America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Thursday, August 26, 2021
JOE BIDEN - WHEN I'M LUCID, I'M HANDING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY TO WALL STREET AS FAST AS THE BANKSTER REGIME OF OBAMA-BIDEN AND THEIR BANKSTERS' RENT BOY, ERIC HOLDER DID!
JOE BIDEN'S ECONOMICS: SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH, CRONIES, BANKSTERS AND WALL STREET.
BRIBES SUCKING SOCIOPATH LAWYER GAMING THE LAWS LIKE HE GAMES OUR BORDERS
The only thing Biden inherited, based on his family tree, was a lack of moral fiber.
Whether it’s oil or Afghanistan, Biden became the agent for enabling leftist ideological goals. His value, like that of any good agent, lies in being able to “humanize” a radical agenda with his grins, gladhandling, and malapropisms without looking like a radical. But that just makes him the final fall guy when the tattered remnants of his charm aren’t enough to deflect attention from the leftist wizards behind the curtain. And then it’ll be time for him to retire and spend “more time with his family”. His family being his crackhead artist son who almost cost him the election.
Blame Anyone But Biden
The president knows he’s disposable - and surrounds himself with scapegoats.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Biden and his cronies are busy blaming anyone and everyone else for Afghanistan.
Culprits for Biden’s folly thus far include the Trump administration, intelligence people (who warned him this would happen), the military (which also warned him this would happen), and Trump supporters whom the media implausibly alleges he was too afraid of to defy.
By next week, the media will find some way to blame Afghanistan on the unvaccinated, on systemic racism, and Ron DeSantis. Except that all the excuses aren’t working this time.
And that’s a problem because blaming other people for his failures is all Biden knows.
The Biden administration is one long search for scapegoats to protect the old goat at the top.
When gas prices soared, the Biden administration turned to OPEC to lower prices by raising output. OPEC's response was a contemptuous shrug that didn’t even acknowledge the little man in the big house while making it clear that it’s happy with the way things are.
Biden has no leverage with OPEC. He can’t open up American production because he’s in thrall to the Big Green lobby that is gobbling up a trillion dollars of the economy with its subsidized Chinese junk projects. A huge chunk of Biden’s infrastructure dollars are going to Big Green.
Some OPEC members have crucial security concerns about Iran. But Biden has made it clear that he’s going to appease Iran. If Iran goes nuclear, it will be able to choke off much of our oil supply from the region. And even before then Iran’s expanding terror sphere threatens OPEC members like Saudi Arabia which were shelled by Iran’s Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
The Biden administration cut off support for the campaign to dislodge the Houthis from Yemen.
Even without nukes, Iran’s terrorist proxy wars risk creating all sorts of instability. And that will affect energy prices and lead producers to act conservatively out of fear of the next crisis.
Biden won’t allow American energy companies to compete with OPEC. And he isn’t offering any real sense of security to OPEC members in the region. Why should OPEC raise production?
But Biden wasn’t serious about expecting OPEC to raise production.
A recurring theme of his failed administration has been finding someone else to blame for his disasters. The lousy economy, the pandemic, and the collapse of Afghanistan are always someone else’s fault. The Biden administration’s messaging machine exists to play politics with the pandemic while blaming its latest setback on DeSantis, Trump, or disinformation.
The Biden administration didn’t expect OPEC to do anything. They were just seeking another scapegoat for Biden’s bad decisions. The media will receive its administration talking points blaming high energy prices, not on Biden’s Keystone XL pipeline cancelation, his hostility to the domestic energy industry, and the rising instability due to the rise of Iran, but on OPEC refusing to boost production. But who made America dependent on OPEC and, by extension, Iran?
The same politician who made Americans trapped in Afghanistan dependent on the Taliban
Biden wanted credit for withdrawing from Afghanistan when he thought it would make him look good. Once the Taliban took over, he began whining that he had “inherited” the withdrawal.
The only thing Biden inherited, based on his family tree, was a lack of moral fiber.
