Presidential Preview Part 2: Bidenomics

Decision 2024 is just around the corner, and the American people have two very different visions of the future to choose from. In the second part of a two-newsletter series, we are examining what the economy will likely look like if shaped by a second term President Joe Biden from 2024-2028.

You can read the previous installment on how a second term for President Trump would likely impact the economy here.

The Track Record

As in all statistics, everything is a matter of when you start measuring, and when you stop measuring.

The White House continues to use words like “historic,” “successful,” “booming,” and “growth” to describe President Biden’s economy, yet Gallup reports that the people’s confidence in Biden’s economic stewardship is “historically low,” the lowest of any president since they began asking the question in 2001. So how is it that only 26% of Americans regard the economy as “good” (and a plain majority calls it “poor”) while the Biden administration claims that it has created 15 million jobs?

It’s a matter of when you measure.

Because the economy went into an artificial coma during the COVID lockdowns just before Biden took office, essentially, Joe Biden took credit for all of the businesses opening back up, calling it “creating jobs.” This is in spite of the fact that Biden’s administration fiercely opposed states choosing to open up for business and bring those jobs back online.

Unfortunately, this is a pattern in the White House’s reporting on the economy during President Biden’s tenure. Many of the numbers sound great but wither under scrutiny. In order to get a real idea of Biden’s economic track record, we need to exclude the re-opening after COVID, and look at other material conditions.

Inflation is up over 20% since Biden took office. Real wages have decreased by over 2.5%. The Biden admin touts average GDP growth of 3.4% during his tenure, but again, this is somewhat dishonest. COVID lockdowns put the GDP to artificial nadirs during 2020, so average growth should have, in this writer’s opinion, actually have been far higher, to offset the losses. The GDP numbers begin looking anemic when we account for the artificially low benchmark at the beginning, and the incredible amount of government spending driving the GDP figures up. (Check out this chart to see how dramatically COVID’s lockdowns influenced the averages.) Even with the government spending like there is no tomorrow, GDP came in at just 1.3% in Q1 of this year, while inflation was nearly three times that figure over the same period of time.

To be fair, neither Trump nor Biden seem to have serious plans to combat the ballooning national debt, but as we are discussing Biden in this week’s issue, it’s worth pointing out that Joe Biden has spent and borrowed recklessly, sprinting towards the fiscal cliff. U.S. interest payments on debt, under Biden, surpassed defense spending and Medicare, respectively.

Joe Biden’s economic track record has not been great.

That’s an understatement. His track record has been abysmal. The only silver lining, perhaps, is that unemployment has remained low – though there is some number-fudging going on in the White House’s jobs reports. Some sources say the real unemployment rate is not 3.9% but more likely between 6.5 and 7.7%.

The Agenda

President Biden’s reelection campaign presents November’s contest as a battle between two very different economic futures. Here are the President’s stated priorities for a possible second term: …

If your marketing results weren't where you wanted them to be last quarter, don't just default to blaming the economy- because it's not going to magically improve in Q3, either. Instead, consider the following:

1) Are you pulling in diverse traffic across both paid and organic? If a channel's missing, that's a great place to start.

2) When was the last time you optimized your retention campaigns? If those flows a freelancer built for you in 2021 are still running, it's time to give your email strategy a facelift.

3) Are you sharing real numbers and margins with your in-house marketing team and agency partners? If the pros steering your marketing operation aren't clear on your numbers and profit margin, your results won't be clear, either.

4) What's your conversion rate on your site / landing pages? If it's significantly below average, even achieving mediocrity could double sales!

5) Who's driving your strategy? If you're reacting to every shiny object instead of following a well-constructed game plan, you'll be right where you are now (or worse) at the end of the third quarter. Be intentional with every campaign element, channel, and dollar of your marketing.

If you could use more strategic guidance like what you just read, and/or perhaps some marketing muscle to execute your marketing game plan with excellence, you need to connect with Fidelitas. Fidelitas is a full-service marketing and PR agency that happens to power Sent To Win and loves helping like-minded businesses win. We got the greenlight to include the CEO’s email here- email him directly at [email protected].

China’s economy is in serious trouble. Foreign investment has fled, their demographics are turning upside down, their debt is becoming unsustainable, and ongoing deflation is making the debt burden even more difficult. So what would you do if your business faced similar challenges? You’d probably have a fire sale, to offload anything you have lying around, at rock bottom prices, just to get some cash flow. On the international scene, this is called “dumping,” and it has very real effects for producers in the U.S. and worldwide – who aren’t too happy about it. The U.S., for its part, has raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel, batteries, solar cells, and other goods that threaten to undermine U.S. producers due to China’s artificially low prices made possible via government subsidies and a manipulated currency…

President Biden and former president Trump went on CNN last week to debate, and by polling, Trump was the very clear winner, with 68% of independents saying Trump won, and only 22% of independents saying Biden won. Trump’s performance was energetic, emphatic, and more reserved than we’re used to seeing him in a public debate: he left the name-calling and shouting at home this time. Biden, for his part, was a disaster during the debate, and democrats are openly calling for him to drop out of the race. Biden appeared extremely feeble, rambled, trailed off, sometimes spoke incoherently, and often stared off into space in a bizarre fashion…

Pew Research released a report recently outlining the political affiliations of various Christian denominations, as well as other religions. According to voter registration records, Protestants in general support the Republican Party over the Democratic Party 59-38. Catholics likewise now lean Republican at 52-44, and the Mormon voting block is heavily Republican, at 75-23. Jewish Americans lean heavily Democratic, at 69-29, as do Muslim Americans, at 66-32 for the Democrat Party. Atheists tend to vote Democratic, at 84-13, and religiously unaffiliated Americans as a whole vote Democrat, at a ratio of 70-27…

Your weekly chance to test your Bible knowledge! The answer to today’s question may surprise you:

Q: Where do we find the “Seven Deadly Sins” in the Bible?

Answer at the bottom

TIPS & TRICKS

Defining Faith in Life and Business

When the multitudes came to John the Baptist in Luke 3, and he preached a message of repentance, it is telling what John did and did not tell them to do.

He told them not to rest upon their associations, saying, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”

He did not tell them to recite a creed or to put the Star of David on their clothes. He told them to repent – to change their thinking, change their direction, and to bear actual good fruits from this change.

Then, the people ask him, “What shall we do then?”

He first tells them to give from their excess to those who are in need.

He tells tax collectors not to collect any more than they are supposed to collect for themselves.

He tells soldiers not to intimidate anyone, not to bring false accusations against anyone, and to be content with their paychecks.

Then, he calls their attention to the coming Messiah.

You see, we often make “faith” a more complicated topic than it really is. Faith is difficult, but it isn’t complicated when we take it as a whole. It doesn’t mean an abstract intellectual assent to a list of ideas. In the original language, belief and faith are not really separate concepts. Believing a truth moves you to act upon it, or it isn’t really belief or faith.

Faith is faithful. It means holding to the way, to that which is tested, loyally carrying out God’s plan for mankind.

It’s surprisingly simple, most of the time.

• Christianity Today calls for more churches to support their local crisis pregnancy care centers.

• After a week of volatile trading and a precipitous drop, CNN Business declares that “The Nvidia Spell Is Broken.”

• Is television drying up? Forbes explains the shrinking rewards for creating a hit T.V. show.

• Trying to get in touch with the IRS? Good luck. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2/3 of taxpayers who reach out for help can’t get on the phone with a human being.

• Business Insider reports that the U.S. Housing market is heading for a correction.