Joe Biden’s Pathetic Valedictory Address
[guest post by JVW]
As he shuffles his way out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — needing to be led, no doubt, by people who still can recall where the exit doors are — Joe Biden has delivered a valediction of sorts on his horrible four year reign. Not in a mainstream progressive publication such as The Atlantic, let alone a more center-left sometimes heterodox publication like Harper’s; no, the President (more accurately the people who have been acting on his behalf for at least the last nine or so months, if not longer) chose the unambiguously left-wing toilet read The American Prospect to unload his special pleadings upon an audience who he hopes is inclined to accept it. Noah Rothman calls out Team Biden on their mendacity, and thus spares us the torture of having to read the piece attributed to the President:
Biden admonished readers who thoughtlessly expected to see their economic conditions improve under this administration. It will “take years to see the full effects” of his policies, the essay promises. You see, all the good stuff is backloaded. But, as the author repeatedly stressed, building “the economy from the middle out and bottom up,” a new economy that dispenses with “a failed approach called trickle-down economics,” is a complex undertaking. So complex, in fact, that the president himself doesn’t seem to understand it.
Biden tickled progressive erogenous zones by repeating the words “invest” and “investment” like a mantra. Indeed, the op-ed boasted, the legislation passed in Biden’s first two years marks “the most significant investment in the United States since the New Deal.” It was stimulus the already overheated American economy couldn’t painlessly absorb. Team Biden even has the gall to admit that the “Inflation Reduction Act is the largest single investment in clean energy in the history of the world.” For those of us who know what inflation is, that sentence contains a contradiction. It’s telling that Biden thought it was one he didn’t have to address given his intended audience.
And, given the man and the moment, the essay naturally made hash out of the complexities of globalization:
[. . .] He mourned a status quo he inherited in which the fruits of American innovation are shared all the world over: “Scientific discoveries and inventions developed in America were commercialized in countries abroad, bolstering their manufacturing instead of ours.” By “commercialized,” we must assume he means American-designed goods being manufactured abroad, which is a convoluted way of describing comparative advantage. [. . .]
In promoting the CHIPS act, which seeks to create a domestic semiconductor industry from whole cloth, Biden touted the output from three Taiwanese-owned TSMC chip plants in Arizona: “America will be the only economy in the world to have all five of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturers in the world operating on its shores.” This is the same phenomenon. The only difference is that Biden seems to like it when Americans are manufacturing products innovated abroad — an economic step backward that is obvious to all who haven’t romanticized America’s industrial past.
Noah Rothman goes on to refer to the point which I made back in September about the Administration’s increase in IRS spending being a colossal failure; he reflects upon the irony of blue-collar Joe presiding over a Presidential term in which private-sector unions actually lost membership; and he ridicules the Democrats’ predilection for moving a double-sawbuck from your left front pocket to your right front pocket and pretending that you are somehow twenty dollars wealthier. He laments that Joe Biden ran as the normal Democrat among the 2020 contenders, yet upon his inauguration immediately allowed himself to be flattered by left-wing historians who told him he could be FDR or LBJ (instead, he unwittingly ended up as FJB) and young activists who convinced him to fight all of their self-righteous culture wars. And it leads Mr. Rothman to draw a very sad conclusion:
It’s the same mistake, over and over again. Perhaps Team Biden kept making it because they bought into the Left’s hype, or maybe they were so lethargic and unimaginative that they couldn’t conceive of an alternative approach. In either case, the president should not expect anyone, much less the progressive Left, to salvage his legacy.
As Joe Biden’s disastrous administration ends in scandal, incompetence, and pathos, we should all take a moment to acknowledge the myriad lessons to be learned by his malodorous leadership. Whether it be the folly of electing a man who clearly is in cognitive decline, the problems stemming from pandering to the loudest and most online members of your coalition rather than the people who may have held their nose and voted for you, or the perils of building your administration from hacks, time-servers, cronies, and yes-men rather than trying to find a broad swath of experience and ability, the Biden Administration will forever be tainted with the fetid stench of failure. We can only hope and pray that the next guys up are at least to some degree an improvement. We’ll find out soon enough.
– JVW
What ridiculous times we live in. But I guess every generation has reason to express this belief.
JVW (709af6) — 12/18/2024 @ 9:16 amIt will “take years to see the full effects” of his policies, the essay promises.
Which of course is not how they sold it to Congressional Democrats and the gullible public. Talk about moving the goal-posts in the middle of the game.
JVW (709af6) — 12/18/2024 @ 9:17 amThe point of the CHIPS Act was similar to Reagan’s policies that got Japan and Germany to build cars in the US.
