Category Archives: economic news

How much longer must the immigrant stunt go?

Two Republican governors — Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida — are doing a fine job of turning human beings’ hardship into a political stunt that they believe will resonate with Americans.

They are engaging in some of the cruelest policy decisions many of us have ever seen. They have decided to send migrants seeking entry into the United States to more liberal-leaning states to … seemingly make some kind of political point.

I wanted to toss a heavy object at my TV earlier this week when I witnessed the image of DeSantis laughing at the torment he is inflicting on immigrants from Latin America. He put 50 of them — including families with small children — on a chartered jet and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

He told them they would begin processing for entry into the United States. The migrants instead were delivered to an empty parking lot. Ah, but there was DeSantis in Florida, yukking it up over the game he is playing with the lives of desperate human beings fleeing tyranny.

Greg Abbott isn’t any better. He is shipping migrants out of Texas on buses, delivering them to Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other communities known to be friendlier toward these migrants.

I understand fully that President Biden’s immigration policy so far is not dealing adequately with the numbers of people seeking asylum and even a safe place to escape the horrors of life in their home countries. However, is the Republican response any better? Do these governors offer any policy alternatives?

No! Instead, they play games with human lives in a disgraceful display of callousness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Biden helps avert crisis

(AP Photo/Michael Virtanen)

Hey, let’s heap a good bit of good cheer on the Joe Biden administration, shall we? Why the high-five and the back-slap? Because the administration did what Americans expect it to do by stepping in to broker a deal that averted a potentially catastrophic blow to the nation’s economy.

As President Biden might say, this is a “big … fu**ing … deal,” if you get my drift.

Had the strike gone forward, as it was slated to do on Friday, valuable shipments of grain, food, all sorts of commodities, heavy equipment — you name it — would have come to a halt. You want a “supply chain crisis?” There you have it … in spades!

But the tentative agreement, presuming it’s ratified by the unions and the rail lines, means the goods will keep rolling and the crisis will have been averted.

You all know that this blog supports President Biden and the work he is doing on our behalf. I will offer a word of good cheer to the president, because I believe he deserves it. However, the big winner of this deal happens to be the 330 million Americans that the president represents.

Americans keep getting buffeted by doomsayers who suggest the economy is tanking, that “socialists” are poised to take over the government, that the U.S.A has become the “laughingstock of the world.”

The news about the White House stepping up to provide its good offices to end a potentially horrendous labor dispute demonstrates that the opposite of all that is so very true.

As The Hill reports: “It’s a big political risk. If it all blew up, the administration was going to be left holding the bag,” an industry source familiar with the talks said.

How Biden helped avert a rail strike – and another economic crisis | The Hill

It appears at this moment that nothing has blown up. I want to thank the federal government led by President Joe Biden for averting disaster.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gas prices are cheaper … not yet cheap

As I scan the main drag through Princeton, Texas — the four-lane federal highway U.S. 380 — I see evidence of something I had hoped to see.

It’s the price of gasoline receding. At virtually all the fuel dealerships along the highway, the price of regular unleaded gas is now selling from $2.93 per gallon to $2.99.

Hmm. It’s a far cry from the $4-plus we were paying this past spring and summer, yes? I know that other parts of the country were paying a good bit more than we were in Texas. Their gas prices are coming down, too.

It’s cheaper, for sure. It damn sure isn’t “cheap.” We’ve all become accustomed to a sort of new normal ever since gasoline spiked up in the 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo. Prior to that we were paying double-digit prices to fuel our vehicles; after that, well, we haven’t seen double digits since.

Now we are going to “salute” gas prices inching below 3 bucks per gallon? I won’t go that far. However, it is a relief and I welcome it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘Old jobs’ not as good?

A frequent critic of www.highplainsblogger.com decided to weigh in with a comment about President Biden’s job performance.

He disagrees — not surprisingly — with my assessment of the job growth that has occurred during the Biden administration. My critic says Biden has created “no real new jobs.” That the only jobs being “created” are the old jobs that are being filled again.

Hmm. I rolled that one around for just a moment.

It occurred to me that the old jobs are just as valuable as the new jobs. I mean, those who are filling the old jobs are paying taxes and contributing to the nation’s economic well-being just as much as they would be had they occupied “new jobs.” Isn’t that right?

The critic just cannot seem to grasp that I remain as faithful to Joe Biden as he does to Donald Trump. Except for this important qualifier: Biden defeated Trump in 2020. Oh, and Trump is in a deep pile of dookey over, well … you know.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Are we better off … ?

The Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives sought to make some political hay by asking if we are “better off today than we were two years ago.”

Well, Kevin McCarthy of California, your effort to denigrate Joe Biden’s presidency deserves a look. So … here goes:

  • On Biden’s watch, Congress approved a bipartisan bill — the first in 30-something years — that seeks to stem gun violence.
  • When Russia invaded Ukraine this past February, President Biden was able to present a unified NATO and European Union front in response to the illegal and criminal act of war.
  • The president was able to shepherd through Congress a massive infrastructure improvement bill that seeks to repair our nation’s roads, bridges and airports.
  • Joe Biden nominated and then welcomed the nation’s first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
  • We have turned the corner on the international pandemic.
  • Fuel prices, which skyrocketed and led the inflationary surge of recent months, have retreated dramatically.
  • The United States has created more private-sector jobs in the first two years of President Biden’s term than at any similar time in its history.
  • Unemployment currently stands at 3.5%.
  • Congressional Democrats — fighting unanimous Republican opposition — managed to pass the nation’s first-ever meaningful law dealing with climate change; it also seeks to curb health costs and reduce inflation.
  • We have cut by roughly half the nation’s annual budget deficit.

