The parallels between President Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden are becoming more and more evident. Remember Carter? He oversaw a doubling of gasoline prices, inflation went from 5% to 14%, interest rates climbed from a little over 7% to 16%, and unemployment in some parts of the country was in double-digits. His foreign policy was as much as a disaster. The Democrat president actually tried to use food as a weapon by embargoing grain sales to the Soviet Union, decimating American farmers, and he promoted Islamic terrorists by trying to normalize relations with the terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization and helping to foment the Iranian revolution that installed the terrorists Ayatollahs.
While the Biden Administration’s economic and foreign policies have not reached their maturity, it doesn’t take much extrapolating to predict a repeat of the Carter years. Already, burgeoning government spending programs in the trillions are on the precipice of causing the same impacts that we had on the economy in the 1970s. For example, Biden’s economic policies already have caused an erosion of your purchasing power. The Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent report indicated the real earnings of American workers fell for the fifth consecutive month in May. The culprit: Inflation. The mere threat of unbridled government spending, increasing the deficit, and expanding government has accelerated this issue.
The New York Post’s Will Feuer reports, “The Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, which measures a basket of goods and services as well as energy and food costs, jumped 5 percent in May from a year earlier. That’s higher than April’s 4.2 percent year-over-year rise in prices, and the biggest 12-month rise since August 2008, just before the financial crisis sent the US into the worst recession it had seen since the Great Depression. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected a 4.7 percent spike in May.” That economists expected 4.7% and it was actually 5% means that other market factors will be triggered that will complicate problems—not for people like Biden, but for people like you and me.
Biden’s foreign policy is also an issue. Since taking office, Russia, China, the terrorist Palestinian groups, and the world’s foremost terror sponsor, Iran, all have become far more aggressive. At the same time, Biden’s approach is appeasement. Talk tough, but act soft. These international bullies are going to beat Biden like a burdened donkey. This will cause further market anxiety and pressure the economy—end result—you and I get the brunt of higher prices, ransomware shutdowns, etc. Proverbs 28:3 says, “A destitute leader who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain which leaves no food.” In other words, a leader who seeks his own gain leaves nothing for others. And that’s what we have. Welcome back Carter.