Added to that is the ABSOLUTE EFFING NECESSITY to have modern semiconductor manufacturing in the United States and not in two countries (well, one-and-a-half countries) that are subject to trivial and undefendable bombing and/or invasion. Both Taipei and Seoul are withing spitting distance of nuclear-armed adversaries that hate them.
Myself, I would have devoted every last dime to Intel and used tariffs or other import controls to encourage TSMC and Samsung to build domestic facilities, much as Reagan threatened.
But people are whistling past the graveyard to think that the US can remain a strategic power without a strong domestic semiconductor industry. One that two generations of off-shoring (and the financial choices that brings) had brought US semi fabs to near-obsolescence.
Someone was talking about “subjects we know” being discussed by people who don’t. This is one of those for me.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 10:46 amIn a world where neither military or labor concerns existed, where a job in Bangalore was the same as a job in Des Moines and where no government would withhold strategic items to get over on another, then yes, utter free market principles lead to increased global wealth.
But we do not live in that world.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 10:49 amKevin Williamson a nice bow on the Biden presidency, a withering and deservedly unmerciful bow.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/18/2024 @ 11:12 amBut people are whistling past the graveyard to think that the US can remain a strategic power without a strong domestic semiconductor industry.
There was massive bipartisan agreement that we need to manufacture semiconductors here in the U.S. There is also (or at least there was during COVID) massive agreement that we need to manufacture surgical supplies like gowns, masks, etc. here too.
But the point is that the Donald Trumps and the Joe Bidens of the world crow when TSMC decides to open up a Phoenix plant or when Mercedes Benz or Kia opens up plants in Tennessee and Alabama, yet they then start to grouse when American companies decide to manufacture in places like Mexico, Vietnam, or Bangladesh (I’ll leave China out of his formulation for the time being, because that’s a whole other ball of wax). These people can’t continue to have it both ways.
JVW (709af6) — 12/18/2024 @ 11:23 amKevin Williamson a nice bow on the Biden presidency, a withering and deservedly unmerciful bow.
Thanks for reminding us of that. I had placed it on my reading list last week but never got around to it. I’m checking it out now.
JVW (709af6) — 12/18/2024 @ 11:24 amBut the point is that the Donald Trumps and the Joe Bidens of the world crow when TSMC decides to open up a Phoenix plant
As well they should, although not with subsidy dollars. Toyota wasn’t given a subsidy to open plants in the South. They also didn’t have to sign agreements for DEI and union labor.
yet they then start to grouse when American companies decide to manufacture in places like Mexico, Vietnam, or Bangladesh
Because, as I said, where you invest is not fungible. Maybe there is a point to investing in Mexico — there are obvious benefits to a successful neighbor — but Vietnam or Bangladesh is about cheap labor with little return to America, except to maybe to Capital. Worse, since the products may compete with those produced here, they either drive down the wages previously supported here, or force those other products to be made overseas.
And believe it or not, American families cannot subsist on what a Pakistani might view as affluence.
Economics may view all these transactions as atomic, where there are no external costs or interactions, but in the real world some of them result on decidedly negative sum transactions by folks who have been cut out of the equation. If you have to tax your citizenry to provide (hopefully) temporary subsidies to families whose jobs ended up in Vietnam, the fact that the bosses made a bunch of money on the deal doesn’t necessarily add to Wealth.
Maybe in the long term it all increases value, but people both eat and vote in the short term. And eventually they’ll vote for someone like Trump.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 11:47 amI think he never learned them.
One thing: For security reasons, the exit door would never be the same as he entry door.
FJB = Failing (or something else) Joe Biden? Jeb Bush?
I found this, but I don’t understand it.
https://open.spotify.com/track/3lqrXzb4sbE16gP9XOkwhw
Wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FJB
More:
He always did that sort of thing.
When he decided to pander to others, it was to MAGA people on immigration, because he was being advised to do so..
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 12:45 pmFJB = Failing (or something else) Joe Biden? Jeb Bush?
It’s this one, Sammy.
JVW (709af6) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:51 pmBecause, as I said, where you invest is not fungible. Maybe there is a point to investing in Mexico — there are obvious benefits to a successful neighbor — but Vietnam or Bangladesh is about cheap labor with little return to America, except to maybe to Capital. Worse, since the products may compete with those produced here, they either drive down the wages previously supported here, or force those other products to be made overseas.
And believe it or not, American families cannot subsist on what a Pakistani might view as affluence.
