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Lies, Damn Lies, and Economic Statistics
Last night’s State of the Union speech was riddled with blatant lies about the state of the American economy. Lots of these were centered around conditions created by the government during Covid lockdowns. The signature lie was, “we created 12 million new jobs…a historic amount!” Ummm… No. What really happened was that government stopped destroying jobs with the Covid lockdowns. Once the boot of government was off America’s neck, millions of people returned to jobs that government had prevented them from going to.
Before Covid, 131,565,000 Americans had been employed full-time. Today that number is 132,577,000 … an increase of just over 1MM full-time jobs. Worryingly, since May 2022, that number has been declining. In May it was 132,743,000. So we have lost about 160,000 full-time jobs since May.
Inflation has spiked since the current administration took over. Inflation had been under 3% for years. On inauguration day it stood at 1.4%. Today it is 6.4% after peaking a few months ago at 9%. It’s important to note that inflation measures how fast prices are increasing. So the decline from 9% to 6.4% means that prices continue to go up, but at a slower rate. It’s like slowing a car from 90 mph to 64 mph. The car hasn’t stopped. It is still moving pretty darn fast. Same here. Prices continue going up.
Worse, they are going up faster than wages. Americans continue to lose ground. Price increases outstrip wage hikes and on an inflation-adjusted basis (Real Wages), Americans have gotten poorer. This is a sharp contrast to conditions during the former administration. Then, real wages were rising. No more. The current administration undid most of those gains.
Great economy, huh?
Addendum: The trade deficit in 2022 jumped over 12% to a record $948.1 billion in 2022.
Published in General
Again, a clear and concise explanation! Thanks, ekosj. I think. Sigh.
We are looking at a decade of stagflation. This is caused by (1) war on energy/food (2) retiring boomers (3) reduced globalization (4) the end of QE. More immigrants is not going to help. The people retiring have 40+ years of experience and cannot be replaced by people “off the boat”. Remember, Boomers are global demographic lump, not just in America.
And I would add 5) increased regulation that chokes growth and raises costs.
Inflation works to the benefit of the government, doesn’t it? You are taxed on capital gains, so if your house went up in value you made a big profit and you owe Uncle Sam, and maybe your state. Even though the value of the dollars went down and you may have no more buying power with the money you sold your house for than with the money you bought the house for, it still counts as profit. Heck, Joe Biden might characterize it is a windfall profit, which apparently is really bad.
Right on Ekosj! The recent Establishment Survey nonsense was a total con -job! 500,000 new jobs my butt!
But don’t ya know Comrade Chairman Powell needs a big excuse to keep raising interest rates so we can say “employment is strong” and so Our Supreme Leader can say how great things are in his SOU address?
Excellent point! In fact, thinking back, the biggest beneficiary of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme was the US Treasury. They were basically Madoff’s silent partner…collecting taxes from Madoff clients on gains that were fictitious.
Small wonder nobody at the SEC or the Fed was very interested in killing the golden goose.
And I would add 6) a culture of corruption that has settled on all levels of society.