Leading Economists Strongly Prefer Harris' Economic Plan

"Twenty-three Nobel Prize-winning economists endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump in a joint letter released Wednesday. Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner joins Morning Joe to discuss the economic plans of both Trump and Harris."

Click on the link below for the details:

Trump’s mass deportation and trade war plans will tank the economy

Trump's Tax Plan Was Harmful, Don't Accept Any New One

"The verdict is in: Trump’s tax scam was trickle-down economics on steroids."

Click the link below for a video from Robert Reich exposing Trump's economics:

Trump’s Tax Scam: Why Nothing Trickled Down

Tariffs: What You Rely On If You Are Economically Ignorant

"Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is elevating McKinley, representative from Ohio from 1877 to 1891 and president from 1897 to 1901, to justify his plan to impose new high tariffs.

"Trump’s call for tariffs is not an economic plan; it is a worldview. Trump claims that foreign countries pay tariff duties and thus putting new tariffs of 20% on all imports, and as much as 60% on Chinese imports, will bring enough foreign money into the country to fund things like childcare, end federal budget deficits, and pay for the tax cuts he wants to give to the wealthy and corporations.

"This is a deliberate lie. Tariffs are essentially taxes on imported products, and they are paid not by foreign countries but by American consumers. Economists warn that Trump’s tariff plan would cost a typical family an average of more than $2,600 a year, with poorer families hardest hit; spike inflation as high as 20%; result in 50,000 to 70,000 fewer jobs created each month; slow economic growth; and add about $5.8 trillion in deficits over ten years. It would tank an economy that under the Biden administration, which has used tariffs selectively to protect new industries and stop unfair trade practices, has boomed."

Click on this link for more.

The "Multiplier Effect" In The Economy

Many economists will admit that economics is the "Dismal Science." Why? Because there are unaccounted-for variables. That said, the Multiplier Effect is science, thus real. In other words, when you spend money on ANYTHING, that goes through the economy and becomes worth more than the original amount of money many times over, to the benefit of all. The Democrats/Progressives recognize this reality, but the conservatives/Republicans/MAGA don't. That is why it is wrong for wealth to pool at the top of society unspent when EVERYONE benefits more when the middle and lower classes get more money because they SPEND more of their wealth.

It Is Difficult To Determine Causation Regarding The Economy

Click on the links below for several articles about whether Trump or Biden was better for the economy. It is important to consider all influences. One cannot just look at their effects presently:

The Trump and Biden Economies by the Numbers

Biden versus Trump's Economies

Biden versus Trump's Economy, in Eight Charts

How The Economy Really Fared Under Biden/Harris And Trump

Is Economic Growth Always Good?

"A 10th basic tenet of our system is that economic growth is always good.

"This, too, is utter bunk. Unconstrained economic growth is causing such grave harm to the climate that its costs are likely to be greater than the gains.

"Mainstream economists don’t measure the costs of growth. They talk about climate change as a so-called “externality,” as if it were just incidental to growth.

"But if you consider the deaths and injuries caused by chemical pollution, wildfires, and more intense hurricanes and storms, the costs of growth are huge.

"It’s possible to shift from an economy organized around growth to one organized around sustainability. How? Dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels. Limit what can be mined and extracted."

"Treat the Earth the same way we treat any limited natural resource: We prevent overfishing by limiting the amounts of fish that can be taken out of the sea over a given period of time.

"We should also limit the amount of gunk that can be put into the air, limit how much plastic can be produced, how much of our coastlines can be developed, and how much land can be owned and developed.

"In other words, if we accept that the Earth is a finite resource, let’s also agree that infinite growth will destroy the Earth. It’s already on its way."

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/debunking-myth-10-economic-growth

Trump Only Helped The Elite In His First Term

 Click on the links below for a clear understanding of what you will get under another Trump administration. If you are not in the 1% and vote for MAGA, you are gaslighted and gullible:

100 Ways, in 100 Days, that Trump Has Hurt Americans

The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises

The middle class needs a tax cut: Trump didn’t give it to them 

Trump’s Economy: 7 Broken Promises to Working Americans

A look at Trump's economic legacy

How Trump and Congress further rigged the economy in favor of the wealthy

How Trump Took the Middle Class to the Cleaners

Don't Believe The Lies: Democrats Best Against Crime And For The Economy

US Crime Rates At Historic Lows

The FBI released its latest Uniform Crime Reporting survey last week that revealed a notable positive trend continuing across the US—with violent and property crimes dropping by double digits.

