Dear America,
This is what I mean when I talk about the disjuncture between Republican politics and politicians on the one hand and the truth on the other.
On Friday, the New York Times headlined its business section, "A global Battle to Rein in Prices." Below that headline was a map of the world showing inflation rates across the globe. Our rate is 4% as has been universally reported. But what doesn't seem to be reaching public awareness is the fact that of the twenty seven countries plus the Eurozone reflected on the map, only seven countries had lower inflation rates than we do, and those countries are Canada with 3.4%, Brazil with 3.9%, Saudi Arabia with 2.8%, Russia with 2.5%, China with .2% (which suggests that a recession is just around the corner there), South Korea with 3.3% and Japan with 3.2%. Indonesia also has an inflation rate of 4.0%, but all of the countries of Europe have higher inflation rates than we do, some countries with rates that are several multiples of ours. The Eurozone collectively is enduring an inflation rate of 6.1%. But despite all this positive objective information, which is surely available to Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Jim Jordan, Tom Cotton and the rest of the stars in the Republican firmament, they continue to peddle the canard that the Biden administration is responsible for an inflation rate, and thus an economy, that is the bane of our American existence.
Never mind that our unemployment rate is historically low, wages are rising faster than inflation for the first time since the Republican demigod Ronald Reagan declared supply-side economics the new American gospel. According to the Republicans, the working American needs Republicans to fix what they characterize as a problem inimical to the prosperity of the vast majority of us who make less than $400k per year. But in fact, until the Biden administration, the working American lost ground steadily to the .5% that has all the money, earned or not, and the only people getting newly rich were the executive class of the major corporations and their dividend beneficiaries. And the Republican tax cut put even more money in their pockets--albeit ours too but to a minimal degree--while increasing the national deficit by a trillion dollars a year under the Republicans and Donald Trump, and then complaining about it as if they had nothing to do with it. By the way, the deficit--the amount by which the nation's expenditures exceed its revenues in a given year--has been going down under Biden and the Democrats in the Senate. At the same time, under Joe Biden people affected by the covid epidemic saved their houses, infrastructure projects and cognate employment increased, and planning began for the purpose of regaining American economic and manufacturing hegemony across the world by virtue of bills passed under the auspices of the Biden administration and the Democrats, although a few Republicans also voted in favor of those bills. That's what I would call making America great again.
Given all this, it is incomprehensible to me that somehow the American public seems to think that the Republicans are the masters of sound economics. No one seems to recognize what the Republicans have done to us under the guise of doing something for us. And what's worst about it is that the Democrats seem incapable of getting the word out. You hear McCarthy, for example, preaching his absurd, falacy laden version of our economic circumstances on the news, but no one ever talks about the reality. You never see excerpts from Democrats' speeches bringing these points to the fore, but somehow the Republican canard is on everyone's lips. It makes me hark back to the '30's comedian Will Rogers who popularized the saying, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." It's frustrating that neither Biden nor the party regulars can manage to break through the deafening silence that is undermining them.
I'm not as afraid as I used to be that Donald Trump will emerge from his chrysalis like some kind of vampire butterfly and devour our country again with his megalomania, nefariousness and socio-pathological mountebank routine. He is a threat, but I think he still garners the support of only the uninformed minority. (One of them confronted Mike Pence recently and reproached him for not nullifying the 2020 election as he was empowered to do, according to her, but he promptly ripped her a new one and pointed out, diplomatically, that she didn't know what she was talking about.) But still, the rational ones of us need to proffer a viable candidate with a loud, resonating message of truth. I have faith of you, Joe. But get on with it.
Your friend,
Mike
This is what I mean when I talk about the disjuncture between Republican politics and politicians on the one hand and the truth on the other.
On Friday, the New York Times headlined its business section, "A global Battle to Rein in Prices." Below that headline was a map of the world showing inflation rates across the globe. Our rate is 4% as has been universally reported. But what doesn't seem to be reaching public awareness is the fact that of the twenty seven countries plus the Eurozone reflected on the map, only seven countries had lower inflation rates than we do, and those countries are Canada with 3.4%, Brazil with 3.9%, Saudi Arabia with 2.8%, Russia with 2.5%, China with .2% (which suggests that a recession is just around the corner there), South Korea with 3.3% and Japan with 3.2%. Indonesia also has an inflation rate of 4.0%, but all of the countries of Europe have higher inflation rates than we do, some countries with rates that are several multiples of ours. The Eurozone collectively is enduring an inflation rate of 6.1%. But despite all this positive objective information, which is surely available to Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Jim Jordan, Tom Cotton and the rest of the stars in the Republican firmament, they continue to peddle the canard that the Biden administration is responsible for an inflation rate, and thus an economy, that is the bane of our American existence.
Never mind that our unemployment rate is historically low, wages are rising faster than inflation for the first time since the Republican demigod Ronald Reagan declared supply-side economics the new American gospel. According to the Republicans, the working American needs Republicans to fix what they characterize as a problem inimical to the prosperity of the vast majority of us who make less than $400k per year. But in fact, until the Biden administration, the working American lost ground steadily to the .5% that has all the money, earned or not, and the only people getting newly rich were the executive class of the major corporations and their dividend beneficiaries. And the Republican tax cut put even more money in their pockets--albeit ours too but to a minimal degree--while increasing the national deficit by a trillion dollars a year under the Republicans and Donald Trump, and then complaining about it as if they had nothing to do with it. By the way, the deficit--the amount by which the nation's expenditures exceed its revenues in a given year--has been going down under Biden and the Democrats in the Senate. At the same time, under Joe Biden people affected by the covid epidemic saved their houses, infrastructure projects and cognate employment increased, and planning began for the purpose of regaining American economic and manufacturing hegemony across the world by virtue of bills passed under the auspices of the Biden administration and the Democrats, although a few Republicans also voted in favor of those bills. That's what I would call making America great again.
Given all this, it is incomprehensible to me that somehow the American public seems to think that the Republicans are the masters of sound economics. No one seems to recognize what the Republicans have done to us under the guise of doing something for us. And what's worst about it is that the Democrats seem incapable of getting the word out. You hear McCarthy, for example, preaching his absurd, falacy laden version of our economic circumstances on the news, but no one ever talks about the reality. You never see excerpts from Democrats' speeches bringing these points to the fore, but somehow the Republican canard is on everyone's lips. It makes me hark back to the '30's comedian Will Rogers who popularized the saying, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." It's frustrating that neither Biden nor the party regulars can manage to break through the deafening silence that is undermining them.
I'm not as afraid as I used to be that Donald Trump will emerge from his chrysalis like some kind of vampire butterfly and devour our country again with his megalomania, nefariousness and socio-pathological mountebank routine. He is a threat, but I think he still garners the support of only the uninformed minority. (One of them confronted Mike Pence recently and reproached him for not nullifying the 2020 election as he was empowered to do, according to her, but he promptly ripped her a new one and pointed out, diplomatically, that she didn't know what she was talking about.) But still, the rational ones of us need to proffer a viable candidate with a loud, resonating message of truth. I have faith of you, Joe. But get on with it.
Your friend,
Mike
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