The dumbest and most destructive elements of the withdrawal, the evacuation of soldiers before civilians, the stealthy withdrawals from bases, the refusal to coordinate with NATO allies, had nothing to do with Trump or even the general idea of a withdrawal. It was Biden’s call whether to withdraw the troops before the civilians, and it was the absolute wrong one.
Even in the final hours before the fall of Afghanistan, Biden could have secured Kabul.
The Taliban kept indicating that they didn’t want to enter Kabul. Whether they really meant it or were testing our response, this was the opportunity to send in forces, secure Kabul, and create a safe evacuation zone for Americans. Instead, Biden dithered. Having American soldiers secure the city would have made it very difficult to then pull out the troops.
Biden and his people decided that it was better to abandon Americans behind Taliban lines and hope that they can negotiate their way out, than to be stuck being responsible for Kabul.
Since then the Taliban have reportedly handed over security in Kabul over to the Haqqani Network which is a component of the Taliban that is intertwined with Al Qaeda, has carried out numerous terrorist attacks, and is holding an American hostage.
But Biden prioritized forcing a harsh break at any cost over the lives and safety of Americans.
Now that the strategy has failed, in the sense that it’s widely unpopular, the Biden administration is searching for scapegoats. Biden is blaming intelligence and the military. The intelligence people are blaming the military and the diplomats. The diplomats are blaming the military. And the military knows that its job is to take the fall for every stupid thing that the politicians do.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, beginning with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Milley, Secretary of State Blinken, and CIA Director William Burns. But their underlying failure was following orders. Milley had boasted of undermining President Trump by refusing to go along with his proposals, but he was happy enough to enable anything that Biden wanted.
The intelligence reports were there. And it’s impossible to imagine the military brass and their aides didn’t understand the risks of a scenario in which the Taliban trapped Americans behind enemy lines while only a meager force of 600 American troops remained to protect them.
They gave Biden what he wanted. And now Biden is blaming them for giving it to him.
Whether it’s oil or Afghanistan, Biden became the agent for enabling leftist ideological goals. His value, like that of any good agent, lies in being able to “humanize” a radical agenda with his grins, gladhandling, and malapropisms without looking like a radical. But that just makes him the final fall guy when the tattered remnants of his charm aren’t enough to deflect attention from the leftist wizards behind the curtain. And then it’ll be time for him to retire and spend “more time with his family”. His family being his crackhead artist son who almost cost him the election.
Biden knows he’s disposable and surrounds himself with scapegoats. And that leads to a work culture in which no one goes out on a limb to avoid becoming one of Biden’s scapegoats.
Why did none of the brass, the intel people, or the diplomats stand up to Biden?
Why does every interview or press conference by an administration official seem like a parade of excuses for inaction? The safest thing for anyone to do is to do nothing and let the blame rise, like hot air, up to Biden who, for at least one term, is considered too big to fail.
Biden’s age and mental state have created an unprecedentedly weak administration.
Few expect him to run for a second term. And whether he’s replaced by Kamala, another Democrat, or a Republican, there will be a clean sweep leaving few of the old gang.
A weak king inspires little loyalty. Biden’s loyalists don’t expect him to be around for long and they have little incentive to prop him up for a second term that isn’t likely to ever happen.
They have no loyalty to Biden, he has none to them, and none of them have any to America.
Biden’s Economy: More New Homes for the Wealthy, Fewer New Homes for Everyone Else
MIDDLE AMERICA GETS THE TAX BILLS FOR THEIR LOOTING
While workers increasingly find it more difficult to make ends meet, the wealthiest layers of society continue to amass obscene amounts of wealth. According to a recent Oxfam report, the world’s 2,690 billionaires added around $5.5 trillion to their wealth during the pandemic, bringing their collective net worth to $13.5 trillion, an increase of almost 69 percent. The wealthy have seen their fortunes grow more since March 2020 than in the previous 15 years.
Consumer prices continue to rise, with inflation rate at 13-year high
Rising prices on essential goods and services have erased the meager wage gains American workers have seen since the start of the year, resulting in most Americans earning less than they were before the coronavirus pandemic began.
