US poverty

Bidenomics: Trickle Up as Poverty Takes The Middle Class

Posted on by Helena

The News Media are going ballistic today on how great the US economy is fairing under the Bidenomics plan of trickling up.   For the record, trickle up would indicate that the poverty is expanding upward and gaining momentum.

“Strong GDP is being bolstered by a boom in factory construction and investment stemming from huge pieces of subsidy- and tax credit-heavy legislation…” ~ The Hill.

  1. Taiwan is building two semiconductor plants in the US at a cost of $40 billion – subsidized by US Taxpayers.
  2. Intel is building a semiconductor plant in Ohio subsidized by US Taxpayers
  3. Samsung, a Korean company, is building a semiconductor plant in Texas – subsidized
  4. Abbott is building a nutritional powder factory in Ohio. Crickets? – subsidized
  5. Siemens, a German Company is building and EV Charger plant in Texas – subsidized
  6. Italy’s Enel will build a solar cell and panel factory – somewhere, sometime, undisclosed.

The demographics of all these companies is interesting roughly 70% male – all democrats – 15% Asian and 15% Hispanic.   How and why are these foreign companies suddenly so interested in building factories in the US?   It is all FREE!

  • The Inflation Reduction Act.   The Act provides $369bn of tax credits for clean technologies,
  • The Chips and Science Act allocates $39bn in funds for semiconductor manufacturing, and an additional $24bn of manufacturing tax credits.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis was founded in 1972, after being lost forever, it is tasked with estimating the variations in GDP.   In addition, their formulas determine which states get how much in federal funding.   Yesterday they released their estimate of US GDP growth with a revised upward outlook of 2.4%!   WOW Bidenomics is working! The US stock market has been heavily gaining – and all the Kings men…

The first caveat the BEA website states is the 2.4% figure is an ‘advance estimate’ – the real estimate will be released on pinpoint day – August 30.   The second caveat is the entire guesstimate is based on ‘spending’.   This would indicate that the cost of spending has increased – as in everything is more expensive.   What it does not measure is reality.

Exports were down – housing investment was down, imports and consumer spending were up and drove most of the GDP.

Consumer Spending was led by housing (rent increases) and utilities (air conditioning); health care (everyone is getting cancer from the vax); financial services (they changed the inheritance and estate tax) insurance (rates went up 35%); and transportation services(airline tickets double).

Consumer Goods also tracked higher led by recreational goods (RV’s and toys for summer) vehicles (price gouge) as well as gasoline and other energy goods (all inflated).

Imports reflect a rising Euro to a falling dollar and lack of exports indicate US manufacturing is tanking.

According to these government interpreters of truth;   the ‘price’ of goods and services increased 3.8% in the 1st quarter and an additional 1.9% in the second quarter.   Obviously the algorithm is operating in a parallel universe.

I sought to find out how this Bureau measures their analysis so I visited the data detail page Gross Output By Industry – and the last update was 2021.   Not a good sign.

Searching Trade figures – the last update was 2022 wherein the balance with Canada  tanked – having surpassed any point in history.   In fact, our balance of trade with just about every country has tanked.

Other Release Information by BEA includes:

  • US International Investment – Assets $34.72 trillion on Liabilities of $49.49 trillion for a negative Equity of $16.17 trillion.
  • New Foreign Direct Investment in US – 2021 $362.6 vs 2022 $177.5, down $185.1

It appears the Federal Government desperately needs a catastrophic event to wipe out reality. The three top picks so far include:   A UFO Report revealing aliens have crash landed on earth.   A war with China.   A Climate Pandemic Lockdown.

It Also Appears The Media is languishing in Disinformation Propaganda Once Again.

UN: US Poverty Is Trump’s Fault

Posted on by Helena

The UN has appointed an Australian professor who moved to the US to teach at NYU, because he prefers the wages, to denigrate the abysmal poverty in the US as a result of Trump policies. Using figures through 2016, which would cover through the Obama administration, Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, is actually imposing these numbers on Trump because he ‘believes’ the Trump policies will negatively impact poverty…

One such statistic he quotes is the fact that 41 million people in the US or 12.7%, live in poverty, while 1/3 are children – the highest for any industrialized nation.   Digging a bit more we find that the census also states that 20% of those people are non-citizens and 10% are naturalized citizens. In addition 30% of those in poverty are not working at all, 25% have not graduated from high school, and 15.4 million of adults not working have a disability.  Of course these statistics are – from the Obama era…

If we extrapolate the non and naturalized citizens the figure is reduced to roughly 9% overall.   Nearly half that of Germany…  Oops.

