Economy Good Under Biden

There are plenty of social media meme’s being published right now asserting that things were better 4 years ago while Trump was in office. The reality is that while prices were lower for many things, that isn’t the whole picture. In fact some of the distortion comes from the collapse of the economy during the pandemic which caused many prices to go down due to lack of demand.

The United States added 303,000 jobs in March, the 39th straight month of growth. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent. There are 2.6 million more Americans employed today than there were at the previous peak in February 2020, just before the pandemic set in.

Another economic indicator is GDP. To be fair, rather than compare numbers from 2020 when the pandemic depressed everything let’s use 2019 instead. The fourth quarter of 2019 gross domestic product (GDP) was $21.9 trillion, in the fourth quarter of 2023 it was $27.96 trillion or an increase of more than 27%.

Mortgage rates which seem high are below rates from 1980 to 2010. We’re just spoiled by the rates since the sub-prime mortgage crisis that wrecked banks from 2008 to 2010. I well remember as I re-financed my mortgage in 2010 and shortened the term from 30 years to 15 years while only paying an extra $100 a month.

On April 1 of 2024 the national average for a gallon of gas was just under $3.64 and no one likes that. We must remember the price of anything is a result of the tension between supply and demand. The U.S. is both the number one producer and consumer of oil. Unlike most nations we produce more than we use. The price of gasoline is up because demand around the world is up and some of our oil is being sold to other countries. After adjusting for inflation gas was almost $4 a gallon back in 2007. Don’t let anyone tell you that the high price of gas is Joe Biden’s fault.

For those invested in the stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor’s 500 indexes are both now at historic highs due to record profits. As a reminder those profits are a significant cause of the inflation mentioned earlier. Let’s call it greed-flation.

If you’re going to complain about the high price of groceries and gas you should also complain about the fact that minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour and many better paying jobs haven’t seen pay increases even as businesses see record profits. While it’s true that over the last 12 months wages have risen nearly 2% more than inflation each month, over the previous 2 years inflation was higher than wage increases so we have some catching up to do. Now remember who controls the state government in Texas, its Republicans, and they have zero interest in raising minimum wage regardless of how high prices rise. Republicans also control the House in our federal legislature and those folks also refuse to raise the minimum wage.

If you want to place blame for high prices, put that blame where it belongs, greedy businesses raising prices to increase profits while not raising wages to keep up and Republican politicians who think the same minimum wage from 2009 is appropriate today even though total inflation since then has been over 43%.

You have an opportunity to fix the imbalance between corporate profits and wages by electing Democrats to all levels of government this November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 10, 2024

Concept for a New Economy

The economies of developed countries will soon reach a point where there aren’t enough private sector jobs to employ most people. The reason for this is that automation replacing workers in factories is the end, it’s just the beginning. Already computerized systems have replaced humans writing financial reports and similar documents. Brick and mortar retail stores and the sales staff and management that go with them are being replaced by Amazon, eBay and other websites. Dozens of chains have been scaling back or have ceased to exist over the last decade.

Someone countries are considering “Universal Basic Income” as a way to address the fact that large percentages of their populations will likely never be able to find a job because those jobs simply don’t exist. In the United States I don’t see that idea being accepted due to the generally accepted notion that everyone should work if they can. There’s also a feeling of value that our culture imparts for doing meaningful work. I think I have a better idea, one that addresses all concerns.

Those that are not otherwise employable in the private sector should be able to earn a living working for their communities. In a sense this idea is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps and Civil Works Administration of the Great Depression era. We have national and state parks suffering from years worth of maintenance backlogs. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt set out to put Americans to work his administration found a wide range of valuable tasks for people to do and many of those projects still benefit us today nearly a century later. Have you ever driven across a bridge with CWA impressed in the cement?

We have infrastructure like roads and bridges, remember the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi river in Minnesota that collapsed a decade ago, that need to be replaced. We have water lines, think Flint Michigan, in older cities that need replacement. There are schools and hospitals that are crumbling all over America. What if we put people to work rebuilding and expanding those things?

