Today In Biden Land

[Kirkland Laing]

The numbers aren't some great mystery. Both Bushes had shocking job growth. Trump had a net job loss with the pandemic which is skewing things somewhat but the fact remains the economy and job creation both do far better under Democratic presidents.

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[TitoFan]

The numbers aren't some great mystery. Both Bushes had shocking job growth. Trump had a net job loss with the pandemic which is skewing things somewhat but the fact remains the economy and job creation both do far better under Democratic presidents.

121045397_10158137075281749_1044652665160004636_n.jpg

I don't have time to get into an argument right now, but to what do you attribute this "fact"? Seems to me there have been Republican presidents throughout modern history with good jobs records. I'd venture to say there are other factors at work here other than what Party you happen to belong to.

[Spicoli]

I think On Golden Pond needs to make more self-deprecating tongue in cheek jokes about his age. It works. The extent of my political observation this day I'm off for a noon nap and glass of warm milk.

[TitoFan]

I've never been one to believe outlandish claims that seem too one-sided, especially when these claims carry the specter of political bias behind them.

A score of 96 to 4 is usually highly unlikely, especially if being used in the political arena.

But hell, what do I know. I'm just a mere mortal.

Let's see what others have to say about this topic...

https://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/...elections.html


Do Democrats Really Create More Jobs?

In a struggling economy, amid a tight election campaign, successfully claiming the mantle of job creation can make or break a candidate.

That's why President Bill Clinton made a splash Wednesday night, during a speech at the Democratic National Convention, with the claim that Democratic presidential administrations have had a better employment track record than their GOP counterparts.

"For 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private-sector jobs. So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 [million]," Clinton said.

It's an important issue for small business owners, because they want to know which party's policies will be best for the nation's economic health--and, by extrapolation, for their own plans for business growth.


Getting Lucky

But while both parties want to claim superiority, it turns out the answer cuts across party lines.

While economists say the statistics Clinton cited are correct, it turns out Democrats may have benefited more from business cycles that had little to do with the presidency. Since World War II, more Republican presidents than Democrats have started their administrations with recessions under way.

Once that and other indicators--like employment rates, which tend to lag behind recoveries--are factored in, job creation per party becomes more of a wash.

"Presidential policies kick in during the second year of their administrations, and once you take into account the inherited economic conditions for presidents, there is no difference between the parties" for private sector job creation, says James E. Campbell, chairman of the political science department for the University at Buffalo.

Campbell has written extensively on the economic records of the presidents and party differences in relation to economic conditions after World War II.

Rival economic policies may even produce similar employment results, although the price tags may show up in different places: Democrats tend to favor upfront spending for things like stimulus programs--with more immediate effects but greater cost later on--while Republicans opt to pay upfront, through things like tax cuts, which may stimulate better economic conditions later on, Campbell says.

Congress & the President: It's Complicated

Another complicating factor: It’s Congress, not the president, that often sets policy. And in many instances in the last 50 years, the party that occupied the White House confronted a Congress led by the opposing party.

"If you look at some of the big things that happened politically, from the Reagan tax reform to Clinton tax reform, those took place during periods of divided government, when there was more negotiating," says John Dunham, managing partner of John Dunham & Associates, an economic consultancy in New York.

What small businesses want most is a stable business environment, which experts say includes a guarantee of government fiscal responsibility, and a fair regulatory and tax environment before they start hiring again. And both parties claim they will be able to provide those conditions.

"There is uncertainty everywhere you look, and that does not stimulate growth," Campbell says.

Back when Trump took office in 2017, the economy shot up impressively. I imagine job creation went along with it. Republicans (Trumpers and non-Trumpers alike) jumped on those stats like a hungry Doberman on a raw T-bone. Yet I always knew Donny was only riding Obama's coattails. Measures Obama had taken or helped along were only then beginning to provide fruit. So Trump swoops in and takes all the credit... and his adoring public believed every word.

I may not know a lot of things. But I'm pretty sure the national economy doesn't turn on a dime. It's not a square waveform that goes from 0 to 100 immediately when changes are implemented. So Obama didn't immediately benefit from some of the changes that he implemented or helped to implement.

By the same token, I agree with the author of the article above when he says...

"But while both parties want to claim superiority, it turns out the answer cuts across party lines.

While economists say the statistics Clinton cited are correct, it turns out Democrats may have benefited more from business cycles that had little to do with the presidency. Since World War II, more Republican presidents than Democrats have started their administrations with recessions under way.