Statistically, Australia, the home country of Philip Alston, has a rather abysmal record of it’s own that should be illustrated:   In 2014, the poverty rate was 12.8%, social assistance payments had not increased since 1994, poverty rates were growing, the indigenous population suffer the greatest and ¼ of their homeless are children under the age of 18.

But Australia prefers not to measure poverty and does not provide a real number, estimates are speculative and statistically defined by private organizations. Obviously, they would rather not discuss this issue with the world at large…or the UN.

Germany as well refuses to measure poverty on a national level although charities indicate the rise of poverty is indicative of ‘unemployment’ (gosh darn, how many committees were necessary to determine that tidbit) and as of 2014 was estimated to be 15.5%.   That would be before the massive immigration policies of Merkel which would have added an additional 2.5 million to the roles or roughly 3.4%, increasing the poverty level to about 19%.  Hmmm, ten points higher than the extrapolated US rate.

Oddly, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, hasn’t remarked on these Australian or German issues, nor is he remarking on Obama, Bush and Clinton policies wherein the US poverty rate was roughly 13.2%, instead he is blaming the US rates on – Trump. Within his own version of ‘extrapolations’ that he has not presented in any mathematical or statistical manner.

Presenting his report to the UN later this month, Alston visited Puerto Rico, rural Alabama and Skid Row.

Skid Row sits in the heart of LA. The elected mayor, Eric Garcetti is a Democrat whose alma mater includes, the London School of Economics.   Prior to his election, he served on the California Board for Human Rights Watch, a Soros funded organization.   LA continues to have the highest poverty rate of any large city in the US which does not extrapolate for the high cost of living.  Alston’s report does not mention these statistics.

Puerto Rico is by far the worst off with a poverty rate at 46% despite the World Bank classifying it as a ‘high income economy’. It is however, not a part of the US, but is a US territory meaning it’s highly inefficient government is guided by regulations and laws of the US Federal government.  

In June 2016 Obama instituted PROMESA in Puerto Rico which included: an oversight board, reduction of minimum wage, increased austerity programs, and non-governmental interference.   The ‘oversight board’ is a committee of 7 appointed by President Obama to make sure the government doesn’t spend money on stuff it shouldn’t… the board includes some bankers, Jerry Brown’s former Finance Director, and a few US law professors.  It isn’t working very well.

Alabama is a country of its own. Poverty dates back hundreds of years made worse by the Civil War and Reconstruction.   Many left the state and only tenants were left to scrounge a living off land they didn’t own requiring children to work instead of go to school, and a descension into Hell ensued. Despite numerous programs aimed at bringing jobs, skills and education, the state continued to fall behind dramatically.

While Wikipedia claims that ‘white rural interests’ dominated the government policies including slave cropping, a quick look found that the Democrat Party ruled Alabama up until 1987.    The economy began expanding in 1990 with the automobile industry being the primary driver followed by steel, iron, paper and lumber. In addition, a driver for expanding commercial interests is the fact that Alabama has a significantly low individual and corporate tax rate, ranking it the second lowest in the country.

While Mr. Rapporteur Alston would focus on these three particular areas as demonstrative negatives is curious.   The fact that the issues underlying poverty in all three can date back hundreds of years is even more curious…  Unless the greater agenda is to create a dark cloud over Trump…   While Republican capitalism has begun to draw Alabama out of its dirge, Democrat policies continue to manage LA and Puerto Rico.

Even curiouser and curiouser is the fact that the Trump administration has basically instituted a tax policy whereby the first $25,000 of a married couple’s income is taxed at $0 can be observed as a failure by Alston would bring to question his intellect and/or common sense.  

Maybe He Didn’t Do his Homework while at London School of Economics…