We can’t live in a world where sending manufacturing jobs to first-world nations is just great business acumen, but sending them to developing nations is simply exploitative. I don’t believe that patriotism demands that we be making basketballs or undershirts or plastic cutlery in Oregon, Iowa, and South Carolina. Let those families in developing country have some jobs too.
JVW (709af6) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:56 pmFJB = Failing (or something else) Joe Biden? Jeb Bush?
“Let’s Go Brandon!”
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 5:45 pmLet those families in developing country have some jobs too.
Maybe if they weren’t so dead set on destroying domestic businesses, they’d have some. Mao wasn’t the best business promoter. Neither was Indira Gandhi. All of South and Central America were a few rich Spanish-descended families and everyone else in poverty. None of that was our fault.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 5:50 pmBiden is a creature of the donor class and their corporate establishment sycophants and on top of that he is senile. Nancy pelosi did what the mafia calls a mercy killing. Democrats in congress preferred a 74 year old party hack with terminal cancer to AOC on orders from their corporate masters. We (democrats) need to clean house of these old corporate stooges. David Hogg was told to shut up by democrat consultants fearing loss of their media cut grift if democrats spent money trying to appeal to younger voters instead of non-existent persuadable republican voters. Which dropped from 7% in 2016 to 5% in 2024 as never trumpers were already voting for harris. Campaigning with warmonger cheney kept over 10 million democrats (over 2020) from voting for harris in disgust!
asset (15ac48) — 12/18/2024 @ 8:39 pm13: Yes: and unfortunately, the idea always seems to be “Sorry America can’t export to US,” because we can’t afford US finished goods,” (poor countries), or “we have customs agents devoted to keeping US goods out to protect our industries,” (Japan in the 80’s and many European places now).
“Free market” types never seem to grasp that there is no “free market” in the world, outside a Milton Friedman seminar. We need to protect our pharma businesses because in pandemics, those that have vaccines get them, and those that wait on the producers, wait, and wait. And its fine to buy steel, chips, or computers from outside the US, until there is a war, and the producer is under threat and won’t or can’t deliver.
Its fine to buy avacados, turkish lanterns, wine, british butter, etc but another altogether to be dependent on critical things.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (2ad5a3) — 12/18/2024 @ 8:47 pmMajor WSJ expose on the White House’s coverup of Joe Biden’s decline:
How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge
Then it gets worse.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:12 amI don’t see why anyone is mad at Cheney — there’s lots of criminality in Biden’s staff behavior. Talk about honest services fraud.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:14 am#17
the worst thing you can be is a moby, a RINO, a non-MAGA conservative. Or maybe, the worst thing you can be is a woman who calls out Trump’s lies. He seems to have problems with that — so now the GOP has problems with that.
It’s OK. In maybe less than a year, the worst thing you can be will a partisan of Elon Musk. After all, the guy builds cars that run on wind power.
Appalled (f0f874) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:55 amIts fine to buy avacados, turkish lanterns, wine, british butter, etc but another altogether to be dependent on critical things.
That’s why I specifically used the example of basketballs, undershirts, and plastic cutlery. I certainly am a believer that we should be manufacturing our own vital medical and military supplies, as I mentioned in my comment of 11:23 am yesterday.
JVW (709af6) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:21 amIn maybe less than a year, the worst thing you can be will a partisan of Elon Musk.
Trump admin questions:
Who will have the longest shelf life? Musk, RFK Jr, Hesgeth, Ramaswamy or Rubio?
Will Rubio even get the SecState job if DeSantis appoints someone else than Lara?
How bad will it suck to be Speaker Johnson?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:54 amthe worst thing you can be is a moby, a RINO, a non-MAGA conservative.
Since a “moby” in this context is a liberal pretending to be a whackjob Trumpie (as opposed to normal Trumpies), I’d go with that. You know, the leftist who shows up at a Trump rally with a Nazi armband or Klan regalia.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:57 amOne, I would’ve liked to hear more about why Biden’s inner circle didn’t talk him out running for reelection, given what they saw firsthand of his diminished state. It was his worst decision out of many bad decisions over his long career.
Two, even Steven Cheung is a less obnoxious spokesman, what with all of Bates’ denials and happy talk about Biden.
Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:02 am@17 Iraq war. Thats why democrats wouldn’t vote for hillary (war monger) clinton. I and some other democrats didn’t vote for biden either. Unlike many of them I am not a pacifist and support ukraine and destruction of hamas. I do not support thebottle deposit crook prolonging the war to stay in power and avoid election causing needless civilian casulties.
asset (87908e) — 12/19/2024 @ 2:00 pm19: then I am with you!
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (9721b5) — 12/19/2024 @ 7:56 pm