Life is not perfect in Joe Biden's America, but when was it ever perfect? Just looking at the numbers, though, things are pretty great.
Stock prices are hitting record highs. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 50 years. Violent crime — murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery — has dropped to a near 50-year low. The net worth of American households stands at record levels.
Higher prices remain a concern for many, but inflation has much moderated. Inflation last month was zero, and some prices are coming down. For example, the average price of gasoline, which hit $5.816 a gallon two years ago, is now down to $3.452.
The U.S. economy is, in The Wall Street Journal's words, "the envy of the world." Since shortly before the pandemic, the real GDP has grown 9.4 percent. By contrast, Britain's has risen just one percent, and in Germany and Japan, it's up less than one percent.
Jamie Dimon, the boss at JP Morgan, has called the booming American economy "unbelievable" with the average consumer "much wealthier than before."
And that's why the world's investors are flooding into American markets.
"The US has the biggest and most innovative companies with strong earnings growth but profit also from its safe haven status," explained Ulrich Urbahn, an analyst at Hamburg-based Berenberg Bank.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is taking on China as the world's producer of green energy and microchips. This didn't just happen. America is charging ahead in this competitive race because of Biden's three big invest-in-America bills.
After recently observing the massive factory construction in Georgia, BBC economics editor Faisal Islam wrote, "In 20 years of reporting around the world, what I have seen in the US over the past year can only compare to what I saw in China in the mid-2000s."
Granted, many Americans feel pressed by prices at the supermarket or McDonald's. In reality, inflation had been a worldwide phenomenon.
That may account for consumer sentiment numbers that reflect unwarranted pessimism (though there's been some improvement). Consumer behavior in the real world suggests otherwise. Americans are continuing to spend at levels that baffle economists.
No one who follows news delivered straight can believe that the economy was better under Donald Trump. There's hardly a number to support that claim. It's a tribute to the ex-president's powers to con that much of the public thinks the four-time bankrupt is an economic wizard.
We know that Trump can put on a show. But the show of late has turned more bizarre than entertaining — witness his crazy verbal meanderings about electric boats and sharks, one of which bit off a "young lady's leg."
Trump recently spoke to corporate bigwigs at a Business Roundtable meeting in New York. Some in attendance had been predisposed to Trump based on his talk of tax cuts and looser regulations.
But they were shocked by his mental confusion. "Trump doesn't know what he's talking about," one CEO told Andrew Sorkin, host of CNBC's Squawk Box.
Several of them, Sorkin reported, "said that [Trump] was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map." He offered few details on how he would reduce taxes and cut back on business regulations.
Trump recently quoted his doctor who years ago said he was mentally competent, but he mangled the doctor's name. And no, Donald, World War II is in the past, not the future.
The numbers say the U.S. economy is amazingly strong under Biden. And the non-economic numbers are not too shabby either. The murder rate, for one, is well below pre-pandemic levels -- that is, when Donald Trump was president.
Face it, Biden's America is doing fabulously well.
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