Trader Robert Arciero works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
The pace of inflation slowed somewhat in July but remained elevated, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Despite reassurances from the White House and corporate media that the inflation is “transitory,” prices continue to rise rapidly, although at a slightly slower pace than in May and June. Last month’s increase still held inflation rates at a 13-year high.
A major driver of July’s moderation was an easing in the rise of used-car prices, which had been a significant driver of inflation over the past few months. According to the Labor Department, used car prices rose just 0.2 percent from June to July, compared to an earlier month-by-month surge of 10.7 percent in June.
Over the past 12 months, the used car index is still up nearly 42 percent, a gain matched only by gasoline prices. Fuel prices have risen sharply in the past few weeks, reaching a national average of $3.19 as of Thursday, the most expensive average of the year and $1.01 higher than the same time last year.
The Consumer Price Index, used to gauge the average rise in the price of goods, rose by 5.4 percent in the year through June. It’s the second straight month of year-over-year increases at that level, a trend not seen since 2008. According to Labor Department data, prices rose 0.5 percent from June to July, a milder increase than in recent months but enough to outpace recent wage gains and drop real wages by 0.1 percent over the month.
The data marks the latest month rising prices have continued to eclipse wage gains as the cost of groceries, gasoline, hotels, restaurant dinners and other items increased. Much of that gain was driven by price increases in food and fuel. Labor Department statistics show core prices, which excluding more volatile commodities like food and energy, rose 0.3 percent in July from a month earlier after rising 0.9 percent in June. Over the course of the year ending in July, core consumer goods rose an average of 4.3 percent.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which tracks changes in prices for goods and services targeted towards and consumed by individuals, climbed by 3.9 percent through May. Producer price inflation, another metric used to track prices, rose 7.8 percent over the year leading up to July. This exceeded the expectations of economists and marked a record high since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began calculating the index in 2010.
Meanwhile, the cost of dining out jumped 0.8 percent, registering its largest monthly gain since February 1981, the Labor Department reported. Home dining also got costlier, as the price index for food consumed at home like meat, poultry, fish, and eggs rose 0.7 percent. Personal services costs, including the price of haircuts, rose 1.2 percent between June and July for a year-on-year increase of 3.1 percent.
Another worrying trend is rising housing and rent costs. Average housing prices increased another 0.3 percent in July, building on similar gains in previous months. From the same time last year, housing prices have risen by 2.4 percent.
The broad surge in the cost of living points to growing hardship and demonstrates the severe impact inflation is having on the livelihoods of American families, amid the most destructive pandemic in a century.
According to Harvard economist Jason Furman, workers’ compensation rose at a 2.8 percent annual rate from April to June. However, prices rose faster, leaving inflation-adjusted real wages 0.7 percent lower than they were in December 2019 and 2 percent below their pre-pandemic trend. In June, economic historian Dr. Tyler Goodspeed calculated that real wages have declined every month in the last year, due to the significant month-over-month increases in overall prices.
While workers increasingly find it more difficult to make ends meet, the wealthiest layers of society continue to amass obscene amounts of wealth. According to a recent Oxfam report, the world’s 2,690 billionaires added around $5.5 trillion to their wealth during the pandemic, bringing their collective net worth to $13.5 trillion, an increase of almost 69 percent. The wealthy have seen their fortunes grow more since March 2020 than in the previous 15 years.
Much of this growth was fueled by the injection of trillions into the financial markets, on a much larger scale than was carried out in the 2008–09 bailout. Since the beginning of the pandemic, capitalist governments around the world have subordinated societal health to the pursuit of profit.
The Biden administration has demanded the reopening of schools, even as the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads rapidly, so parents can continue to produce profits for the capitalist class. Meanwhile, workers are faced with an increasingly desperate situation. The Century Foundation estimates roughly 7.5 million workers who’ve relied on pandemic-era unemployment benefits will be cut off from jobless aid altogether when these benefits expire on September 6.
