Statistical manipulations are at the heart of the Bidenomics success story, according to Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.us – but does that really matter? How would the economic landscape change during a second Trump presidency?
From Brandon Smith
There is a popular school of thought that believes most economic stability is purely psychological; that the health of the economy relies on the population NOT knowing the true state of things. In other words, “ignorance is bliss.”
I partially agree with the premise but only under certain conditions. If an economy is built on lies then yes, the exposure of those lies would certainly put that system at risk. My argument is, if an economy is built on lies, it’s not really worth saving.
The U.S. public in particular is now struggling with the slow realization that our financial and monetary structures are not secure. Many of us in the alternative media have been warning about this for decades. I warned about the inevitability of a stagflation crisis for many years and was criticized as a “doom monger,” at least until 2021 when the crisis became undeniable. But that’s what happens when you live in an economy of lies and you start talking about reality – some people will see you as a threat.
Even today with everything that’s happening there are still puppets and disinformation shills out there that assure us “all is well”. And, usually they’ll cite manipulated government stats as evidence to support their faulty position.
Lies, damn lies and statistics
The Biden Administration has proven to be one of the worst culprits when it comes to stat misrepresentation and manipulation. To be sure, Biden has had plenty of help with his “Bidenomics” agenda and he wouldn’t be able to rig the numbers without aid from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), their cheerleaders in the corporate media and so on.
This is a well-established symbiotic relationship. Most presidents get some help from these institutions when promoting a sick economy as a healthy economy. Some presidents do not…
With that fact in mind, I’ve been wondering lately what will happen when Biden exits the White House in January 2025?
What happens to the numbers after that?
Will there be a “statistical reset”?
Will the real data be exposed all at once; an avalanche of reality crashing down on the delusional population?
I’m still not convinced that any outcome is beyond dismissal for elections in November. If someone was to ask me what I predict, I would have to say Trump will be president again. From all the evidence I’ve seen the Harris campaign as an astroturf movement with a limited voter base. She’s obviously not very bright and I don’t think the theatrical “joy” strategy is convincing very many people of her competency. Her economic policies (including price controls) are full-bore communist and would be devastating to any form of U.S. recovery. Her fiscal plan might be even worse than Bidenomics has been.
But hey, I was certain Trump was getting a second term in 2020 and I was wrong.
Regardless, the point is we have come to a crossroads in our election process where anything is possible (whether real or engineered). I suspect that if Trump enters office once again there will be a multitude of changes to our economic data and they will happen quickly.
What’s behind the smoke and mirrors?
Some of the rigging is already being exposed, just not on a level where most the populace is aware of it.
Some examples of this rigging include:
Biden’s steady sale of U.S. strategic oil reserves in order to drive down energy and gas prices, thereby artificially reducing CPI (official monthly inflation numbers). By June of this year Biden had sold off at least 50% of the nation’s emergency oil supply just to keep CPI down a few points. Keep in mind, bringing down the CPI does nothing to cut the real inflation that has already accumulated in necessities (30%-50% higher prices depending on the product or service).
Then there’s the manipulation of BLS unemployment data to show millions of new jobs that don’t actually exist. After it was announced that Biden was no longer the Democratic candidate, suddenly the total number of working Americans was revised down by over 818,000. (Likely with more revisions to come.) In other words, the Bidenomics success story was partially founded on fake job creation.
An even greater concern is the fact that all new jobs created for the past several years have been going to illegal aliens, not legal citizens. In fact, since October of 2019 native-born U.S. workers have lost over 1.4 million jobs. Over the same period, migrants illegally residing in the U.S. have gained 3 million jobs. The new narrative among leftists is that this is a good thing; they claim that the U.S. needs illegal immigration and open borders in order to support the jobs market and “bring down inflation.”
I’m doubtful that the jobs boost to illegals is real, either. More likely the migrant jobs data is rigged because it’s much harder to track and confirm.
But these people don’t seem to understand how inflation works – greater population means higher resource demand, and that helps drive up prices (as we’ve seen in housing). It doesn’t bring prices down, nor does it reduce the existing money supply.
