Update to A ‘Biden Boom’ And Americans Haven’t Yet Noticed.
MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez sitting in for Ari Melber on MSNBC’s The Beat did a fact check on the media’s biased coverage of the “Biden Boom” economy. (unfortunately, this video is not available.) What Menendez illustrates is how the mainstream media parrots the propaganda put out by the Fascist Fox News and its annual “war on Christmas” nonsense. This explains poll numbers which demonstrate a clear cognitive dissonance among Americans about the economy.
There is a clear media bias against the Biden administration as Dana Milbank of the Washington Post recently documented. The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof.
Coming up: fact-checking a FOX News attack on Biden. Who`s the real Grinch? We have the tapes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The much predicted crisis didn`t occur. Packages are moving. Gifts are being delivered. Shelves are not empty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: Today, President Biden stating some facts about a supply chain crisis that never quite materialized.
Several weeks ago, right-wing pundits pounced on economic fears to ramp up the annual war on Christmas, this time painting Biden as the Grinch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Earlier CNN video from October Right-wing media accusing Biden of being ‘the Grinch’.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kids nationwide will have fewer gifts under the tree, thanks to the Grinch in the White House.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Your Christmas presents for your kids, they may not arrive on time or even at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are now officially the White House that stole Christmas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joe Biden may have been the Grinch who stole Christmas.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS: The Biden who stole Christmas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: Those attacks were ridiculous.
And even good-faith fears proved wrong. The New York Times noting the Christmas gifts are arriving on time and fears that a disrupted supply chain would wreak havoc over the holiday turned out to be wrong.
[Why Christmas Gifts Are Arriving on Time This Year: Fears that a disrupted supply chain could wreak havoc on the logistics industry over the holiday turned out to be wrong as many Americans ordered early and shopped in stores.]
UPS and the U.S. Postal Service reporting that 90 percent of their packages have been delivered on time, FedEx right behind them, 97 percent. That`s better than before the pandemic. Today, there`s also some fact-checking to do what Biden`s critics are claiming about the economy.
Bloomberg reporting the nation`s economy improved more invited in Biden`s first 12 months than any president in the last 50 years.
[Biden’s Economic Performance Has Proved Unbeatable.]
Biden`s administration also announcing the extension of the student loan payment pause until May.
Joining me now, Eric Boehlert, founder and editor of PressRun.media.
Eric, you think FOX News going to admit Biden is not the Grinch?
ERIC BOEHLERT, FOUNDER AND EDITOR, PRESSRUN.MEDIA: Oh, FOX News, of course, never admits.
But it wasn`t just FOX News. It wasn`t just the right-wing media. I mean, the mainstream press really hit this angle hard. In October, a reporter from a mainstream news organization asked Jen Psaki if President Biden would personally guarantee that every package would be delivered by Christmas.
sorry DC media, Biden doesn't run Amazon's shipping and handling out of the West Wing.
or, what happened to the Biden Xmas "crisis"? @TheBeatWithAri pic.twitter.com/QQICAjnMJ8
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) December 23, 2021
That`s one of the strangest questions I have ever heard at the White House press briefing. The president of the United States does not dictate private enterprise. He doesn`t run shipping and handling for Amazon out of the West Wing.
But there seemed to be a real interest to really hammer Biden on the economy. And, as you just pointed out, there`s a real disconnect. I mean, jobs are up, wages are up, GDP is up, consumer spending is up. If he were a Republican, FOX News would be putting Biden on Mount Rushmore with this economic record that he has.
But back to the supply chain, there seemed to be a real interest on FOX and other places to create these crisis. Everything was a crisis, particularly after Afghanistan, the troop pullout from August to today. Biden is just buried in all these crises. But, as you just noted, a lot of them don`t come to fruition.
And a lot of the people never say, oops, we were wrong, or, Joe Biden, you did a great job, there`s momentum, you`re doing a wonderful job with the economy. So he`s kind of getting the short end of the stick, I think.
MENENDEZ: Well, you had the president himself touting his administration`s economic achievements thus far.
BOEHLERT: Yes.
MENENDEZ: Take a listen.
HERE IS BIDEN’S FULL REMARKS:
BIDEN: And at the end of 2021, with what one analysts described as the strongest first-year economic track record of any president in the last 50 years, nearly six million new jobs, a record number for a new president, because of my staff and my Cabinet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: So I think there`s the question for the administration about how you talk about macro numbers like that, while talking about the reality that gas is expensive, grocery bills are climbing, and that that is very often what people are actually talking about at their kitchen table, more than some of these other economic indicators.
BOEHLERT: Yes, I think Joe Biden should take more credit.
I mean, obviously, he doesn`t want to be like Trump in pretending everything that revolves around him. He`s not an egomaniac like Trump was, but he ought to take — he ought to take credit for some really good news. And this is really good news.
Yes, inflation exists. He`s not ducking that. He`s been straightforward that it`s going to be a problem for a while. But this economy is rebounding so much faster than anyone ever thought, if you go back to April or March, and he ought to take credit for it.
