It must be frustrating for President Biden to try to convince Americans that they are doing better than they feel they are doing. After all, the stock market is doing well, there is strong job growth and it’s easy to get a raise. But people are really obsessed about inflation and nothing Democrats say is going to change their minds.
Democratic Messaging on the Economy
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
1 Comment. Leave new
1. The stock market is (almost) always doing well. The DJIA is an artificial number — the companies on the DJIA are removed when they start to fail. When the entire economy fails (i.e., a depression) it will probably kill us all because we are now absolutely dependent on a global infrastructure to deliver goods (Club of Rome stuff: once capitalism starts to fail, it’s gonna drop like that casserole that just slipped out of your hands).
2. Strong job growth? I still have seen no one address where geographically the strongest growth is, nor how stable that growth is (will those jobs be there in a year?), nor what salaries/benefits come with those jobs. You know, the holistic picture.
3. Raises? Considering the 40-year lull in actual raises relative to living expenses (a point Ted has discussed multiple times), How much of a raise would be required to actually get to the point where we should be if the working and middle class hadn’t been shafted all these years? Hint: if we were where we should have been all along, we wouldn’t have the term “working poor.”
The obsession over inflation is only going to get worse. Credit card rates are tied to the Fed.
Nine months to the midterms, and it’s just going to get worse and worse for, um, Biden. I hope they have Harris on a suicide watch because that’s really looking like the only thing that’s going to help her future.