Once that and other indicators--like employment rates, which tend to lag behind recoveries--are factored in, job creation per party becomes more of a wash."

[Kirkland Laing]

There are lots of variables that affect economic growth other than who the president is. That article however is so full of misleading bullshit I could spend a week pointing it all out. Not even going to start.

I'll just explain it as simply as possible. Both parties believe in redistribution of wealth. The Democrats believe in redistributing wealth downwards, the GOP believe in redistributing it upwards. Downward redistribution puts a bigger share of the national income in the hands of people who will go out and spend it. This creates new demand in the economy for goods and services which creates economic growth to supply that demand. Seventy percent of the US economy is consumer spending! Fund those spenders with extra income and you get rapid economic growth and, this bit is crucial, broadly shared prosperity! You need to make sure that the top earners still make significantly more money than low and middle income earners though. They need to have that incentive to keep on investing in new businesses. Luckily the top earners not making a big enough share of the economic pie has never been a problem in America!

Redistributing wealth upwards doesn't work nearly as well. You're giving a bigger slice of the national income pie to people who don't put that money back into the real economy, they put it into stocks and bonds and invest it because they already earn far more than they spend. All you're doing with upward redistribution is taking more money out of the real economy. Economic growth under Republican presidents happens despite their economic policies, not because of it.

There is almost a century of really good detailed economic data to back all this up. And note I'm not talking about taxes, I'm talking exclusively about income here. The national income pie and the percentage of that that goes to labour and the percentage that goes to capital (the people who own everything).

There are lots of little examples of stuff that individual presidents do but probably the single best example to show how this all works is the multi decade effort from conservatives to destroy the power of unions to bargain for a bigger share of the national income pie for their members. This effort started the minute after FDR passed a load of pro-union legislation back in the 1930s but really got going under Reagan and a compliant Supreme Court. Back in the fifties over a third of private sector workers were union members and the people who weren't union members could always tell their bosses that if they didn't get comparable wages and conditions to union businesses they'd unionise too. This gave American workers a lot of power. Then the conservatives got busy busting unions and now the number of people in unions is about five percent. Their power is almost nothing compared to seventy years ago when of course America had the fastest economic growth and broadly shared prosperity in its history. Here's how this looks in a graph:







And even this graph is misleading. Between 1979 and 2020 income for the middle 20% of American earners went up about sixteen percent. Income for the top 0.1%, the people who own everything, went up over six hundred percent. This is deliberate and the result of decades of rigging the economy in favour of the people who own everything. So when Democratic presidents get in and do what they can to reverse this it creates a boost to growth and employment growth.

Here's a brief rundown on the conservative war on unions over the years:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/janus...b09c872baea8c9



There's endless more documentation of this and the whole general thrust of both parties when it comes to the economy, growth, employment, share of national income and so on.

[Kirkland Laing]

Back when Trump took office in 2017, the economy shot up impressively. I imagine job creation went along with it. Republicans (Trumpers and non-Trumpers alike) jumped on those stats like a hungry Doberman on a raw T-bone. Yet I always knew Donny was only riding Obama's coattails. Measures Obama had taken or helped along were only then beginning to provide fruit. So Trump swoops in and takes all the credit... and his adoring public believed every word.

The economy did not shoot up impressively when Trump took office. If you compare the last three years of Obama and the first three years of Trump then two million more jobs were created under Obama. The economy actually slowed down under Trump but it was on a slow upward swing that started in 2009 and Trump came in for the last few years of that swing when things had recovered to the point where economic conditions were feeling much better for Americans. He passed a massive tax cut for the wealthy and cranked up government spending to the point where he was running a trillion dollar deficit in the middle of an economic expansion but still didn't crack three percent growth. He got one year of two point nine percent the same as Obama. Benefitted from hundreds of billions of losses in the fracking industry which basically subsidised fairly cheap gas for most of the time he was in office too.

[TitoFan]

Back when Trump took office in 2017, the economy shot up impressively. I imagine job creation went along with it. Republicans (Trumpers and non-Trumpers alike) jumped on those stats like a hungry Doberman on a raw T-bone. Yet I always knew Donny was only riding Obama's coattails. Measures Obama had taken or helped along were only then beginning to provide fruit. So Trump swoops in and takes all the credit... and his adoring public believed every word.

