What if Biden Wins? The Coming Economy (Part 2 of 2)
In today’s newsletter:
- What if Biden Wins? The Coming Economy (Part 2 of 2)
- 5 Reasons Your Marketing Might Stink
- No Dumping, The Debate, and Who Are Christians Supporting in 2024?
- Defining Faith in Life and Business
Decision 2024 is just around the corner, and the American people have two very different visions of the future to choose from. In the second part of a two-newsletter series, we are examining what the economy will likely look like if shaped by a second term President Joe Biden from 2024-2028.
You can read the previous installment on how a second term for President Trump would likely impact the economy here.
The Track Record
As in all statistics, everything is a matter of when you start measuring, and when you stop measuring.
The White House continues to use words like “historic,” “successful,” “booming,” and “growth” to describe President Biden’s economy, yet Gallup reports that the people’s confidence in Biden’s economic stewardship is “historically low,” the lowest of any president since they began asking the question in 2001. So how is it that only 26% of Americans regard the economy as “good” (and a plain majority calls it “poor”) while the Biden administration claims that it has created 15 million jobs?
It’s a matter of when you measure.
Because the economy went into an artificial coma during the COVID lockdowns just before Biden took office, essentially, Joe Biden took credit for all of the businesses opening back up, calling it “creating jobs.” This is in spite of the fact that Biden’s administration fiercely opposed states choosing to open up for business and bring those jobs back online.
Unfortunately, this is a pattern in the White House’s reporting on the economy during President Biden’s tenure. Many of the numbers sound great but wither under scrutiny. In order to get a real idea of Biden’s economic track record, we need to exclude the re-opening after COVID, and look at other material conditions.
Inflation is up over 20% since Biden took office. Real wages have decreased by over 2.5%. The Biden admin touts average GDP growth of 3.4% during his tenure, but again, this is somewhat dishonest. COVID lockdowns put the GDP to artificial nadirs during 2020, so average growth should have, in this writer’s opinion, actually have been far higher, to offset the losses. The GDP numbers begin looking anemic when we account for the artificially low benchmark at the beginning, and the incredible amount of government spending driving the GDP figures up. (Check out this chart to see how dramatically COVID’s lockdowns influenced the averages.) Even with the government spending like there is no tomorrow, GDP came in at just 1.3% in Q1 of this year, while inflation was nearly three times that figure over the same period of time.
To be fair, neither Trump nor Biden seem to have serious plans to combat the ballooning national debt, but as we are discussing Biden in this week’s issue, it’s worth pointing out that Joe Biden has spent and borrowed recklessly, sprinting towards the fiscal cliff. U.S. interest payments on debt, under Biden, surpassed defense spending and Medicare, respectively.
Joe Biden’s economic track record has not been great.
That’s an understatement. His track record has been abysmal. The only silver lining, perhaps, is that unemployment has remained low – though there is some number-fudging going on in the White House’s jobs reports. Some sources say the real unemployment rate is not 3.9% but more likely between 6.5 and 7.7%.
The Agenda
President Biden’s reelection campaign presents November’s contest as a battle between two very different economic futures. Here are the President’s stated priorities for a possible second term:
- Lowering costs for the middle class.
- Cutting health care premiums and prescription drug costs.
- Lowering energy prices.
- Raising the corporate income tax.
- Instituting a 25% minimum income tax on billionaires.
- Cracking down on tax cheats.
The Biden campaign has vowed that “the days of trickle-down economics are over.”
The Good
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare now has the ability to negotiate on some prescription drug prices. This could, theoretically, cause some prescription drug costs to come down for many Americans.
The numbers that the White House reports on this issue are almost certainly wildly optimistic, but increases in corporate tax rates could possibly increase the federal government’s tax revenue, which would help with the national debt if that money was handled responsibly.
Domestic oil production has been up to record highs recently.
The stock market is up. (Though this does not tend to correlate with what party is in the White House. The market as a whole is more complicated than policies affecting one specific sector or stock.)
The Bad
I’m going to be honest; there’s a lot of bad.
Like former president Donald Trump, some aspects of Joe Biden’s economic agenda seem to be willfully ignorant and/or deceptive. Biden claims he will institute a 25% minimum income tax to make sure billionaires pay their fair share in taxes: But billionaires don’t make their money through “income” as we think of it. Many billionaires, such as Elon Musk, finance their lives via debt, and money that is kept in markets and real estate is rarely realized as income. If, as some members of his administration have proposed, Biden gets around this by taxing unrealized gains, he might just crash the entire economy. The middle class would be hit hardest, as increasing property values for primary residences would show up as a bill every year, and home ownership would become even rarer than it is today.
In other words, the billionaire minimum income tax thing is either an empty gesture or one of the worst instances of economic malpractice the world has ever seen.
