There is no arguing that prices are higher than they were 4 years ago. That’s a fact.
However, regardless of who was in office, the worldwide economy would have played out similarly to how it is today. Prices here in the United States (groceries, housing, anything really) would have been comparable under any President.
Of the 196 tracked countries around the world, all have experienced inflation in the past 4 years. The U.S. is at the bottom 37% (123rd of 196) as far as inflation goes. Of course you shouldn’t believe me and do your own research. But if you don’t want to here is one article I found that seems succinct and where I came up with the bottom 37% number https://gfmag.com/data/economic-data/worlds-highest-lowest-inflation-rates/
So why is the economy worse? Did Biden cause it? Is it because the world is laughing at the old man in office and how incompetent the U.S.? Is it because of the immigrants (which many first world countries are experiencing btw; but a story for another day).
NO.
The economy would have been as bad as you think it is because COVID disrupted supply chains. People stocked up on food, office furniture and baking goods around the world. They saved money because there was nowhere to spend it except on goods (services of all kinds were unavailable) and almost all our governments put in place some kind of allowance so people without jobs would have money. Supplies that were coming in were backed up in shipping containers at harbors trickling in very slowly and so the demand for wanted goods drove up prices. Job growth slowed around the world. People learned how to do with less very quickly. Services industries all fell.
When worldwide COVID restrictions eased, many people had saved money so they didn’t need it right away and didn’t go back to work for those 2nd jobs or back to the office when they worked remotely. Other than more money in their pockets, many people feared going back to work and getting sick from the virus. Many companies took advantage of “working from home” by hiring the best of the best for higher salaries.
When restrictions lifted around the world people emerged from their homes figuratively hungry to be back in the world and not so eager to work in it. Restaurants, travel, and tourism all surged but they hadn’t yet replenished the workforce they let go. Suddenly we couldn’t fill service level jobs and job growth hit an all time high. To keep the few service workers from not quitting or calling out sick every day, companies paid them more. Where did they get the money from to pay everyone more in the service industries and by recruiting cream of the crop workers who wanted to work from home? Well that would be through increasing the prices all through the supply chain just a bit – which ends up being a lot for that same good or service at the end of the supply chain… That would be us as the consumers.
That’s a simple explanation of something WAY more complicated. There are multiple more layers, but almost none of them have to do with anyone who runs a country. This is a worldwide issue, not just a U.S. one.
Unless you studied business or economics, you probably never really learned how the economy works. You might recall some terms from high school social studies like invisible hand and laisse faire; but how do they apply to real life for our country and our country’s place in the world?
The government itself has a great influence over the economy. Not due to Republican or Liberals who are in office, but due to how much we close or open money flow based on predictions about how the market will go. It’s a gamble. The President is not very involved in those decisions and can do very little to strong arm those decisions. The people making those gambly (not a real word) predictions are Economists who work with very complicated statistical predictions and other world-wide economists who also work with complicated predictive programs and calcuations.
It’d be less of a gamble if the United States were in a bubble, because we’d be gambling at least with the knowledge of what we know and can control. But the International market (trade, finance, stocks, reliance of companies that supply multiple countries) make it very hard to predict what will happen and how to reign in or open up money flow. Throw in stock crashes, scandals, wars, pandemics and it’s even more and more of a gamble.
Yes, there could be some change or influence by who is in office, but not as much as you think. Not enough for a normal person in the 99.9% to notice much of a difference in their household budget.
This isn’t just me being Pollyanna or not understanding how the world works.
Why not learn about why not I’m BS’ing you? There are some resources below – or you can do your own research too.
It’s fun to know how things work.
#Learning bit
#It’s fun to learn how things work
#Take a bite a day
https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/global-inflation
esterinaanderson.com 