Don’t Be Misled

I am very tired of hearing the question in Trump ads saying things were less expensive when he was president. Of course they were because it was seven, six, five and almost four years ago. Unless there is deflation, meaning a depression or real recession, prices are always going up. The way a growing economy works is prices are always going up. You just want them to go up by a steady about 2%.

The pandemic threw the world economy into a tailspin. The question should be, how is America doing compared to the rest of the world on the recovery from the pandemic. The answer is actually, “Damn good.”

When Trump was president Wages did not go up to cover inflation, but in the last eight months, wages have now gone up more than inflation. Now that does not mean for everyone’s individual wages, but the nation as a whole. This is the good news. So wages are up and inflation is down, getting close to the 2% goal.

Are we paying more for things? Yes, you are always paying more for things. That is what inflation is. Trump had inflation in all the years he was president. He couldn’t ask you if you were paying less for things from the start of his Presidency to the end before the pandemic, because the cost of things went up while he was president.

The president does not control the economy, but has an effect on it. Biden deserves credit for taking the pandemic economy and bringing wages up and eventually bringing inflation down. All the while we also have had great gains in employment, improvement in infrastructure and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US in critical industries, like chip making.

Yes, we had some terrible inflation in the two years following the pandemic. But it was a pandemic. It was bound to screw everything up. The key is that the US is getting back to more normal economic cycles now.

Asking people if they are paying more today than they did seven years ago is akin to asking people if their child had a cold in the last seven years. The answer is guaranteed to be, “Yes.” That does not mean that Trump can make the prices down down if he were to be president again.

In fact Goldman Sachs warned that a Trump win would likely lead to an economic downturn turn, but a Democratic victory would cause growth. Goldman Sachs is not exactly a liberal bastion.

So if you care about your own finical future and you are not a billionaire trying to avoid taxes, then Trump is your worst economic choice. I know plenty of people who think Trump is better for the economy, but the facts just don’t prove that. How can someone who declared bankruptcy six times really be better for the economy. Don’t be misled by simpleton ads.