https://www.prageru.com/video/the-market-will-set-you-free

Day 3: The Market Will Set You Free

Welcome to Day 3 of PragerU’s Economics 101!

It’s fashionable today in the media, academia, and l*****t circles to bash the concept of capitalism.
Socialists and many progressives claim that capitalism creates poverty. But what does the data show?
Former Hardee’s & Carl’s Jr. CEO Andy Puzder tackles this question, while explaining 2,000 years of economic history, in just 5 minutes.

Take a close look at this…Jonathan Haidt, the noted New York University psychologist, calls it "the most important graph in the world."

Why does he say that?

Because he knows this graph reveals a simple, inescapable fact: there is no substitute for free market capitalism as a promoter of human prosperity.


Let it be noted that Haidt is no one’s idea of a conservative. But when hard evidence stares him in the face, he’s not going to look away.

The graph is based on the research conducted by the late British economist, Angus Maddison. The numbers along the X-axis are years—two thousand of them. The numbers on the Y-axis are dollars—all of them, divided by the number of people on the planet. It’s what’s called GDP per capita, which is the world’s economic output divided by its population. GDP is considered the best measurement of a country's standard of living. And, in this case, the world’s standard of living.

Often when I show this graph to students, I get this comment: “That’s not capitalism; it’s just the impact of the Industrial Revolution.”

So I show them another chart by the Maddison Project. This one breaks the GDP hockey stick into regions. As you can see, there are a number of hockey sticks. But note that they don’t rise at the same time. The United States surged first.

Why?


Well, in a very fortuitous coincidence, the year 1776 witnessed both the signing of our Declaration of Independence and the publication of a book called The Wealth of Nations by the Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. In his book, Smith explained how to create a modern free market capitalist economy and the benefits of doing so.


America’s wise founders took Smith’s principles to heart, and within a mere 100 years—the blink of an eye historically—capitalism turned the United States from thirteen backwoods colonies into the world’s largest economy. And it has held that position ever since.

Western Europe shot up as well, but later. It rose steadily during the Industrial Revolution and then experienced a sharp rise after World War II when, between the end of the war and the mid-1960s, it fully embraced the free market.


Japan, too, shot up after World War II—surpassing Western Europe for the first time after the US helped the Japanese t***sition to a democracy and a free market capitalist economy.


Eastern Europe took off after it was released from the Soviet Union and socialism in 1991.


China did likewise after the Chinese moved away from strict socialism and implemented some limited free market policies. One can only imagine where China would be now if its leaders had fully unleashed the forces of the free market.

Yes—during this period of economic expansion, the wealthy got wealthier. That always happens when new wealth is created. But the middle class and the poor also greatly benefited.

Here’s another telling chart. This one is from the World Bank. In 1820, 94% of people lived in extreme poverty. Thanks to capitalism, by 2015 that number had declined to 9.6%—single digits for the first time in human history. Now, it’s still too many, but if we are going to reduce the number even more, we need to understand what caused the decline: free market capitalism.


If we combine the Angus Maddison hockey stick chart and the World Bank data on extreme poverty, what we get is something quite amazing: unprecedented global prosperity and an unprecedented decline in poverty across the globe over the past 200 years. That’s capitalism in a nutshell.

One more chart: Johan Norberg, a Swedish economic historian, shows us how well ordinary people do when they work in a free market economy.

Since 1990, hunger, poverty, illiteracy and child mortality have all declined significantly with the decline of socialism. This all happened while we added two billion more people to the world. Far more people; far less poverty. Better health outcomes; fewer babies dying. That’s what economic freedom—capitalism—can do.


President John Kennedy, a Democrat, said it best while making his case for significant tax cuts in 1963. He said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Kennedy didn’t believe that the poor only get richer when the rich get poorer. He believed everyone could get richer with economic growth. History has shown that he was right.


This whole capitalism vs. socialism debate is backwards:

It’s not those who advocate for free market capitalism who need to justify their actions. Rather, it’s those advocating for socialism—or any form of it—who have a lot of explaining to do.

I’m Andy Puzder for Prager University.

https://www.prageru.com/video/why-the-gilded-age-was-golden

Episode 2
Why the Gilded Age Was Golden
Amity Shlaes
5-Minute Videos
Jan 08, 2024

The years 1880 to 1900—coined the Gilded Age—was a period of tremendous growth for American industry and technology. Many also criticize it as a time of greed, corruption, and exploitation of the lower and middle classes by the wealthy. Are we living in a second Gilded Age? Renowned historian Amity Shlaes answers this important question.

We are living in a second Gilded Age.

That’s the argument of many commentators, especially those who would like to increase taxes on the rich.

