Blog

I am an incredibly positive minded person. (The love of my life describes me as a hopeless Pollyanna). I don’t usually pay much attention to polls. Having been involved in polling in the past, I know they can be rigged to achieve any desired result.

Last week, FOX News reported the results of a new poll. The poll asked: Has Joe Biden’s policies made the economy better or worse? Astonishingly, 25% of respondents said the economy is better. That is a 50% increase from the same poll taken in July of 2022!!!!!! (Score one for the press/media). Just as disturbing was the 22% who said they noticed no difference. These are probably the people still wearing masks while waiting in line to receive the next COVID vaccine as soon as it is ready. (I’ll mention 47% throughout this posting. That combines the 25% and 22%). For clarification purposes, 52% of Dems say Biden has made the economy better. (By God, they voted for him and they refuse to admit they were wrong). Conversely, 91% of Reps. say he has made things worse. The critical number come next November is that 56% of Independents say he has made things worse. If we have a fair and honest election in 2024, it will be this last group who will make the difference.

So let’s examine a few facts that any consumer who is aware of their surroundings would have had to notice. There is a slowdown of home sales in America. (If the economy was good this would not be the case). Home sales are down for a number of reasons. The most important reason being the huge rise in mortgage interest rates. When Biden took office, the 30 year mortgage interest rate was just 3%. A person borrowing $100,000 to finance a new home would incur $3,000 a year in mortgage interest, or $250.00 a month. The interest rate to borrow the same amount of money today is 7%. Thus, a borrower of $100,000 today would be paying $7,000 a year in interest, or $583.00 a month. If the purchase price is 2, 3, or more times that $100,000 you can do the math. That has not only kept people from buying new homes, it has kept potential sellers, who have a mortgage rate at lower interest rates, from putting their homes up for sale. They know that when they sell their house they will have to finance its replacement at significantly higher mortgage rates. So they are not listing their homes. A reduction in the supply of homes means the price of those that are listed will go up. As prices go up purchasers must borrow more money to purchase them. And that is how a vicious cycle is created. Perhaps none of the doofuses in the 47% mentioned above have been involved in the real estate market over the last 2 years.

All of them have certainly been involved in the eating, and going from point A to point B market. “It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled.” Mark Twain is often credited with that quote. Regardless of who said it, it is eminently accurate. The government controlled press/media says inflation is down to 5% and the pathetic sheep cheer. While 5% is way higher than the 2% the Fed put out as its original benchmark, it is significantly lower than the 9% reported a few months ago. Most of us don’t care how it is calculated, or even what it is. None of that matters to you and I. What matters is how much does it cost, and can I afford it? Forget all of those inflation numbers. Remember this; groceries cost nearly 20% more today than they did when Biden took office. It costs us 20% more to feed our families today than it did in January of 2021. No statistic is more important than that! Many people on fixed incomes are forced to choose between groceries and medications. Some seniors are taking life saving pills every other day, instead of daily, or cutting pills in half to make them last longer. This is unconscionable.

On election day in 2020 a gallon of gas cost about $2.00. Yesterday, in Pennsylvania, we paid $3.98 a gallon. One needn’t be a mathematician to recognize that is nearly a 100% increase in the cost of gasoline. All since Biden took office. An increase this massive may not bother the 47%ers. It is devastating to those people on fixed incomes, the poor, or those trying to make ends meet by working at entry level jobs. It is shameful that anyone who purports to be a leader would allow this to happen.

Biden defenders constantly remind me that people are continuing to spend money at retail stores. They say this couldn’t happen in a bad economy. While this is anecdotally true, it is important to drill down and find some of the sources of the money they are spending. In May of this year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that Americans were holding $986 billion of credit card debt. That is up 17% from a year ago, and is an all time high. At least 33% of American adults now have more credit card debt than they have emergency savings. Lost in this wave of statistics is the fact that the average interest rate charged by banks to credit card holders is slightly over 20%. This is one source of consumer funds, and is of course, unsustainable.

Another source of the funds that consumers are spending is equally disturbing. At the end of 2022, Fidelity Investments reported a 22% drop in 401(k) balances due to negative market performance. Investors understand that markets fluctuate. What is more disturbing is the amount of cash being removed from retirement 401(k)s using “hardship” withdrawals, and loans allowed through plan provisions. U.S. News reported that hardship withdrawals rose 24% over the last 12 months. CNBC reported that 15,590 retirement savers withdrew money from their 401(k)s in just the 2nd quarter of 2023. That is a year on year increase of 36%. Bank of America, in its Participant Pulse Report, said that a similar percent of participants took loans from their accounts during the same quarter. Savers justify their actions by promising to repay the money. If history is an indicator, only a small minority actually do. Current consumer spending driven by dollars borrowed, or surrendered, from accounts designed to fund retirements in the future is not a good sign, and does not suggest a healthy economy. Those gambling their future for current gratification, or to maintain a current lifestyle, are emulating the actions of the government. The difference, of course, is that they will not able to print the money they will need when they retire.

In closing, I am totally befuddled by the response of those 47%ers. I find myself dealing with a real kerfuffle when thinking about them. I don’t know if I want to pity them, or if I want to punch them in the face. The poll question was not that difficult. It did require you to step out of your cave and put your political ideologies aside. It is crystal clear that Joe Biden has NOT improved the state of the nation’s economy. There is no metric that suggests otherwise. It is obvious that millions of Americans are being forced to live with the detrimental effects of Biden’s Socialist policies. That the American people are being threatened, even harmed, by his ridiculous drive to return us to the days of serfdom is criminal. What we are suffering through is self-inflicted. That all of this began with a few strokes of Biden’s pen, and could just as easily be stopped by a few more strokes of the same pen, is sad. It is maddening that he cares so little about us that he refuses to even consider doing so.

I hope you found my latest blog interesting and informative. If you know someone who is part of the 47% please show it to them and begin a dialog. Thank you for reading my latest blog, Bob