GOP Screeches About Empty Shelves As Joe Biden Piles Presents Under The Tree
How many times has some Republican shitposted a picture of an empty shelf at Target and inveighed against President Joe Biden for ruining Christmas?
Here's Iowa Senator Joni Ernst doing it just last week.
President Biden\u2019s contribution to this year\u2019s season of giving could best be summed up by an elf on an empty shelf.pic.twitter.com/d4Vdg7I6Mc— Joni Ernst (@Joni Ernst) 1639437444
Turns out ... NOT SO MUCH. As the New York Timespointed out this morning, the summer supply chain problems that had Americans predicting empty stockings hung by the chimney with care never materialized.
In part this is because consumers started buying earlier, and did more in-person retail shopping, alleviating the December delivery crunch. Government and business efforts to reduce the pile-up of container ships at the busiest ports allowed retailers to restock shelves faster, while FedEx and UPS tweaked their logistics chains, with the latter adding Saturday delivery. And for all the shit we've given the United States Postal Service, it stepped up to the plate, too, adding new high-speed processing capacity and adding seasonal workers earlier.
It may not be a white Christmas, but for many Americans it will be a well-stocked one. Which is not to say that there aren't empty shelves — they're just not here in the US. Because we have so much cash and are buying so much stuff, we're causing shortages everywhere else.
“Are we crowding out consumers in other countries? Probably,” Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist at Jefferies in New York told the Wall Street Journal. “The U.S. consumer has a lot more purchasing power as a result of fiscal policy than consumers elsewhere. Europe could be in a stagflationary scenario next year as a consequence.”
And by "fiscal policy," she means all the money that Biden and congressional Democrats put in people's pockets with their stimulus bills.
As the Journal reported this morning, our economy is recovering from the COVID slump much faster than the rest of the world:
U.S. economic output is set to expand by more than 7% annualized in the final three months of the year, up from about 2% in the previous quarter, according to early output estimates published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That compares with expected annualized growth of about 2% in the eurozone and 4% in China for the fourth quarter, according to JPMorgan Chase.
Major U.S. ports are processing almost one-fifth more container volume this year than they did in 2019, even as volumes at major European ports like Hamburg and Rotterdam are roughly flat or lag behind 2019 levels. The busiest U.S. container ports are leaping ahead of their counterparts in Asia and Europe in global rankings as volumes surge, according to shipping data provider Alphaliner.
And yet, Biden is 13 points underwater on the economy according to the most recent CNN approval polling. Which is not to say that everything is sunshine and roses — as anyone who bought meat in the past month can tell you, inflation is real. But we have four percent unemployment, blistering growth, and the stock market continues to break records, and still Americans think we're on the verge of a depression.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the everloving fuck?
So you can miss us here at this little mommy- and recipeblog with that BS about the media just covering the Biden administration as it comes. LOOKIN' AT YOU, POLITICO. Americans believe this gloom and doom story about the economy because that's what the media is selling them. And not just at Fox, either.
"If you’ve watched the news recently, you might think the shelves in all our stores are empty across the country, that parents won’t be able to get presents for their children on holidays — this holiday season," the president said on December 1. "But here’s the deal."
Tell us the deal, Joe!
"For the vast majority of the country, that’s not what’s happening. Because of the actions the administration has taken in partnership with business and labor, retailers and grocery stores, freight movers and railroads, those shelves are going to be stocked."
Damn straight. The economy is humming, and thanks to Democratic policies, more Americans have money to spend. It's time to celebrate by pushing back on this bullshit, GOP talking point. Treat yourself — shipping's free!
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