A study in contrasts: Wall Street and the underlying economy
The contrast between the rise of the stock market and the underlying state of the US economy was highlighted on Monday when Wall Street’s main index, the S&P 500, reached a level double its low of March 2020 as the initial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic led to chaos in US financial markets.
The new high was recorded despite the debacle in Afghanistan, sharply falling consumer confidence, slowing growth in China and the widening impact of the Delta variant both in the US and internationally.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The markets fell on Tuesday with the S&P 500 having its worst day for a month, falling by 0.7 percent and the Dow dropping by 500 points at one stage, on the back of data which showed a 1.1 percent fall in retail sales in July compared to June.
But with money continuing to pour into the financial system from the Fed the general sentiment appears to be that the Wall Street surge will continue. “I don’t think it portends a precipitous drop around the corner. I think it’s very temporary,” one financial manager told the Wall Street Journal .
Fears of worsening conditions in the underlying economy were revealed in the results of the widely watched Michigan consumer confidence survey published at the end of last week.
It showed that the Consumer Sentiment index fell by 13.5 percent from July to August to a level just below the April 2020 low. The University of Michigan (UofM) survey reported that the only faster rates of decline in the Sentiment Index were in April 2020, when it recorded a drop of 19.4 percent and in October 2008, during the global financial crisis, when it dropped 18.1 percent.
“The losses in early August were widespread across income, age, and education subgroups and observed across all regions,” according to the survey. Richard Curtin, the UofM economist in charge of the survey called the results “stunning.”
It indicates that the Biden administration’s economic policies and its claims that the US economy is on the way to recovery could well be going the same way as Afghanistan.
A survey of small businesses conducted by the Wall Street Journal showed a fall in sentiment similar to that recorded by the UofM.
It found that small business confidence in August had dropped to its lowest level since the early spring, largely as a result of the rise in COVID-19 infections due to the more infectious Delta variant.
Some 39 percent of small business owners expected economic conditions in the US to improve in the next 12 months, down from 50 percent in July and 67 percent in March. Reporting on the survey, the Journal cited the owner of one small business, an event production company, which reported a flurry of cancellations.
“We were slowly ramping up in anticipation of a robust third and fourth quarter,” he said. “You can drop the ‘ro’ part. It seems like it is just bust.”
The resurgence of the pandemic via the Delta variant is also putting a damper on international economic growth, particularly in China.
According to data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics on Monday, the economy slowed in July by more than expected. This was the result of Delta infections as well as flooding due to extreme weather events in parts of the country.
Retail sales in July rose by 8.5 percent in July compared with the same month a year ago and industrial production increased by 6.4 percent. But both these figures were below the level anticipated by economists of 10.9 percent and 7.9 percent respectively.
China has imposed strict travel restrictions in response to an outbreak of the coronavirus that began in the middle of last month in Nanjing. But even before the latest outbreak there were signs that the initial bounce back of the Chinese economy was slowing.
Reporting on the latest data, Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the statistics bureau said; “Growth in some consumer sectors and services slowed.” He warned that growth in the second half of the year was likely to be lower than the first six months.
International banks and forecasting agencies are revising down their estimates for Chinese growth. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Nomura as well as other investment banks have all reduced their forecasts. The ANZ bank added its voice on Monday when it downgraded its forecast for full year growth from 8.8 percent to 8.3 percent. It pointed to a “broad-based slowdown in domestic activities in July, which suggests that the economy is rapidly losing steam.”
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior economist at Capital Economics, told the Financial Times (FT) that in addition to the fall in the growth of retail sales, investment spending and industrial activity that were less sensitive to COVID-19 restrictions were also weaker.
“The drop back in consumption should reverse once the virus situation is brought under control and restrictions are lifted,” he said. “But we think the slowdown elsewhere will deepen over the rest of the year.”
And if there is a slowdown in the rest of the world, it will heavily impact on China as can be seen in the latest figures on exports which showed growth of 19 percent in July as compared with 32 percent in June.
The increasingly complex situation in the global economy is adding to the problems confronting the major central banks as they consider whether they should start to ease or “taper” their support for financial markets.