Compared to January through March 2023, data from the first quarter of 2024 indicates that reported violent crime decreased by 15.2 percent.

Murder decreased by more than 26 percent.

Rape is down by 25.7 percent.

Robbery dropped by 17.8 percent.

Aggravated assault reports decreased by 12.5 percent.

Property crime also decreased by just over 15 percent.

The report includes data from more than 18,000 city, county, state, tribal, university and college, and federal law enforcement agencies.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/us-crime-rate-drops-to-historic-lows-new-q1-stats-show/

- - - - - - - - -

Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and 'migrant crime.'

Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.

But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels.

FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It's a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.

NBC News analyzed crime data to evaluate Trump's assertions about the topic.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-claims-crime-rates-clash-police-data-rcna145353


- - - - - - - - -

Democratic Administrations Have Economic Advantage Since 1949

Since 1949, there has been a Democratic advantage in the average performance of key macroeconomic indicators measuring economic health, including: 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth
Job growth
Unemployment rate
Growth in inflation-adjusted wages
Growth of market-based incomes per capita
Inflation
Interest rates

This Democratic advantage is across the board in all variables we measure but strongest in private-sector outcomes—notably, business investment, job growth, and the growth of market-based incomes.

Household income growth (adjusted for inflation) was faster on average and far more equal during Democratic administrations, and the Democratic advantage shows up for every group.

https://www.epi.org/publication/econ-performance-pres-admin/

- - - - - - - - -

Government CREATES The Free Market

"Between the 1930s and 1970s, America’s middle and lower-middle class offset the power of big corporations and the wealthy through labor unions, small businesses, small investors, and local political parties.

"Since then, though, all such centers of countervailing power have withered."

Click on this link for a debunking of the myth that the government gets in the way of the free market.

Understand What Is The Greater Negative Influence In The USA

"Everyone knows the rule about not meeting your heroes because they'll so often disappoint you, today we look at the most disappointing yet most idolized false heroes of our day, the twits of tech and the zany hijinks they've been getting up to recently."

Click on the link below for an expose of the dangerous influence of for-profit corporations, especially in technology fields:

The False Promises, Enshittification Economics, and Misguided Adventures of the Twits of Tech

(Please understand that I support REGULATED capitalism,
BUT, that is not what is happening in the USA)

Is There A Better Tool For Economic Health Than GDP?

"There may be logic in the belief that wealth can measure well-being. Free-market prices are determined by supply and demand that can relate to how much better off individuals believe a good or service can make them. Greater wealth can mean greater access to things that can improve everyday life.

"And, it's conceivable that those who produce wealth in an honest way create the most value for others, in an economic sense.

"So, higher GDP might equate to greater human progress, because it means a greater amount or greater value of goods and services has been created.

"But does economic growth really mean that people are better off? Scratch a little deeper and you may find that GDP does not reflect this traditional view or actual economic value and health very well."

Click on this link for the details.

Immigration Is A Positive

"An increasing number of Americans are becoming concerned about immigration. As am I. And I am an immigrant. But my concern isn’t tied to the specter of hordes of criminals crossing our borders, as Donald Trump and many of his supporters insist, or to immigrants causing the cost of urban housing to soar, or to low-skilled or unskilled workers driving down wages.

"I’m worried instead that our changing attitudes about immigration, our rhetoric and our behavior, will ultimately curtail immigration policy to the point where we cause serious damage to our nation. In a fast-developing, fast-urbanizing world in which a fierce global battle for labor and talent is well underway, America is already underperforming. We have one thing going for us, though: robust immigration rates. And we’re about to give it up."

Click on the link below for more:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-immigration-lies-hide-americas-real-immigration-problem-rcna152421 

The "Cowboy Myth" Of Rugged Individualism Destroyed

"I write a lot about how the Biden-Harris administration is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both political parties widely shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. And I write about how that so-called liberal consensus broke down as extremists used the Reconstruction-era image of the American cowboy—who, according to myth, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone—to stand against what they insisted was creeping socialism that stole tax dollars from hardworking white men in order to give handouts to lazy minorities and women.

