Breitbart Business Digest: Joe Biden vs. Cardi B and America

You almost have to feel bad for President Joe Biden. The poor guy appears to be surrounded by people telling him that the economy is doing really well.

“Part of the reason I ran for president is because I was tired of trickle-down economics. It doesn’t work. My plans have produced the strongest, fastest, most wide-spread economic recovery America has ever experienced with record jobs,” Biden said Friday.

The American people are convinced that this is not the strongest recovery America has ever experienced. In fact, the majority of Americans believe that we are currently in a recession. A solid 55 percent of Americans said in a recent poll from the Economist and YouGov that the U.S. is in a recession. That includes 55 percent of Hispanics, a plurality of blacks, and a majority of whites. It includes Americans earning less than $50,000, Americans earning more than $100,000, and those in between. Men and women agree. Midwestern, Northeastern, Southern, and Western folks see the current economy as being in a recession.

This is one area where there is not a generational debate. A majority of those over 65 say we’re in a recession. So does a majority of those aged 45 to 64. A plurality of younger Americans, aged 19 to 29, say this is a recession. The strongest group seeing current economic circumstances as a recession are prime age workers aged 30 to 44, 61 percent of whom say we’re in a recession.

Perhaps most strikingly, a plurality of Democrats say we are in a recession. The poll found that 43 percent of Democrats say we’re in a recession, versus 32 percent who say we are not. Forty percent of Biden voters say we’re in a recession, compared with 32 percent who say we’re not. The numbers are much higher for Republicans—70 percent say we’re in a recession—and Trump voters—74 percent. They are higher also for independents, 58 percent of whom say we’re in a recession. Liberals say we’re in a recession by 42 percent, versus 33 percent who say we aren’t. The point is that there is a widespread conviction that overcomes partisan identity and ideological conviction.

In this context, insisting that this is the strongest recovery that has ever happened makes the Biden administration look bizarrely out of touch. The administration is telling people not to believe their lying eyes when they pay for groceries, fill their gas tanks, discover empty shelves in the baby food aisle, or try to find a new car with the features they want. Yet every time the Biden administration appears to be on the verge of addressing the economic woes of the country with sincerity, it backs itself back into the corner of claiming that everything is great.

It is not working. A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll released Monday found that 83 percent of Americans describe the state of the economy as poor or not so good. Only one percent say the economy is excellent. (Presumably they all work in the administration or for Capitol Hill Democrats.) A year ago, 47 percent of Americans thought they had a good chance of improving their standard of living. Now just 27 percent do. Forty-six percent say they don’t have a good chance of anything getting better.

A record number of Americans are completely unhappy economically. Thirty-five percent said they are not at all satisfied with their financial condition, the highest level of dissatisfaction since NORC began asking the question every few years starting in 1972.

Establishment economists are aghast at the temerity of Americans to declare that the economy is in a recession without asking for permission. After all, the economy has only shrunk for one quarter so far; and the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which has declared itself the official arbiter of what is and what is not a recession, has not spoken. “This is bananas, in the midst of an almost-complete recovery from the deepest downturn since the Great Depression, due to the fastest recovery ever,” said University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers on Twitter. You may remember Professor Wolfers as the guy who predicted the stock market would crash if Trump were elected. Alternatively, you may remember Wolfers for calling for the head of University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig for criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement’s call to “defund the police.”

Fortunately, We the People have someone much more influential on our side — none other than the Sage of the South Bronx, Cardi B. “When y’all think they going to announce that we going into a recession?” Cardi B wrote in a tweet Sunday, which has since garnered more than 120,000 likes and over 16,000 retweets.

There is an apocryphal myth journalists like to tell concerning the so-called “Cronkite Moment.” During an evening broadcast in 1968, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite supposedly gave an extremely pessimistic assessment of the U.S. war in Vietnam in the aftermath of the Tet offensive. After seeing this, President Johnson is alleged to have said: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the American people.” Or perhaps it was: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the war.” There are lots of versions of the story, probably none of them quite accurate.

In any case, we have to wonder if someone at the White House is thinking along the same lines. If you’ve lost Cardi B, you’ve lost America.