Forgive my scepticism but Biden has been sitting inertly at the top of the US government hierarchy for decades so I see no reason to expect any sudden dynamism.
Right you are. Biden’s primary talent is deflecting blame. Watch out for a lousy Christmas and a list of “culprits” who caused your child not to get the toys that are sitting in a trailer parked in California and not under your tree.
Saul D
2 years ago
Sounds like the author is recommending Biden should follow Trump’s policies on de-offshoring, bringing jobs and industry back to America…
This was exactly my first reaction. Biden will be lucky to finish the week/month/year—running for re-election or even walking up stairs out of the question.
Elizabeth Warren and Crazy Bernie are in charge. No one voted for them. And no one voted for this Biden…..
At the risk of being labeled a conspiracy theorist, I would look at “The Interagency” and the intelligence services. This is where the permanent bureaucracy resides and where the shots are being called.
I’m going to have to voice some skepticism he even chooses the flavor of his ice cream. I think he takes what he gets and is grateful for it. That helps explain why this is his approach to the rest of the country in its relation to the federal government
Ed Cameron
2 years ago
I’m not saying it’s over or nearly over, but I was reading On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic last night and, when reading this article, these lines came to mind:
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
When her long life hath reached its final day:
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.
Very beautiful, thank you for making this reference.
Ian McKinney
2 years ago
For the US, read the UK. Our reliance on cheap labour and cheap imports is actually worse.
But at least via Brexit we have a partial chance of getting back to something approaching profitability.
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
Not as persuasive as the earlier article on how close Hugo Chavez came to turning Venezuela into a economic Powerhouse, but still a good Lefty take on Bidenomics and Global trade.
That it is wrong by virtually every metric except how destructive unskilled migration is to every facet of a developed economy, it still does make one think of what is really going on.
“and reviving American manufacturing with its “Build Back Better” agenda.”
I do love this phrase, as I am a believer in Jungian Synchronicity, and you cannot get a better example than that when you think of all the Biden Policies, especially the one of the covid passports – which is right out of The Book of Revelations, 13:16.
Build Back Better = bbb, = 666
“16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (666)
There is something to this.
The substance which will be used to make covid tattoos is called luciferase: https://www.moleculardevices.com/sites/default/files/en/assets/newsletter/november-2020.html#gref
Also, little known fact, but the UN works with a publishing company known as the Lucis Trust. I don’t know all the details, but its roots lie in the occult and freemasonry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucis_Trust
There’s more of these strange connections if you care to look. I remain skeptical myself, but now and again these odd coincidences do spring up.
Sean Penley
2 years ago
Wait, why is this author suddenly bringing this idea up as if it is new? This was a large part of Trump’s agenda. As the author points out, it is not a quick process to convert a post-industrial society to one that actually makes stuff. But Trump made encouraging production in the US one of his priorities. I didn’t believe him during his campaign, but in fact this policy was playing out fairly well during his presidency. Biden was the one who wanted to stifle this effect by cutting off oil, taking away the restrictions on Chinese trade, and raising taxes and regulation (the reduction of the latter two being the primary reasons the prior administration was able to encourage domestic production–everything else is good, but making it a national priority is what really brings out the entrepreneur in folks).
So basically, for Biden to promote a made-in-America agenda would require him to backtrack on everything he promised during his campaign. In itself that shouldn’t be a problem, he has no real principles to defend. The real question is: why is this being portrayed as an opportunity for Biden to make his mark, rather than as the more mundane option of being a chance for Biden to build on success?
“The real question is: why is this being portrayed as an opportunity for Biden to make his mark, rather than as the more mundane option of being a chance for Biden to build on success?”
For the same reason you’ll never see the media acknowledge that Biden’s covid vaccination plan is building on the success of Trump’s Warp Speed initiative to rapidly develop the vaccines.
D Hockley
2 years ago
How Biden can save America
To quote Captain Blackadder: Well, his immediate resignation and suicide would seem the obvious suggestion.
Thinking this through, President Kamala Harris is not a reassuring prospect!
Phil Mac
2 years ago
It’s all around us;
Energy policies that ignore strategic issues of dependency in favour of short term cost or popularity.
Obsession with GDP (total output that produces tax income today) as a metric over Productivity (useful stuff created per person)
Corporations with short term objectives to achieve management rewards based on dim metrics, and tax incentives to encourage Entrepreneurs to sell out (anyone who thinks Entrepreneurs Relief is anything other than a wet dream of big Corps hasn’t thought it through.)
etc.
All this that the article says was entirely obvious 20 years ago to anyone who thought it through. I watched with amused horror as big Corps exported jobs chasing cheap labour knowing it’d be in my favour down the line since our solution to lower unit costs was, er, fewer not cheaper people. And so it has proved to be.
Oh well, I guess this is what you get when the qualifications to hold high office are pap like PPE and the Board stands for re-election every 4 years. Much hope of high level strategic thinking and decisions that defer gratification in that environment is there?
Last edited 2 years ago by Phil Mac
Liz Walsh
2 years ago
Sounds suspiciously like some Trump administration wish list, reheated and garnished anew. “We should have picked our own cotton” is more than just a mildly racist trope. And along with “there is no free lunch” we forget at our peril that accurate description “the high cost of cheap labor”.
