Joe Biden, Alchemist? - Victor Davis Hanson

[Geee]

American Greatness

Medieval alchemists sought to turn base metals into precious metals like gold. The more the alchemists bumped into the reality that gold was an element, the more desperately they sought to find fantastic ways to fabricate the rare element out of nothing. 

Joe Biden operates on the same alchemist principles. He tries to turn his record of dross into golden success. And the more he fails, the more zealously he embraces his next new fantasy. Meanwhile,  the midterm reckoning approaches. 

Printing money, talking up low interest rates, disincentivizing work, subsidizing inactivity, and being unprepared that a pent-up, locked down, constipated economy of the past two years would eventually break out—all that resulted in January’s 7.5 percent annualized inflation rate. Unlike Joe Biden, even a child knows that too much demand and liquidity and too few available goods and services cause prices to rise. The rate of inflation is increasing at an annualized rate not seen in 40 years. And the jump already follows a prior 2021 annual rate of 6.8 percent. The prices of gas, food, and houses—the stuff of life—are collectively rising far higher than just 7.5 percent. 

 

At first, the Biden Administration attempted to turn this inflationary dross into gold. Price hikes, we were assured, were all just the worries of an elite. 

Second, inflation was merely “temporary” and “transitory,” as the rebooted system got rid of its glitches. 

Third, higher costs were good because they meant higher wages for workers (their real wages have been declining at a rate of one to two percent on an annualized basis). 

Fourth, inflation was an indicator of a “robust” Biden economy.  :snip: