This is still not rocket science.
If you pay some between $30K-$40K per year in unemployment, many in the service-oriented industries will stay home. While Biden talks about a lot of hurting people, his financial net he is casting is far, far greater than those hurting the most. At the end of March there were 8.1 million open jobs in the US. Yet our unemployment rate has crept upward. And last week 11 states were exiting the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer unemployment relief program. This week: 22 states are exiting. They see that it is making a bad situation even worse. I know that targeting those names seems partisan. I get that. But not a single GOP member voted for that plan because it was packed with a ton of fluff – e.g., the 200+ union pensions it was bailing out, and they knew we needed to get people back to work, and the fact that only 9% of the almost $2 TRILLION dollar bill was for covid relief. So yes. This boondoggle is squarely on those leaders.
If you put in motion moves to cut oil and gas production via lease cancelations – not by a little, mind you, but by almost 10% (just the onshore – that doesn’t include the offshore) – you will change the energy landscape quickly. So now our ability to compete with Russia on the delivery of LNG to Europe is effectively gone. We are (soon) no longer net exporting energy. Russia will now complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was absolutely not in the national interest of the US to be in operation… and Anthony Blinken (current Biden SoS) has stated it is his mission to ensure it doesn’t complete (it’s 95% done). Yet the State Department is sending a report to congress to lift sanctions on the pipeline stakeholders…allowing it to finish even though congress ENACTED those sanctions!! And since the US isn’t going to fill that gap in LNG for Europe any longer, so … do they magically get LNG somewhere else that’s NOT Russia? Meanwhile at home, our gas prices at home have risen by roughly $1.34 in the last 4 months.
If you go into negotiations with Iran (happening in Europe right now) with the intent to return to the ridiculous JCPOA deal, and to relieve sanctions pressure, things then happen downstream. For instance, Iran – a well-documented and even internationally acknowledged leading state sponsor of terror and de-stabilization globally – has now been backed by Russia and China. That, combined with lifting of US sanctions (which allows our allies to also lift sanctions), has emboldened them. They provide arms and funding to the Houthi rebels. They provide arms and funding to Hamas. And now Hamas, sensing weakness in US foreign policy, has launched almost 4,000 missiles into Israel. Israel is hitting back – hard. As they should. And our extreme left House members are up at the lectern telling us how Israel is the genocidal aggressor. Yet Iran’s stated purpose is to annihilate Israel. Hamas’ stated purpose is to drive Jews into the sea. And we’re getting ready to re-invigorate Iran and its proxies via the JCPOA.
And inflation – in April at 4.2% – the highest in 12 years (and climbing) – is a natural result of devaluing the dollar by printing it (and spending it) like it was squares of toilet paper. But then we added to the devaluation – which arrives to the consumer as inflation – by also doing things like artificially inflating wages to pull people back into work (those labor costs are passed on to consumers). And not stopping there, this administration, in an effort to “pay for everything”, is moving to raise taxes on businesses and capital gains – even though the CBO and others are saying it won’t even come close to covering those costs. That also is reflected in inflation.
So, let’s see: Inflation: Rising. Dollar: Declining. Unemployment: Creeping upward. Taxes on businesses: Going up. Energy costs: Rising fast. Energy dependence: Returned (did you know we started buying energy from Russia very recently? Merry Christmas… ). And the border… over 179,000 apprehensions in April (compared to 17,000 in April, 2020). Let’s not even start on that one.
This is not rocket science. Yet these current policies and spending are looking more and more… ignorant and (as one recent analyst described) dumb.
