndrome. Every time you go grocery shopping there’s been three or four more items that went up .30 here or .49 cents there.
Avocados were 4 for $5 all summer and now they’re 3 for $5. That’s an odd example for some but I just noticed it yesterday. Kraft cheese packages were 2 for $5 and now are on special 2 for $7.
Gas here had gone down for a week to $2.97 and in just one day climbed back up to $3.29. (Yes I know why) Detergent is so expensive now I am tempted to buy store brands. I do buy a lot more store label items now anyway.
A lot of folks don’t pay attention to what is going on in Washington - much less the world but they just know their money is not buying what it used to. That’s when they blame the government and the guy at the top.
Avocados were 4 for $5 all summer and now they’re 3 for $5. That’s an odd example for some but I just noticed it yesterday. Kraft cheese packages were 2 for $5 and now are on special 2 for $7.
Gas here had gone down for a week to $2.97 and in just one day climbed back up to $3.29. (Yes I know why) Detergent is so expensive now I am tempted to buy store brands. I do buy a lot more store label items now anyway.
A lot of folks don’t pay attention to what is going on in Washington - much less the world but they just know their money is not buying what it used to. That’s when they blame the government and the guy at the top.
No. It's that there are a lot of dumb people who only look at headlines to get their perception.
People got used to artificially cheap prices and the ability to consume without thought. Now that prices have bounced up there is a lot of whining and complaining because people now need to shop and compare and sometimes even (gasp) do without.
It's a shame that you don't get that extra avocado that you can subsequently let spoil.
Mortgage rates 23 year high
New vehicle loans at 10%
Credit card interest rates all time high
A bad deal gets worse — interest rates on retail credit cards hit a record high, here's what to consider instead
Retail credit card interest rates have hit a record high. Here are a few alternative credit cards for your shopping needs
That shit leaves a mark on peoples perception of the economy....GDP numbers are meaningless to peoples day to day lives.
There was a strong perception among certain groups that the country was practically in shambles under Clinton and Obama. "Make us great again!" while we had a record high stock market, low unemployment, strong GDP etc... and had recovered from a recession.
Both Clinton and Obama pulled us out of recessions that started under their republican predecessors and oversaw soaring economies but what was the perception of them at the time among GOP voters?
I get it though. Perception > reality.
I think the perception is driven by the residue of last years high inflation and the resulting high interest rates to fight it.
It is well-documented that Obama and many other Biden allies have desperately begged him to stop using Bidenomics as it has a negative perception. I get texts and see things on social media often using it to be negative. He loves it for some reason and just won't give it up. Maybe it is stuck in his brain now. It would be really wise to quit using it.
...and the right blaming it all on the left. Do you believe we wouldn't have experienced high inflation had Trump stayed in office?
Oh I know we would have had high inflation.
Presidents take blame or credit for the economy...it's just the way its always been. Nothing new...
That's called greed. Corporate greed. Yes, inflation was and is real but so is greedflation. Corporations have taken advantage of real inflation and riden it to greed city.
There are always "losers" in any economy. That's not what I'm talking about.
I know people who are doing better than fine. I know of one guy (a contractor) who gobbled up tons of money from PPP loans and is making double what he ever did before. Yet, he bitches about the economy. Why is that? It's not perception. It's because of who is in the White House.
I have said this before but after the '08 recession we had very low inflation but hardly a job to be found and wages were awful. This current environment isn't perfect but I'd rather have the wage growth we have been seeing and the opportunity to grow and achieve. Again, to be clear I don't fully credit any politician for anything. Biden is mediocre at best. But, the economy has been and continues to do very very well. How long that continues is obviously a question but that's always a question.
In my response I had suggested that increased government spending is picking up the slack... creating an illusion that things are good and getting better, when in fact they are getting worse. Upon review I am dissatisfied with my comments. I take note that my primary point transitioned into a somewhat irrelevant critique of one agency: The IRS.
Here is an article from an international economist named Daniel Lacalle that makes my point from a more theoretical perspective and is far more coherent than were my ad hoc remarks.
I have taken the liberty of highlighting certain key sentences that I felt were specifically relevant.
............
Money Supply Slump Spells Private Sector Recession
25 June, 2023
Allow me to explain why we have not seen a recession yet despite the collapse in base money supply. We are witnessing the stealth nationalization of the economy. What does this mean? The entire burden of the monetary collapse and rate hikes is falling on the shoulders of families and small businesses, while large corporations and governments are virtually unaffected.
