dajo9 said:
Cal88 said:
dajo9 said:
movielover said:
Cal88 said:
Strategic oil reserve down to 17 days, its lowest level ever, just as things are flaring up in the middle east...
Joe Biden did this. ^^^
You know what's interesting about this chart? It's always lowest when the economy is strongest. Thanks for pointing out the strength of Biden's economy.
Kind of like how the economy is strongest when demand at food banks is up 600%?
GDP is expected at 2.2%
Inflation is way down from peaks and inflation ex shelter is 1.9%. Shelter is lagged as it takes time for leases to catch up with spot rates.
Jobs are booming and unemployment is 3.8%.
Real wages are keeping up with inflation and jobs at the low end are ahead of inflation from pre-pandemic levels.
These are the data driven facts. Your side will continue to push a negative narrative regardless. It's what you do. But you aren't up against me - you are up against the data.
Inflation is down temporarily. Shelter is down because of 7% mortgages; that isn't sustainable. Wage inflation is a real problem. Unions and economically illiterate pols are demanding 30, 40, even 50% increases (see fast food workers in Blue cities, UPS drivers, UAW etc).
The economy is still growing for a a couple reasons. First, there is still pandemic money being spent but that is drying up. Second, the deficit is running at 7.5% of GDP, a ridiculous figure for a economy not at war or in recession. Biden's green subsidies are stimulating lots of uneconomic investment in "green" energy. Biden cancelling (a euphemism, or course, all he's done is transferred the debt to the American taxpayer.) $127 billion of student debt is also hugely stimulative and not just because of the amount. Millions of Americans have been conditioned during Covid to not have to pay their student debt and Biden rhetoric has them thinking it will be cancelled in the end; they are spending that debt service. Oil prices are down from the war's beginning but Biden had to cut the SPR to levels not seen since the 80s to achieve it. And now the Saudis and Russians are collaborating to increase prices. There are many reasons to think that inflation is headed higher.
But this is a sugar high. All signs point to a recession. The deficit will climb well into double digits and the Fed will be forced to cut interest rates as they have always done to save the economy and the banks. But there is too much debt to finance and they will be forced into yield curve control as the Japanese are now doing. There will be periods of deflation as productive capacity is destroyed, followed by periods of rapid inflation from gargantuan fiscal and monetary stimulus. Sadly, Biden won't be around to take "credit" his part in this economic catastrophe.