In this episode, Simone talks about inflation and real inflation under the Trump and Biden presidencies, and why the real inflation numbers are much worse than the fake inflation numbers put out by the Republicans. She also talks about how the stock market performed under the two presidents, and how the economy performed under each of them.
00:03:17.000So if you look at Zillow's rent index for changes in single family homes, they identified the
00:03:24.000average home rent price under the Trump administration as $1,488 as compared with $1,884 under Biden.
00:03:34.000According to Zillow's index, home rent prices for single bedroom houses increased 50% under Trump administration and 30% under the Biden administration.
00:03:45.000Like, how do people afford this when it's increasing that much?
00:04:02.000Now let's look at a different way of looking at this.
00:04:04.000The BLS also tracked rent prices increased by 13.6% over the entire Trump administration and by 21.5% over the first three years of the Biden administration.
00:04:46.000Now I feel a lot less gas lit based on these numbers because I'm hearing a lot of discussion now, especially leading up to the election, that prices aren't that different.
00:04:56.000But I keep thinking, no, they're just lying to people.
00:05:23.000But also, I didn't realize just how bad it was because I know things cost more.
00:05:29.000But I think I'd forgotten at this point, I've even successfully been gas lit to the extent where when you said that gas prices were on average about two and a half dollars in the US under Trump.
00:05:44.000But now I feel like less of an idiot because every time you and I go to a restaurant, for example, or to a grocery store, I think I can't afford this or this.
00:05:53.000This used to be the price of a Michelin star restaurant in the heart of Manhattan.
00:05:59.000But we are out in the boonies in Pennsylvania at like a wing bucket.
00:06:08.000They'll be like, oh, this is like $25 for an entree at like a medium restaurant.
00:06:12.000And it's like this was literally what Michelin star restaurants used to charge.
00:06:18.000Yeah, a $25 entree was, I think I remember seeing those prices at restaurants like La Granouille, which was one of the most expensive, fancy restaurants in all of New York City that we've ever eaten that was like such a thing you dress up to go is a big deal.
00:06:34.000And what makes me so concerned about this, too, is, well, you and I basically since the pandemic have stopped eating out, period, unless it's for a business dinner that we have to go to and we have to meet at a restaurant, because otherwise we just have people come to our house and we inflict our food upon them.
00:06:52.000We we don't see that same change in the average American.
00:06:56.000The average American is still eating out with their family on a semi regular basis, if not on a very regular basis.
00:07:03.000When I hear, quote unquote, normal people talking about their lives, they're door dashing.
00:07:14.000So not only restaurant food, but restaurant food that they're paying delivery fees for.
00:07:18.000Well, and it shows you how entitled people are.
00:07:20.000There was a campaign a while ago where after the pandemic, people were saying that door dash should be like a human right.
00:07:27.000This is progressives saying that the government should pay for our door dash because they didn't like to like that.
00:07:33.000They could get triggered if they go out in public or they could, you know, a few weeks back.
00:07:39.000This retard showed up with this take comparing food delivery to vaccines and medicines.
00:07:45.000As in her view, they are all the fruits of progress that should be considered essential, despite not existing in previous eras because times and standards have changed.
00:07:54.000If you're against them being made into a human right, you're ableist.
00:07:57.000The discourse culminated with this furry claiming that he orders door dash because his polycule is food insecure and too disabled to cook for themselves.
00:08:05.000Even though door dash is really expensive and a food insecurity refers to people who are so poor, they can't consistently afford food.
00:08:12.000So this is all guy replies. Some types of food are basic staples. See, rice, pasta, veg, fruit, etc.
00:08:17.000Some types of food are more luxury items. Both can exist. No one has an automatic human right to be able to shop at Waitrose.
00:08:23.000It's a basic human right to afford all food. You can't pick and choose what people deserve.
00:08:30.000Don't forget just how luxurious our lives are that you, you could not get food delivered to you.
