So. We already discussed (a couple weeks back) how gas prices are artificially down, and were steadily decreasing coming into the election in November, right? You remember that, right? Where the Biden administration was pulling a LOT of oil out of the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserves), and selling the oil on the open market, to show prices coming down? Of course, the tactic worked, for the most part. Voters felt easier about inflation (which is driven a lot by energy prices). Those reserves were over 638M barrels when Biden came in … then he started draining them. A year ago, they were at 599M barrels, and then the spigot REALLY opened up, in election season. Today we are down to 378M barrels in our …strategic… and I emphasize *strategic* reserves – that are supposed to be used in national emergencies. And the volume continues to decline. It strikes me as funny when the DoE made the announcement last week that they were going to put 3M barrels back into the SPR. Well, progress, I suppose, comes in many forms.
But this week we also learned something else that was a seriously misleading moment in the Biden world, just before the election: The jobs numbers were completely mis-represented (well, actually flat-out lied to us about). A little error is one thing, but this large of an error? You decide:
The 2nd quarter jobs report came out and showed 1,047,000 jobs were added in the second quarter. Biden ran all over the place touting how great the economy was doing, under his watch. Never did he admit that most of the job gains (“the largest under any president in history”) were actually almost 100% due to returning to work from Covid. There were no net-new jobs added, as he was claiming. Still with me? But then he also touted the “over 1 million” jobs added in Q2 2022 as a further accomplishment. All of us with any economic background whatsoever were scratching our heads a bit, but the report said it was so, therefore it must be accurate?
Wrong. The Philly Federal Reserve dug into those numbers, as they were also apparently scratching their heads about it. What they found was that there were only 10,500 jobs added in Q2. 99% – yes – ninety-nine percent – wrong/over-reported in what Biden’s Dept. of Labor reported right before the election. A 1 million job “overstatement”. But the lie was afoot … the voters all breathed a sigh of relief, since gas was going down (artificially) and the labor market was still appearing strong.
Were we gamed with jobs just like we were with gas prices? That’s a decision for every voter to decide. But I said, over and over, to “think carefully” before casting your vote. I should have also said “research for yourself” as well. My bad.
Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!