Or marshal squadrons of lawyers to mount an antitrust battle against monopolists like Google or Amazon.

The reason the commentators cite the Gilded Age is that that period, 1880 to 1900, had its own Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Jeff Bezos. These were the titans who built up big steel or the railroads.

Our textbooks tell us that those men were robber barons who captured all the wealth.

The robber barons locked in their monopolies, and barred the door to advancement for everybody else. The poor stayed poor, with no opportunity for their children. As economist Henry George wrote at the time, the tendency was for “[...]the rich to become very much richer, the poor to become more helpless and hopeless, and the middle class to be swept away.” The HAVES had everything over the HAVE NOTS. Only antitrust assaults on big companies or new taxes, could make America fairer.

Or so say those textbooks.

But the reality was different. In fact the Gilded Age was a good time for many Americans. Even poor Americans.

The claim that the rich were richer was true: Jay Gould made a fortune in railroads, John D. Rockefeller built the stunningly successful Standard Oil, and Andrew Carnegie’s steel company gave him a net worth as big as a whole country. These men did build giant mansions. And sailed around in yachts.

That the poor were poor is also accurate. But that poverty was not permanent for most. The years 1880 to 1900 were bumpy ones. But many poor Americans saw life improve. Food prices for example dropped sharply.

Meanwhile, wages rose––and dramatically. Real wages for workers in factories climbed by 45%.

In these hopeful years, illiteracy dropped by more than a third. Fewer babies died. Life expectancy rose by 21%. And the quality of life improved. In the olden days, especially before the Civil War, it was hard to get away from your home town. Now the expanding network of rails meant anyone tired of the plow could ride a train to the city. Americans enjoyed a new freedom to live where they wanted––riding on rails supplied by one robber baron in a train built by another.

Most important of all: the door of opportunity was open. The single most important tool for advancement is education. And education exploded. High schools were the engines of education. In the four decades after 1870, the number of high schools in America climbed to 10,000 from 500. Immigrants bet that if they did not escape the sweatshop, their children would. And that was a bet they won.

And what about those permanent monopolies? It turned out they were not so permanent. And that wasn’t because of antitrust action. It was because of competition. The best example was the almighty railroads. Even as Congress passed laws to try to curb big profits, the railroads’ power to dominate was already doomed. On the horizon stood the new trucking industry, ready to roll in.

Of course politicians ignored these realities. It was more fun to go after the rich with antitrust suits. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed that bringing down trusts would give the worker a “Square Deal”. Some say TR’s trustbusting caused a financial panic, the Panic of 1907. As it happened that Panic hurt the very workers Roosevelt aimed to protect, driving up joblessness to eight percent from 3 percent. Hardly a “Square Deal”.

Congress crafted a new institution to punish the rich: the income tax. This tax likewise failed to get the result its advocates advertised. Lawmakers insisted on high rates. They made the same arguments we hear today: higher rates reduce ine******y and squeeze money out of the top 1%. In response however, companies simply curtailed business. At least one in ten men was unemployed. In the 1920s, Congress responded by lowering taxes for top earners. Companies grew, and workers got what mattered more to them: jobs. And along the way came new innovations, such as electricity, even better than kerosene.

Given this record, it’s surprising that we vilify the Gilded Age. One problem is that most books portray this period as a kind of anti-wealth cartoon. Another problem is our politicians. The story of HAVE and HAVE NOTS is a story that evokes envy. And politicians enjoy playing on our envy.

That doesn’t mean we have to be played. The years 1880 to 1900 may have been gilded for some. But for many, they were golden.

I’m Amity Shlaes, author of Coolidge, for Prager University.

In training . . . to be a man!

We hang petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Aesop, Greek s***e & fable author

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
Plato, ancient Greek Philosopher

Politicians are the same all over: they promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
Nikita Khrushchev, Russian Soviet politician

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
Quoted in 'Clarence Darrow for the Defense' by Irving Stone. Haven't we taken the idea that "anyone can be president" a bit too far?

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.
John Quinton, American actor/writer

Politics is the gentle art of getting v**es from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.
Oscar Ameringer, "the Mark Twain of American Socialism."

I offered my opponents a deal: "If they stop telling lies about me, I will stop telling the t***h about them".
Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952.

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
Texas Guinan, 19th century American businessman

I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Charles de Gaulle, French general & president

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
Doug Larson, English middle-distance runner who won gold medals at the 1924
Olympic Games

What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution.