Thus, when an agent like the state, which weighs 40 to 60 percent of GDP in most economies, continues to consume wealth and spend, gross domestic product does not show a recession even though consumption and private investment in real terms is declining. Bloated government spending is disguising a private sector recession and the decline in real disposable income, real wages, and margins of SMEs (small and medium enterprises). Furthermore, the accidental and exogenous factor of widespread weaker commodities is boosting the external contribution of gross domestic product.
These are the main reasons why we are living in the middle of a recession and destruction of private wealth and wages, but the official data does not reflect it. As government weight in the economy rises faster, technical recessions may not appear in the official data, but citizens suffer it, nevertheless. The reader may think that this is good news because the spending of governments goes straight to the citizens via social spending. However, there is nothing that the state provides that it does not take away from the private sector now or in the future -deficit spending now means higher taxes and lower real wages afterwards-. Therefore, the flipside of “no official recession yet” is “more public debt now and after”.
The rapid decline in global money supply is staggering, at -3,4% at the end of the first quarter according to Longview. Meanwhile, in the United States, money supply is also contracting at the fastest pace since the great recession. Consider that, in the same period, government indebtedness at a global level is up 3% and United States borrowing has also risen faster than real GDP, according to the IIF. And those deficits are financed even if the cost is higher. Governments do not care about rising borrowing costs, because you pay for it.
This all basically means a drain of liquidity for the private sector will continue for a prolonged period. Central banks scratch their heads wondering why inflation remains persistent despite the complete reversal of the supply chain disruptions and the roundtrip of the international prices of commodities, so they keep hiking rates which have a direct negative impact on families and SMEs. Large corporations have no significant problem with higher rates, as they can access credit without any problem, finance themselves at better rates than many sovereigns and most are swimming in cash after years of prudent balance sheet management. Some may go bust, but this is not a monetary tightening that will affect the mega caps in most cases.
So why does inflation, especially core CPI, not react faster to rate hikes? Because the largest economic agent in the economy does not care and is not reducing its imbalances. Bloated governments are consuming even more units of newly created money and that is why aggregate prices fail to reflect the price contraction of external factors like freight or energy. Furthermore, as we have seen in the gross domestic product figures of many European nations, the rents components of GDP show a massive increase in the tax rents side, while gross added value of businesses and the gross wage component remains below pre-pandemic levels. Congratulations, you wanted socialism, this is socialism: Lower real wages, lower real disposable income, and lower real savings.
With the current slump in money supply, inflation should be half what it is now, and this is even considering the tweaks in the official calculation of CPI. However, money velocity is not declining because state consumption of newly created currency units is rising despite poor real private consumption and investment. If we think of the quantitative theory of money, this may be the first private-only recession because money supply declines and money velocity growth coming from the public sector offsets it.
The money supply slump and rate hike path so far are destroying the backbone of the economy, families, and small businesses. Normalization of monetary policy without normalization of government spending and deficits is the recipe for stagnation.
................................
Money Supply Slump Spells Private Sector Recession | dlacalle.com
www.dlacalle.com
It's not as if this guy doesn't have an agenda. He's an ideological guru, so his philosophy is nothing more than his individual take. Why put value on his gibberish?
“The central bank trap is clearly anything but an easy one to get out of.” “In addition to structural reforms to promote lower government spending and higher efficiency, Lacalle recommends tax cuts to let households and SMEs thrive”.
What many right wingers don't like about this economy is that the wage growth and job opportunities for those in the low income and below category have improved a great deal. And now they only get 3 avocados for $5 instead of 4.
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An increase in real wages is an increase in the purchasing power of wages. Wages in September increased 0.2% while prices increased 0.4%, so real wages decreased by 0.2%, or at an annualized pace of -2.2%.
People feel falling real wages, no matter what you try and tell them about the stock market.
While more than half of U.S. adults own stock, most don't own much. The wealthiest 1% holds 53% of stocks, worth $19.16 trillion. If you expand to the top 10%, that group holds 88.6% of stocks, which have a value of $28 trillion.
Inflation increases the price of assets, which are held predominantly by the rich, while the poorest third bear the brunt of price increases of items that make up a larger percentage of their expenses, with no stock charts to fall asleep to.
It’s important to remember these people exist. Inflation is a regressive policy that taxes the poorest by siphoning their purchasing power. It’s a terrible political option.
There is no such thing as ‘greedflation’, because corporations cannot add money to the monetary pool.
The price changes, in both consumer end costs, and corporate profits, will swing until they find a better equilibrium relevant to the new size of the monetary pool.
