Those low wages for illegals are subsidized by my stolen wealth and your stolen wealth (food stamps, government health insurance, housing vouchers, public school, etc.), both through taxation and debt and devaluation. Better late than never… I guess?
Princeton economist with a Nobel under his belt eats crow and does a U-turn on mass migration
Just yesterday, Breitbart News reported on Angus Deaton’s epiphany regarding the mass invasion of illegal foreigners into the American interior; he finally realized that importing millions of freeloaders to our welfare state isn’t such a good thing for the working class taxpayers, or the economy. Deaton is a Princeton economist and a Nobel recipient, so cut him some slack, he’s a little slower than the rest of us—remember, “the road to Hell is paved with Ivy League degrees” and apparently, Nobel Prizes too.
Here’s what Deaton had to say, in an editorial titled “Rethinking My Economics” and published by the International Monetary Fund:
The [economics] profession knows and understands many things. Yet today we are in some disarray. We did not collectively predict the financial crisis and, worse still, we may have contributed to it through an overenthusiastic belief in the efficacy of markets, especially financial markets whose structure and implications we understood less well than we thought.
…
Like many others, I have recently found myself changing my mind, a discomfiting process for someone who has been a practicing economist for more than half a century.
After making a case for how “economists” really have no clue what they’re talking about—that much was obvious when Deaton included “Karl Marx” in a list of economists, and considering that a majority of them assert debt is nothing more than a number—Deaton arrived at several new (to him) realizations. Most importantly, Deaton did a U-turn on his previous support for the mass importation of third-world foreigners into the U.S. homeland:
I had … seriously underthought my ethical judgments about trade-offs between domestic and foreign workers. We certainly have a duty to aid those in distress, but we have additional obligations to our fellow citizens that we do not have to others.
I used to subscribe to the near consensus among economists that immigration to the US was a good thing, with great benefits to the migrants and little or no cost to domestic low-skilled workers. I no longer think so [emphasis added].
Maybe the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ought to dole out another Nobel for his newfound and remarkable command of the obvious.
Deaton “seriously underthought” the ethical implications of a government stealing money from one person at the barrel of a gun, to hand it over to someone else who didn’t earn it? No kidding. How is this possible for such an “educated” guy? Those low wages for illegals are subsidized by my stolen wealth and your stolen wealth (food stamps, government health insurance, housing vouchers, public school, etc.), both through taxation and debt and devaluation. Better late than never… I guess?
Since Deaton is apparently behind the curve, a brief (and basic) economics lesson:
Importing tens of millions of third-world people with no skills and no money into a first world nation with an enshrined welfare state, does not benefit the people of that nation, as the latter are forced to foot the bill.
That’s it, class dismissed.
Image: Holger Motzkau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.
Breitbart Business Digest: Younger Workers Turning Against Biden as Unemployment Rises
Americans Sour on Bidenomics
President Joe Biden’s attempt to convince America that Bidenomics is a blessing is not working —especially among younger Americans.
The Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence fell in February following three months of gains. The Rasmussen Reports Economic Index declined sharply enough in March to reverse four months of gains. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index slipped lower after climbing for two months.
The Economist/YouGov survey of registered voters found that 51.3 percent say the economy is getting worse, up from 47.5 at the start of the year. Around 23 percent say the economy is staying about the same, and 23 percent say it is getting better, each down a little from the polling released on January 1.
Many pundits have tried to brush off these negative impressions of the economy as merely a function of partisan politics. No doubt, political allegiance certainly plays a role. People are more likely to describe the economy as improving when their party is running the government. But independents are more likely than the average voter to say that the economy is getting worse, at 53.5 percent; so, party allegiance does not explain everything.
Bidenomics Not Getting the Job Done for Younger Americans
The most recent survey by Economist/YouGov shows a very big upswing in registered voters under 30 taking the view that the economy is getting worse. In the poll released on March 4, 37.8 percent of younger voters said the economy was getting worse, and just 23 percent said it was getting better. That’s a big swing from just a few weeks ago, when the same poll found that 39.4 percent said the economy was getting better and 26.8 percent said it was getting worse.