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two are lawyers and three or more are the government.
John Adams (1735 - 1826)

Suppose you were an i***t. And suppose you were a member of Government. But then I repeat myself.
Mark Twain (1835- 1910)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the Government and report the facts!
Will Rogers (1879- 1935)

I contend that for a nation to try and tax itself into prosperity, is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always depend on the support of Paul!
Will Rogers (1879- 1935)

The problem we face today is that the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who v**e for a living.
George Bernard Shaw (1856- 1950)

I don't like political jokes, but a lot of them get elected.

T-shirt humor

Attached file:
(Download)

Yes, we are dealing with L*****t i***ts and Appeasers in the Biden administration. History has taught us nothing if appeasers think they can change the course of tyrants and our enemies through magnanimity.

I think our ship has almost sunk - and there are no life boats!!


Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital
Imams and politicians in the Michigan city side with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the U.S.
By Steven Stalinsky
Feb. 2, 2024 3:24 pm ET

image
Anti-Israel demonstrators pack the Ford Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, Mich., Oct. 10, 2023. PHOTO: JIM WEST/ZUMA PRESS
Dearborn, Mich.

Thousands march in support of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Protesters, many with kaffiyehs covering their faces, shout “Intifada, intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “America is a terrorist state.” Local imams give fiery antisemitic sermons. This isn’t the Middle East. It’s the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich.

Almost immediately after Oct. 7, and long before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, people were celebrating the horrific events of that day in pro-Hamas rallies and marches throughout Dearborn. A local headline describing an Oct. 10 event at the Ford Performing Arts Center read “Michigan rally cheers Hamas attack.” Imam Imran Salha of Dearborn’s Islamic Center of Detroit told the crowd that Israel’s past actions have put “fire in our hearts that will burn that state”—Israel— “until its demise.” In May 2023, Mr. Salha had urged his congregation to say “amen” in agreement with his prayer that Allah “eradicate from existence” the “sick, d********g Z*****t regime.” In October 2022, according to the Washington Free Beacon, his organization received $150,000 in funding from the Homeland Security Department’s nonprofit security grants program.

At another rally, held Oct. 14 in front of the Henry Ford Centennial Library, Imam Usama Abdulghani also didn’t hide his support for Hamas’s terrorist actions. The American-born, Iranian-educated Shiite Islamic scholar called Oct. 7 “one of the days of God” and a “miracle come true.” He described the attackers as “honorable.” He said they were “lions” defending “the entire nation of Muhammad the messenger.”

Local enthusiasm for jihad against Israel and the West extends beyond celebration of Hamas. The Islamic Center of America, a leading Dearborn mosque, held a memorial service on Dec. 30 for a Hezbollah operative k**led in an Israeli airstrike. The Hadi Institute, which runs an Islamic Montessori school and bills itself as a youth community center, held a “Commemoration of the Martyrs” on Jan. 5. This event honored Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, leader of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. Both men were on the U.S. list of designated terrorists when they were k**led in a U.S. airstrike on Jan. 3, 2020. The commemoration included poetry and praise, along with claims about ISIS being operated by both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mossad. Imam Abdulghani used his remarks to express his “warmest congratulations” to “our very special leader, Imam Khamenei”—essentially declaring allegiance to the Iranian ayatollah who regularly calls for the destruction of the U.S.

Support for terrorism in southern Michigan has long been a concern for U.S. counterterrorism officials. A 2001 Michigan State Police assessment submitted to the Justice Department after 9/11 called Dearborn “a major financial support center” and a “recruiting area and potential support base” for international terror groups, including possible sleeper cells. The assessment noted that most of the 28 State Department-identified terror groups were represented in Michigan. Many current or onetime Dearborn residents have been convicted of terror-related crimes in recent years.

Ahmad Musa Jibril is perhaps the most influential English-speaking jihadi sheikh. From his home in Dearborn he promotes holy war to his tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram. On Oct. 7, the day Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took almost 200 hostage, a Twitter account bearing his name retweeted a post that said, “The hearts haven’t been overjoyed like this in so long.” This account also posted a tweet imploring Allah to “purify the land from the aggression of the apes, swines, and hypocrites.” He later recorded a video calling on Muslims in the West to start normalizing the term “jihad” by using it frequently “on your social media, and in the mosques.” He has called President Biden a “senile pharaoh.”

Dearborn’s radical politics are complicating Mr. Biden’s path to re-e******n. Michigan is a must-win state for Democrats, and the president’s campaign strategists are clearly worried that virulent anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment could hurt him in November. The AP reported Jan. 26 that local leaders gave Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez the cold shoulder during a recent visit to the Detroit area. “Little bit of advice—if you’re planning on sending campaign officials to convince the Arab-American community on why they should v**e for your candidate, don’t do it on the same day you announce selling fighter jets to the tyrants murdering our family members,” tweeted Abdullah H. Hammoud, Dearborn’s Democratic mayor.

