Well if you are to believe the polls, that support is cratering. The other day I saw one with Biden at 38%. But there are polls and there are polls. Basically I think America is as it always has been in my memory, with a few exceptions, divided down the middle, with a small margin of independents who will vote either way.
But what is not changing is the economic prognosis. A Q & A with Dr Doom is interesting, it throws up all the same doubts about official "everything is fine" pronouncements:
"So, explain those numbers and how they’re misconstruing them and tweaking them in their favor, because I’m tired of hearing this crap, “50 years Joe’s got the best economy.” No. He doesn’t. Peter: Well, you know, figures lie and liars figure. And they’re always going to try to spin these numbers and try to you know put lipstick on a pig. But if you look at Biden’s popularity, which is the lowest of any president in history, and you look at why he’s so unpopular, it’s the economy. When they poll the potential voters as to where Biden scores the lowest, it’s on the economy. And so, if the economy’s as great as they’re saying, why isn’t Biden getting any credit? Why are the people who are living in the economy so pessimistic about the economy that they’re blaming Biden for how bad things are? So, I think that is far more accurate than how the government is spinning it. But even the government data, you know they show us one report with these official jobs numbers, but you have the household survey which comes out the same day and it’s the mirror image of the rosy report they keep touting. All the big companies are announcing layoffs. I don’t know any of them that are hiring. So, we’re not getting good jobs. Meanwhile, if the economy was so great why are people drowning in debt? Why is credit card debt at an all-time record high, despite record-high credit card interest rates? Dan: Thank you! Peter: The only reason consumers are using their credit is because they’re broke. You know. And if it was a good economy, they wouldn’t have to depend on credit. They would have the income to buy the things they need. They wouldn’t have to be borrowing money and going this deeply into debt.
Dan: Yeah. Peter, we just put up a graphic that showed an article I think from the website of Zero Hedge which shows how much debt we Americans are in. And you have been hammering this for a year on this program. $1.56 trillion for just credit cards and overall household debt tops $17.5 trillion. That’s the highest number in American history for citizen’s debt. That is astronomical.
Peter: Yeah, and that’s just what they owe on their own. Remember all the citizens are on the hook for their share of the national debt. Dan: Oh right. Peter: Because the government is borrowing in our names. And that’s $34.2 trillion. So, if you break it down per household, that’s an even bigger number than the household debt that people have taken on by themselves. And again, if the economy was strong, we wouldn’t be running up a trillion dollars of red ink a quarter on the national debt. Because the strong economy lowers deficits because you get more production, you get higher tax revenues, the government doesn’t have to spend as much on support programs. But what we’re seeing is a fiscal situation that looks like we’re in recession."