"But five major stories over the past several days made me realize that I’ve never written about how Trump and his loyalists have distorted the cowboy image until it has become a poisonous caricature of the values its recent defenders have claimed to champion."

Click on the link below for more:

Conservative Economics Debunked

Mega-Corporations And Big Tech: A Monopoly Nightmare

"The effort to turn theory into practice that will open up new ways of thinking about antitrust lawsuits attempting to rein in big tech and other mega-corporations, which are operating in a new phase of capitalism."

Click on the link below for a podcast presenting the history of monopolies, anti-trust legislation and what is needed presently to resist the continuing growth of monopolistic corporate practices:

New Era of Antitrust for a New Era of Capitalism, Mega-Corporations and Big Tech

The Reason Today's Young Are Pissed Off (And, Rightly So)

"In a scorching talk, marketing professor and podcaster Scott Galloway dissects the data showing that, by many measures, young people in the US are worse off financially than ever before. He unpacks the root causes and effects of this "great intergenerational theft," asking why we let it continue and showing how we could end it."

Click on the link for the video:

How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future

An Example of "Bidenomics"

"The Biden administration has been scrupulous about making sure that money from the funds appropriated to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and manufacturing base has gone to Republican-dominated districts; indeed, Republican-dominated states have gotten the bulk of those investments. 'President Biden promised to be the president of all Americans—whether you voted for him or not. And that’s what this agenda is delivering,' White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian told Matt Egan of CNN in February.

"But there is, perhaps, a deeper national strategy behind that investment. Political philosophers studying the rise of authoritarianism note that strongmen rise by appealing to a population that has been dispossessed economically or otherwise. By bringing jobs back to those regions that have lost them over the past several decades and promising 'the great comeback story all across…the entire country,' as he did today, Biden is striking at that sense of alienation."

Click on the link below for more details about how empathetic Biden is regarding the working class AND WHAT HE IS DOING TO ATTACK THE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY FOSTERED BY THE OTHER POLITICAL PARTY HISTORICALLY AND PRESENTLY:

The Working Class Has Suffered Under Republicans

Economic Inequality: The Root Of All Evil?

"The past, present, and future of tackling the uselessness of extreme wealth by exposing and closing tax avoidance loopholes and pushing for a culture change to embrace the need for a more equal society."

Click on the link below for an exploration of all the possible negative effects of economic inequality in the USA:

Society of Extreme Wealth and its Discontents: Tax avoidance, wealth inequality and the detrimental effects felt by us all

B Corp Certification: Why Is It Not Better Known?

"B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. In order to achieve certification, a company must: 

• Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing our risk review. Multinational corporations must also meet baseline requirement standards. 

• Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, and achieve benefit corporation status if available in their jurisdiction. 

• Exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards to be publicly available on their B Corp profile on B Lab’s website.  

"As leaders in the movement for economic systems change, B Corps reap remarkable benefits. They build trust with consumers, communities, and suppliers; attract and retain employees; and draw mission-aligned investors. As they are required to undergo the verification process every three years in order to recertify, B Corps are by definition also focused on continuous improvement, leading to their long-term resiliency. 

 

"B Corp Certification is holistic, not exclusively focused on a single social or environmental issue. And the process to achieve and maintain certification is rigorous and requires engaging teams and departments across your company. Taking company size and profile into account, verification involves documentation of your company’s business model and information about your operations, structure, and various work processes, as well as review of potential public complaints and possible site visits. Recertification confirms these standards continue to be met on an ongoing basis. Read more in our FAQs."

Measuring a company’s entire social and environmental impact

Increase In Inequality = Increase In Crime?

"Corporate news wants you to feel like * crime is on the rise. But could it actually be that the forces turning your fellow Americans into criminals stems from inequality? Even in the animal kingdom, they can spot a con when they see one… "

Click on the link below for a 6-min video that presents evidence in support of the causal link between inequality and crime:

The Real Reason Crime Is Rising In America

* Is crime REALLY rising in the USA? (link)

Debt And Its Forgiveness: The Morality

"Today, we take a look at the history and hysteria behind debt and debt forgiveness while Biden is canceling student debt and opponents of the idea are reacting in the most predictable way possible because they misunderstand the relationship between debt and morality."

Click on the link below for a podcast exploring this issue from a moral perspective:

The Morality of Debt and Forgiveness