Open support for Hamas is spreading. Since Oct. 7, similar protests have occurred in major American cities featuring pro-jihadist imagery, chants and slogans. Rallies are now also expressing support for the Iran-backed Houthis, who are lobbing missiles at Israel and trying to sink commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

What’s happening in Dearborn isn’t simply a political problem for Democrats. It’s potentially a national-security issue affecting all Americans. Counterterrorism agencies at all levels should pay close attention.

Mr. Stalinsky is executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Not at all. How is this a strike against Trump? This has nothing to do with Trump. This has to do with the asymmetry of the Democrats' principles. How do l*****ts and Trump h**ers see this as a win for themselves? What lesson does the GOP need in politics? The Democrats need lessons in being American. Party politics aside (I know that is difficult for most people) The House v**ed for articles of impeachment and the Senate just gave the American people and the Constitution the BIG MIDDLE FINGER. Not that Republicans haven't also done this at times. But it is the common practice by the Democrats on far more issues than by the Republicans, RINOs and Repugnicans notwithstanding.

I get your point that there was no chance of a conviction. However, it is not a waste of time. The attempt to repeal Obamacare proved that McCain was a sheep in wolf's clothing with a RINO agenda...who would not put the interests of the American people ahead of his own petty petulant vindictive retribution against Trump. This Mayorkas impeachment exposes the Democrats as the anti-constitutionalists they are. When you v**e next time remember which Senators (with an R behind their name) v**ed for upholding the Constitution and which Senators (with a D behind their name) subverted the original intent of the Constitution. The Democrats are on record by their v**es. These same Democrats should have v**ed consistently this way before the Trump impeachments. We have a single-tier asymmetrical justice system that prosecutes conservatives and turns a blind eye to the l*****ts letting them have their way and only their way.

More proof that the Democrat party does not want to follow the Constitution.
Democrats sink both impeachment articles against Mayorkas on Senate floor without debate or trial
The two impeachment articles against Mayorkas alleged a "breach of trust" related to Mayorkas describing the southern U.S. border as secure as well as a "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law."

By Nicholas Ballasy
Published: April 17, 2024 1:47pm

Updated: April 17, 2024 4:33pm


The Democratic-led Senate k**led both impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, cancelling the impeachment trial before it could get off the ground.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., offered a deal to the Senate GOP where senators would have time for floor debate and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would be able to force v**es on a full trial as well as the establishment of an impeachment committee. Schumer said v**es on dismissing the impeachment articles would follow. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said on the Senate floor that he objected to v****g to dismiss the charges without a full trial.

After his objection, Schumer motioned for a floor v**e on the constitutionality of impeachment article one against Mayorkas. Schumer argued that it does not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Cruz requested a v**e that the Senate move to a closed session to debate the constitutionality of impeachment article one, given that Schumer didn't outline evidence on the Senate floor to support his position. Schumer shot back, saying he gave the GOP a chance to debate the articles in public but Schmitt objected. The motion raised by Cruz failed to pass.

Schumer's motion to deem article one unconstitutional ultimately passed 51-48. He then made a motion to deem article two unconstitutional, which also passed 51-49. The Senate passed a motion to adjourn the trial.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate set a very "dangerous precedent" by ignoring the House's directions to have an impeachment trial.

"No evidence, no procedure. This is a day that's not a proud day in the history of the Senate," he said.

Lee called Schumer's move to cancel the trial without debate "historic," given that a verdict was never reached. He said that "nothing could be further" from the U.S. Constitution.

The two impeachment articles against Mayorkas alleged a "breach of trust" related to Mayorkas describing the southern U.S. border as secure as well as a "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law."

Mayorkas told Congress under oath that the southern border was secure when migrants attempting to enter the U.S. was surging. Migrant encounters have continued to set records and the Biden Administration has been releasing millions into U.S. communities. House Republicans estimate that there have been 8 million migrant encounters to date under Biden. They also estimate that about 3.5 million migrants have been released into the U.S.

Senate Republicans had argued that the chamber should not set a precedent that lying to Congress to not an impeachable offense.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, noted that never before the history of the U.S. have impeachment articles been dismissed before impeachment managers have a chance to present their case.

Some senators such as John Thune, R-S.D., tried to make several arguments on the floor as to why the Senate should hold a trial, including that the "worst border crisis" in U.S. history has unfolded since 2021. The presiding office, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the Senate was not in a debatable position and called for order.

"The Senate will be in order," she said.

Schumer said earlier on Wednesday that he would allow a floor debate on the impeachment articles but called on senators to dismiss the charges.

"For the sake of the Senate's integrity and to protect impeachment for those rare cases, we truly need it. Senators should dismiss today's charges," Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. (this is the attitude Democrats should have taken during the Trump impeachments.)

