I&I Editorial
If the business executives Joe Biden met with Monday are an indication of the kind of advice he’s seeking out on the economy, the country is in for trouble.
At Monday’s briefing, Biden was practically giddy about a meeting he’d had earlier in the day with CEOs at four big companies – Microsoft, The Gap, Target, and General Motors – along with five union bosses.
“It was really encouraging, quite frankly,” he said, to get “business and labor agreeing on the way forward.”
“I wish you could have all heard the conversation.”
Why these companies? Biden didn’t say. But if he wanted advice on how to grow the economy and create jobs, he picked a sorry lot to get it from.
The Gap closed 230 of its stores last year. GM’s sales have been steadily declining since 2016. Target’s annual revenue growth has been more or less flat since 2013. Microsoft’s glory days are well in the past.
As far as jobs go, the four companies had a combined loss of 10,000 jobs from 2015 to 2019 – years overall job growth topped 8% – according to data from Macrotrends. Only Microsoft created a significant number of new jobs over those years.
Biden’s choice of economic experts isn’t any more reassuring.
At the same briefing, Biden boasted that he has “laid out a plan that an independent analysis put up by Moody’s – a well-respected Wall Street firm – projected would create 18.6 million jobs.”
Actually, what Moody’s said is that if the economy were left on autopilot, it would create 11.8 million jobs over the next four years. The report claimed that Biden’s economic plans would add 6.8 million jobs on top of that.
But that number is bogus. The Moody’s report Biden referred to was compiled by Mark Zandi, a leftist economist with a horrible track record.
It was the same Mark Zandi who predicted that if Donald Trump won the 2016 election he’d cause a lengthy recession with “a lot of lost jobs, higher unemployment, higher interest rates, lower stock prices.”
Zandi predicted that in Trump’s first term the unemployment rate would be 5.7% in 2019, and climbing. Actual result: Unemployment was 3.5% at the end of 2019, and falling.
He said there’d be 146 million jobs in 2019. Actual result: 152 million.
Zandi said the economy would eke out just 2.8% real GDP growth from 2016 through 2019. Actual number: 7.7%.
He said the S&P 500 would drop 18% in Trump’s first three years. It climbed 40%.
It’s worth noting that Zandi’s latest forecast is already way off when it comes to jobs. In his September 2020 report, he said the unemployment rate for this year would be 9.1%, falling only to 8.3% for 2021.
The unemployment rate is already down to 6.9%.
Of course, Biden himself has a lousy record when predicting the impact of his favored policies on jobs. Back in 2010, for example, he boldly predicted a “summer of recovery” because much of the Obama-Biden stimulus money was set to be spent.
That summer, the economy shed 293,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, other analyses of Biden’s tax and regulatory plans show massive job losses.
The Green New Deal, which Biden has embraced despite his claims to the contrary, would cost 1.4 million jobs, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis.
An analysis by economists at Miami University and Trinity University found that Biden’s national $15 minimum wage would cost 2 million jobs by 2027.
Another study by the Hoover Institution found that Biden’s tax and regulatory agenda would kill 4.9 million jobs.
If Biden wants to create jobs, he might try listening to business owners who’ve been creating them over the past four years. Of course, those people would tell Biden to stick with Trump’s economic policies.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Get used to it. Biden may still become the next president in spite of all the hype to the contrary. I hope that Trump prevails but with the left using threats and intimidation on witnesses, on his legal team, and having destroyed actual ballots for Trump, the reality is that the path is not as clear as all the bravado would have us believe.
America needs Trump to win. America needs Georgia to hold an honest Senate race. Neither seem certain at this point in time.
GE was once the largest, most profitable, and BEST business in the world. Then a Socialist became CEO. If Biden emerges as President, we can expect the same thing for America.
GM instead of Tesla. GAP instead of Amazon. If mark zandi can make such correlations with a straight face what’s that tell you about their agenda?
They don’t care about workers, they pretend to care. It’s all about the Benjamins to the ultra wealthy libs. Just yesterday an IBD study showed how much angst was being felt by those who earn less than 75K a year. Above that libs are cheering. Hey I’m for economic recovery on both sides of the isle. But what would they have said from 2016-2020 about such a report? Would they be expressing concern about wealth inequality? No they’d be SHOUTING anger from the roof tops. The View, Madow, Cuomo…and most especially Mark Zandi who be demanding reparations for Victims Of Capitalism!
Goverment Motors is junk. I’m too lazy to learn Linux but there are some versions with a GUI that looks just like Windows.
After being approached by rude panhandlers at the local Target it became a no go zone and this was before everyone in the same bathroom.
Maybe esteemed party member comrade kommissar Barnie Sandlers could be the jobs czar?
I want my EBT card charged up and Jomala should use the pen and phone and make it usable at the dispensary.
GM will make electric cars if given more taxpayer dough?
“He calls the shots and he intends to keep it thatta’ way! What’s good for General Bullmoose, is good for the USA!” — from the musical/film of Al Kapp’s “Lil’ Abner” comic strip.
Kapp was a classic “New Deal” Democrat when the movie was written. He’d be gobsmacked to see General Bullmoose’s heirs boarding the progressive gravy train.
Why didn’t he talk to the folks at Solyndra?