Here’s the editors’ of the Wall Street Journal’s assessment of present U. S. inflation:
Mr. Biden can blame Mr. Putin for many things, but not U.S. inflation. The root cause is homegrown: Two years of historically easy monetary policy, and explosive federal spending that fed economic demand even though the economy had long ago emerged from the pandemic recession.
The Ukraine invasion will feed inflation in March and coming months if oil prices keep rising. But getting inflation back under control requires a U.S. policy change: Tighten monetary policy, and control federal spending.
I think that President Biden deserves his share of the blame but I think our problems are broader and shared by both political parties. We’ve had a half century of folk Keynesianism, excessive dependence on personal consumption, and an adverse balance of trade. Solving our present problems will be extremely difficult and painful.
Joe “Joey Clean Hands” Biden begs to differ with you. And by golly gosh, he’s mad.
https://twitter.com/MAGAJew2/status/1502353452227309568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1502353452227309568%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fbonchie%2F2022%2F03%2F11%2Fjoe-biden-angrily-slams-americans-for-blaming-him-for-inflation-in-lie-filled-remarks-n534771
“… I think our problems are broader and shared by both political parties.”
Of course they are. Pander for votes and contributions, spend, monetize the debt. Repeat. Sell out our productive base for cheap consumer prices. But there was a catalyst for the end of this. They engineered a hysterical and damaging response to covid for political gain, and here you go. And now its absolutely amazing that as Joe’s bargain with the devil – the greens and progs – is caving in on him, all he does is point fingers elsewhere. He is not only delusional, but apparently incapable of leading. Not a good thing for the supposed most powerful man in the world. Folksy Corn Pop stories don’t cut it in the real world.
“They engineered a hysterical and damaging response to covid for political gain”
Just out of curiosity what was that political gain? Red states did what they wanted to do and ended up with a lot more deaths. Blue states did what they wanted and ended up with many fewer deaths. So there were clearly differences in health outcomes. Political outcomes? What gains were made by Democrats? There were no major shifts. Economic outcomes? It looks like the red states started recovering sooner.
So instead of hysterical response lets phrase it as the red states were callously willing to trade lives for a better economic outcome. That sounds like a pretty specific political goal.
“Pander for votes and contributions, spend, monetize the debt.”
Weren’t you supporting those Trump tax cuts that added to our debt? Without the increase in economic growth they were supposed to provide.
Steve
Dave Schuler: Solving our present problems will be extremely difficult and painful.
All it would take is a consensus to raise taxes to cover consensus spending: military, social security, medicare. Keep in mind that the U.S. had a cash surplus as recently as 2000, so it can be done. At the time, one presidential candidate talked about allowing the surplus to accumulate (“a lock box”), while the other talked about tax cuts. The U.S. freely chose (through a quirk in the electoral system) the latter course.
Steve,
Depends on how you count. I personally think using age-adjusted death rates is best sing age is the biggest mortality factor and old people are not evenly distributed across the country.
https://www.bioinformaticscro.com/blog/states-ranked-by-age-adjusted-covid-deaths/
When you age adjust then there are no blue states in the 10 worst states. Those with the lowest death rates remain blue states. Mostly just makes Florida look better and Texas a lot worse. Of course you should also adjust for the fact that inpatient death rates were much higher the first 3 months. Then red states are even worse.
Steve
steve,
I would look at policies instead of red vs blue states. And even on red vs blue, there isn’t the neat division that you’re suggesting.
For example, I live in Colorado, a bluish state but with few mandates. Our state-level mandates ended last summer – we came out much better than other blue states with strict mandates and about the same as California, which also had strict mandates. Our neighbor to the south, New Mexico did much worse despite having some of the strictest and longest-lasting mandates of any state in the US.
If one wants to make a claim that restrictive blue state policies were better at avoiding Covid deaths, then I’d like to hear that argument, because I don’t see it in the data.
Since fairly early on I have thought that demographics was a more important determinant than policy. Climate seems to be a factor as well.
Andy: I would look at policies instead of red vs blue states.
Well, you can do that, but the correlation of COVID deaths with Trump support is quite strong, whether looking at states or at counties. It may have more to do with behavior, such as following directions concerning social policies.
Age adjusted COVID deaths:
http://zachriel.com/blog/RedBlueCOVID.png
“Twenty-eight percent of CNN/MSNBC viewers reported contracting covid, as opposed to 45% of Fox TV viewers.”
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/03/axiosipsos-poll-fewer-cnn-msnbc-viewers