So, taken together, I think I have an answer to Leader McCarthy’s question.

Yes. We are better off than we were when President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took office.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Democrats have earned it

President Biden is going to get a bill quite soon that won’t have any Republican votes attached to it. The blunt truth is that I wished for at least a smattering of GOP support from Congress to send the Inflation Reduction Act to the president.

Alas, it didn’t happen. However, I am going to say loudly and clearly that Democrats in the Senate and the House have done well for those of they represent across the land.

House Democrats today stood together to enact the IRA. It seeks to reduce inflation, seeks to reduce carbon emissions, seeks to reduce the cost of drugs.

Republicans, of course, say it doesn’t do anything to help us. I will disagree with their bloviating.

The Inflation Reduction Act represents a significant effort to curb climate change. Indeed, it is this nation’s largest-ever investment to help curb carbon emissions.

I have to ask: Why is that a bad thing?

It’s not a bad thing at all! Republican obstructionists, though, remain bound to their commitment to block anything President Biden and Democrats want to accomplish.

It is to their everlasting shame. Democrats, meanwhile, have earned the nation’s gratitude. They have, as Joe Biden once declared, produced a big fu**ing deal.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Don’t redefine recession

Here’s a bit of unsolicited advice for President Biden’s team of advisers and economic gurus.

Do not seek to redefine what constitutes an economic recession.

The feds this past week reported that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product fell for the second consecutive quarter. Isn’t that metric usually what economists call a recession?

We now hear Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen say that it’s not necessarily preordained that we’re in a recession. President Biden won’t acknowledge the inevitable, either.

In truth, any declaration on the health of the economy is supposed to come from an independent, bipartisan group of economists. That group will meet very soon to issue its proclamation.

I realize that Joe Biden wants the economy to keep humming along. We’re going to get a Labor Department jobs report at the end of the week. Those numbers will tell us a good bit more about whether we’re in a recession … which I believe is the case.

And that will be the case no matter how the administration might seek to spin it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Get a Plan B ready

Here’s a word of advice for you, President Biden: Get a Plan B ready in the apparently likely event that your fuel-tax holiday doesn’t make the grade in Congress.

I reluctantly endorsed your idea of suspending the fuel tax for 90 days, Mr. President, only because I want some immediate relief from these monstrous fuel prices. Hey, I just returned from an errand this morning, stopped to put some diesel fuel into my truck, stopped the pump at $35 … and then saw that I barely moved the fuel-gauge needle.

What would suspending the diesel fuel tax do for me? Not much, Mr. President. But it’s something!

Whatever you have on the back burner, sir, well … I am thinking you’d better dust it off and get it ready to present.

I am among those Americans who continues to seethe that Republicans continue to resist every single idea that comes from the White House, Mr. President.

I know that’s why we pay you the big dough, Mr. President. Still, just a little give from the “loyal opposition” would give me a glimmer of hope that good government is still possible.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gas tax holiday? Sure, let’s do it!

President Biden is considering a temporary suspension of the federal fuel tax we motorists pay every time we put the go-juice into our motor vehicles.

I have kinda waffled on this one, but I’ve decided that it’s worth doing to give Americans — such as my family and me — some relief from the pain we are enduring at the fuel pump.

The “tax holiday” would save us about 18 cents per gallon of fuel with each visit to the service station. The savings over time isn’t a huge amount, but it’s significant enough to give us a little bit of a break from the gouging (I believe) that is occurring.

Energy companies are raking in huge profits while soaking us at the pump. Joe Biden is trying like the dickens to talk the oil company moguls into drilling for more fossil fuel, which would shore up the supply. He has ordered the release of 1 million barrels of petroleum each day for six months from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Surely, there’s a downside to the tax holiday. The federal fuel tax pays for infrastructure maintenance and improvement. That money will dry up, forcing the government to find other revenue sources to pay for the necessary improvements to our highways and bridges.

For now, though, I will — with reluctance — endorse the idea of a tax holiday … just go get some relief from the pain and sticker shock.

It won’t allow me to continue driving the way I did before this monstrous spike in fuel prices. It just won’t hurt quite as much whenever I park next to the pump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, these costs …

Not long ago I posted a blog item that recalled the good old days when Dad would ask the gas station attendant to pump “a buck’s worth of regular” gasoline into his car.

At 25 cents per gallon, that bought Dad about four gallons of fuel. He could run on that for, say, a weekend.

Well, today I pulled into a Shell station in Farmersville, Texas and pumped 4.546 gallons of diesel fuel into Big Jake the Pickup.

The cost of a little more than four gallons of fuel today … roughly the same amount of fuel for which Dad paid a buck?

Twenty-five dollars!

This makes me so mad … I could just spit!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com