Biden loves saying this word, but what does it actually mean?
“His plan—Bidenomics—is rooted in the recognition that the best way to grow the economy is from the middle out and the bottom up. It's an economic vision centered around three key pillars: Making smart public investments in America. Empowering and educating workers to grow the middle class.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statemen…—Bidenomics—is%20rooted,to%20grow%20the%20middle%20class
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Is this just a bunch of fluff / BS?
I would first say that 'Bidenomics' is just something one of the zoomer interns handling his twitter came up with. If you were to ask Biden to his face about Bidenomics he'd probably tell you about that time the kids were touching his hairy leg and that you can probably describe America in a single word: asmhftpft.
So on to the real deal which is the new economic order being created by Biden('s handlers) with policy such as the inflation reduction act and CHIPS act. First of all, I'd dare anyone here to go read the CHIPS act and tell, TELL ME, that you believe that it was written by senators instead of being written by a committee of corporations. Seriously, the wording in there gets so fucking specific I can't think anything other than "This one company has operations doing precisely this so we can't be too agressive against that". But, well, I'd be lying if I didn't already believe that ALL legislation is written by companies and then just given to random senators to push. But going to the big picture, the new economic order is: bringing key manufacturing jobs back to America (such as the manufacturing of microconductors), pushing the green energy transition a little bit harder, nearshoring every other job that is key but not key enough that you can't have a mexican doing it for 10% the price so that corporations will be on board with getting out of China, and some extra foreign investment to be sure that allies are on board with all of this.
I'd say, in general, 'bidenomics' is good to almost everyone who is college educated (and with a real degree) as you will easily be able to benefit from the millions of jobs that will be created directly in America, or indirectly due to needing an army of middle managers supervising the Indian and Mexican factories that will be propped up by the current order. If I may give my opinion, about 80% of this makes sense. COVID showed that China will fuck you in the ass if there is even a hint of a crisis so you better bring some manufacturing home and some on more aligned allies. Oil is not infinite so as retarded as some of the ideas are, we do technically need to transition to green energy eventually. Nuclear energy is the best bet but I hear solar panels and windmills have the highest margins for the companies building them so we are always going to be fucked on that end. I suppose the biggest L here is the millions of black people currently being enslaved in Africa to mine all the metals needed to build electric car batteries as such. But well, not like dems ever care about enslaved africans so the Ls will keep coming.
The hairy legs story is unironically one of the simultaneously most wholesome and creepy things to ever come out of a politician's mouth.
Bidenomics is the same as all left-wing economics globally: juice the economy today via huge sums of deficit spending and paying for it through inflation. That's exactly what we got--good jobs numbers and insane grocery prices. What's not clear yet is if how the politics will ultimately play out as people are weighing their sound job safety against the exorbitant cost of everything.
Also, the reality is, Bidenomics is not a repeatable public policy. If we regularly engaged in the kind of spending binge that Biden has engaged in, the nation would crumble in a single generation under the weight of its disordered fiscal house. Argentina is a prime example of a nation that has engaged in long-term "Bidenomics" and it has basically turned the country into a failed state. The scary thing to me is if liberals/Democrats are rewarded for their economic policies, this could lead to a new standard economic policy of the Dems--binge spend your way to political success. And the thing we've seen from nations like Argentina is that it can be a very good long-term political strategy (like, decades of political success). You even see this in Donald Trump who, for reasons of politics, has disavowed any and all reforms to the entitlement system, which threatens America's fiscal house in the coming generation.
In fairness to Biden, massive deficit spending and short-term thinking is not unique to the left. They just make it openly part of their platform while the "fiscal conservatives" walk around with their thumb up their ass when the time comes to actually cut spending. The negative effects are certainly more felt and rapidly experienced under left-wing governments though. That new President in Argentina makes me wet though with dumping all those govt. departments within a month of taking his seat.
Of course, deficit spending has become the norm in the United States. My point is that Bidenomics takes it to the next level--the difference between inflows and outflows under Biden has grown into a cavern. That's really the basis of Bidenomics--borrow so much money in 2 years that it requires record increases in base interest rates to prevent a cycle of monetary collapse. Despite 40 years of consistent deficit spending, we've never seen such a budget blowout that it required raising rates this fast to prevent a death spiral of inflation.
A bunch of random crap that was all bundled together in an after-thought. Essentially hyper-inflationary spending that somehow makes people better off is the idea
Thank god his moronic Build Back Better trillion dollar bill was scuttled, I remember reading that alone would have lifted inflation by 2%. I don't like Trump per se but I'd love for Biden to get crushed and sent home packing
https://taxfoundation.org/blog/donald-trump-10-percent-tariff/
Brilliant idea, voting for a guy who will put a 10% tariff on EVERYTHING to fight inflation!
MAGAs hate cheap Chinese junk right up until they have to pay more for it, then all of a sudden the crocodile tears start coming.
From a different angle, a lot of Biden's plans are infrastructurally driven, albeit a number of the bills' content were just helicopter money stimulus rather than having an infrastructural focus (student loan forgiveness, community college tuition subsidies, ACA extensions and expansions, family tax credits).
Joe Biden has had more of a focus on infrastructure than arguably any president since Dwight Eisenhower, who is virtually always towards the bottom of the top 10 presidents in rankings by historians (which out of 45 means he is viewed very favorably). Eisenhower's crowning achievement is of course the Interstate Highway System, which cost the equivalent of $600 billion in 2022 dollars, which seems comparable to some of the larger Biden initiatives. The Interstate Highway System is generally regarded as one of America's best investments of all time, although it came at the expense of commuter rail, for example. Still, it fostered a lot of economic development and made the country more interconnected and more easily traversed, as well as improving the logistical capabilities of the US military.
One could argue that the focus on semiconductors, microchips, and renewable energy are similarly important initiatives which could ultimately yield intelligence of a magnitude we may not be able to comprehend today, perform the tasks of millions of workers, and bring about the greatest prosperity in world history (albeit that becomes a matter of distribution at that point). Harnessing the power of the sun can make energy cheaper than ever before, which is sure to lead to vast increases in productivity and economic development. These are moonshot projects, sure, but they aren't the dumbest things one could spend the country's money on, and there's an argument to be made that like the Interstate Highway System, having some measure of government involvement is optimal (I don't want to begin having arguments that some rag-tag group of 2 or 3 "Road Corporations of America" could have run separate networks of toll roads and achieved a better outcome than what we have today. Good night.)
I think at worst, Joe Biden is expanding the welfare state and throwing helicopter money to pimp out the value of the US dollar and at best is making Eisenhower-style infrastructural investments for which he will be fondly remembered. We'll see where it lands.
Biden's infrastructure investment will be as fondly remembered as Obama's "shovel-ready jobs."
For every Interstate Highway System, there’s a bunch of Solyndras and needless crowding out of private investment. I hear you.
What I am saying though is that with something like AI and semiconductors, they have the theoretical capacity to do so much for humanity that it’s hard to penalize someone for the usual reasons.
It is just more government spending.
It’s just neoliberal keynesboi bullshitting around.
But Trump! Jan 6!
Now that I got that out of the way…Joe and his team don’t really use that term anymore given how poorly it was received.
A mostly good economy outside of a few very specific, narrow, things that have an outsized importance on how people perceive the economy.
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