Is Bidenomics a Success? No.

     Over the last couple of months, talking heads on the cable television shows and encampments online have been bandying back and forth regarding the term ‘Bidenomics’, with two primary factions arguing whether or not it’s a positive thing or a negative thing. Karine Jean-Pierre, the current White House Press Secretary, has consistently tried to proclaim that Bidenomics is working for the average American household, and many in the Democratic camp are parroting her talking point like the good little ditto-folk they are.

     These are the same folks who would impale themselves with a sharpened hot dog if you told them ‘Simon Says’ to do it, and by Simon, I mean either the Department of Justice or Saint Anthony Fauci, Hallowed Be His Name….

     But for the opposite side of the conversation, one needs not go far to hear people saying that what Bidenomics really implies is the skyrocketing cost of damned near every consumer good available on the market, and the fact that inflation has made the idea of future home ownership about as reasonable an expectation as thinking that I’m going to be a starting linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles in the 24-25 regular NFL season. For those of you who don’t know, I may be an Eagles fan, but I am 41 years old, have four kids at home, live in Minnesota, am slightly overweight, a smoker, and have a personal background in football that only goes as far as having played as a kicker for my high school for half a season. I could have played more, but it would have interfered with my martial arts training, and that was far more interesting and engaging for me back in my teenage years.

     Undoubtedly, if you were to bring up the idea that Bidenomics is a marker of market failure or economic downturn, someone from the Democrat/liberal/progressive wing of the voting public will ask you for evidence of that beyond the current interest rate for a home loan. “That’s not a true economic measure, it’s not an everyday purchase,” they will remark with the kind of snide smirk that makes one want to fill a Super Soaker with gasoline and rig up a butane lighter to the front of it, just to get rid of that expression on their face. “What else have you got,” they may ask.

     Allow me to present Exhibit A:

    What you are seeing above is two bottles of Robitussin with Honey, two different bottles, each purchased about 8 months apart. My wife doesn’t get severely sick very often, but when she does, this is one of the only things she can take that works to relieve her symptoms. The bottle on the right, 8 ounces, was purchased about 8 months ago, at my local Hyvee, for 9 dollars. The bottle on the left, 4 ounces, was purchased a few days ago, at my local Hyvee, for 9 dollars. So, for the same cost, I’m getting half of the medicine.

     “It’s the start of cold and flu season, Josh!, Surely there’s a mark-up by the evil capitalist pigs who run Hyvee in your area,” these folks might try to argue. Even if I were to grant your premise, which I don’t, since Hyvee is employee-owned (it’s a modified co-op company), let’s go ahead and go with a daily-use example.

          I present to you a product used on the daily or every-other-daily basis here in my home (when you have two adults and four kids, you do a lot of laundry). This is knock-off brand laundry detergent, purchased at our local Dollar Tree for $1.25 per bottle. The bottle on the right was purchased a couple of months ago, and saw us through to just last week, when I purchased the bottle on the left, for the same price, at the same store, to make sure we didn’t have a gap in time where we couldn’t do laundry due to lack of detergent. These purchases were made only a couple of months apart, and no, I didn’t overlook the bigger bottle on the shelves; these smaller bottles are now the biggest in the store.

     The bottle on the right is 64 ounces. The bottle on the right is 42. Now, I’m not a genius by any stretch, but that’s 22 fewer ounces, right? For the same price? Tell me again how Bidenomics is a great thing for the average American. And folks, my family is just that, an average family. My wife and I are pretty dead-center middle class. Between the two of us, we gross a combined income of around 90k per year, and are managing to raise four kids and take care of this house that we were lucky enough to close on with a 3.2% fixed interest rate back near the end of 2020. We slid in right under the line in terms of timing for buying a home.

     I’m well aware that we got superbly lucky finding this house when we did, and locking in our bid and rate where we did. God smiled on us for a brief window, and we made the most of it. We don’t catch a lot of breaks, so when we do get one here or there, we are eternally grateful to the Man on High. You may cringe at my profession of faith here, since I seldom cop to being a man of faith, but I am, and I don’t drone on about it most of the time because doing so doesn’t seem, to me at least, to be my place.

     But it absolutely is my place, as an average American, to stand up and proclaim anyone calling Bidenomics a success to be a flat-out liar, because it isn’t a success. You need only look at the above average, everyday American examples to see that for yourselves.