The movement among young voters is so stark that you want to wonder if it is real. Time will have to tell. But the downward movement in other consumer confidence measures suggests that it may be more than noise.
The Economist/YouGov poll also asks voters whether they are better off financially than a year ago. Some analysts think this is a better question than those asking about the state of the economy because it is less likely to be affected by things such as the tone of media coverage. A respondent may not know what’s going on with the national economy, but they probably understand their own situation pretty well.
This also worsened recently. The March 4 poll shows that 42.9 percent say they are worse off financially than a year ago, up from 40.4 percent at the start of the year. That’s not a huge movement, but it does show that the Biden administration’s cheerleading is not improving morale.
The poll also shows a big jump in unhappiness among younger voters. At the start of the year, 34.2 percent of under 30s said they were better off, and 17.7 percent said they were worse off. In the most recent poll, 34.3 percent said they were worse off, and 23.7 said they were better off.
What’s going on with younger Americans? The employment situation appears to have deteriorated among young workers in February. While the overall unemployment rate increased from 3.7 percent to 3.9 percent, for workers between 20 and 24 years old it increased from 5.9 percent to 7.2 percent. That’s the highest unemployment rate for this cohort since December 2022.
The jump was driven by a big increase in unemployment among young women. For women between 20 and 24, unemployment rose from 4.9 percent to 6.4 percent. For young men, it rose from seven percent to 7.9 percent. While those levels are not high by historical standards, the increase is notable in an otherwise tight labor market.
The fact that the economy took a turn for the worse among younger Americans may spell political trouble for Biden. Democrat candidates for president need to do especially well among young voters to win. Biden’s job approval rate among under 30s has plunged from 59.6 percent at the start of the year to 51.6 percent in the most recent Economist/YouGov poll.
Perhaps the most unexpected political development of this year so far is that Biden’s age problem is about youth.
Bidenomics after 37 Months: Six Charts the Media Don’t Want You to See
Liberal media are declaring Bidenomics a success – but, after three years, hard numbers tell a much different story, regardless of whether the measure is how much Americans are paying, earning or saving.
Gas prices:
While gas prices held steady under Pres. Donald Trump (down four cents a gallon), they’ve surged 38% in the first 37 months of Pres. Joe Biden’s term. From January 2021 to February of 2024, the average price of a gallon of gas (all grades) has increased from $2.42 to $3.33, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Real Wages:
After accounting for inflation, real wages earned by Americans have declined under Biden. In the first quarter of 2021, median weekly real earnings averaged $373. But, by the fourth quarter of 2023, average real earnings had fallen to $371.
Under Trump, however, real wages rose from $352 on January 1, 2017, to $373 on January 1. 2021.
Real wages are calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) median usual weekly earnings for full-time employees at least 16 years old and are represented in terms of quarterly 1982-84 Consumer Price Index (CPI) seasonally-adjusted dollars.
Mortgage Rates:
It’s also costing far more to finance a home purchase under the Biden Administration.
Mortgage rates today are more than twice the average rate home buyers paid when Trump left office, Freddie Mac data reveal. Under Biden’s predecessor, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell by a third, from 4.09% to 2.77%. But, by March 7, 2024, mortgage rates had more than doubled, to 6.9%.
Savings Rates:
With Americans having to spend more than their earnings increased, their average savings rate has declined under Biden.
From February 1, 2017 to February 1, 2021, the average personal savings rate increased 129%, from 5.6% to 12.8%. But, by January 1 of 2024, it had plunged to 3.8% - less than a third of its pre-Biden level – according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) calculations, incorporating BLS data.
Consumer Price Index:
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in the 48 months of the Trump Administration, from a CPI of 243.618 in January 2021 to one of 262.035 in December 2020.
In contrast, prices have already risen more than twice as much, 18.5%, in just 37 months under Biden. Three-fourths of the way through his term, the CPI has risen from 262.518 in January of 2021 to 311.054 last month (February 2024), putting it on pace to increase nearly three times as much as it did during Trump's full, four-year term. On a monthly basis, inflation averaged 1.9% under Trump, compared to 5.6% under Biden, thus far.
The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.