00:08:37.000There, there were certainly local pizza stores that might do delivery rounds in a limited area or sometimes Chinese food delivery, but that was offered on a restaurant by restaurant basis by restaurant staff.
00:08:51.000This was not a pervasive service available to everyone. It certainly wasn't affordable or, you know, cheap by any means.
00:08:59.000Now, nowadays you can like literally get a TV door dash to you. You can have someone buy large electronic devices, which by the way, those are the things that have gotten less expensive.
00:09:09.000And I'm assuming that this is why a lot of people are able to massage the numbers and say, listen, overall, on the whole prices aren't higher.
00:09:18.000And that's because many big ticket objects, appliances, TVs that used to be $2,000, $3,000, $1,000 and a half now are $300.
00:09:30.000They're so much less expensive. The thing is, I'm not buying a TV every week. I'm buying groceries every week. I'm buying gas every week.
00:09:38.000Well, let's go over the specifics here. We, so if you look at, since Biden was elected president, bacon prices are 13% higher, cereal and baked goods are 25.6% higher.
00:09:50.000Cereal is such a scam. When you think about what you pay per calorie for cereal, it is a complete scam.
00:09:56.000By the way, I can't afford it. There's no one can afford cereal. That's, that's insane.
00:10:00.000Ever since college, I quit cereal when I realized how much it actually costs per calorie. It's ridiculous.
00:10:06.000Does anyone else think that it's upsetting that food is currently considered a luxury item that we're being told to just eat cereal on frozen dinners?
00:10:16.000So non-alcoholic beverages increased 21.4%. Meat, poultry, fish and eggs collectively increased 20.2%.
00:10:24.000And let's look at electricity prices here. So under the Trump administration, electricity increased 4% in price. Under the Biden administration, it increased 28.3% in price.
00:10:38.000And we're seeing scary things like in some states, people being obligated essentially to pay for other people's electricity.
00:10:46.000Oh yeah. This was in Connecticut where now you are obligated to pay for anyone who makes under a certain price of electricity and their, their electricity costs is just average throughout everyone who's like middle class or above.
00:10:58.000In other words, people of greater means are expected to subsidize the electricity for those of less means, but that means that just pay for it. And so their, their prices have jumped like a third in some areas.
00:11:10.000Yeah. They get searches and then they're what they used to expect in budget for in their electricity bills are now it's just completely out of whack.
00:11:18.000And I also think if people are like, Oh, this is going to end soon. Kamala isn't as bad as Biden. Excuse me. Kamala is the one who wanted to do price fixing on grocery store foods.
00:11:27.000You would think that this isn't going to spiral further out of control. She isn't just going to continue what Biden is doing. She wants to make it worse.
00:11:35.000Make it worse. Like you get that, right? Like you're not stupid, right? Like, can you actually afford this? Like, meaningfully, can you?
00:11:45.000But let's, let's keep going here. I think what I think, though, the mindset is, and we touched on this in our last episode, discussing single women for Kamala, is that where the Democrat Party is moving is toward a socialist state where the government provides all of your services.
00:12:08.140This also came out in recent job numbers, where the vast majority of recent job growth has been in government jobs, and also government associated jobs. So a lot of the other job growth that was not in explicitly government jobs was, I think, in healthcare, which is largely subsidized by things like Medicare and Medicaid in the US, which is our socialized version of, of meta, meta, meta, like, well,
00:12:31.740So we haven't had real job growth under Biden. It's just been an expansion.
00:12:34.900Well, it's, yeah, it's been an expansion of government jobs and services. So in other words, the government is becoming the thing that employs us, the thing that provides us our services. And there's this expectation that, okay, well, yeah, we can't afford anything, but the government is just going to provide that to us. And that is, that is why inflation is okay.
00:12:52.920I think there's also this, this sort of collective declaring of declaration of bankruptcy among Americans who are continuing to eat out on a regular basis, are continuing to door dash, are continuing to buy electronics, and put it on debt and finance it with the assumption that they're never going to pay it off.
