Elon Musk is piggybacking on Jeff Bezos this week in slamming Joe Biden’s failure to properly address the problems of inflation, as well as other areas of his presidency. The world’s two richest people are not Joe Biden fans, at least not right now.
Ed wrote about the kerfuffle between Bezos and Biden via Twitter. The president’s new press secretary couldn’t explain a tweet posted on Biden’s official Twitter account that calls for “the wealthiest corporations” to “pay their fair share.”
You want to bring down inflation?
Let’s make sure the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 13, 2022
To be fair to Ms. Jean-Pierre, no one can make sense of that tweet, certainly not her. She’s a diversity hire and hyper partisan Democrat who must gaslight voters on Biden’s performance as president. Hiking corporate taxes doesn’t bring inflation down. As Musk pointed out, when the government is printing money non-stop and issuing checks in the trillions of dollars for the American Rescue Plan and COVID-19 relief as the economy is trying to recover from a pandemic, inflation happens. Biden, of course, refuses to admit his bone-headed decision led to where we are now and he sure doesn’t show any knowledge on what to do to correct the course of the economy. So, here we are. Musk said it’s all so obvious.
“I mean, the obvious reason for inflation is that the government printed a zillion amount of more money than it had, obviously,” Musk said, echoing Republican critics who claim that Biden’s American Rescue Plan COVID-19 relief stimulus bill contributed to the near-40-year-high inflation the U.S. experienced in April.
“So it’s like the government can’t just, you know, issue checks far in excess of revenue without there being inflation, you know, velocity of money held constant,” the Tesla CEO argued. “If the federal government writes checks, they never bounce. So that is effectively creation of more dollars. And if there are more dollars created, then the increase in the goods and services across the economy, then you have inflation, again, velocity of money held constant.”
Musk insisted that “this is just very basic” and “not like, you know, super complicated.”
“If the government could just issue massive amounts of money and deficits didn’t matter, then, well, why don’t we just make the deficit 100 times bigger? The answer is, you can’t because it will basically turn the dollar into something that is worthless,” he noted.
He’s right. Even though Musk says he has voted “overwhelmingly for Democrats,” he sure is sounding like a Republican these days. Democrats want to keep shoveling trillions of dollars out the door and it is up to Republican lawmakers to do what they can to stop it. Musk points to what can happen if corrections are not made – the United States will turn into Venezuela.
Venezuela’s inflation reached a staggering 65,374.08% in 2018 amid an economic spiral beginning with government price controls and plummeting oil prices. The government started printing money to cope, and prices skyrocketed, unemployment increased, and GDP collapsed.
“So obviously you can’t simply create money,” Musk said. He emphasized “the true economy,” by which he meant “the output of goods and services,” as opposed to mere money.
The real stinger during this podcast interview with Musk was when he referenced “Anchorman” as he spoke about Biden’s inability to lead. He used the example of the president’s stumbling and bumbling while reading the teleprompter. “The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter,” the Tesla CEO said. “The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.” Musk said that Biden will read anything off the teleprompter, just like the Ron Burgundy character in the movie “Anchorman”. Biden is the Anchorman president. Only it’s not funny to those of us who watch our dazed and confused president stumble through a speech off the teleprompter as the movie was to its audience. Biden’s speeches are in real life and it’s scary as hell.
Musk noted that by all appearances, the Biden administration doesn’t get much done. He said that there were a lot of people in the previous administration who could be effective in getting things done, “leaving aside Trump.” Musk is right again. Trump concentrated on surrounding himself with a cabinet full of business men and leaders, not diversity hires who were put in power because they checked the right identity boxes. Biden has a cabinet full of people who are clueless to do their jobs. Look no further than Biden’s vice-president or, for example, Mayor Pete as transportation secretary. C’mon. Mayor Pete couldn’t handle leading a city of 100,000 people, much less a bloated federal agency. But, he’s the first gay transportation secretary, or something. Thanks, Joe.
We shouldn’t get too excited over Musk’s criticism of Biden, though. He still sings the praises of Obama. He blasts Democrats for being too beholden to unions and trial attorneys (except Obama) and he points the finger at Republicans for being influenced by “corporate evil and religious zealotry.” He’s an equal opportunity political critic. When he gets it right, his words should be taken with a healthy grain of salt.
Via Hot Air