There appears to be something of a shift among members of the Fed’s governing body towards tapering. In an interview with the FT last week, San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly, regarded as being on the dovish side, said it was “appropriate” to start dialling back accommodation, starting with asset purchases.
“Talking about potentially tapering those later this year or early next year is where I’m at,” she said.
Esther George, the president of the Kansas City Fed, has also indicated that it is time to “transition from extraordinary monetary policy accommodation to more neutral settings.”
The key issue here is inflation and whether this will lead to a push by workers for higher wages. George alluded to this issue, referring to “firm inflation expectations” and a “recovering labour market” as being consistent with Fed objectives that could provide the basis for “bringing asset purchases to an end.”
The question was dealt with more bluntly in remarks by David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, reported in the FT.
The official Fed position is that the present spike in US inflation is “transitory.” “But there is nothing transitory about wage inflation,” Kelly said, warning that present Fed policies “will trigger higher wages and pressure corporate margins.”
On the other side, there is a fear that such is the dependence of Wall Street on the flow of cheap money from the Fed and the mountain of debt and fictitious capital it sustains that any move to curb it in order to counter inflation and a wages push by workers will set off financial turbulence.
The financial markets will be closely following the remarks by Fed chair Jerome Powell at the annual conclave of central bankers and financial analysts at Jackson Hole, Wyoming at the end of this month which may give some indication of the direction in which the US central bank is heading.
At present the differences, at least as they appear in public, are relatively muted. But that could rapidly change as indicated by developments in Britain.
In the middle of July, the House of Lords economic affairs committee, which includes former Bank of England governor Mervyn King, issued a scathing report on the Bank of England’s (BoE) quantitative easing (QE) asset purchasing program.
Lord Michael Forsyth, the chair of the committee, said the BoE “has become addicted” to QE using it as the “answer to all the country’s economic problems.”
The report said there were wide perceptions the bank was “using QE mainly to finance the government’s spending priorities” and if these continued to grow “it would lose credibility destroying its ability to control inflation and maintain financial stability.”
BoE governor Andrew Bailey responded testily to the use of the word “addicted” saying it had a “very damaging meaning for many people who are suffering.”
Last week the BoE made a tentative move towards tightening monetary policy when it announced a plan to start reducing its holding of £900 billion worth of government bonds, equivalent to about 40 percent of GDP.
Announcing the policy at a press conference, Bailey said when interest rates reached 0.5 percent the central bank would stop reinvesting the proceeds of bonds it owns and when they reached 1 percent it would consider selling some of them. The process of unwinding QE would proceed on “autopilot” along a “gradual and predictable path.”
But as the FT reported this “breeziness” seemed odd given the “market upheavals” when the Fed sought to reduce its balance sheet in 2013 and 2018. In 2013 the initial move to end QE resulted in a spike in interest rates.
In 2018, when Fed chair Powell indicated further rate rises in 2019 following four rises over the previous 12 months and that the reduction in asset holdings was on “autopilot,” Wall Street responded with a significant fall, recording its worst December since the Depression.
In July, the latest available report, Yuma Sector agents apprehended nearly 18,000 migrants. Of those, officials classified 5,320 as Single Adults, 8,649 Family Unit Aliens, and 811 as Unaccompanied Alien Children.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits climbed higher for the first time in five weeks, highlighting how the pace of economic growth appears to have slowed in August.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial claims rose to 353,000 from a slight upwardly revised 349,000 a week earlier.
Although the economy was growing rapidly in the second quarter of the year, data from July and particularly August appear to indicate the economy slowing by more than expected in the second half of the year. That looks to be an response to the resurgence of the coronavirus thanks to the highly contagious delta variant and prices moving sharply higher, triggering a precautionary saving response by consumers and lowering demand for leisure services.