00:13:10.660But that for some reason, they're still able to do it. So why would they stop doing it?
00:13:17.200So here's the difference in wages during this period, by the way. Importantly note, when you're considering all this gross, you're like, well, you know, maybe it's because of like price inflation of labor. It's like a lot of people say, well, labor costs more than it used to.
00:13:28.880Yeah. In the Biden administration, earnings increased by 1.9%. Under the Trump administration, earnings increased by 6.8%. Wow.
00:13:39.240So like, four times as much, I think, at least, like, that's absolutely wild. 400% more than they did under Biden.
00:13:45.780Yeah, well, I think here's the dynamic, I think, is at play here. During the pandemic, a lot of organizations realized that they didn't need to employ as many people as they needed to employ.
00:13:57.880And a lot of organizations are now trying to offload employees very heavily. And one of the easiest ways to do so without having to pay severance packages or deal with legal issues, especially among really large companies that are subject to these risks, is to just become increasingly hostile and unattractive to the employees.
00:14:19.840So this is the equivalent of wanting to break up with your girlfriend, but not being direct with her and instead just being an asshole to her for a long time.
00:14:28.040So that's why we're not getting raises. That's why people are expected to return to the office.
00:14:31.640Because this is a really great way to clean out your ranks and reduce your staff size without announcing layoffs, without firing people.
00:14:42.760And so I think that that's one reason why wages are stagnant. It's not necessarily that there isn't a pressure in terms of raising wages.
00:14:50.280And I actually think that a lot of new jobs and hard to fill positions for skills that are rare now are paying tons more.
00:14:58.540But that most roles are kind of redundant now in the age of AI. Most companies need to get rid of them.
00:15:05.180And the reason why those wages are stagnant is because the companies are quiet quitting on the employees.
00:15:12.760The companies are trying to get rid of them. And we should be considering ourselves lucky that these jobs even exist.
00:15:19.160I mean, we're lucky to have stagnant wages at this point and that we live in a legal environment that is annoyingly persnickety when it comes to firing people.
00:15:31.800I think a lot of people might be hearing all this and they might be thinking, well, I mean, how does this compare to previous presidents?
00:15:37.640You know, maybe these are just outliers or this is normal fluctuation between presidents.
00:15:42.540So here I'm going to put a chart on screen that compares Biden to Trump, to Obama, to Bush, to Clinton, to first Bush, to Reagan, to Carter.
00:15:50.820So we're getting a big thing here. And what you're going to find is consistently Trump is one of the best and Biden is one of the worst.
00:15:59.560In fact, the only one who seems even to really tie Biden for worst is Carter.
00:16:04.320So if we look at overall inflation, Biden is the single worst except for Carter.
00:16:09.700If we look at food inflation, Biden is the single worst except for Carter.
00:16:15.140If we look at energy inflation, Biden is the worst, even worse than Carter.
00:16:20.860If we look at rent inflation, Biden narrowly loses to Carter, but worse than literally every other president, i.e. Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan.
00:16:31.680All right. Now let's go to Trump. How does Trump compare?
00:16:34.640Trump, overall, he's the single lowest of every one of the presidents I just mentioned in terms of inflation.
00:17:53.180Oh, you young people just make me sick.
00:17:55.280It's comparing a genuinely exceptional option to a genuinely terrible option.
00:18:00.660Well, here's where things may get controversial.
00:18:04.660You may actually want to cut this whole part out, but we'll see.
00:18:07.220Because I think this inflationary period, but also the way that Americans spend money, has come to a tipping point where I think we just need to fundamentally, as a nation, rethink how we spend money and get sober, essentially.
00:18:43.140And this is related to the way that Democrats are framing the tariffs that Trump proposes, which are mostly on China, but also on all imports, which would, to be fair, if enacted, raise prices on many foreign produced goods, especially those like electronics that are now incredibly cheap.
00:18:59.800Keep in mind, Trump put in tariffs in its first administration and achieved tremendous wage growth.