"So when we convene in trial today to accommodate the wishes of our Republican Senate colleagues, I will seek an agreement for a period of debate time that would allow Republicans to offer a v**e on trial resolutions, allow for Republicans to offer points of order and then move to dismiss," he added.

McConnell, R-Ky., said on Wednesday that "tabling articles of impeachment would be unprecedented in the history of the Senate."

After the articles were dismissed, House Republican leaders released a joint statement condemning Schumer's handling of the trial.

"By v****g unanimously to bypass their constitutional responsibility, every single Senate Democrat has issued their full endorsement of the Biden Administration’s dangerous open border policies. Secretary Mayorkas alongside President Biden has used nearly every tool at his disposal to engineer the greatest humanitarian and national security catastrophe at our borders in American history," House GOP leaders said.

"Tragically, Senate Democrats don’t believe this catastrophe merits their time or a discussion on the Senate floor. Instead, they’re signaling to millions demanding accountability that the cabinet official directly responsible for this disaster – who has ignored the law and misled Congress repeatedly – is above reproach. The American people will hold Senate Democrats accountable for this shameful display," he added.

Nostradamus also predicted a man in a blue turban from the middle east would start WWIII during this decade. We will see.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=The+Man+Who+Saw+Tomorrow+Full+Movie&&mid=487d99917e732afdce3375a86ba40442&plid=487d99917e732afdce3375a86ba40442&mmscn=vdct&FORM=VCSSVR

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=the+man+who+saw+tomorrow+movie&mid=B6A942421E595D5E703CB6A942421E595D5E703C&FORM=VIRE

https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/inflation-confusion

Inflation Confusion

JOHN H. COCHRANE
APR 14, 2024
“Why Inflation Is Biden’s Most Stubborn Political Problem” by Andrew Restuccia and Sam Goldfarb at WSJ was one of those coffee-spilling articles that gave Grumpy his nickname. Not the article, which was well written, but the contents. In response to rising inflation,

Biden and his senior aides aren’t planning any major policy or rhetorical shifts. They plan to continue talking about the president’s proposals to lower the cost of housing and prescription drugs, while slashing student-loan debt and eliminating surcharges tacked on to everything from concert tickets to banking services.

The most simple and pleasurable lessons of economics show you how common ideas are precisely wrong. Econ 101: Don’t confuse relative prices — one price greater than another, and the forces that push one price up relative to others — with inflation, the rise in the average level of all prices. Inflation is really about a decline in the value of money. Trying to change individual prices is a classic game of whac-a-mole.

Econ 101 week 2. During inflation, many people’s wages don’t rise as fast as prices. Giving them borrowed or printed money to make up the loss, and buy things at higher prices is another common idea. In week 2 we learn it just makes inflation worse.

These basic points seem to have escaped an entire administration, though it has been facing inflation for four years and had plenty of time to think about it.

The White House … issuing a statement from the president that acknowledged the federal government has “more to do to lower costs for hardworking families.”

“Our agenda to lower costs on behalf of working families is as urgent today as it was yesterday,” said Jared Bernstein, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “We’re just going to keep our heads down and continue fighting to lower costs.”

One might forgive a flailing White House political staff for deliberately spinning unrealities in an e******n year, but CEA chairs should understand the difference between inflation and relative prices, and that one does not “lower costs” in individual markets to fight inflation. CEA chairs are also supposed to do a little bit better than repeat spin from the political crowd in the White House.

And not just the CEA. The vast majority of American Economics Association members are Democrats. Surely the White House and CEA have somebody who vaguely understands what we expect the dimmest of undergraduates to get?

The president has called on grocery retailers and other companies to lower prices, citing their high profits. But he can’t compel companies to take action.

In the 1960s, this was called “jawboning,” fighting inflation by applying political pressure to companies not to raise prices. Relative prices, since of course their costs are no lower. Just where is the difference supposed to come from? One would think the state of the art had improved.

He can indeed compel companies to take action. Nixon, after trying lots of jawboning, imposed price controls. They follows from the same basic misunderstandings.

They want to “lower costs,” they say. But not the costs imposed by Trump-era tariffs, which they seem to like. Indeed, in a remarkable story, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just went to China to abjure her previous understanding of free trade, and threaten even more tariffs. Lower costs, yes, but not if that means buying $15,000 Chinese electric cars instead of $100,000 (including subsidies) US ones, made in the US, with US union labor, US parts, and a slew of federal mandates. Lower costs, yes, but not if that means buying Chinese solar panels. Lower costs, yes, but not if that means eliminating the mass of cost-raising regulations this administration has imposed, let alone the pre-existing morass.