The government reports continuing claims with a two-week delay. For the week ending on August 14, there were 2,862,000 continuing claims, a decrease of only 3,000 from the previous week. The lack of progress at bringing down continuing claims may be due to enhancements to unemployment benefits from the federal government—which include the ability to collect benefits for far longer than usual and an extra $300 per month—discouraging the jobless from seeking or accepting work.
Rising delta infections may also be causing some Americans to hesitate to return to work. Others may be holding back from taking jobs out of fear that schools may not reopen or close again.
Recently, employers are also likely holding back at expanding payrolls giving the uncertainty about what demand will look like this fall.
There were 10.1 million unfilled jobs at the end of June and reent surveys show that many businesses say they are having trouble hiring qualified workers.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending August 7 were in Puerto Rico, Illinois, New Jersey, California, District of Columbia, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, Nevada, and the Virgin Islands.
Biden’s Economy: More New Homes for the Wealthy, Fewer New Homes for Everyone Else
The U.S. is building new homes at a faster pace than expected but it is not building many inexpensive homes that could be purchased by first-time buyers or Americans with modest incomes.
Sales of new homes rose one percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000, data from the Census Bureau showed Tuesday. The monthly rise would have been bigger were it not for the fact that June was revised up from a rate of 676,000 to 701,000.
Sales had fallen in February, April, May, and June as prices soared to record levels, builders faced surging lumber prices, and the labor supply grew scarce.
Home prices continue to skyrocket. The median price of a new home sold in July rose to $390,500, up 18.4 percent from a year ago, The average sales price in July hit a record $446,000, up 17.6 percent from a year ago.
Far fewer of the new homes being sold are on the less pricey end of the market. Back in 2019, homes priced at $399,000 or less made up 67.7 percent of sales. Last month, that had dropped to just 50.5 percent.
BOCA RATON, FL (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Homes priced under $150,000 accounted for 1.9 percent of the market in 2019. Last month, they were so low that the government did not even assign them a number. Houses in the $150,000 to $199,000 range were 7.6 percent of the 2019 market. Last month, just 1.5 percent. Houses in the $200,000 to $299,000 range went from 33.2 percent to 22 percent.
The more expensive houses increasingly make up a larger share of the market. The $400,000 to $499,000 range grew from 13.9 percent to 22 percent. The $500,000 to $749,000 range went from 13.2 percent to 17.5 percent. More expensive houses were 5 percent of the 2019 market and 7.9 percent of the July 2021 market.
Bill McBride of the Calculated Risk blog explains the transformation of the market in recent years:
During the housing bust, the builders had to build smaller and less expensive homes to compete with all the distressed sales. When housing started to recovery – with limited finished lots in recovering areas – builders moved to higher price points to maximize profits.
Then the average and median house prices mostly moved sideways since 2017 due to home builders offering more lower priced homes. Prices picked up during the pandemic, and really picked up recently.
The market is nowhere near as frenzied as it was a year ago. New home sales are 27.2 percent below the pace set in the summer of 2020, when families fled cities after schools closed and office work went remote. Sales crested at a rate of 993,000 units in January.
The number of new homes for sale at the end of July rise to 367,000, up 5.5 percent June and 26.1 percent higher than a year ago.
The months of supply increased in July to 6.2 months from 6.0 months in June, a bit higher than average but in line with what realtors consider a balanced market. The longest inventory ever was 12.1 months in 2009. The lowest was 3.5 months in October of last year.
In the heart of Miami, among the towering skyscrapers that rise above the Bay of Biscayne, the eye-catching new luxury condo building by late star architect Zaha Hadid dominates the skyline. The unique curved “exoskeleton” design of the One Thousand Museum building has created buzz. The futuristic building is the only residential space in downtown Miami with a helipad. (Photo by Eva Marie UZCATEGUI / AFP) (Photo by EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)
But unless the trend toward more expensive houses changes, that will do little the help first-time buyers or those looking for less expensive homes.
The market for new homes is a fraction of the overall housing market but it has an outsized economic impact because home building is labor and material intensive, employing workers with a full range of skill and experience levels. And new homes need to be outfitted with appliances, driving up demand for durable goods.
No comments:
Post a Comment