00:19:06.860And I think it's really important, if you look at Peter Zeihand's The End of the World is Just the Beginning, it's important that we start investing now more in domestic production and definitely quitting China.
00:19:16.200I think the faster we quit China, not only because China is hostile towards us, not only because China is actively trying to ruin us with bad TikTok algorithms and other things, but also because China is about to undergo immense instability due to demographic collapse.
00:19:31.420Like, we should not be, even if we loved China, it's kind of like, you know, loving a friend who's about to, you know, go through a terrible divorce and go bankrupt.
00:19:39.040Like, don't depend on them for anything, you know, that's not a safe bet.
00:19:42.980So I'm very much in favor of that, but I do think that it could increase some prices.
00:19:47.020And I think that a responsible voter has to be aware that voting for Trump just doesn't mean everything's suddenly going to get less expensive because it's not.
00:19:54.940But I think that when we look at the other side, and you look at what Democrats are proposing to do instead.
00:20:00.640In Trump's first administration, okay, where all those tariffs were enacted, he had the lowest inflation rate of any president since Carter, likely before that.
00:20:12.480So everyone who's like, prices are going to go up when he implements all these tariffs.
00:20:16.360Well, he did it the first time and they didn't.
00:20:18.200Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's going to be terribly bad.
00:20:25.200It can, it can cause some prices to increase.
00:20:27.800And I just, I want to be realistic about that.
00:20:30.600And I don't think that there's any way going forward where our lives aren't more expensive and where we as Americans collectively have to rethink our spending.
00:20:37.840But I also think that if we instead take the, if we dig in deeper to the Democrat approach, which is more government jobs and more government dependency, we are going to end up in a food line situation.
00:20:58.700But I would note here that like, here's another great, you know, I've done videos where I complain about how much it costs to build infrastructure in the United States.
00:21:08.380So here's a graph right here of manufacturing construction between Biden and Trump.
00:21:12.900And under the Trump administration, you can see it's just a perfectly flat line.
00:21:16.380And under the Biden administration, right on up.
00:21:20.140Now we're going to talk about, I'll put a graph on screen of inflation under Trump and Biden.
00:21:26.940And people can be like, oh, Biden's kind of getting it back under control.
00:21:49.520If I didn't have additional context in the world from you and from other sources, I'd be like, wait, I'm hearing broadly that inflation is down to 3%.
00:22:26.480Everyone in our nation, pretty much, on at least on average, who is voting Democrat is firmly under the impression that the economy has done great under Biden.
00:22:36.580I mean, the funny thing is, with the Green New Deal, a.k.a. the Inflation Reduction Act,
00:22:40.540which was this giant spending bill that led to a lot of investment in green energy infrastructure,
00:22:46.840a lot of that did end up going to Republicans who were very happily making a ton of money from the, I guess, subsidies that they got or tax breaks or something that they got from this program,
00:22:57.000while at the same time shitting on the government for wasting all their money.
00:23:00.400But I mean, at least someone's making money from this.
00:23:02.400So I note here, everything I've gone over so far was from that fact-checking article, or most of what I went over so far.
00:25:17.720That means that the higher interest rates and the inflation in rents and housing prices mean that the mortgage payment on a median value home now is twice as high under Biden as it was under Trump.
00:25:32.140How about interest rates on federal borrowing?
00:25:34.680During Trump's last year in office, the 10-year Treasury bill was 0.9%.
00:25:39.600After three and a half years of Biden, interest rates are at 4.3%.
00:25:50.080And when we take the two COVID years, 2020 and 2021, out of Trump spending, because I think that's pretty fair, we find the average deficits under Trump were roughly $750 billion, which is bad.
00:26:03.220But under Biden, it was $1.5 trillion per year.
00:26:08.320Even adjusting for Biden's inflation, deficits have been at least 50% higher under Biden than Trump.
00:28:35.360I was like, just biologically, there's no way that this blows over.