MENENDEZ: Eric, I have one more question. It is a yes-or-no answer only.
Did you get all your packages on time?
BOEHLERT: Every one. Every one.
MENENDEZ: Refusing the yes-or-no answer.
Eric Boehlert, thank you so much.
BOEHLERT: Thanks.
Fox News is a malignant cancer trying to destroy American democracy for a white Christian nationalist GQP authoritarian regime. The lazy mainstream media is failing Americans when it parrots the fascist propaganda airing on Fox News. The mainstream media should be doing everything in its power to discredit and to destroy this fascist propaganda outlet pushing poisonous misinformation and disinformation to the American people.
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The average year-to-year growth in holiday sales has been +/- 5% for as long as I can remember. The AP reports, “Despite supply issues and omicron, holiday sales rise 8.5%”, https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-health-business-holidays-05a3bc6aff753ffd37cab20de1d7b066
Holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years, even as shoppers grappled with higher prices, product shortages and a raging new COVID-19 variant in the last few weeks of the season, according to one spending measure.
Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks all kinds of payments including cash and debit cards, reported Sunday that holiday sales had risen 8.5% from a year earlier. Mastercard SpendingPulse had expected an 8.8% increase.
The results, which covered Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, were fueled by purchases of clothing and jewelry.
Holiday sales were up 10.7% compared with the pre-pandemic 2019 holiday period.
By category, clothing rose 47%, jewelry 32%, electronics 16%. Online sales were up 11% from a year ago and 61% from 2019. Department stores registered a 21% increase over 2020.
[A] broader picture will be revealed next month when the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, comes out with its combined two-month results in mid-January. The results will be based on an analysis of the November and December sales figures from the Commerce Department. Analysts will also be dissecting the fourth-quarter financial results from different retailers that are slated to be released in February.
[T]he National Retail Federation said early in December that holiday sales were on track to beat its already record-breaking forecasts for an increase of 8.5% to 10.5% compared to the year-ago period. Holiday sales increased 8.2% in 2020 when shoppers, locked down during the early part of the pandemic, splurged on pajamas and home goods, mostly online.
The group expects that online and other non-store sales, which are included in the total, will increase between 11% and 15%. The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. Holiday sales have averaged gains of 4.4% [below average] over the past five years, according to the group.
David Frum writes at the Atlantic, “Biden Won Big With a Bad Hand”, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/joe-manchin-biden-majority-agenda/621085/
(excerpt)
Relative to its strength in Congress, the Biden administration has proved outstandingly successful. In 11 months, Biden has done more with 50 Democratic senators than Barack Obama did with 57. He signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill in March 2021: $1,400-per-person direct payments, $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, an extension of supplemental unemployment-insurance benefits and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. He signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill in November. He signed some 75 executive orders, many of them advancing liberal immigration goals. He’s also won confirmation for some 40 federal judges, more than any first-year president since Ronald Reagan, and twice as many as Donald Trump confirmed in his first year with a 54-vote Senate majority.
[I]nstead of fulminating against Manchin for calling quits when he did, Democrats might want to reflect on how much of their agenda got enacted only thanks to the team spirit of a senator from a state that Trump won in 2020 by 39 points.
Anybody can win a poker game with a good hand. It takes a real maestro to play a bad one.
Biden won a bigger pool with worse cards than any Democratic president ever. He won that pool because Manchin gave Biden more loyalty under more adverse conditions than the moderate Democrats of 2009 gave to President Obama.
Perhaps it’s not the nature of Democrats to appreciate the glass half full. But half full it is.
The Democrats have a year remaining in the present Congress. That’s too little time to waste on recrimination, but time enough to secure voting rights, to accelerate the shift to carbon-zero fuels, and to complete and publish the investigation into the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021. A rebuff is not a retreat. It’s a sign to proceed in a different direction.
Jennifer Rubin writes, “Biden gets an early Christmas gift: Good economic news”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/22/biden-gets-an-early-christmas-gift-good-economic-news/
Presidents have some control over fiscal policy, but markets, the Federal Reserve and, yes, the state of the pandemic have a lot more say on how the economy is performing. Nevertheless, if President Biden can be bashed for bad economic news during his presidency (e.g., inflation), then he also should get some credit for successes. And right now, there is plenty for him to crow about.
Heading into the new year, the economy looks in better shape than Biden’s legislative agenda. The Wall Street Journal reports: “A booming U.S. economy is rippling around the world, leaving global supply chains struggling to keep up and pushing up prices. The force of the American expansion is also inducing overseas companies to invest in the U.S., betting that the growth is still accelerating and will outpace other major economies.”
With a projected 7 percent annualized growth rate for the fourth quarter, the United States is running circles around Europe and China. That relative strength against the rest of the world, reflected in a strong dollar that lowers the cost of imports for U.S. consumers, matters greatly.