I remember trips to the store and there not being Fritos available.
****ing out of Fritos.
Price had gone from $2.48 a bag to $3.58 and more often than not they were out of stock. The price was too low for production to keep up with.
Price got to $5.38 and they could be found in stock after that.
The price has fallen back to $4.48. I’m sure they weren’t moving them fast enough.
Prices work.
You realize the negative real wages under Bidenomics are not evenly distributed right?
Lambasting the poor for being lazy, are you getting older and more conservative? I thought you were self described left leaning.
I'm pretty confident liberals understand these people exist. I would tell them the same thing that Republicans used to say ... "pull yourself up by your bootstraps"
You do realize that wage growth is never evenly distributed, right?
Wanting equal wage growth, are you becoming a socialist? I thought you were a self-described right leaning con.
I’m simply pointing out that these people, who are objectively worse off, are the source of the economic dissatisfaction. Bragging about the stock market to these people misses the point. It’s literally telling them they should be eating cake instead.
Does this sympathy alter with the party in the WH?
Pulling yourself out of lower economic strata is much more difficult if the government raises borrowing costs, and devours your purchasing power with the regressive policy of inflation to pay the government’s bills.
Not expressing my own desire for such things, again I was explaining what segment you can expect most of the economic dissatisfaction from - the poor who lose the most under the regressive policy of inflation.
Libertarian leaning is how I’d put it.
People like to conflate that with anarchism, but I view it in the Bastiat tradition, where just law confines itself to protecting life, liberty and property.
Libertarian recoils at using the government to plunder and redistribute property, but that is the very heart of socialism.
Conservatives seem less inclined to be in the ‘live and let live’ camp, at home or abroad. I oppose going abroad in search of monsters to destroy. It’s why I despise the neocons, whether they’re found among the Democrats or the Republicans. Their wars threaten our treasury, our rights at home, and our safety at home and abroad. And for what? No one articulates to me what they imagine the trillions we’ve dumped on blowing up shit in the Middle East has done to advance the lives of Americans. Thousands and thousands of Americans have been killed since we went on these Crusades in 1990 AD, tens of thousands wounded, 100s of thousands mentally wounded. For what again? Keeping foreign kings on their thrones? Nation building? **** all that and the people who keep trying to do it.
Thanks Joe 
abcnews.go.com
For the second Halloween in a row, US candy inflation hits double digits
For the second year in a row, U.S. shoppers are seeing double-digit inflation in the candy aisle
A good area to have inflation.Thanks Joe
For the second Halloween in a row, US candy inflation hits double digits
For the second year in a row, U.S. shoppers are seeing double-digit inflation in the candy aisle
The rate of inflation year over year is down, but it's still up year over year, and dramatically up over the last 2 1/2 years. The DOW and S&P 500 are treading water this year, and are roughly the same as January 2021. The Fed rate is 5.5%. Today's average 30 year mortgage rate is 8.25%.
To answer your question about what F****g world is that considered a terrible economy? Today's f*****g world in the US.
Wait, are you saying any inflation is bad? And was the economy bad in 1998 when interest rates were roughly the same as they are now? Is 4+% GDP growth bad?
The economy has reset from a time when rates and prices were artificially low. The pandemic and supply chains caused a great deal of upheaval and now we are getting back to a more stable economy. One where the cost of money is more reasonable and consumers need to compare and shop before they buy. Or, gasp, put off purchases.
After Trump ****ed up by giving stimulus to the well off in the form of tax breaks, kept interest rates near zero and mismanaged the pandemic there was going to be turmoil. The recovery from that has been about as smooth as could be expected.
I'm aware of all that data. I still don't think it's a bad economy at this point. Could certainly turn.
Rates alone don't signify whether a economy is good or not. In fact I would say that spending still going strong despite higher rates shows how strong the economy is right now. Again, that can all change
We have had a recession ~6-14 months after the fed rate pauses when increasing above 5% fed rate. It's not a matter of if but when.
These high interest rates will have an effect eventually. But I don't think it will affect everyone equally. If you have to purchase a new car or house, then you will be affected disproportionately.
I anticipate a climbing unemployment rate throughout 2024. I think these rates will affect borrowing, so businesses will have to cut staff.
As far as sentiment, I think when wages go up, it takes a little while to even out. More money on the paycheck looks good, until you realize you can't buy as much.
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LOL
Almost. SMH. Who HAS to buy a new house other than the relative few moving for a new job or some such situation? Or a new car? Even in those cases, buy a bit less house or a cheaper car (prices on cars are coming down, BTW).
