Biden And His Surrogates Can't Convince Americans Inflation Isn't A Problem
Today, whichever Zoomer runs Biden's X account tried to downplay inflation again and got fact checked by Zero Hedge.
Fact-check:
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 29, 2024
1. Prices have never been higher and are starting to accelerate to the upside again
2. All the jobs created in the past year have been part time.
3. There has been zero job growth for native-born Americans since 2018; all jobs have gone to immigrants (mostly illegal… https://t.co/MeX7KhbaHl pic.twitter.com/OJI79p9oLp
The full text of that Zero Hedge post:
Fact-check:
- Prices have never been higher and are starting to accelerate to the upside again
- All the jobs created in the past year have been part time.
- There has been zero job growth for native-born Americans since 2018; all jobs have gone to immigrants (mostly illegal immigrants)
- Real wages have not only been negative for most of the Biden presidency, they just turned negative again.
Getting dunked on like this by more knowledgeable/honest accounts has been a recent hazard for Bidenomics defenders--it even happened to Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman recently. Let's look at the buzzsaw he ran into on X below, and then we'll close with a brief trading update.
Why Their Sophistry Doesn't Work On Inflation
All the economic and statistical sophistry employed by Biden defenders fails because Americans know what they pay for things now, and remember what they paid for them in the recent past.
I don’t care what some stupid graph says about groceries. Every Sunday I get this box of donuts as a treat for my kids. Pre-covid it was $2.99. Now: $6.59 https://t.co/Lm2QpoWSzg pic.twitter.com/uSDNfYn2ca
— Mark Allan Bovair (@markallanbovair) February 25, 2024
Nevertheless, New Hampshire Representative Travis Corcoran (who's also an engineer, farmer, and author) took the time to drill down on Paul Krugman's post and expose it for the sophistry it was.
2/
— ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs (@MorlockP) February 25, 2024
The graph he is using comes from herehttps://t.co/BHiXa8ekeb
Scroll to the bottom and find
> Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Release: Consumer Price Index
4/
— ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs (@MorlockP) February 25, 2024
Scroll down, find this
> Additionally, CE public use microdata (PUMD) for 1980 through 2022 are available at https://t.co/NePw2QhpWg. The PUMD includes Interview Survey files, Diary Survey files,
6/
— ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs (@MorlockP) February 25, 2024
click that, back up, google for "PUMD"
end up here https://t.co/Ccw1YHIRir
download file ce-pumd-interview-diary-dictionary.xlsx
open it in Open Office, Control-F for "food at home" pic.twitter.com/tfE1eu7qEY
8/
— ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs (@MorlockP) February 25, 2024
Let's say that you used to eat 10 units of grains ($1 each) and 5 units of beef ($5 each), for total spending of $35.
Let's now say that prices doubled (grains $2, beef $10).
10/
— ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs (@MorlockP) February 25, 2024
...and yet grocery store prices are up 2x and your quality of life is down.
Lying liars lie with statistics.
Assume that everyone in the media is lying to you, and seek out primary source data.
— ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs (@MorlockP) February 25, 2024
The one saving grace for investors during Bidenomics is the inflation has applied to stocks too. Below is a quick look at how a handful of those stocks--our top ten names from late August--performed over the last six months.
Top Names Performance Update
As regular readers know, the Portfolio Armor web app uses its gauges of past returns and options market sentiment to generate our top ten names each week. These are the securities our system estimates will have the highest returns over the next six months. On August 17th of last year, we posted our top ten names as of then ("Top Names, 8/24/2023"):
Screen capture via the Portfolio Armor web app on 8/24/2023
Over the next six months, our top ten names from August 24th were up 66.22%, on average, versus up 17.13% for SPY.
We'll be posting our current top ten names Thursday night. Feel free to subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below, if you'd like a heads up when we post them.
If You Want To Stay In Touch
You can scan for optimal hedges for individual securities, find our current top ten names, and create hedged portfolios on our website. You can also follow Portfolio Armor on Twitter here, or become a free subscriber to our trading Substack using the link below (we're using that for our occasional emails now).
