Rich Welsh| In the first quarter of 2022, the US economy shrank, which surprised economists, reviving concerns that a recession is on its way and at a time when we have high inflation.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but it seems like the Biden administration is doing everything in its power to make it this way. It’s either incompetence or it’s being done on purpose and I don’t think there is an option 3.
Gross domestic product (GDP), which measures all the goods and services that make up our economy, has decreased at an annual rate of 1.4% during the first three months of the year, according to Thursday’s release of data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
So, instead of Build Back Better, the Agenda 21‘s Great Reset catch phrase is a real dud as the negative numbers are discouraging after following a 6.9% GDP increase after the last quarter of 2021. This pattern is normal as the Biden administration in 2021 was still enjoying the fruits of the Trump administration‘s labors. It takes about a year for the effects of new policies to be realized and boy are they ever being realized.
“The decrease in real GDP reflected decreases in private inventory investment, exports, federal government spending, and state and local government spending, while imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased,” the BEA report revealed.
The biggest hit to GDP that removed 3.2% from overall economic growth was a record-high trade deficit. Imports of good and services rose while exports of goods and services sharply fell. This means that people are still consuming but on goods that were purchased overseas. The increase in foreign imports could be explained because of the incompetence of the Biden administration struggling to get a handle on the supply chain disruptions last year.
The Democratic Party led us into oblivion by pandemic restrictions and disruptions in many parts of the country by their exploitation of COVID for power and control, on top of government spending on COVID assistance programs decreasing. According to the bureau, that’s what contributed to the GDP decrease.
Now for the good news.
Business investment went up 9.2% with companies investing in equipment and intellectual property rights, which shows that US businesses are still growing even though the economy shrank overall. God Bless America!
Spending on services increased to 4.3%, up from 3.3% from the last quarter. This means in relative terms that the United States is transitioning away from a pandemic economy where people were buying things like groceries and now are spending on services like dining out at restaurants.
Negative economic growth is not the right direction for the president and the Democratic Party that are already facing catastrophic losses in the midterm elections based on voter dissatisfaction with the economy. That is, if they allow us to have an election that they don’t try to steal this time.
Americans are not stupid, which is a problem for the Biden administration that lies to them every chance it gets. They feel the economic squeeze. While unemployment remains low enough, Americans know that higher prices for goods are causing problems for them being able to afford food and gasoline, which hurts spending in other industries like travel and entertainment because they cannot afford both.
The BEA is set to release a second estimate for the first quarter next month, the results of which will either be based on more complete data at that point or on manipulation of the numbers by the Biden White House. The Obama administration was known to manipulate economic numbers. Either way, Democrats are in panic mode over fears that inflation, that is causing the economy to stumble, will lead to a recession. They can’t lie their way out of it because voters feel the sting of hard economic times, and by now, most people understand that things did not have to be this way. The problems we are facing were caused by the government.
Democrats being in panic mode is not a good thing because recent experience has told us that they are capable of almost anything with little to no regard for the people they hurt while attempting to wield more power for themselves.