Republicans have warned, meanwhile, that “cracking down on tax cheats” really means, in practice, crushing innocent middle-class Americans with greater tax burdens and uncertainty.
While Biden promises to lower costs for the middle class, the reality is that costs for the middle class have increased dramatically under Biden’s tenure, and his plans moving forward do little to nothing to materially change this continued trajectory. Things are so bad that Yahoo Finance lists things like “New Cars,” “Private School,” Home Ownership,” and “Healthcare Costs” as things that the middle class will not be able to afford in the next five years.
The poverty rate more than doubled under Biden. Under Trump, by contrast, the poverty rate hit a record low.
Under Biden, 1/8 of the population uses food stamps.
Conclusion
The possibility of another Biden term is unlikely to ease financial pressure for the average American, as more and more middle-class households fall below the poverty line, apply for government assistance, spend on credit cards, and abandon their dreams of ever owning a home. The Biden administration has shown little understanding or willingness to enact real change that would alter the course the United States is currently on. Even the current upsides of the economy – a booming stock market and elevated oil production – are double-edged swords, as the administration has continually struck down new drilling requests, which could lead to a sharp decrease in oil production capacity, and many warn of over-speculation driving a market bubble that could cause devastating consequences if it pops.
In other words, the economy is not a strength for the Biden White House. Four more years, according to the president’s stated economic agenda, is a promise for four more years of the same, and worsening, conditions.
5 Reasons Your Marketing Might Stink
(In Partnership with Fidelitas)
If your marketing results weren’t where you wanted them to be last quarter, don’t just default to blaming the economy- because it’s not going to magically improve in Q3, either. Instead, consider the following:
1) Are you pulling in diverse traffic across both paid and organic? If a channel’s missing, that’s a great place to start.
2) When was the last time you optimized your retention campaigns? If those flows a freelancer built for you in 2021 are still running, it’s time to give your email strategy a facelift.
3) Are you sharing real numbers and margins with your in-house marketing team and agency partners? If the pros steering your marketing operation aren’t clear on your numbers and profit margin, your results won’t be clear, either.
4) What’s your conversion rate on your site / landing pages? If it’s significantly below average, even achieving mediocrity could double sales!
5) Who’s driving your strategy? If you’re reacting to every shiny object instead of following a well-constructed game plan, you’ll be right where you are now (or worse) at the end of the third quarter. Be intentional with every campaign element, channel, and dollar of your marketing.
If you could use more strategic guidance like what you just read, and/or perhaps some marketing muscle to execute your marketing game plan with excellence, you need to connect with Fidelitas. Fidelitas is a full-service marketing and PR agency that happens to power Sent To Win and loves helping like-minded businesses win. We got the greenlight to include the CEO’s email here- email him directly at tyler@fidelitas.co.
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
No Dumping, The Debate, and Who Are Christians Supporting in 2024?
No Dumping
China’s economy is in serious trouble. Foreign investment has fled, their demographics are turning upside down, their debt is becoming unsustainable, and ongoing deflation is making the debt burden even more difficult. So what would you do if your business faced similar challenges? You’d probably have a fire sale, to offload anything you have lying around, at rock bottom prices, just to get some cash flow. On the international scene, this is called “dumping,” and it has very real effects for producers in the U.S. and worldwide – who aren’t too happy about it. The U.S., for its part, has raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel, batteries, solar cells, and other goods that threaten to undermine U.S. producers due to China’s artificially low prices made possible via government subsidies and a manipulated currency. Still, some U.S. producers are asking the federal government to do more. This is all part of an escalating back and forth between the U.S. and China, and economist Stephen Roach now says we are in a “forever trade war” with China. All this to say – the dream of global free trade may just be slipping away.
The Debate
President Biden and former president Trump went on CNN last week to debate, and by polling, Trump was the very clear winner, with 68% of independents saying Trump won, and only 22% of independents saying Biden won. Trump’s performance was energetic, emphatic, and more reserved than we’re used to seeing him in a public debate: he left the name-calling and shouting at home this time. Biden, for his part, was a disaster during the debate, and democrats are openly calling for him to drop out of the race. Biden appeared extremely feeble, rambled, trailed off, sometimes spoke incoherently, and often stared off into space in a bizarre fashion. Trump Media (DJT) shares ramped up 11% in the immediate aftermath of the debate, though they fell again the day after, as heavy trade volume suggests investors took advantage of the bump. Biden’s “stock” fell sharply, on the other hand, as key influential businessmen have begun to abandon Biden. This does not mean, however, that they have started to support Trump. Zero Fortune 100 CEOs have donated to the Trump campaign as of last week. At the moment, both candidates have a weaker showing among top business leaders than they would like as the nation waits to see what will happen.
