About That Economy...

President Biden and his brain trust tell us that the US economy is doing great. More importantly (for them), they also tell us that the economy is booming thanks to Democratic policies, with the obvious takeaway that we should trust them with another four years in the White House. That people haven't bought into this message, that we're pessimistic on the economy, is, they've concluded, a failure of messaging. In particular, an insufficiency on the part of the press, who aren't "pressing" the "all is wonderful" narrative hard enough.

If you're of a mind to conclude the economy's doing great, there are ample indicators. The stock market is booming, the U-3 unemployment rate, at below 4%, is in theoretical "full employment" territory, there are more jobs than workers, GDP is growing robustly, and inflation has been curtailed quite a bit from its highs.

To the Best-and-Brightest, all this should be enough. The economy is doing well, full-stop. Whether Biden deserves credit is a different matter, but "deserve" is secondary to whether he can claim credit. As always, a president seeks credit for booms and gets blamed for busts, no matter that many factors beyond the President's decisions are relevant.

But, the Best-and-Brightest are not looking at the whole picture.

To understand why, consider this delineation of the three levels of wealth:

• Level 1. I’m not stressed out about debt: People who no longer have to worry about their credit card debt or student loans.

• Level 2. I don’t care what stuff costs in restaurants: How much you spend on a particular meal isn’t impacted by your finances.

• Level 3. I don’t care what a vacation costs: People who don’t care how expensive the hotel is or which flight they go on.

Now, fold in the indicators that the brain trust isn't highlighting: the "forever" effect of the high inflation we endured the past couple years, and the high interest rates used to tame that inflation.

Assess the economy from the perspective of a Level 1 person, who is apt to be more worried about things like grocery store costs than wealthier people - and most of us know how inflation has jacked up food prices. Assess it, as well, from the perspective of those looking to buy cars or homes or to borrow money at the consumer level for other purposes.

Behold one of the great ironies of Democratic governance. The party that makes so much noise about wealth inequality doesn't realize (or won't admit to itself) that its policies are benefiting the wealthy but not the masses. That the Best-and-Brightest are usually wealthy or at the minimum Level 2 is, of course, no coincidence.

In other words, the economy is going great... for the well-to-do that are increasingly the core constituency of the Democratic Party.

Even there, however, telltales disagree with the Biden narrative.

• Big Tech is laying off, Big Banking and Big Law firms are tightening their belts.

• Commercial lending is in the pits.

• Office vacancy rates in big cities are dangerously high, and there are significant fears of a wave of commercial real estate loan defaults.

• The Fed has signaled three rate cuts this year - that it's an election year is purely a coincidence, of course - but is stalling on them because the moment they cut rates, inflation is likely to creep back up, because the government hasn't cut any of the spending programs that spawned inflation in the first place.

• Experts keep telling us that recession fears are overstated, which usually means they are not.

• Biden is only barely relenting on the anti-consumer and anti-growth energy agenda that has been a centerpiece of Bidenomics, and people are not buying the electric cars that Big Auto invested billions in building.

• "Bubble" buzz is swirling around the stock markets.

• Cities' budgets are suffering under the weight of the flood of illegals STRIKETHROUGH migrant asylum seekers.

• The abandonment of prosecution for many crimes has people feel less safe than they used to and is causing businesses to shut their doors.

Biden-era policies either caused or exacerbate all these and more.

The GDP growth, stock market rally, and robust labor market can be traced to rampant government deficit spending, which is the government essentially buying a "good" economy by burdening the nation's future. You can live high on the hog as long as your credit cards hold out, but when that well runs dry, you find yourself in a pit. Credit Americans for recognizing this, if not overtly, then in their bones.

Joe's angry befuddlement (behavior that tells its own tale) at the failure of average Joes to credit him for the illusion of a great economy is understandable self-delusion. He sees what he wants to see, finds proof that his policies are working, and in classic cognitive-dissonance fashion, ignores the inconvenient contrary indicators.

You and I don't have to buy his bullshit, of course. If he wanted to be honest - with us and with himself - he'd admit that his massive spending packages are the reason there's an outward appearance of robustness, that they were major contributors to the inflation that forced interest rates up, and that are at the root of what Eric Boehm at Reason calls a "vibescession."

He won't, because honesty is to politicians what arsenic is to the rest of us.