Biden: Economy's great because Americans 'have money to spend' on inflated prices of goods

 By Monica Showalter

Joe Biden is finally out campaigning, and despite reports that he's dropped the term 'Bidenomics,' as a selling point with voters, still says the economy is doing great because Americans 'have the money to spend.'

Naturally, he gave an interview with CNN:

 

According to the Daily Mail:

President Joe Biden stubbornly refused to admit Americans' struggles with inflation might cost him the election in a rare interview Wednesday. 

Biden, who was in Wisconsin to tout his record on the economy and to announce an investment by Microsoft to build a factory, defended his handling of inflation.

Polls show voters are nervous and critical of Biden's handling of the economy and anchor Erin Burnett reminded him that grocery prices are up 30 percent.  

But Biden, in his interview with CNN, claimed the polls are wrong and Americans struggling with inflation have more cash in their pockets, saying: 'They have the money to spend.'

Was he mixing up the voters with himself? We all know he has more money to spend, just ask Burisma or the Chicoms who hand it to his family business

Or was he just gaslighting the public into another solar system?

The idea that Americans have money to spend is nonsense all by itself, given the rise in grocery, gasoline, housing, consumer, medical, education and other goods they have no choice but to buy.

But even if they did have all that extra money to spend that he claims, does he really think that American like spending their extra cash on inflated prices of goods and services? Might they like to spend it on something else?

Here are the hard statistics:

Wages are down nearly 3% since he took office, while prices of groceries alone have gone up 30%.

According to Fox Business in an April 9 report:

The country's inflation-adjusted, or "real" average hourly wage, as of February 2024 is $11.11 per hour, a decrease of 29 cents from $11.40 in Jan. 2021, or minus 2.54%.

The first three months of Biden's term saw wages grow faster than inflation. But beginning in April 2021, American workers experienced 25 consecutive months of negative real wage growth, averaging -2.0%.

As for credit cards, well, one third of Americans are maxxing those out bigtime.

According to a report in Forbes, dated April 18, also citing Fox Business:

The increase in credit card debt signals that many Americans are struggling to pay for basic needs. Roughly 45% of Americans said that inflation and rising prices are why they've relied so heavily on credit cards, the Debt.com survey said. Nearly 9% of all respondents said they got a credit card to pay for a financial emergency. Moreover, 35% of Americans said they have maxed out their credit cards in recent years. Of those who had maxed out their credit cards, 85% said they were pushed to use their cards to the limit because of price increases from inflation. Approximately 22% of Americans said they now owe between $10,000 to $20,000 in credit card debt, and 5% have more than $30,000. [Fox Business]

How about those who've already maxxed their cards out, what do they do? Next stop, raids on 401(k)s for retirement. What do they look like under Bidenomics?

According to Investopedia, citing one major 401(k) provider:

As inflation and high interest rates pressure household budgets, more people are using their retirement plans as a kind of self-funded safety net, according to a new report.

Out of people with 401ks through Vanguard, 3.6% took “hardship withdrawals” in 2023, up from 2.8% in 2022, the financial company said in a report Monday. That was the highest level in at least the 19 years Vanguard has been keeping track.1

Does that sound like people who 'have the money to spend' as Joe Biden claims, proud of his 'accomplishments' on the economy?

Not to any American who has to live in his crappy economy. The man is profoundly out of touch with voters.

Here's the second half of his out-of-touch baloney, from the Daily Mail:

He blamed 'greedy corporations' for consumers' lack of confidence.

Would those be the same greedy corporations that donate to Democrats? Most corporate donations go that way. Maybe his Democrats can give back all those corporate donations so that corporations can restore prices to what they were?

Something tells me that's not something Joe's gonna propose.

But more to the point, the fundamental problem creating inflation is that Biden has expanded the size and scope of government to unsustainable levels. Inflation, as economist Milton Friedman has said, is "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." It doesn't come from oil. It doesn't come from egg farms. It doesn't come from corporate "greed" when companies are forced to raise their prices. It comes from Biden's compulsive spending. The national debt is growing by $1 trillion every three months, and interest payments from all that borrowing and money printing it takes to borrow now exceed defense expenditures.

That's money for nothing, money to service the debt, money that could go to something productive but not with the Biden ball-and-chain of unchecked spending and gaslighting going on in the economy. That's where inflation comes from, not from candy-bar sizes, but from monster money-printing going in an economy that doesn't produce enough growth to cover it.

He's shut the economy down, but kept the money printing, and taken America down the road to Argentina. Yet still he blames gas station owners and "greedy" corporations instead of himself for his own spendathons that fuel the inflation Americans must pay for. Then he says Americans have more money to spend. Note also that wealth is created by savings, not spending, something Biden, based on what he taught Hunter, wouldn't have the first clue about.

If this isn't economic idiocy of the most embarrassing sort, coming from the so-called leader of the free world, what is? One can only hope that Republicans are watching and can use this out-of-touch-old fool's campaign statements to the public in their own campaign ads instead.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/joe_biden_says_economy_s_great_because_americans_have_the_money_to_spend_on_inflated_prices_of_goods.html