Economists say trillions of dollars in spending approved by Trump and Biden cushioned the economy during the early months of the p******c, then sped its recovery. Still, when the economy began to reopen in 2021, that demand collided with labor shortages and supply-chain bottlenecks to fuel inflation.

I’m glad “economists” are catching up to the obvious.

there isn’t a whole lot the White House can do to fix it.

Behind the scenes, administration officials said there was no magic bullet to slow rising prices immediately,...

Most economists don’t believe Biden can do much at this point to bring down inflation, absent major tax increases or spending cuts that could curtail consumer spending. Even those policies, which aren’t being seriously considered in Washington, would take time to work their way through the economy.

Nothing one can do? We have, now admittedly, a deficit fueled inflation. One could start by not pouring more gas on the fire. Such as cancelling billions of student loan debt, never mind the Supreme Court and the quaint idea that Congress v**es spending. The CBO reports “The deficit totals $1.6 trillion in fiscal year 2024, grows to $1.8 trillion in 2025, …” with a 3.8% unemployment rate. Even in the simpleminded Keynesian economics that dominates left-of center Washington, there is no excuse for such stimulus.

There’s nothing we can do except the one thing that we all know would work. So we’ll rearrange the teacups on the side tables of the deck chairs of the Titanic instead. Which means nothing we want to do.

The quote here reflects the standard Keynesian view, deficit = aggregate demand = inflation with a lag. But we’re pretty clearly now in the situation that expected systemic deficits are the problem. Germany stopped a hyperinflation in a month. A credible announcement of spending, tax, and growth reforms that put the budget on a sustainable track would do the job. Scaling back the IRA, Chips, student debt river in recognition of inflation would help a lot more than complaining about how many potato chips are in a bag. Even just saying we recognize that’s needed would help.

Biden’s advisers have reviewed polling that shows criticism of Republicans for cutting taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations resonates with v**ers, and they intend to step up such an attack in the coming days and weeks.

Aha, now we see the central problem. Economic policy is being driven by what polling suggests “resonates with v**ers.” Not, for example, what basic economics suggests might actually work.

“We’re better-situated than we were when we took office, when inflation was skyrocketing, and we have a plan to deal with it,” Biden said during a press conference at the White House. “They have no plan. Our plan is one that I think is still sustainable.”

Three Pinocchios:


For all of the excess stimulus under Trump, the fact is that inflation broke out precisely in February 2021, and not a minute beforehand. If you want an event, the Feb 2021 “American Rescue” act, with a few trillions more stimulus though the p******c was clearly over, made clear that this administration was not going back to standard fiscal policy.

Whether Trump has a “plan” is a good question. But if Biden the “plan” is more jawboning and complaining about junk fees, I doubt that’s going to convince anyone.

This dishonesty, this pandering to polls with no principles, this constant vacillation, this willingness to say utterly silly things as if we’re all small children, might have something to do with the Administration’s terrible poll numbers. Maybe honest, consistent leadership might poll better than telling fairly tales and handing out candy.

PragerU's Economics 101

https://www.prageru.com/pragerus-economics-101

What causes inflation? How is wealth created? Is socialism more fair than capitalism? How do we solve homelessness or fix America’s pending debt crisis?

Most Americans today lack the knowledge and understanding to answer these questions, or to even think about economics critically.

America’s biased media and education system have failed us and created a country of economically illiterate citizens.

Luckily, PragerU is here to change that.

PragerU’s Economics 101 is designed for smart and informed citizens like you who want to learn the ins and outs of economics without reading a 1,000-page textbook or sorting through an endless sea of false information online.

Gaming The 2024 Campaign
April 15, 2024
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

We have seen enough of the Biden-Trump race so far to predict what lies ahead over the next seven months of the campaign. Currently, the polls are about dead even. Trump, however, for now enjoys small leads in the majority of the fickle swing/purple states that will likely decide the e******n.

So here is what we should expect:

Biden

Biden has three major vulnerabilities and three major assets. His fate will depend on how these criteria play out.

First, on the negative side of the ledger, Biden suffers continual mental and physical decline, which is accelerating exponentially. His work week is now more off than on. Aides pray that he can get through a teleprompter without complete incoherence. His speech is so slurred, his syntax so bizarre that he seems to speak a language that is mostly indecipherable.

They rightly fear that any young attractive woman or even preteen might earn a trademark Biden weird call-out, a hair- or accustomed ear-blow, or even an attempted p**********l too-long hug or neck nibble.

Steps pose an existential threat, given that the president is one trip away from oblivion. Biden is not even the diminished Biden of 2020, when, in his basement, he at least manipulated the C****-** lockdown to mask his infirmities and abbreviated schedules.

