Pants on the ground

Here’s a perfect contrast to Establishment Rushfield’s hardass economic realism.

Compact mag explicitly claims to be populist. Some of their articles fit the promise. This one goes the wrong way.

= = = = = START COMPACT:

The problem Biden faces is that a long-simmering cost-of-living crisis—reflected most but not exclusively in stifling housing prices—has boiled over during his term, damaging his poll numbers. To be clear, this isn’t the fault of his administration’s policies, which include infrastructure spending and industrial policies that enjoy bipartisan support, and efforts to contain costs, particularly in health care. Rather, the Fed’s hawkishness has needlessly complicated and lessened the effectiveness of those policies aimed at forging a national industrial strategy. That, in turn, has dampened prospects for domestic renewables, housing construction, regional redevelopment, and much-needed skills-building in critical fields like carpentry, electrical work, and engineering.

= = = = = END COMPACT.

This is standard Wall Street propaganda. “Renewables” are the keystone to recovery, and normal interest rates are THE WORST CRIME IN HISTORY.

The author does mix in the good trend toward reshoring, which is primarily driven by China’s switch toward its OWN domestic economy. Xi started China’s reshoring around 2015, gradually freezing out foreign companies from everywhere. Japan and Germany and Korea also had plenty of factories in China, and they’ve been pushed out as well. It’s not just an anti-American political move.

China is the Middle Kingdom. Its historic norm is total self-sufficiency, and Xi is moving back toward the norm.

Here in US/UK/EU, the central banks led by Powell are ALSO moving back toward normal economics, sobering up from the Wall Street crackfest of the last 15 years. Sobriety requires self-sufficiency. Compact should be applauding sobriety and savings, not begging for more crack.