Downhill and Over a Cliff

On the day that Joe Biden took office (January 20, 2021) I wrote a blog post entitled "It's All Downhill From Here".

I expected the United States to enter a downwards trajectory under Biden.

I finished that blog post this way.

The media narrative today shows Biden on top of the world while they portray Trump as a beaten man who has been kicked to the curb.

 I am interested to see how history looks at all of this in several years.

My advice to Joe Biden is to enjoy it while you can. I am betting it is all downhill from here.

I was not optimistic but in no way would I have predicted that the United States could fall so far and so fast.

This has not been a downhill slide. It is more like we have gone over a cliff.

It has taken less than two years.

In that blog post, I wrote down some objective economic measures as things stood on January 20, 2021.

Let's compare where we are today on these measures.

Dow Jones Industrial Average   32,430 (+4.8% since 1/19/21 but -11.4% since 1/1/22)

S&P 500    3,771 (-.1% since 1/19/21 but -21.4% since 1/1/22)

NASDAQ.  10,475. (-20.6% since 1/19/21 but -33.8% since 1/1/22)

10-year Treasury yield  4.163% (increase of over 3 percentage points)

30 year mortgage rate (average)  7.32%   (increase of 4.36 percentage points)

Gallon of gas (AAA national average for regular)  $3.80  ( 59% increase in price)

Natural gas per cf   $6.46.  ( 160% increase in price)

Current employment rate  3.7%  (There are actually fewer people working today than in February, 2020. Part of the reason the unemployment rate is low is because many people left the workforce during Covid.

Inflation rate for the last year  8.2%  (increase of 7 percentage points).

Real median household income  $70,784 at 12/31/21 (decrease of $1,002) (Real median household income  at 12/31/22 will be even lower in that real wages over the last 12 months are down 3%. This would equate to an additional decrease of $2,000 in real household income.)

Poverty rate overall was 10.5% for 2021 (22% increase since 2019)

Poverty rate for African Americans for 2021 was 19.5% (4% increase) 

Poverty rate for Hispanic Americans for 2021 was 17.1% (9% increase)

It is not a pretty picture and I doubt we have reached the bottom.

It is true that Joe Biden had to deal with Covid.

However, he is also the guy would said he was going to shutdown the virus and not shutdown the country and the economy.

Trump dealt with the virus for about 10 months with no vaccines available until his last month in office.

Biden had the vaccines at his disposal since he took office.

What do the measures look like on Covid?

Covid cases under Biden (measured as cases per month) have actually been 41% higher than they were under Trump.

As you look at the chart above also remember that Biden and the Democrats mandated that tens of millions get vaccinated or lose their jobs based on the premise that the vaccines prevented Covid and stopped transmission. These assertions have now been thoroughly discredited.

Covid deaths have come down but almost all of that improvement has been seen this year.

In Biden's first year Covid deaths per month averaged very close to the same numbers under Trump.

However, this was WITH the vaccines.

Did the reduction in deaths have anything to do with Biden's response or was it due to a weaker Omicron variant or natural immunity gained by so many infections?

If it is argued it was due to the vaccines, why was there almost no effect in 2021?

We have also seen where the southern border of the United States has gone from stability to chaos since the Democrats gained control.

Compare apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol during the 2020 fiscal year under Trump with 2021 and 2022 under Biden.

It is unfathomable.

This also only includes illegal aliens which were encountered by the Border Patrol. Most were released into the country.

It does not include illegals that snuck in undetected.

Finally, let's consider what has transpired in the rest of the world over the last two years.

We have seen the humiliating U.S.withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan.

The peace efforts in the Middle East that Trump orchestrated, that saw new bridges being built between Israel and a number of Arab countries, has disintegrated under Biden.

North Korea is once again firing missiles over South Korea and Japan that had ceased when Trump was President.

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in war for almost nine months.

The United States (and many European countries) have provided tens of billions dollars of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

I would provide an exact amount of U.S. aid provided to Ukraine but it seems that it is nowhere to be found after numerous Google search attempts.

I am not the only one having a problem.

Noted investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson is having similar problems.

I wish it were true that lawmakers would not blindly give money away with no public accounting. 

I see no evidence of it.

The financial tab from what I can find is at least $65 billion and probably much more.

Interestingly, until 2021 the Department of State was required to publish an annual list of arms sales to foreign countries.

Is it a coincidence that "Section 5114(b)(4) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 repealed the 1994 statutory provision that required the Department of State to publish an edition of  World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) every year." ?

I doubt it.

The closing argument in the midterms by Biden and the Democrats seems to be that democracy itself is at risk in this election.

I agree.

I don't know that there has ever been a better contrast in comparing where we were to where we are now.

Everything cited above is not opinion.

These are objective facts.

They are the result of policy decisions by our political leaders.

On government spending. Covid. Border enforcement. Foreign affairs.

I could have also cited crime statistics and contrasted it with the calls to "Defund the Police" and the"no cash bail" policies that are popular with Democrats these days.

Policies do matter. 

Who leads us matters.

It has also come about in less than two years.

These are the times that the process of democracy is intended for the people to let their voices rise via their votes and say "ENOUGH".

The way I see it, considering all of the above,  if the voters do not hold those in office accountable for taking us downhill and over a cliff so rapidly, democracy won't be at risk...it will have failed us.