00:28:38.660You called it, and that's the thing, is you are the harbinger of dooms and apocalypses, and that's why I'm concerned.
00:28:45.060What's scary is, with the pandemic, people weren't, there was no agenda to, like, I know that this is happening and it's bad, but I'm going to lie to people about it, like, very, very intentionally.
00:28:58.220I mean, there was a little bit of lying, I think, about masks, maybe, because they wanted to keep masks from medical professionals.
00:29:04.100But what's different about now is there is an active interest, sort of, and it's very related, you know, in terms of the operatives who want there to be an increasingly socialized state, to the operatives who don't want us to believe that demographic collapse is real.
00:29:20.580There is a very powerful and very motivated contingent that wants us to just not see this coming so that they can get the outcome they desire.
00:29:31.620And the problem is that they don't have the ability to execute the outcome they desire with success.
00:29:37.800So they are, they are very effective in brokering in this transition towards socialism and toward degrowth that they want, but I don't, they don't realize how bad degrowth really is because they have, they're in this myopic utopian modern bubble of the world now.
00:29:58.560They don't realize what it's like when you don't have enough food.
00:30:01.560They've lived with this purpose of capitalism so long.
00:30:04.000The infrastructure is not, is not kept up.
00:30:06.460They don't know what they're signing up for.
00:30:09.040And that's what scares me is they very well, they're going to get their way one way or another, Malcolm.
00:30:14.980And we have to figure out how to survive in small contingencies despite that fact at this point.
00:30:21.200Well, I think that you're absolutely right.
00:30:25.660So you can look at something like the UN right now.
00:30:27.300And a lot of people are like, oh, they couldn't possibly be manipulating the data this much.
00:30:32.440Or like here, they couldn't possibly, like their goal is a global economic collapse.
00:30:36.780And the intention behind the goal is that they can shift the world to a system where they and the other oligarchs, like the intelligentsia, deep state, whatever you want to call it, essentially runs everything through a communist or socialist system.
00:30:52.680And I note here, when people hear communist or socialist, if they're dumb, they think that that means sharing all the resources equally.
00:31:00.820When what it actually means and what like the people working at the UN think it means is a system where they control every aspect of your life.
00:31:08.200It's the same with like the people on the Kamala Harris team and stuff like that.
00:31:11.400And we've seen her repeatedly, what I think communists would think of as like on the ground, communists think of as like fascist instincts.
00:31:18.600They think that they're going to be running things or less power would go to the oligarchs of our society.
00:31:24.500What we are seeing here is a transition to remove power from the everyday citizen and consolidate all the power in our society with the oligarchs.
00:31:33.240And to be fair, because I think when people hear you say things like that, they think you're making a straw man argument because it sounds like it's very it sounds exaggerated.
00:31:43.680But these people are doing it from a place of I think this is they genuinely believe this is what's best for humanity.
00:31:51.840And this comes from a place of them knowing from their perspective that they know better and that the common average person simply can't manage these things on their own.
00:32:04.380And they need to be directed to live a certain way and they need to receive services a certain way because they can't handle it.
00:32:11.400They're too dumb and too stupid and too ignorant.
00:32:15.120And I will just make sure that they live their lives this way and I'll give them their services this way and I'll take away their pain this way and I'll medicate them this way and it will be fine.
00:32:24.260And they're doing this from a place of love and empathy.
00:32:28.700They've been taken over by the urban monoculture, the the woke mind virus, whatever you want to talk about it or however you want to describe it, where they are completely memetically,
00:32:41.400overtaken by a viral stream that says we must take away all in the moment suffering.
00:32:46.820So these people are they're they believe they're saving the world.
00:32:52.000They're very motivated to save the world.
00:32:54.280They think they're doing the right thing and they're they're brokering this in very well.
00:32:57.920This is not us making up some fake supervillain.
00:33:02.180And this isn't we look like supervillains to them.
00:33:05.740This isn't these aren't people who think they're doing a bad thing.