"You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In Between"
Johnny Mercer, 1944
"You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In Between"
Joe Biden is miserable at self promotion. He paints a glass-half-empty message. He can fix that.
We had a master salesman as president for four years, so of course Biden looks bad in comparison, but Biden is objectively bad at it. The overall tone from the White House is one of frustrations at legislation stalled, nominations blocked, COVID re-emerging. Biden makes things seem worse than they are. Then the Kabul airport, on top of all that.
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| Stock market: up every month since Biden inauguration |
The stock market rises and falls, but under Biden it has risen every single month. Is that sleepy incompetence? Here is the question he can ask: Are you better off today than you were a year ago? Almost certainly yes. What would Trump have done? We saw the answer. He took full credit for it. Biden has an opportunity here to say we are building back America.
Unemployment rate. Meanwhile, here is a chart of the unemployment rate in the U.S. produced by the St. Louis Fed.
The chart goes back just over 12 years. The Obama years saw a long unbroken reduction of the unemployment rate. The Trump years continued this trend for three years, then the COVID spike to 15 percent. Notice the unbroken reduction in the unemployment rate during the Biden months on the right of the chart. Workers are reconnecting with jobs. Burger King is advertising $15 an hour to start, entry level, they train. What would Trump do? We know. We saw him do it. He bragged about the declining unemployment rate. Biden can do it, too.
COVID. Meanwhile, during Biden's term of office the U.S. has risen to vaccination of 69% of America's adults.
A poll by NBC news Click showed this breakdown of people vaccinated for COVID.
All adults-- 69%
Whites-- 66%
Blacks-- 76%
Latinos 71%
Democrats 88%
2020 Biden voters 91%
Republicans 55%
2020 Trump voters 50%
The vaccines appear to work, and team blue is getting the shot. Republicans have a hard message to sell: "They can't make you get a shot to keep you healthy, and besides, it is your right to spread disease." Team red is succeeding in frustrating team blue--a win for them--but it is doing so at the cost of filling hospitals and morgues. Republicans bet against vaccinations, a losing strategy.
I observe an iteration of the reticence Obama showed about celebrating the improving economy during his term of office. Obama didn't dare sound happy lest it imply he didn't recognize ongoing problems. It was glass-half-empty thinking, and Biden has gone back to it. Trump showed us that reticence was unnecessary. People respond to leadership in framing. Trump told us he inherited "carnage" but then, after a couple of months told us everything is tremendous, the stock market up and unemployment down, all due to him. It set a mood. People generally think Trump turned the economy around.
I saw something brand new in Biden's tone yesterday--Tuesday. He was adamant and unapologetic regarding Afghanistan. The place was a loser for America, he said, and now we are out, out, out! That was a new look for Biden. That tone may shift America's focus from the chaos at the end. It was the strongest piece of salesmanship I have seen in his presidency.
Are you better off than you were when Biden took office? Darned right.
8 comments:
Darn right we are better off now than when Trump was in office. We don’t have rampant corruption of White House staff and advisers who need to be pardoned to avoid jail. We don’t have a president who describes nazi followers as “good people.” We don’t have to watch the news feed every day to see what outrageous thing Trump has said or done. Our allies are again our allies. Russia no longer gets a free pass. Thank God we are mostly free of Trump. We have competent people in the cabinet again. Yes we are lots better off.
Darn right Biden is cautious.
The main reason the market isn't tanking is due to massive support by the Fed, including artificially low interest rates, and trillions in relief to consumers. Trading volume has steadily decreased and this metric (I'll use the technical term) indicates a constipated market, a condition that could trigger a uncontrolled decline, also known as...well, you get my drift.
The problem is that the Biden administration cannot at present take steps to address income inequality by raising taxes on the financial sector, and they know it.
Hopefully, in the Harris first term...
Yes, here's the prediction: After crushing the Republicans in the midterms Biden announces he will not run and the Democratic party mobilizes as one behind the VP.
Please don't wake me...
Just as an aside, I love how the press and the media focused obsessively on American guilt in the ten Afghan family members killed by the US drone strike while viewing the nearly 200 deaths in the ISIS K suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport on Biden’s poorly executed withdrawal. Where are the interviews of the Afghan families who lost their lives to the suicide bomb? I remember a Fox reporter asking the US military commander “why were so many Marines clustered so close together at the airport gate” as if we could have had just one TSA agent checking drivers licenses. The double standard is rich.
Whether Afghanistan ever becomes a trading partner with the United States, as Vietnam has become, remains to be seen. But now there is a future for Afghanistan to pick and chose how they govern and who they select to be economic allies. Their country has mineral value for the new millennium that can help address climate change. There was nothing to be gained by continuing to support a failed US military policy in Afghanistan. Time for diplomacy is now. One further note, it is also time for reflection by a Congress that badly mismanaged their Constitutional duty of oversight and civilian control of the military. Many of the politicians attacking Biden's decision to leave Afghanistan and end the "forever war" are one and the same that were advocating and enabling the failed policies. Yes, Biden made the right call.
Are you better off now than you were 9 months ago? Are you kidding? :>)
1) Gasoline prices have skyrocketed under Biden.
2) Food prices have skyrocketed under Biden.
3) A millions new illegal aliens have entered America, and 20% of them are infected with Covid. Why do you think we're having another Covid outbreak? Why don't you have an open door policy on your personal residence?
4) America is going to bankrupt itself with Biden's Green New Deal.
Are you better-off now than 9 months ago? Are you on drugs? America is getting ready to crash and burn under Biden's failed leadership. Guaranteed that Biden will be out of office within 6 months (or sooner). Meanwhile, empty-suit Kamala is hiding in her closet somewhere. She doesn't want to be associated with Biden's meltdown.
Peter, it is obvious that Curt Ankerberg is back, with some of his trademark phrases. He leaves an obvious trail, unrealized by him, like the slime trails left behind a garden snail.
He has cleaned up the obscenities, which is probably why you let him post. The “real” Curt Ankerberg cannot stop himself from obscene reflection on the sex organs of people. Maybe he takes meds now, to control himself.
My suggestion, since Ankerberg is a perennial candidate. Treat him like a public figure and don’t let him hide behind anonymity. Make him stand tall and own what he authors. Delete his unsigned comments. We have a right to know what our candidates stand for and we have a right to see the kind of people Republican voters give their votes to. Of course he is ashamed to sign his posts. He knows it would reveal himself as a kook. That is the point of making signed posts by him a reauirement.
A Jackson County Citizen.
Have you looked at the stock market in the last nine months? Are you better off w your investments than you were 9 mos ago? I sure as shizzle am.
Stock market was trumps bellwether. He destroyed a rippin economy, all hail the conman.
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