It should also be noted that full time jobs numbers have plunged while part time low-wage jobs have increased. These are the kinds of issues no one in the Biden administration is talking about.
Finally, rising GDP is often cited as a key indicator of a vibrant economy, but what the “experts” rarely mention is that GDP is rigged by the inclusion of government spending. The more federal and state governments tax and spend, the higher GDP goes. Currently, government spending officially accounts for at least 36% of GDP in the U.S.
It makes it look like America is more successful than ever but this is based on the government taking more cash from the public, printing more money and going into greater debt, then throwing that cash away with wild abandon in order to prop up the numbers.
GDP: Government debt pile
Goldman Sachs recently claimed that under a Harris regime GDP would go up and under Trump GDP would take a big hit.
It’s easy to see this as a partisan smear. But it’s more than that. This claim is right, in a way, but Goldman’s analysts don’t explain the real reason this is the case.
If Trump follows through on his fiscal responsibility policies (Elon Musk has been tapped to head up investigations into government efficiency), then of course we’ll see a drop in GDP!
It would mean government spending will go down and GDP will no longer be juiced by $2+ trillion annual deficits.
Under a Harris administration, government spending will skyrocket and GDP would continue growing. In fact, Harris will be incentivized to increase government spending in order to hide greater economic problems.
GDP is an abstraction, a massive statistical wasteland vast enough to conceal any number of corpses.
Just look at the correlation between federal debt (red line) and GDP (blue line):
…amazing, isn’t it?
It’s almost enough to make you wonder whether the Keynesians, the Modern Monetary Theorists and the whole Krugman crowd could possibly be right.
Is government the true source of economic growth?
Well, no.
As the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards points out:
A fundamental problem with government is that its investments and other spending allocations are guesswork. Would fighter jets or passenger rail be the best place for added investment? The government has no mechanism to make efficient tradeoffs across such alternatives. In markets, choices are made with the help of prices that reflect consumer demands. But government choices are not made within markets – they are top-down mandates – and there are no good sources of data or feedback indicating whether investments add value or not.
Efficient federal investment is also undermined by pork barrel politics and corruption. The strength of state delegations in Congress, for example, influences which fighter jets the military purchases and the states they are made in. As for corruption, look no further than the Fat Leonard scandal that broke in 2016. Leonard Francis gained hundreds of millions of dollars of Pentagon contracts by essentially bribing navy officers with gifts, prostitutes, and other favors.
Even when initial investment choices are sound, federal projects are often mired in inefficiency. This reality is highlighted by frequent cost overruns on weapons systems, energy facilities, veterans’ hospitals, air traffic control (ATC) upgrades, and many other investments.
When the left spends money, return on investment is NOT the goal!
The point is simply to redistribute as much wealth as possible. Who cares about results? The spending is the whole point.
The $35.3 trillion debt mountain? They don’t want to talk about it. For good reason – a cursory look at the numbers shows us that debt mountain has been growing by an average of $10 billion per business day over the last three months.
I suspect a Trump return to the Oval Office will result in a firestorm of terrible economic data. Mostly due to the abrupt end of the manipulations and window-dressing that have become business-as-usual for the last four years.
But don’t be fooled…
As soon as the Federal Reserve cuts rates, inflation will spike again. Under a Trump administration, the reported CPI jump will be much more pronounced. Biden’s oil reserve dumps will be over, no longer anchoring CPI. We will continue to see inflation in food, fuel and housing – and stagnation in jobs and GDP.
That’s what happens during a stagflation crisis.
With Harris the same problems will occur, they just won’t be reported and the stats will not reflect the truth. With Trump, the stats will be far more transparent and the media will howl about how conservatives are destroying the economy.
Either way, there’s no point in pretending there’s an easy way out of this mess. Don’t rely on the government to save you. Don’t trust the stability of the dollar (there are much better alternative stores of value). Don’t listen to the corporate media – their agenda is not to inform you, but rather to keep you ignorant.
Brandon Smith has been an alternative economic and geopolitical analyst since 2006 and is the founder of Alt-market.us
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Birch Gold Group.