by Tom Luongo at Gold, Goats ‘n Guns
“President” Joe Biden described the US economy as, “Strong as hell,” in a recent sound bite. No one except his most ardent supporters, a vanishingly small number in reality, believes that.
He and they point to statistics, “internals” in Biden-speaks, that point to why the US is better off than everyone else. Well, yes, we may be better than everyone else, that doesn’t however mean the economy is “strong as hell.”
It just means it is the most attractive horse at the glue factory, to invoke more Biden-esque rhetoric.
Honestly, I was waiting for a Corn Pop reference, but Fox cut away too quickly.
The headline numbers — jobs, U-3 unemployment, etc. — don’t tell the whole story. If anything they tell a story directly opposite of what they normally would. Why? Math.
U-3 unemployment measures people still in the workforce looking for work, defined by those applying for unemployment. I don’t know about you but we’ve all heard the stories of record job openings. This also means the economy is supposed to be strong.
But then why are real wages negative? Why are they not only lagging inflation but slowing rapidly in nominal terms while headline (and massively understated) inflation is rising…
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