Unemployment going up a bit is likely because it is so, so low right now. It will have little effect on the economy.
Low income wages have risen higher than inflation. The whining about the economy comes from the upper middle class and higher because now they have to do without some wants or, heaven forbid, shop for better deals.
The economy's biggest threat is people like you and right wing media bashing and working against it because you want it to appear to be bad.
‘Jumbled mess’: The Bidenomics brand leaves nearly everyone — including Biden — baffled
At the beginning, the president was reluctant to embrace the term, but he continues to make his economic policies central to his re-election pitch.WASHINGTON — No one seems to like “Bidenomics,” the eponymous shorthand for Joe Biden’s economic policies — not voters, not Democratic officials, not even, at times, the president himself.
It’s a term that mystifies Americans and confounds even its namesake. “I don’t know what the hell that is,” Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia earlier this year.
In a September focus group with Pennsylvania swing voters, one participant told the research firm Engagious that the concept was a “jumbled mess,” adding that “it’s really hard to explain.”
Biden is undeterred — at least for now. He has made the state of the nation's economy a central rationale of his re-election pitch, touting “Bidenomics” at events across the country. He talks about rapid job growth and billions of dollars in spending for roads, bridges and renewable energy projects on his watch.
Appearing in Minnesota last week, Biden described Bidenomics as “the American Dream” — twice in the same speech.
The trouble is, people aren’t buying it. Just as the phrase hasn’t caught on despite a low jobless rate, the underlying policies that Bidenomics purports to describe have left voters cold, polling shows. A Gallup survey in September showed that 48% of adults rated economic conditions as “poor,” the highest share in a year.
A University of Michigan monthly survey of attitudes toward the economy found that 20% of consumers expressed that their personal finances had deteriorated between Biden’s inauguration and September of this year.
More meaningful to Americans than the overall economic growth that Biden celebrates may be the stubborn reality that average food prices in U.S. cities have risen 20% since Biden took office. Or that the average price for a gallon of gas is $3.44 — less than it was a year ago but still about one-third higher than the pre-pandemic level.
Inflation has been cooling, down from a 40-year-high of 9% last year to less than 4%, but memories of high prices remain all too fresh, economists say.
“We’ve had quite significant inflation reduction while maintaining a tight labor market,” Jared Bernstein, chairman of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. “And that’s been extremely welcome. At the same time, people want to hear about falling prices, because they remember what prices were, and they want their old prices back.”
Tethering the Biden name to a cluster of economic policies that may take years to fully kick in was a gamble from the start, Democratic strategists say. It personalizes economic conditions that are not necessarily under a president’s control.
“Whoever came up with the slogan Bidenomics should be fired,” said one Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to speak more freely. “It’s probably the worst messaging you could ever imagine.”
It was actually the news media that first coined the term early in Biden’s presidency. When Biden and his advisers discussed whether to embrace it, the president was initially reluctant, two people familiar with internal White House discussions said. He worried that “Bidenomics” could backfire against him if the economy were to sour, one of the people said.
“I can understand that,” Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said when asked about Biden’s unease with the term. “I don’t like it either.”
The people that he [Biden] stands for don’t deal with economics,” added Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden before the 2020 Democratic primary in South Carolina revived his candidacy and propelled him to the party nomination. “They deal with day-to-day issues. They have to educate their children and feed their families and develop their communities — and that doesn’t sound like ‘Bidenomics.’”
Maybe the only ones lapping up the term are Biden’s opponents. Republican candidates seem unified in the conviction that “Bidenomics” is a winning argument — for them. Rep. Dean Phillips, the Minnesota Democrat who launched a primary challenge to Biden last month, has placed Bidenomics in his crosshairs.
Speaking to reporters recently on his campaign bus in New Hampshire, Phillips said that “people are suffering and they don't give a hoot about monikers and names and taglines. ... I would just ask the American people, how are they doing? And the truth is, they’re really struggling.”
As often as Biden trots out the term, he has yet to give it a succinct definition. Bidenomics may be the American dream, but it’s also “about making things in rural America again,” he told the audience in Minnesota.
Read the rest here…
‘Jumbled mess’: The Bidenomics branding leaves voters baffled
At the beginning, the president was reluctant to embrace the term, but he continues to make his economic policies central to his re-election pitch.
My father in law is in the grocery business. He isn’t greedy but he is going to pass the increased costs off to the buyer. These grocery stores are for profit and it’s the suppliers that they get their goods from who set the prices that they must abide by. Wages are up, fuel was up, and is driving a lot of it.
