A Possible Silver Lining?
This may be another column were my Conservative Republican bonafides may be challenged and maybe they should be. Am I a closet Democrat?
Hmmm. You decide.
Without drilling down too far into the JOBS report last week all I can say is “WTF”. That’s right, at this point we should be seeing weaker and weaker numbers and we are not.
The economy is doing very well. people are working and wages are rising faster than inflation so that hard work is allowing people to get ahead.
In the big Macro World of economics all this means is that the economy in the US will keep expanding. That expansion will, of course, create an upward pressure on wages which in turn will continue to cause inflation to remain higher than what the Fed’s target is.
This is point number one in my closet Democrat life. I may have said this before but it bears repeating: I think that the Fed has that magical inflation rate wrong. I have always thought that a rate of 2 1/2 to 3% is sustainable and actually better for the long term health of the US Economy.
In the simplest terms, if companies have some pricing power, they will continue to be profitable enough to appease shareholders and still have cash to maintain healthy balance sheets. No pricing power ( very low inflation) they don’t.
What we saw in 2020-2023 was that producer pricing power gone amuck. It isn’t that way anymore. They can raise prices but those price rises are stretched out over a longer period of time and the end result is the same, they maintain profitability without chasing off consumers.
We saw during the heyday of low inflation, very low GDP growth. Business was good but not great and people were working but were they actually getting ahead? Obviously people were doing better but that may not have been from wage growth at one particular company. To do better financially, many workers left and found companies that were willing to pay them more. Or they would move to a location that had a lower cost of living so their wages would go farther.
Before I dig into my silver lining I just want to throw something out there. A question. How much of the wage growth we are seeing right now is due to the minimum wage being raised in certain states?
Here is where I am going to be tossed out of the He Man Democrat Hater’s Club.
Immigration.
Yes, President Joe Biden’s biggest failure may end up being an economic mini miracle and all us right wing conservatives may have gotten it wrong.
Yes, you heard me say it. Don’t send any MAGA trucks to my house because just like all those Progressive puppets that tried to storm the Bastille, my dog Bruno does not check political affiliations when you cross his threshold.
Yes, we need these immigrants more now than ever.
Don’t get your panties twisted for God’s sake. I still believe that we need a tight border policy. I still think that we need to document every one of the people that have crossed the border. I still believe that with time, effort and money, we can create a very workable solution to what Biden hath created.
In the meantime, we need these people.
Like every immigrant group that has ever come to this country, they fill the needs of millions of small businesses. Busboys, short order cooks, maintenance, day laborers and so on. We need those roles filled.
It is not racist, it is a cold hard fact that the people that have entered this country are looking to fill any role they can so they can make a life in this country. I say with a good sound border policy, we can create a pathway for these people to start filling those roles.
Let’s be honest here for a second. What regular high school age American kid is going to want to a busboy at the local Diner? Zero. What kid in this country will go out and pick tomatoes at some farm in California or Texas? None. I will venture to say that there are probably millions of low level jobs that need to be filled and there are millions of 16-19 year old kids that are “Too busy studying for the SAT” to take such jobs.
Yet, these roles need to be filled.
Given the fact that I think pretty much every news source and government publication is full of it, I really have no clue how many migrants or illegal aliens are in this country. One source says it’s upwards of 12 million, I think the US Government acknowledges over 2 million. Who knows?
The border policy started at the beginning of the Biden administration has been a failure no matter what numbers you look at. That is a fact and maybe this will save me from being tossed from the Republican Party but the Democrat Party is responsible for this failure as well.
I think it is a case of , “ I have a great idea”, but never looking at the ramifications of that idea. I know, that’s what all politicians do but this was a disastrous idea from the very beginning, even before Joe Biden was elected.
I still hold that the ultimate goal was to get more voters to vote Democrat over time but I will never be able to prove that.
Back to the Silver Lining. We have to get control of the border first and foremost and if we leave it up to the idiots in DC, that will never happen. Governor Gregg Abbott has taken matters into his own hands and the Liberal Progressives are having multiple heart attacks and calling him every name under the Sun but he is doing what he feels is best for Texas and that is all that matters.
Ron DeSantis would do the same thing if he was in the same spot. It’s a Republican thing for sure, protecting your state, protecting your people. Surely, Kathy Hochul in New York or J.B. Pritzker in Illinois can protect their constituents as well. Oh wait they are Democrats.
I digress, again. Sorry.
The silver lining to this influx of people is that small businesses can fill roles that have been left open for months and should the economy allow it, they can expand, knowing that they have a pool of workers that are availible.
Job growth is amazing but the nuts and bolts of any economy is not Jamie Dimon or Larry Fink it is the unheralded group of people that keep almost every small business running.
Oh wait what about the drugs and the criminals that are entering this country and the deaths that follow?
Let me ask you this;
Did people die from drug overdoses during the Bush administration? The Obama administration? During Trump’s administration? Yes, they did. They died from drugs manufactured right here in Terre Haute, Indiana and Rahway, N.J.
I am no expert but I do believe that Fentanyl would be imported into this country regardless of what crisis we have at the border. When there is a demand for an illicit drug, the Mexican Cartels and the Chinese Yakuzi will find a way to get product to that demand.
What about all the criminals that are coming in? Stop. Jeez, whatever criminals are coming over the border have been coming over the border since Pancho Villa times. Even if you close the border completely, you think that is going to stop criminals from other countries coming here?
I will tell you a quick story and I hope I don’t get in trouble for this.
I sat on a Federal Grand Jury for over 2 years. We heard 157 cases in that time and indicted 157 times. Apparently, it was not a record but very close to one.
Anyway, of those 157 case, at least 10 of them were crimes committed by an illegal alien that had been deported and made it back to this country. My point is this, it has been going on forever and will continue to happen.
We are not only the land of opportunity for the common man we are also a golden opportunity for criminals as well, open or closed border.
OMG, the terrorists! Again, if some terrorist organization wants to get people in place in the US, they will get them here, regardless of the border situation.
This whole thing is a case of an idea gone wrong and an administration that has not once ever admitted they screwed up. With the support of a small fraction of his own party Joe Biden has made a mess of something he really should not have attempted to deal with without fully thinking it through. Like pretty much every other miscue by Joe Biden, the press in this country has given him a pass. Whatever legislation or executive orders he may come up with in the next 7 months it will do little to correct a problem he created. We can try and use his stupidity to solve a much larger issue in the United States but that would take hard work, intelligence and a willingness to work together and bring about a workable solution.
Or vote for Donald Trump.