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· Friday, November 1, 2024 · 2 comments

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Mikey says:
    Friday, 1 November 2024 at 06:15

    This is the month we find out the answer to Franklin’s “if you can keep it.”

    ReplyReply
    1
  2. DK says:
    Friday, 1 November 2024 at 06:25

    Wall Street Journal twisting itself into rhetorical knots to avoid praising Biden or Obama by name.

    The Next President Inherits a Remarkable Economy (WSJ)

    Whoever wins the White House next week will take office with no shortage of challenges, but at least one huge asset: an economy that is putting its peers to shame…

    With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7% over the past year. It is outrunning every other major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate.

    …This growth didn’t come solely from using up finite supplies of labor and other resources, which could fuel inflation… it came from making people and businesses more productive.

    …Three of the past four newcomers to the White House took office in or around a recession (the exception was Donald Trump, in 2017)…

    Meanwhile, higher productivity growth should make the economy a bit less prone to inflation, more capable of sustaining budget deficits, and more likely to deliver strong wages…

    To describe this economy as remarkable would strike most Americans as confusing, if not insulting. In the latest WSJ poll, 62% of respondents rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” which explains the lack of any political dividend for President Biden. There are many reasons for the disconnect, most important the high inflation of 2021-23, whose effects still linger.

    We might feel better about the economy if our feudal lords and titans of capital stopped gouging back the piddly wages they pay us. We might feel better about Biden if the Very Serious People could acknowledge this socially-and-fiscally irresponsible greed. Instead I’ve mostly heard “Inflation! And Crime!” and “Recession is Coming!”

    The WSJ can’t figure out who did it.

    Anyway, some swing state polling now shows Harris running about even with Trump on economic trust. So thank you, again, big spending socialist Joe Biden. (And Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen, et al.)

    ReplyReply

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