US Current Economy

Economic analyst Steven Rattner reported today that according to The Economist, since the end of 2019 the American economy has grown about 8%, while the European Union has grown about 3%, Japan 1%, and Britain not at all. Rattner and economist Brendan Duke reported that entrepreneurship in the U.S. is booming, with 5.2 million “likely employer” business applications filed between January 2021 and December 2023, more than a 33% increase over those filed between 2017 and 2019.

Economists Justin Wolfers and Arin Dube noted that, as Wolfers wrote, “[f]or the first time in forever, real wage gains are going to those who need them most.” Wages have gone up for all but the top 20% of Americans, whose wages have fallen, reducing inequality.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) head Lina Khan announced that after the FTC challenged a set of AstraZeneca inhaler patents last September as being improperly listed, today AstraZeneca said it would cap patients’ out-of-pocket costs for its inhalers at $35, down from hundreds. Earlier this month, Boehringer Ingelheim did the same.

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced it was banning asbestos, which is linked to more than 40,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and was already partly banned, but which is still used in a few products. More than 50 other countries already ban it.

Also today, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to advance women’s health research to integrate women’s health into federal research initiatives, strengthening data collection and making funding available for research in a comprehensive effort to equalize attention to men’s and women’s health across their lifespans. The federal government did not require women’s health to be included in federally funded medical research until 1993. In a speech today, First Lady Jill Biden recalled that in the early 1970s, researchers studying estrogen’s effect in preventing heart attacks selected 8,341 people for the study. All of them were men.

Former president Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, prompted some of the economic reporting I noted above when he tried to spark attacks on President Joe Biden by asking on social media if people feel better off now than they were four years ago. This was perhaps a mistaken message, since four years ago we were in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Supermarket shelves were empty, toilet paper was hard to find, healthcare professionals were wearing garbage bags and reusing masks because the Trump administration had permitted the strategic stockpile to run low, deaths were mounting, the stock market had crashed, and the economy had ground to a halt.
On this day four years ago, I recorded that “more than 80 national security professionals broke with their tradition of non-partisanship to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for president, saying that while they were from all parties and disagreed with each other about pretty much everything else, they had come together to stand against Trump.”
Heather Cox Richardson
Notes:

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/17/1239019225/trump-says-some-migrants-are-not-people-and-warns-of-bloodbath-if-he-loses

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/16/trump-immigrants-not-people/

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-18/trump-s-empty-pockets-make-him-a-mark-for-overseas-interests

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics/trump-464-million-dollar-bond/index.html

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/astrazeneca-orange-book.pdf

https://www.astrazeneca-us.com/media/press-releases/2024/astrazeneca-caps-patient-out-of-pocket-costs-at-35-per-month-for-its-us-inhaled-respiratory-portfolio.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/18/fact-sheet-president-biden-issues-executive-order-and-announces-new-actions-to-advance-womens-health-research-and-innovation/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/03/18/executive-order-on-advancing-womens-health-research-and-innovation/

https://apnews.com/article/jill-biden-research-womens-health-arpah-shriver-149bf923d666bb980631185c0626a50e

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/vice-president-kamala-harris-visits-planned-parenthood-clinic-in-historic-first

https://www.c-span.org/video/?534259-1/president-trump-campaigns-bernie-moreno

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-bloodbath-loses-election-2024-rcna143746

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-18-2020

https://www.wnyc.org/story/portrait-paul-manafort-1996-convention-fixer/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/18/trump-manafort-2024-campaign/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/manafort-jury-suggests-it-cannot-come-to-a-consensus-on-a-single-count/2018/08/21/a2478ac0-a559-11e8-a656-943eefab5daf_story.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/23/949820820/trump-pardons-roger-stone-paul-manafort-and-charles-kushner

https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2017/10/30/us/money-laundering-tax-fraud-lobbying-manafort-gates.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/03/18/[WORD TOO LONG]/

https://apnews.com/article/epa-asbestos-cancer-brakes-biden-72b0fa8b36adedaff6000034d35c2acd

https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/manafort-sentenced-to-47-months/

https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1094156/dl

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@Phranny
But they can't stand even the CONCEPT of democrats and ESPECIALLY Biden getting ANY credit for any of this. It must be just business as usual, and if Trump was POTUS, the growth rate would have been 16% not a mere 8%, PATHETIC.

@sonhouse said
@Phranny
But they can't stand even the CONCEPT of democrats and ESPECIALLY Biden getting ANY credit for any of this. It must be just business as usual, and if Trump was POTUS, the growth rate would have been 16% not a mere 8%, PATHETIC.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc

Mortgage balances shown on consumer credit reports increased by $112 billion during the fourth quarter of 2023 and stood at $12.25 trillion at the end of December. Balances on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) increased by $11 billion, the seventh consecutive quarterly increase after 2022Q1, and there is now $360 billion in aggregate outstanding balances. Credit card balances, which are now at $1.13 trillion outstanding, increased by $50 billion (4.6😵. Auto loan balances increased by $12 billion, continuing the upward trajectory that has been in place since 2020Q2, and now stand at $1.61 trillion. Other balances, which include retail cards and other consumer loans, grew by $25 billion. Student loan balances were effectively flat, with a $2 billion increase and stand at $1.6 trillion. In total, non-housing balances grew by $89 billion.

Latest Biden approval rating
CNN Poll of Polls
Approve
39%
Disapprove
59%

https://www.cnn.com/polling/approval-rating-poll-of-polls

@Mott-The-Hoople
Eight months till November. Trump criminal trial starts soon, polls say if he is convicted of crimes, he will lose at least ten percent of his base which is all it will take to swing the vote to rational thinking. Trump is not the least interested in policy, only revenge. Liz Chaney will be under arrest, so will Cohen for daring to speak the truth and Steve Millier will be the AG, who will put TEN thousands kids in cages this time and Trump will call out our military to quell peaceful protests and YOU and the rest of you will not have a vote any more and when your freedoms are gone you will wonder how you ever thought you could trust your god king.