Biden’s “Economic Recovery” Deception Is Collapsing, Here’s The Truth

Via Birch Gold Group

From Brandon Smith

This month an ABC and Washington Post poll with a 37-year history asked Americans whether they were better or worse off in the two years since President Biden entered the White House.

If you were to ask Biden this question, you would be regaled with a flurry of great news about a fantastic economic recovery, epic jobs numbers, falling inflation and a dropping deficit. When you ask actual average citizens, you get a much different reply.

According to the poll, Americans say they are worse off than they have ever been –the most negative data in the poll’s history. Here are the highlights:

• Over 40% of respondents indicated their financial situation was worse under Biden.
• Only 16% people said they were better off. That’s just one in six.
• Not only that, but 60% of Democrats polled said they did not want Joe Biden as their candidate in 2024.
• Even more (62%) of respondents would be disappointed or even angry if Biden remained in the White House for a second term.

This is astounding.

How does one reconcile this reality with the White House’s economic claims? If this is the “greatest economic recovery ever,” then why are so many Americans in financial misery?

The number of lies surrounding Biden’s economic platforms are too many to count, but I will try to go through the key arguments that the White House is promoting these days and outline why these claims are manipulative or outright fraudulent. Let’s get started…

Record job creation

Biden and his team are quick to suggest that data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates an incredible jobs recovery which he is happy to take credit for.

“You don’t have a recession when you have 500,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program last Monday. “What I see is a path in which inflation is declining significantly and the economy is remaining strong.”

This is coming from the same woman who denied for years that inflation was real and a threat to our financial system. In May 2021, when headline inflation hit 5% (that’s two and a half times the Fed’s target rate), she told us:

I don’t think there’s going to be an inflationary problem.

There was already an inflationary problem!

She only, reluctantly, admitted inflation exited after it hit 40 year highs.

So, keep in mind that, if we take her words at face value, Yellen’s is either an idiot or a liar.

These kinds of statements are made while deliberately ignoring the context and details of the situation.

Remember, over 25 million jobs were lost on Biden’s watch during his aggressive push for nation-wide Covid lockdowns. These lockdowns were useless in stopping the spread of the virus, but they were very effective at killing the economy.

Many conservative red states defied Biden, Fauci and the CDC and reopened after a few months when it became clear that Covid wasn’t exactly Ebola. Meanwhile, blue states languished in lockdowns and irrational fear for much longer. Only recently have most U.S. states backed away from the Covid hysteria, and so jobs are returning.

Let’s look at the numbers: 25 million jobs were lost, and now we have 12 million job openings. Hardly anything to brag about, but when you pretend the lockdowns never happened, you could mistake this for actual progress.

Beyond the return of less than half the jobs destroyed during the pandemic panic, there is also the issue of some $8 trillion stimulus spending in less than two years. The lockdowns could not have happened without the combination of Covid checks and “Paycheck Protection Program” (PPP) loans. The blizzard of cash printed as Covid stimulus triggered the inflation avalanche we’re experiencing now. Part of this process happened under Trump’s watch, to be sure. However, it was Biden and the leftists that struggled to maintain the mandates and lockdowns even when all the data showed they were useless.

With bank accounts fattened by $8 trillion in fresh money pumped directly into the system, retail and service industries exploded in 2021. People rushed to buy stuff. Prices exploded, too, because supply of goods could not meet demand. The problem is that the jobs created during this event are a temporary condition of inflation, rather than a natural result of a recovering and growing economy.

In other words, Biden’s jobs market is an illusion built on a highly inflationary $8 trillion heap of freshly-printed money.

I predict we will see considerable job losses this year as savings accumulated from Covid stimulus run out and as consumer credit runs dry. (Unless short-sighted consumers continue running up credit card bills and cashing out their home equity, in which case the recession to come will be even more devastating.)

Then, there is the issue of potentially fake or exaggerated BLS jobs data. Only last year the Philly Fed had to revise and refute White House labor gains and cut over 1 million jobs from their stats in the process.

This is a massive discrepancy. Though it’s impossible to prove at this stage, I suspect that there is a concerted agenda to lie about employment numbers, either to make the Biden “recovery” look good, or to provide cover for continued interest rate hikes despite economic weakness.

If the BLS numbers are accurate, then why are a record number of Americans worse off under Biden?

One, the jobs being created are low wage.

Two, the numbers are fake.

Three, inflation is so high that wages cannot keep up with the increase in prices.

Falling inflation?

If we calculate inflation according to the standards set during the last stagflation crisis in the 1970s and early 1980’s, then the real inflation rate is closer to 15%.

Today’s official CPI (according to the new calculation methods) is only 6.5%.

Did inflation fall recently?

Yes, but not because of Biden.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to nearly 5%. We must remember this is after keeping rates at near zero for around 14 years. The Fed is expected to continue to push rates as high as 6% this year.

Higher rates mean far less lending and much less spending. They also mean that corporate stock buybacks which have relied on cheap loans are going to die out, causing stock markets to fall.

In general, all of this will trigger massive job losses.

A falling budget deficit?

Again, this has nothing to do with Biden. He tried to spend more and add more to the deficit. Despite his many promises, he is not cutting spending or, in any way, reducing the national debt.

So why is the deficit falling? Most likely because the Fed is raising interest rates and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow and spend. Higher interest rates raise the federal government’s borrowing costs and future interest payments on the national debt.

As rates rise, government programs must curb spending – meaning they are forced to reduce the budget deficit instead of spending money they don’t have.

The brutal economic reality

U.S. retail sales just witnessed the biggest decline in two years, indicating that the effects of Covid stimulus are well and truly over. Manufacturing tumbled in December, defying Biden’s assertions that he is bringing back domestic production.

Consumer borrowing plunged at the height of the Christmas spending season, proving that shoppers are either financially tapped out or bracing themselves for an imminent recession.

U.S. imports of goods have tumbled and shipping is down across the board, yet another sign that the U.S. (if not the global) economy is stalling.

Five-figure layoffs in the tech sector have become so common they’re no longer receiving dedicated headlines. In the six weeks of 2023, 350 companies have eliminated over 104,000 jobs. This may be a canary in the coal mine for what is about to happen to the rest of the jobs market this year.

Furthermore, inflation remains high enough that 56% of Americans say they cannot keep up with the cost of living, and 77% are worried about their future financial prospects.

This information does not jive with Biden’s story at all.

There is no recovery, we are in the middle of a stagflation crisis mixed with elements of a growing recession.

I fear that 2023 will be the year that the recovery narrative collapses. You won’t hear about it from the mainstream media, either, because the Biden regime will seek to hide the implosion for as long as possible.

The only good news is that the virtual blackout on real economic news, the ceaseless “This is fine” message blanketing media outlets (intended to sedate and delude voters for as long as possible) will probably help limit the surges in gold price for a few months. Until the true economic situation decays to the point that no amount of optimistic press conferences can cover up the extent of the damage.

That gives those of us who see through the White House’s “recovery” narrative an opportunity to take advantage of the collective delusion and diversify our savings before prices explode.

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