Harris Resorts to Wishcraft in Pittsburgh to Win Over Business Leaders
Vice President Kamala Harris attempted to transition her public image from a leftwing progressive to a pragmatic, pro-business candidate this week, deploying a barrage of falsehoods and misleading statements but very little policy detail in a speech at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh.
“I am a capitalist,” Harris declared.
This is the latest example of a strategy we’ve frequently discussed at Breitbart Business Digest. It’s really a form of magical thinking, as if uttering the right words will cast a spell that will shape reality. We saw the Biden-Harris administration deployed this word-sorcery several times when inflation was one of their biggest problems and when it found the public’s dissatisfaction with the state of the economy inconvenient.
“We have described this in the past as wishcraft rather than statecraft. It holds that public opinion is swayed not by policy or reality but by the words used to describe it. This is a form of magical thinking in which the right combination of words actually changes reality. The world is simply ‘will and representation,’ as the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer famously claimed in a book by that title,” we wrote back in January.
As we detailed in yesterday’s Breitbart Business Digest, Harris this week cited an analyst note from Goldman Sachs that argued she would be better for the economy. At least twice, she falsely claimed that economists at Goldman had predicted Trump would cause the economy to contract and trigger a recession next year. In fact, they only predicted slightly lower growth under Trump, largely due to a temporary drag from a smaller labor supply due to tighter border controls and also their subscription to the view that tariffs would hurt the economy.
Harris has tried to deploy the Goldman note and similar analysis from Moody’s Analytics, run by Democrat economist Mark Zandi, to show that there is a consensus in the business community that she will do a better job on the economy. That, however, is false. While large parts of the U.S. business community may not want tariffs and see open borders as generating both cheap labor and demand for their products and services, the overwhelming evidence is that Trump is still viewed as better for the economy.
Take the latest survey of chief financial officers from CNBC. It found that 55 percent of CFOs see Trump as better on the economy and inflation. Just 17 percent said that Harris is better.
One reason for that is that the financial officers of corporate America know that inflation, interest rates, tax policy, and regulation are far more important to their businesses than an increase in duties on imports. A 10 percent or even 20 percent tariff on imports, which make up just a small part of business activity in the U.S., pales in comparison to the difference between Trump’s 15 percent proposed corporate tax rate and Harris’s 28 percent.
The numbers make this clear. In the survey, 38 percent of CFOs said inflation and interest rates are the most important issues to their businesses. Twenty-four percent said tax policy and regulation. Just seven percent said tariffs.
While CFOs do not account for many votes, they do have a large influence on economic growth through their investment decisions. So, the fact that 55 percent of CFOs think Harris is likely to win—versus 31 percent for Trump—is probably already acting as a drag on the economy.
A Rare Bipartisan Improvement in Consumer Sentiment
As the U.S. presidential election enters its final stretch, something unexpected is happening: Americans are feeling slightly better about the economy.
Perhaps even more extraordinary, for the first time in several months, the improvement in opinions about the economy is being felt across the political spectrum.
The University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment rose 3.2 percent in September, hitting its highest level since March.
“This increase was seen across all education groups and political affiliations,” Joanne Hsu, the director of the survey, said in a statement. “Furthermore, all five index components gained, led by a 6 percent surge in one-year business expectations.”
Sentiment is still pretty depressed. At 70.1, the index is down seven points from where it was as recently as April. It is nine points below where it was when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office in January 2021 and just about even to where it was in the worst month of the pandemic. It is up by nearly 20 points from June 2022, the peak of inflation and down around 30 points from the prevailing level during the Trump administration.
The results of the consumer sentiment survey are always skewed by partisanship, with Republicans feeling better when a Republican is in the White House and Democrats feeling better when a Democrat is in the White House. Back in September of 2020, for instance, sentiment among Republicans stood at 98.9 while sentiment among Democrats registered at 67.7. By the following March, GOP sentiment had crashed to 67.4, and Democrat sentiment soared to 102.5.
In September, however, sentiment rose among both Republicans and Democrats. What’s more, the improvement could be seen in both the assessments of current conditions and expectations. Among independents, however, sentiment only improved on the expectations scale. The current conditions measure actually worsened.
There has not been a bipartisan improvement in consumer sentiment since March. In the intervening months, gains among Democrats tended to be met with declines among Republicans and vice versa. Most strikingly, Democrat sentiment hit its low point for the year in July, when it became obvious to the country that the then-Democrat nominee and still current president Joe Biden was too infirm to run for a second term. That was driven by a sharp plunge in the Democrat expectations index, mirrored by a rise in Republican expectations.
What’s driving this? If we had to guess, it would be that as we come closer to election day, both sides are hunkering down and expecting to win.