The odds are 50/50 whether Biden will even make it over the next five months to the August Democratic Convention. And, assuming that he does, can he rein in efforts to push him off the ticket?

Second, the Biden family is corrupt. H****r still faces spring- and summer-long felony exposure in connection with his Biden-family brand of tax c***ting. Joe knows that his own documents, first-hand witnesses, bank statements, H****r’s emails, and testimonies from H****r’s associates reveal that the otherwise talentless but high-living Biden extended family was surviving only by the sale of Senator, Vice President, and future President Joe Biden’s name—and his known willingness to pay fast and loose with legal and ethical constraints.

There is still some chance that, in the current impeachment investigations and trial, more incriminating evidence will emerge or turned witnesses will offer proof of Biden’s criminality. For now, Biden’s lawbreaking is completely dismissed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and by special counsel Robert Hur’s satirical-comedy-worthy argument that even overwhelming evidence pointing to Joe Biden’s criminal behavior cannot be prosecuted because of the president’s dementia.

Third, the hard-left Biden agenda is completely underwater. Not a single Biden administration issue or policy—the border, crime, inflation, energy, foreign policy, race relations, education—polls even 50 percent. Worse, Biden never addresses the inflation created by his massive spending program, the lawlessness in our streets since 2021, the spiking cost of gasoline, or the humiliation abroad, from Kabul to Kyiv to the Chinese balloon. His idea of how to combat inflation is akin to combating obesity by gaining 100 pounds, losing two, and—presto—announcing that obesity was abated.

He spiked racial polarization, proved indifferent to an epidemic of anti-Semitism, and fueled the national debt (an additional $1 trillion every 100 days).

Now Biden is warring on the Supreme Court—a dangerous precedent given that an assassin has already shown up at Justice Kavanaugh’s home, given that mobs have massed at various justices’ residences with impunity, given Sen. Schumer’s prior personal threats at the very doors of the court to Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, and given left-wing rhetoric about packing the court.

All candidate Biden can do is either deny an open border, inflation, crime, racial tensions, and the Kabul humiliation—or claim that the successful policies of Trump, out of power for nearly four years, were responsible for all that crashed on Biden’s watch.

Biden, however, enjoys some natural advantages, most notably incumbency.

(Note that this was not much of an advantage to Trump himself in 2020, given the wild cards of the C****-** p******c, the disastrous nationwide lockdown, and the mysterious workings of the Trump-hating administrative state. We remember the 11th-hour P****r declaration that there would be no pre-e******n announcement, as planned, of the success of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed v******tion initiative. Then, there was indeed an announcement—immediately after the e******n. And then there was the mysterious CIA/FBI arming of the Biden campaign, on the eve of the last debate and just days before E******n Day, with the f**e anti-Trump rebuttal of “Russian laptop disinformation.”)

Biden will pull every lever of incumbency, working the office of the presidency in the most Machiavellian and cynical of ways:

a) hoping to lower gas prices by not filling up the strategic petroleum reserve, jawboning illiberal and “pariah” oil producers to pump what he claims he h**es, ordering Ukraine not to hit Russian refineries, and appeasing enemies like Iran to keep its oil flowing,
b) unconstitutionally sidestepping rulings of the Supreme Court to ensure more pre-e******n illegal student-loan-cancellation giveaways,
c) prodding the supposedly independent Federal Reserve to lower interest rates before November,
d) pressuring Mexico to tamp down illegal entries for a few months to serve their shared interests in defeating Trump.
A second asset is his army of satellites.

These include left-wing justices, weaponized federal, state, and local prosecutors, and Trump-biased jury pools. The left expects these to do what the effort to remove Trump’s name from the b****t did not: destroy the Republican candidate, financially and health-wise, and bind him with the Lilliputian ropes of Fani Willis, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith, who are eager to convict him through weaponized judges, juries, and a venomous media. They also include c*********d e******n officials in urban counties in key swing states.

Biden cannot win unless 70-80 percent of v**ers in the key swing states do not v**e on E******n Day. Instead, their b****ts must be mailed in, harvested, and curated without accustomed audit and without verification of whether v**ers are registered US citizens or have v**ed only once and done so legally.

And—his third major asset—Biden will also have billions of dollars more than Trump to pound home these themes in endless ads, social media shenanigans, and news censorship and blackouts.

Biden feels that he nevertheless must make the e******n hinge on destroying a monstrous, demonic, and hideous Donald Trump through any means necessary. Biden’s is not a positive campaign but will be waged by despising Donald Trump and all who support him. Expect more of those “semi-f*****ts”/ “ultra-MAGA” Phantom-of-the-Opera Biden h**e speeches.

