This election has revealed numerous Economic Misunderstandings

Republicans, being the out of power party, is being given the benefit of the doubt for economics, inflation, and crime.  Reality indicates none of these three opinions are justified under the current circumstances.  But aren't the Democrats the "out" party because Republicans are the "in" party in terms of the Supreme Court anti-abortion decision?  So both sides are equally motivated to change the establishment.

Inflation

Most inflation comes from shutdowns during the pandemic, oil prices, and price gouging.  Inflation is 15% worldwide with America low on the list, even lower than Germany and Britain at 10% each.  The right would have you blame government spending, but deficit funding has the main impact.  The last high inflation period began with exact linearly increasing deficits by presidential term from Kennedy to Reagan.  And while the Democrats do tend to spend a lot, the Inflation Reduction Act reduces the deficit $400 billion.  With billionaires paying an average 3% income tax rate, there is plenty of room for taxing the rich.  The 15% billionaire corporation minimum income tax is intended to encourage a worldwide 15% rate.

Actually, lockdowns and oil shocks from 1) the pandemic rebound and 2) the Russian War are a big part of the story.  But corporate masters failed to raise wages to match their price increases, hoarding profits creating a "family level" middle class recession.  Republicans won't raise the minimum wage or protect union organizing or support an excess profit tax.  They just want to blame the Democrats without any intention of doing anything to fix inflation.  They just want to reverse Democratic policies like health care, global warming, and lately even social security.

Trump made oil price increases inevitable when he negotiated a 2 million barrel a day cut in oil production by the Saudi's just before leaving office.  MBS hates Biden and loves Trump so much that they probably colluded on this year's October Surprise, the 2 million oil supply cut by OPEC.  Ironically, this puts Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia on the same side in the war.  Iran and Saudi Arabia, deathly enemies, colluding.  Because Trump and the Hungarian leader weakened NATO, Putin thought he would have an easy war, with NATO needing consensus to act.  Biden's long chairmanship of Foreign Affairs led to a brilliant defense of Ukraine including sanctions and weapons. The Javelin antitank missile won the war on the Kiev front and the mobile rocket launcher HIMARRS with a fifty-mile range is disrupting Russian supplies and winning the current counterattacks by Ukraine.  The Russian artillery advantage has been overmatched. 

Economics

Nixon funding made monetarism the leading economic theory over Keynesianism, and the economic mainstream has never recovered.  Monetarism has the main flaw that tightening the money supply can raise interest rates slowing the economy, but loosening the money supply does much less to stimulate the economy.  Putting on the brakes is usually the only effective strategy.  Monetarism is close to useless in econometric models which have to be built with Keynesian concepts.  The real economy of Keynesianism productivity is far more important than the financial approach of militarism.  That military spending depletes the manufacturing sector is the finding that ushers in the Reuschlein theories of economics.  The second half of the Reuschlein theory is based on the fact that heat slows the economy down and cool speeds it up.  Balance of energy between the Earth's lands and oceans creates the 54-year cycle of 27 years of cooling followed by 27 years of warming.  Despite knowing that huge uncertainties exist in mainstream macroeconomics, they cling to their corruption and do not want to see the accurate models I've created. They were stunned at my conference presentation in Toronto, and in person I often face blank stares.  That's why my book needs 400 pages to deal with all the false consciousness out there.  My theory is quite simple but the ramifications are endless, and that's where empire theory represents a starting place to rebuild the social sciences around.  I call what's happening to America now "social decay" of empire, starting with a near perfect correlation between domestic crime and the military in international comparisons.  Teachers know the problem kids early on.  Raised in a culture of demonization of the enemy makes it easier to be violent or steal from others.  Scapegoating only goes so far before dehumanization sets in and we all become the other.  Republicans are the party of big business, but the Democrats often favor small business, the engine of job growth.  Historically Democrats outperform Republicans in growth rates about 80% of the time.  Democrats are more nuanced and holistic building policies around the individual.  Republicans think the stock market and business drive the economy but they are only parts of the economy, government and consumers are important also.  The consumer drives the business sales that are the life blood of the economy.  The government can spend to pull up a weak economy.  Republicans are great talkers and nitpickers, making up grudges to anger the voters (own the libs, cruelty is the point) while they fleece voters' pockets to give tax cuts to the rich, while secretaries pay higher income tax rates than billionaires.

Crime

The recent rise in crime is not across the board, but really represents years of promoting violence and guns at campaign rallies ramping up to the January 6 Insurrection.  I have been researching crime since 1989.  Rates of crime change only gradually over time, generally up when military spending is up and down when military spending goes down.  But starting in 2015, when Trump started eight years of constant attacks on everyone in sight, demonizing everyone that crosses him.  This atmosphere of negativity, hate speech, and violence encouraging has led to millions of gun purchases and the doubling of gun deaths by 2020.  Putin has got what he wanted by helping elect Trump to promote division, chaos, civil war and the oil industry.  Putin apparently donated $30 million to the NRA to go to Trump in 2016.  Russian disinformation went out from Russian sites and Trump sites at the same time, showing clear collusion, and multiplying the Russian impact fivefold (80% Trump sites, 20% Russian).  Trump is a very good disciple of Putin, wanting the same powers Putin has with similar hate groups to hate, and the same chaos and civil war Steve Bannon recruited Trump for.  It's not a crime problem, it's a gun problem which means only the Democrats have a solution.

 

One Solution

The proposals to provide universal four-year-old kindergarten and child care would have brought millions of desperately needed women back into the workforce.  At a time with ten million job openings this would bring increased income and inflation relief to many families.  Unfortunately, this was dropped as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.  Is Joe Manchin part misogynist?  Raising the minimum wage to $15 would help the price gouging not just go to profits but some of it will go to middle class workers.

List of Main Findings and Claims:  

https://www.academia.edu/37217512/Findings_and_Special_Claims_November_2017_2_pages

Please cite this work as follows:  Reuschlein, Robert. (2022, November 5), "Economic Misunderstandings" Madison, WI, Real Economy Institute.  Retrieved from:  https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Economic-Misunderstandings,2022277848.aspx

Dr. Peace, Professor Robert Reuschlein, Real Economy Institute, Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2016-2022 with accelerating interest from the staff of the deciding Norwegians.  On my expertclick.com website daily "hard looks" per year went from 2 to 3 to 48 to 128 to 200 to 322 to 346 by the October 7^th, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize announcement time.

Contact: bobreuschlein@gmail.com 

Info: www.realeconomy.com