We have childcare shortages such that people who have jobs or the skills to get one can’t find childcare at an affordable price. We have eldercare shortages such that assisted living facilities and nursing homes are not only very expensive but also only provide medically necessary care. We have classroom over-crowding due to insufficient numbers of teachers and aides. What if we put people to work caring for others, providing day care and pre-school assistants, teacher’s aides, nurse’s aide’s and companions for folks in eldercare facilities?

We have much to gain by insuring that people have honorable work to do and a living wage is earned for doing it. We can simultaneously reduce or eliminate poverty while increasing empathy in our society which likely would reduce many forms of crime and substance abuse. Conservatives could stop complaining about paying people who don’t contribute and liberals could stop worrying that people aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve to earn a living.

Published in the Seguin Gazette May 19, 2017

A "miracle" that never really was

The “Texas Miracle” is no more, in fact it never really was. Texas women are suffering high rates of death in child birth or shortly thereafter and our economy has soured with the downturn in oil and natural gas prices.

Recent reports show maternal death rates have doubled in recent years making Texas the most deadly state in which to give birth. In fact if we were a stand alone nation we’d be worse than every other developed country. There is as yet no definitive answer to why more Texas women die in child birth or for associated reasons but it’s not hard to imagine that the fact that Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the nation might have something to do with it. You can thank our Republican leadership for that since our governor and state legislature have refused to accept Medicaid expansion even though the federal government will cover 90% of the cost.

There is also a likely connection to our Republican led government cutting funding to Planned Parenthood and other providers of women’s health care. There is certainly a connection to the increased number of births covered by Medicaid.  

When running for governor in 2014 Greg Abbott promised continued growth of the economy and that we would be number one in the United States. He has failed miserably; Texas has fallen from third in the nation to twenty first. Republicans have taken credit for a strong economy in Texas for the last 20 years which they claimed was due to a “business friendly” read low tax, low service government. No change in either taxes or services have occurred, the rest of the country continues to recover from the 2007 Wall Street implosion and yet Texas’ economy is well on its way to the bottom.

When Greg Abbott sought the governorship in 2014 he said he didn’t want Texas to be like California, well he got is wish. Massachusetts, Oregon, Delaware, Colorado and California are ranked as the top five economies in the nation by Governing magazine. The one thing they all have in common is Democratic leadership in the governor’s mansion and the legislature. Some of those states have raised the minimum wage, some have increased spending on infrastructure, they’ve all accepted Medicaid expansion. Remember that expanding Medicaid not only means more people get health care it also means more people are employed providing health care and those people spend money and buy houses.

In short our Republican leadership has taken the wrong road and all of Texas is suffering for it. We have an opportunity in November to start cleaning house. The only way that happens if we all vote so take a family member, take a neighbor or take a friend and if anyone tells you that their vote doesn’t make a difference or they’re all alike remind them that we could be growing like California instead of tanking like Kansas.

The election was all about jobs, jobs, jobs so why did we elect Republicans?

In the last election the American people indicated they wanted a focus on jobs and the economy. They were so unhappy about the state of the economy and shortage of jobs that they threw out the Democratic majority in the US House and gave the Republican Party a super-majority of 101 seats in the state House. With jobs and the economy as an overwhelming mandate what did we get?

A congressional push for a five-year, $100 million plan to pour taxpayer money into a religious school voucher scheme in Washington, D.C.

A vote reaffirming the importance of "In God We Trust" as the national motto, and a call for its display in all public schools and other public buildings.

A vote to end federal support for family planning.

A federal budget bill that would end Medicare.

A state budget bill that damages public education by reducing funding 10 to 12 %. We’re already 49^th in per student spending on education.

Sharia Law bills that attempt to protect us from something that we’re already protected from by the United States Constitution’s First Amendment.

A bill to force invasive, medically unnecessary sonograms on women who wish to legally terminate their pregnancies.

I could go on but by now I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are no proposals to actually generate jobs either directly or indirectly, in fact by cutting the state education budget Texas will lose tens of thousands of jobs. So exactly why was it that Republicans were elected?