In the next seven months, the Biden effort will play out with three narratives: Trump is a J****** 6th i**********nist and dictator and will “destroy democracy,” though apparently without weaponizing the FBI or removing his opponents’ names from b****ts or siccing right-wing prosecutors on his enemies.

Trump purportedly will k**l women by banning all a******ns while relegating non-w****s to the pre-civil-rights era—despite leaving a******n up to the states, and likely gaining more Latino and Black v**ers than any prior Republican p**********l candidate. Then we will hear that Trump is a felon who belongs in jail.

All this is the message of the Biden campaign, period.

Trump

Trump likewise has both assets and liabilities. His vulnerabilities are mirror images of Biden’s advantages: he lacks incumbency and the powers that come with it; he does not have an army of officials on his side; and he will have a financial disadvantage.

We have no idea how many gag orders remain. How many late-summer days will Trump spend stuck in court? How many hundreds of millions of his dollars will be expropriated by out-of-control anti-Trump left-wing judges? Can Trump—or any candidate—successfully run with a $1 billion overhead in legal fees and fines and with critical days on the campaign trail diverted to left-wing, media-frenzied, blue-city courtrooms?

In addition, Trump is sometimes his own worst enemy. Trump, one could say, is running mostly against Trump. He knows that if he sticks solely to the agenda, contrasting Biden’s failures with his own past stellar record and future contract with America, he can win. He realizes that he must take the high road and talk idealistically rather than going low and getting angry.

But who could be expected to do so after being the victim of two unfair impeachments, left-wing lies like Russian collusion and disinformation, efforts to railroad him into prison with outrageously politicized legal vendettas, and attempts to remove his name from the b****t?

Trump’s advantages are clear. First, his record: on foreign policy, inflation, and the economy. But most important for the e******n is his ability to connect with people. So far, the split-screen differences between candidate Trump and President Biden have proved overwhelmingly to Trump’s advantage: Biden in New York schmoozing at a black-tie night with celebrities and ex-presidents to haul in $26 million in campaign cash from the hyper-rich, while Trump is with middle-class NYPD rank-and-file at a rainy wake for a murdered cop—k**led by a repeat felon released without bail.

Or Trump buying fast food and milkshakes amid a mostly black Atlanta Chick-fil-A crowd, while Biden dines with the venomous Robert De Niro and the zillionaire Jeff Bezos at a White House dinner, with the celebrities’ trophy girls vying to get the most stares at their multi-thousand-dollar designer clothes—as if they were on the red carpet at the Oscars rather than in the people’s house.

What can Trump do to make the best use of all this? He must magnanimously reach out to former rivals such as Haley, even as she continues to demonize him, and to DeSantis as well. He must unite the House Republicans to keep their razor-thin majority at all costs. He must campaign nonstop among poor w****s, b****s, and Latinos, appealing to shared class concerns rather than the racial obsessions and psychodramas of the bicoastal elite.

He should skip the ad hominem invective, forget the past rivalries with his primary opponents, and assume a corrupt media does not deserve a minute of his time. If he does this, he can win.

But if he climbs down into the mud with his l*****t opponents, trades insults, wrestles with his opponents, and obsesses about f**e news and the crooked media, he will likely lose.

Aside from Trump’s temperament, we must always remember that the answers to two other fundamental questions will determine the outcome of the e******n:

Can the Republicans monitor the b****ting and return it to the environment of 2016 rather than 2020?

Can Trump convince millions of minorities, independents, and former Biden v**ers that there are plenty of reasons to v**e for someone they may not like—including the very future of the United States as a free republic as envisioned by the Founders, rather than an increasingly weak, anemic, cranky socialist has-been?

Finally, we must also remember that, ultimately, the outcome of the e******n could be determined by unpredictable events. What happens if the Gaza War expands to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, as Israel is attacked from all directions? Or the military of the United States is attacked in the Middle East, as in the past?

What will be the status of Ukraine by November—static, safer, or absorbed by Russia—and who will be praised or blamed for what ensues?

Will China risk attacking or blockading Taiwan on the theory that it will never be gifted a more ossified president than Biden?

Will the left unleash another late-season October surprise like the 2016 Access Hollywood tape or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” laptop farce? And will these desperate gambits resonate or boomerang?

And, lastly, will the candidates in October and November resemble the candidates of today? These are the two oldest candidates ever to run for president. Will Trump still be vibrant at 78? Will Biden still be upright at 81?

Will Biden’s feebleness still earn him sympathy, or at least respectful silence? Or will it devolve to the point that the public, worn out by his lapses, concludes that Joe Biden would not be able to keep any job in America—except the Presidency of the United States?