The economy did not shoot up impressively when Trump took office. If you compare the last three years of Obama and the first three years of Trump then two million more jobs were created under Obama. The economy actually slowed down under Trump but it was on a slow upward swing that started in 2009 and Trump came in for the last few years of that swing when things had recovered to the point where economic conditions were feeling much better for Americans. He passed a massive tax cut for the wealthy and cranked up government spending to the point where he was running a trillion dollar deficit in the middle of an economic expansion but still didn't crack three percent growth. He got one year of two point nine percent the same as Obama. Benefitted from hundreds of billions of losses in the fracking industry which basically subsidised fairly cheap gas for most of the time he was in office too.

Well, the last years of Obama showed considerable upswing as evidenced by a graph I saw on leading economic indicators. Unfortunately the graph I saw didn't go beyond 2016. I just remember 2017 being a banner year for the stock market. I saw considerable personal gains in some investments of mine. 2017's performance hasn't been matched since, to my knowledge. I do know Obama assumed the presidency right at the start of the 2008 recession, so he must've done a pretty good job with the economy to get it turned around like that.

[Kirkland Laing]

Back when Trump took office in 2017, the economy shot up impressively. I imagine job creation went along with it. Republicans (Trumpers and non-Trumpers alike) jumped on those stats like a hungry Doberman on a raw T-bone. Yet I always knew Donny was only riding Obama's coattails. Measures Obama had taken or helped along were only then beginning to provide fruit. So Trump swoops in and takes all the credit... and his adoring public believed every word.

The economy did not shoot up impressively when Trump took office. If you compare the last three years of Obama and the first three years of Trump then two million more jobs were created under Obama. The economy actually slowed down under Trump but it was on a slow upward swing that started in 2009 and Trump came in for the last few years of that swing when things had recovered to the point where economic conditions were feeling much better for Americans. He passed a massive tax cut for the wealthy and cranked up government spending to the point where he was running a trillion dollar deficit in the middle of an economic expansion but still didn't crack three percent growth. He got one year of two point nine percent the same as Obama. Benefitted from hundreds of billions of losses in the fracking industry which basically subsidised fairly cheap gas for most of the time he was in office too.

Well, the last years of Obama showed considerable upswing as evidenced by a graph I saw on leading economic indicators. Unfortunately the graph I saw didn't go beyond 2016. I just remember 2017 being a banner year for the stock market. I saw considerable personal gains in some investments of mine. 2017's performance hasn't been matched since, to my knowledge. I do know Obama assumed the presidency right at the start of the 2008 recession, so he must've done a pretty good job with the economy to get it turned around like that.

The stock market is not the economy.

The reason you got a nice bump in 2017 is that the GOP passed a big corporate tax cut. Stock prices reflect expected future profits and also demand for the stocks. The corporate tax cut increased future corporate profits and put those profits in the hands of shareholders who recycled them back into the stock market as they have nothing else to do with their money but invest it. So extra money in the market bids up stock prices and bigger corporate profits (less tax) do the same.

But the stock market is not the economy. What the corporate tax cut did was to take money out of the economy and put it into the financial speculation economy. If Trump had passed a bill allowing collective bargaining and worker seats on the board of corporate directors (like for instance Germany) markets would have seen that corporate shareholders were going to get a smaller share of future income and workers a larger share and stock prices would have fallen.

If Trump wins in 2024 and the GOP control congress then I'll make a not so bold prediction that 2025 will also be a banner year for stocks and financial assets in general because the only legislation of any significance the GOP will pass will be another tax cut for the wealthy and the money will be pumped into the stock market and other financial assets.







This graph tells you everything you need to know about how the economy has gone since Reagan took office and started massive upward redistribution of wealth. And notice it continued to go up during the Clinton years. It turns out that the Democratic party is funded by a tiny elite just like the GOP and they like tax cuts too. Or at least they like the much lower tax environment they're in now. They're happy to pay a few percent more in income tax, not investment taxes of course but that's it. So Obama putting the top income tax rate up to 39 from 36 under Bush is about as much as they're happy to pay. Three percent on income tax on income over 250k, no increases in investment tax is basically the big argument on tax matters between the two parties today. Bear in mind back in the fifties and sixties when the economy was growing five percent a year with three percent employment, back when America was great, the top rate of income tax was ninety one percent.

Next year when Trump is telling America it's about to be destroyed by socialism if he doesn't win the election ask yourself does this look anything like a socialist economy to you?