What experts say: “Joe Biden is currently losing his re-election bid,” wrote atlantic organizationAnnie Lowrey is in production this week. “He did this while presiding over the strongest economy America has ever seen.”
Lowry mentioned the low unemployment rate – below 4%! — and higher wage growth than under Barack Obama. “Inflation has cooled significantly,” she added, “which means consumer purchasing power is strong.”
This argument is not unique. Experts have been scratching their heads lately, trying to figure out why President Joe Biden polls are so bad when a recession never actually happens and inflation is subdued (even if it means interest rates have to remain low for some time) remain high for a period of time). Part of that may be because economic indicators are actually mixed, and while many try to give Biden credit, they don’t paint a consistently rosy picture.
Make sense of it all: Of course, unemployment is low. and inflation have According to March data, this proportion has been appropriately controlled, falling to 3.5%. But it doesn’t Feel That’s fine for most voters because a) it’s through the Fed raising rates that inflation is kept in check; and b) 3.5% still seems high to most people, given the average annual rate in almost all countries. Inflation rates were quite low in the 1990s and 2000s (except for 2008 and now). In other words: Buying basic goods is still more expensive than people are used to, and borrowing money is much more expensive than before. This affects people’s behavior (e.g., home sales slow significantly in 2023) and, of course, their emotions.
Moreover, shockingly, voters don’t seem to like being lied to: “Inflation was 9% when I took office, and now it’s down about 3%,” Biden said in an interview. Yahoo Finance Earlier this week (as he keeps claiming!) it was actually revealed that inflation was 1.4% when Biden took office – a fact that any fool can easily find with a Google search – and that this was the result of a massive increase in government spending (in (under the guise of COVID-19), under the Biden and Donald Trump presidencies) led to the predictable high-inflation outcome.
So this is not only Inflation is still high, or interest rates are high, but those in charge keep trying to act like no one could have predicted or prevented this. This is not true.
To make matters worse, economic indicators are diverse and difficult to understand. Home and car insurance premiums are soaring; car repairs are more expensive than usual. Wages in some industries rose and remained high. But when we talk about high wages for mechanics, these costs are passed on to consumers in some form (usually through higher prices).
This is all very trendy now, and it will be interesting to see if Biden gets blamed for it at the ballot box (although Trump has a lot of blame, too).
New York scene: The city has been offering free shelter to any new arrivals seeking asylum and is trying to control the situation by starting a new round of deportations.
Since the beginning of 2022, more than 200,000 immigrants have benefited from New York’s housing rights policies. Currently, housing costs for approximately 65,000 immigrants are borne by taxpayers.
“Under the city’s previous rules, adult immigrants could stay in shelters for 30 days, after which they would simply reapply to get another bed and stay for another 30 days, no questions asked,” the report said. New York Times. “This leaves some immigrants languishing in the shelter system for months, sometimes more than a year, and reapplying for beds indefinitely.”
Now, the city will crack down on single adults and adult households (but not households with children), forcing them to move elsewhere after 30 days unless they can prove extenuating circumstances to the satisfaction of city officials Case.
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- “U.S. existing home sales unexpectedly fell for a second straight month in April, adding to evidence that the resale market is struggling amid near-record prices and high borrowing costs,” the report states. Bloomberg. (Interestingly, “U.S. new home sales rebounded across the board in March as ample inventory drove down prices.”)
- Employers plan to hire 5.8% fewer recent graduates than last year, according to a spring survey of 226 employers conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Wall Street Journal. “Some companies say artificial intelligence is taking over some of the jobs that recent graduates used to do.
- New York Times Really trying to accuse Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito of flying a questionable flag. There’s just one problem: the cases these signs refer to are very weak.
- I made two threads to explain why this statistic (thread number 1), and washington monthly Articles Worth Rejecting (Thread 2):
Today, more Americans smoke marijuana (which remains illegal federally and in 26 states) than smoke alcohol, which is legal everywhere. pic.twitter.com/kx8FyNNSRd
— Charles Finn Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) May 22, 2024
- Illinois lawmakers just passed a bill to legally change the term criminal arrive individuals affected by justice. According to WGN9, the term “applies only to participants in a program designed to rehabilitate people and keep them out of jail.” “Just changing the name costs thousands of dollars,” objected one lawmaker. “Change this, change that, the only thing you don’t want to change is the behavior of criminals,” said state Sen. Steve McClure (R- Springfield said.
- “Even Portland is tired of prosecutors who are soft on crime,” the editors wrote. National Review.
