To Market, to Market
The Soviets successfully pulled off a number of dirty tricks which increased their power but impoverished their citizens. Among them was to stir up class warfare by politicizing envy. Thus, unsuccessful farmers were urged to demonize and even kill “kulaks” -- that is, any productive farmer in the area. Another trick was to fail to provide factories with sufficient raw materials to fulfill the overly optimistic state-set production quotas and then criminally prosecute factory managers who couldn’t meet these targets as "saboteurs.” It deflected from their own failures but unsurprisingly resulted in a shortage of qualified managers and engineers.
It’s disheartening to see the same tactics being used by unsuccessful politicians in North America, though you can easily see why they are desperate enough to try it.
In the first place, Democrats are losing public support. Taking the latest Reuters polling information, former President Trump is likely to be a clear winner in 2024, garnering 312 electoral votes to Biden’s 226.
Among the factors weighing heavily on public disaffection with Democratic governance is the downturn occasioned by their policies, which hamper production, raise prices, and allow widespread retail theft.
Robert Barnes has done the math: “Under #Trump, real median family household incomes rose 15% in just 3 years, the highest rate since after World War 2. Under #Biden, real median family household incomes fell 5% in just 3 years, the fastest rate of decline since the Great Depression.”
To be sure, the bien pensant big thinkers don’t see this as a problem. The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offers up a defense – essentially, voters shouldn’t believe their lying eyes.
“The economic data have been just surreally good. Even optimists are just stunned,” says Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
So why do polls show most Americans don’t think the economy is doing well? “There’s a really profound and peculiar disconnect going on.”
These days, Republicans claim that the economy is -- you know, they're giving this economy a worse rating than the economy of 1980 when we had 7.5 percent unemployment and 14 percent inflation, right? It just doesn't make any sense.
And it's clear, there's a strong element of just tribalism partisanship. This is what people think they should say about the economy rather than an actual perception.
Now, you know, you can make some -- oh, sorry. And it's also the case that people -- the polling says that people, especially Republicans, say that inflation is rising when, in fact, it's falling. And you say, well, you know, but prices are up. Isn't that what matters? But back in the Reagan years, when prices continued to rise, there was never a deflation then, people did recognize that inflation was falling.
Maybe his own calculations explain what he deems “a disconnect”:
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