Who Are Christians Supporting in 2024
Pew Research released a report recently outlining the political affiliations of various Christian denominations, as well as other religions. According to voter registration records, Protestants in general support the Republican Party over the Democratic Party 59-38. Catholics likewise now lean Republican at 52-44, and the Mormon voting block is heavily Republican, at 75-23. Jewish Americans lean heavily Democratic, at 69-29, as do Muslim Americans, at 66-32 for the Democrat Party. Atheists tend to vote Democratic, at 84-13, and religiously unaffiliated Americans as a whole vote Democrat, at a ratio of 70-27. The Catholic voting block is a good weathervane for American politics, according to some commentators, as they are heavily represented in battleground states. To be fair, this is party affiliation and does not give us definitive ideas on what Christians think of Trump vs. Biden specifically.
Sunday School
Q. Where do we find the “Seven Deadly Sins” in the Bible?
A. Trick question – the list of the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, sloth, gluttony, wrath, greed, and lust) is not specifically enumerated together anywhere in the scriptures. This list came from Pope Gregory in the 6th century, specifying deadly sins to beware of.
TIPS & TRICKS
Defining Faith in Life and Business
When the multitudes came to John the Baptist in Luke 3, and he preached a message of repentance, it is telling what John did and did not tell them to do.
He told them not to rest upon their associations, saying, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”
He did not tell them to recite a creed or to put the Star of David on their clothes. He told them to repent – to change their thinking, change their direction, and to bear actual good fruits from this change.
Then, the people ask him, “What shall we do then?”
He first tells them to give from their excess to those who are in need.
He tells tax collectors not to collect any more than they are supposed to collect for themselves.
He tells soldiers not to intimidate anyone, not to bring false accusations against anyone, and to be content with their paychecks.
Then, he calls their attention to the coming Messiah.
You see, we often make “faith” a more complicated topic than it really is. Faith is difficult, but it isn’t complicated when we take it as a whole. It doesn’t mean an abstract intellectual assent to a list of ideas. In the original language, belief and faith are not really separate concepts. Believing a truth moves you to act upon it, or it isn’t really belief or faith.
Faith is faithful. It means holding to the way, to that which is tested, loyally carrying out God’s plan for mankind.
It’s surprisingly simple, most of the time.
Be generous, be on the lookout for opportunities to do good (and take those opportunities whole-heartedly), don’t squeeze people for more money than you ought to, don’t intimidate or falsely accuse others. Be content and not filled with greed.
Sometimes complicated, easy things are more appealing to us than simple, difficult things, but I think most of the time the scriptures call us to that which is simple, difficult, and honest.
So following our faith in business, then, doesn’t have anything to do with printing little crosses on our products, hiding scriptures on what we make, or putting “Christian” in the title of our brand. If you feel compelled to do those things, more power to you, but the heart of faith in business is something so much plainer, and more powerful, than that.
It is choosing to be God’s man in the field. His boots on the ground. His hands and feet.
We all know people who have an extensive network. People who are quick to say, “I know a guy for that.” “I’ve got an electrician.” “I’m good buddies with a consultant.” “I’m friendly with the mayor.”
We ought to be the network for God. When God needs a person in finance, are you going to be found faithfully carrying out your business in a humble, diligent, honest manner? Are you His person in finance, always looking for an opportunity to do good?
Jesus Christ is a person, God in the flesh, redeemer of mankind, and a personal relationship with
Him is rightly taught as a very important part of life.
But sometimes we forget that He, by His own proclamation, is the Way.
Jesus is a person, but as God, He is also capable of being a mode of being. His is the kind of life that does not pass away, that echoes into eternity, that withstands trials, hardship, and testing.
The humbling truth for each of us in business is that usually, this just means we need to do a good job, with a good attitude, at a fair rate, with excellence, with generosity, with concern for the others we work for and with, and with an openness to doing good when the opportunity arises.
So if you have been pondering the big question of “How do I live out my faith in my business?”
The answer is not much different than how the scriptures would tell you to live out faith in your life.
“Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”
Quick Hits
- Christianity Today calls for more churches to support their local crisis pregnancy care centers.
- After a week of volatile trading and a precipitous drop, CNN Business declares that “The Nvidia Spell Is Broken.”
- Is television drying up? Forbes explains the shrinking rewards for creating a hit T.V. show.
- Trying to get in touch with the IRS? Good luck. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2/3 of taxpayers who reach out for help can’t get on the phone with a human being.
- Business Insider reports that the U.S. Housing market is heading for a correction.
Our “What if Biden Wins?” graphic was generated using AI prompts. Guess the prompt for your chance to win Sent To Win gear. Just reply to this email with your best guess.
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