March 24, 2024 (EIRNS)—The March 24 Washington Post “Business” section carried a somewhat pathetic attempt to puff up “Biden’s economy,” in the context of constant attempts by Democratic pundits to discover why there is even more opposition to Biden’s claims of an economic revival, than to his policy of supporting Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The piece consisted of a page of late-2019-to-early-2024 charts, surrounding a breathless box, “COVID wrecked the economy; 11 charts show a robust recovery.”
There was no chart having to do with productivity, capital investment, industrial production, productive employment; or manufacturing activity; nor even of prices for services such as transportation and healthcare. Rather, what was shown is that food price inflation since the end of 2019 is 25%; ditto for gasoline price inflation and for the price of a home (average rents were not shown; they are up 30% in that time); savings as a share of disposable income has dropped from 8.5% to 3%; credit card debt has risen by 25%. Real wages, the only “bright spot” were shown as having risen by 4% since late 2019, and that only for workers with full-time jobs.