The economy grew 2.3 percent in the third quarter (higher than the expected 2.1 percent). Moreover, for all the talk of inflation and the pandemic, consumer confidence is through the roof. ABC News reports: “The Conference Board, a business research group, said Wednesday that its consumer confidence index — which takes into account consumers’ assessment of current conditions and the their outlook for the future — rose to 115.8 in December, the highest reading since July.”
That economic exuberance is driven in part by a drop in gas prices. The White House can now boast that gas prices are down nearly 10 cents from last month. As it noted in a recent statement, “The average price at the pump is now $3.32. This price is in line with the real price of gasoline over the previous ten years from 2011-2020.” Next year, gas is expected to drop below $3 per gallon.
Furthermore supply chain woes are showing signs of abating. As Biden said at a meeting on Wednesday with his supply chain task force, “Packages are moving, gifts are being delivered and shelves are not empty.” He was also able to point to concrete steps his administration has taken to address the issue, such as obtaining the ports’ agreement to operate 24/7.
If nothing else, by highlighting the problem and making “supply chains” a household word, the administration helped consumers, suppliers and transit companies avoid holiday calamities. The New York Times reports, “Many consumers helped themselves by shopping early and in person.” Retailers and consumers planned ahead, and delivery companies hired appropriately. “By some measures, in fact, they have done a better job this holiday season than even before the pandemic,” the Times reports.
[As] a political matter, the improved economic situation helps the White House in a couple ways. A breather from interminable bad news cycles gives Biden more political muscle in dealing with his own party and in painting the Republicans as rooting against the economy. And any dampening of inflation fears may help Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) get to a “yes” on some sort of Build Back Better deal. (Being blamed for slowing down an economic recovery may be a powerful incentive to keep BBB from collapsing.)
Coming on the heels of a major political setback in Congress [Manchin sabotage], the cheery economic news could not have come at a better time for Biden. Now, he just has to keep the momentum going into 2022.
Huffington Post reports, “Biden Promised ‘Normal’ And Got It: Getting Blamed For Things Outside His Control”, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-bad-polling_n_61c39be2e4b0bb04a62d0f93
After promising America a return to normal following four years of his predecessor’s chaos, President Joe Biden is closing out his first year in office getting a harsh dose of presidential normalcy: getting blamed for things beyond his control.
Biden won approval of a stimulus package in his first months, a bipartisan infrastructure bill more recently, ended a 20-year-old war in Afghanistan and oversaw the vaccination of more than 200 million Americans against the coronavirus. Despite this, he is finishing 2021 with an approval rating not much better than that of Donald Trump, whose unhinged language and behavior kept his approval below 50% the entire four years of his term.
[R]egardless of the underlying reasons, Americans are blaming the sitting president for the fears and frustrations in their own lives — regardless of his culpability or even ability to do much about them ― is hardly a new phenomenon.
Biden’s approval numbers, which had been fairly stable in the mid-50s for his first five months in office as the economy continued to improve and the pandemic steadily receded, began falling this summer after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the arrival of the coronavirus’ delta variant.
While Biden failed to plan a more orderly departure, which culminated in the death of 13 U.S. service members in a terrorist suicide bombing, Americans also appeared to blame him for the resurgence of the theocratic Taliban, even though that result was essentially guaranteed by Trump’s agreement with that group a year and a half earlier.
Voters similarly seemed to blame Biden for letting the delta wave sweep across the country with new hospitalizations and deaths, even though its severity was helped along by a number of Republican governors who downplayed the benefits of the vaccines and fought Biden’s attempts to require them in workplaces.
But voters’ greatest discontent currently appears to be with inflation, as easily noticed prices for essentials like groceries and gasoline have risen nearly 7% from their pandemic lows a year ago as demand has returned.
[O]ne longtime Biden adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that was perhaps the one Trump trait that Democrats should emulate: taking credit for good things.
“Our side should be taking some victory laps. Instead, we’re taking time just wallowing in frustration,” the adviser said, pointing to the back-and-forth sniping over Biden’s stalled Build Back Better legislative package. “We have to shut out the voices in our party that are despondent about, God knows what ― about everything. We need to tell our story, and it’s a good story to tell.”
To an extent, Biden and his White House have already been doing this. They frequently talk about how job growth during his administration has been higher than any previous presidency — but neglect to mention that, coming out of a pandemic-induced recession, the jobs numbers really had nowhere to go but up.
Similarly, they boast about how many Americans are vaccinated against COVID today compared to how many were inoculated under Trump — but do not point out that the vaccines only became available in the final weeks of Trump’s term.
On Wednesday, the White House worked to take credit for solving a problem they had already been getting blamed for by Republicans weeks ago: the cancellation of Christmas gift-giving because of the global, post-pandemic supply chain delays.
After weeks of working to get seaports and trucking and rail lines to move more goods more quickly, the White House staged a roundtable discussion led by Biden and sent out a news release titled: “Despite Doomsday Warnings, Consumer and Supplier Data Shows That Christmas Gifts Are Arriving On Time.”
“Good news,” Psaki joked at the briefing. “We’ve saved Christmas.”