1) Biden’s New Chief Economist Wrong on EVERYTHING
Joe Biden has tapped Jared Bernstein as his chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
We think that a president should be entitled to whatever advisers he wants.
But it’s worth remembering that Jared Bernstein was the principal author of an infamous study at the start of the Obama administration which predicted that the Obama $500 billion “stimulus plan” would create 3.5 million “shovel ready” jobs.
Well, they were shoveling something, but it surely wasn’t jobs. Turns out the Obama stimulus was one of the great economic flops of all time. On net, not a single new job was created. Instead of 35 million new jobs, after two years, the economy LOST 1.1 million jobs. And instead of the unemployment rate falling to 5.0%, as Bernstein predicted, the rate stayed above 8% for well over two years. (People have forgotten how rotten Obama’s economic performance was.)
In fact, unemployment even turned out to be higher with the stimulus plan than Bernstein had estimated it would be WITHOUT the stimulus plan.
Source: Pioneer Institute
Bernstein was also one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Biden Build Back Better Bill and the $2 trillion American Recovery Act. Those didn’t stimulate the economy either – the economy has grown at 1.1% over the past six quarters – but they did stimulate inflation and debt.
Washington is one of the few places on earth where the more you are wrong, the more you get promoted to higher and more exalted positions.
Jared Bernstein is set to take the helm of the CEA at a pivotal moment for Biden and the economy. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
2) Gavin Newsom’s Spin on the California Exodus: At Least We’re Not Mississippi
Many Democrats want California Governor Gavin Newsom to run for president – including Newsom himself. Newsom came across as reasonable and moderate when he sat down with Fox News’s Sean Hannity last week. But despite his good hair and Bill Clinton charm, Newsom has an obvious problem – California is an economic basket case.
So Newsom is spinning a new story: California isn’t really losing people or jobs. He contended that other states are seeing people leave at a faster clip, such as Mississippi and Louisiana.
But those states have always been poor and underpopulated. By contrast, California has always touted its ability to attract people to its innovative and growing economy and bountiful job opportunities.
Something has changed. Since 2000, California has lost more than 3 million net domestic migrants (Outs minus ins). This is equal to the population of Chicago and St, Louis. Between April 2020 and July 2022, the Golden State saw a net loss of 500,000 people and over the past decade 1.7 million people moved out.
Oh, and did we mention that a lot of those former Californians are now living in … Florida.
3) Headline of the Day - Climate Crazies Square off Against the Radical “Me Too” Feminists
This article appears in this past weekend's Financial Times:
The article says: “Female delegates at UN climate talks allege they were bullied, abused and sexually harassed by male negotiators, casting a deeper shadow over this year’s COP28 summit." If the widespread allegations are true, it turns out a lot of leading climate change alarmists aren’t attending these cushy conferences just to save the planet.
4) Red State Employment Leaves Blue States in the Dust
It’s been nearly three and a half years since COVID hit and the catastrophic lockdowns paralyzed the economy in most blue states.
The lingering negative effects are STILL being felt in these blue states. The latest state employment/unemployment report again confirms that Republican-led states continue their jobs boom while Democrat-led states are still lagging behind. The number of jobs right now is a much better economic indicator than unemployment rates because of the widely varying labor force participation rates among the states. Texas, for example, has over 7% more people working today than pre-pandemic, while Illinois has yet to recover to its pre-pandemic employment level.
The states that top the chart for job creation are no surprise to frequent Hotline readers. Utah has been number one in the Rich States, Poor States publication every year. Idaho has been seeing the highest percentage of domestic in-migration of any state. Texas has a history of conservative leadership, and we have repeatedly highlighted the many ways in which Florida has become solidly pro-free enterprise over the last several years. And the states near the bottom? They tend to be big government basket cases with high taxes, high spending, and high regulation.
5) Port Unions Snag a Massive Contract – Despite All of the Supply Chain Problems They Helped Cause
Despite all of the problems at America’s western ports – greatly exacerbated by union work rules – the Biden White House encouraged a deal between shipping companies and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) at 29 West Coast ports. After 13 months of negotiations, some 22,000 union members will get a six-year deal with a 32 percent pay hike and concessions on automation that are guaranteed to keep America’s West Coast stuck in some Luddite past.
Full-time registered longshore workers earned an average of $197,514 in 2022, not including benefits. Full-time clerks earned an average of $220,042 and foremen averaged $306,291.
As Dominic Pino writes in National Review: “It would be better to speed the process up and start writing million-dollar checks to pay workers to quit and replace them with the technology we see in Singapore, Rotterdam, and other world-leading ports.”
In opposing automation, the unions are actually hurting the growth of jobs in America’s ports. The two partially automated terminals at Los Angeles/Long Beach have seen a growth in hours worked of 31% since 2015, more than twice the 14% rate at non-automated terminals.
Inflated union contracts like this – combined with antiquated work rules - make future supply chain disruptions more likely and more severe.