Last edited 2 years ago by Liz Walsh
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago
I had hoped Unherd would, indeed, get around to various economic issues and this article is refreshing. Of course, part of the ability to built factories and produce widgets rests on energy policy of which the US has decided it’s own cheap energy must not be used. The other factor is tax policy that favors industry of which the US has decided that free stuff is more important than economic clout. Corporations obviously never pay taxes but the politicians see them as way to hid the tax which devolves to citizens. So despite the notion of building anything, the politicians seem more intent on further transfer payments for which they personally are rewarded. Trump was trying to change the system which was roundly denounced by all vested in the system who have done well to demonize him. Sadly Trump, the man, has personal characteristics against him in spite of trying to develop solid policy to change the system.
A few upticks in interest rates will see a terrible collapse of the house and then awful changes will be needed to build anything. The politicians will not be immune to citizen anger.
John Riordan
2 years ago
America’s “bloated defence budgets” may well be what saves the West from totalitarianism in due course.
However I do mostly agree with the rest of the article.
LCarey Rowland
2 years ago
This makes good sense. But our imports-dependent American globalism has built up an inertia of rest that will be very difficult for corporate decision-makers to reverse.
President Biden will be swimming upstream in advocating the reformative changes you prescribe. He is already paying a dear polls-price for his corrective approach to governance.
Sadly, the bluster of our former president has occluded sound decision-making and reformative governance.
America is, as we say here, up the creek without a paddle. And our very experienced President is stuck with the job of turning the ship around while prevailing global currents draw homegrown capitalists in the opposite direction.
I hope we don’t run Joe into the ground; he is not exactly a spring chicken, as JFK was, or Clinton. He is going to have to get some serious help from the Lawrence Summers crowd to pull this redirective turnaround in a more appropriate direction to solve the mega-problems of this Era.
Andrew Lale
2 years ago
Biden can’t even feed himself.
Mikey Mike
2 years ago
Think of how enticing it would be for US companies to return manufacturing to America if they could be assured non-union factories? And they can in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi where the best automobile plants in the country now operate. The unions have destroyed manufacturing in the north by inflating operating costs and lowering productivity and charging a premium for the privilege. If manufacturing is coming back, it’s setting up shop in the deep south.
Forgive my scepticism but Biden has been sitting inertly at the top of the US government hierarchy for decades so I see no reason to expect any sudden dynamism.
Right you are. Biden’s primary talent is deflecting blame. Watch out for a lousy Christmas and a list of “culprits” who caused your child not to get the toys that are sitting in a trailer parked in California and not under your tree.
Sounds like the author is recommending Biden should follow Trump’s policies on de-offshoring, bringing jobs and industry back to America…
And the pandemic drove home this lesson.
Why do authors and commentators pursue the fiction that Biden is in charge of or deciding anything at all, except maybe the flavour of his ice cream.
This was exactly my first reaction. Biden will be lucky to finish the week/month/year—running for re-election or even walking up stairs out of the question.
Elizabeth Warren and Crazy Bernie are in charge. No one voted for them. And no one voted for this Biden…..
Are Elizabeth and Bernie in charge really? Is anyone? Does the government control the government?
At the risk of being labeled a conspiracy theorist, I would look at “The Interagency” and the intelligence services. This is where the permanent bureaucracy resides and where the shots are being called.
I know too little to comment. But which agency(ies) was it that concocted and more importantly promoted the Russiagate Conspiracy?
I’m going to have to voice some skepticism he even chooses the flavor of his ice cream. I think he takes what he gets and is grateful for it. That helps explain why this is his approach to the rest of the country in its relation to the federal government
I’m not saying it’s over or nearly over, but I was reading On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic last night and, when reading this article, these lines came to mind:
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
When her long life hath reached its final day:
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.
Very beautiful, thank you for making this reference.
For the US, read the UK. Our reliance on cheap labour and cheap imports is actually worse.
But at least via Brexit we have a partial chance of getting back to something approaching profitability.
Not as persuasive as the earlier article on how close Hugo Chavez came to turning Venezuela into a economic Powerhouse, but still a good Lefty take on Bidenomics and Global trade.
That it is wrong by virtually every metric except how destructive unskilled migration is to every facet of a developed economy, it still does make one think of what is really going on.
“and reviving American manufacturing with its “Build Back Better” agenda.”
I do love this phrase, as I am a believer in Jungian Synchronicity, and you cannot get a better example than that when you think of all the Biden Policies, especially the one of the covid passports – which is right out of The Book of Revelations, 13:16.
Build Back Better = bbb, = 666
“16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (666)
Strong mushrooms on Patmos…
Sanford, is that you?
surely it is, although I subscribe to the theory that the great Sanford is in truth the Sanford Artzen Collective.
There is something to this.
The substance which will be used to make covid tattoos is called luciferase:
https://www.moleculardevices.com/sites/default/files/en/assets/newsletter/november-2020.html#gref
Also, little known fact, but the UN works with a publishing company known as the Lucis Trust. I don’t know all the details, but its roots lie in the occult and freemasonry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucis_Trust
There’s more of these strange connections if you care to look. I remain skeptical myself, but now and again these odd coincidences do spring up.
Wait, why is this author suddenly bringing this idea up as if it is new? This was a large part of Trump’s agenda. As the author points out, it is not a quick process to convert a post-industrial society to one that actually makes stuff. But Trump made encouraging production in the US one of his priorities. I didn’t believe him during his campaign, but in fact this policy was playing out fairly well during his presidency. Biden was the one who wanted to stifle this effect by cutting off oil, taking away the restrictions on Chinese trade, and raising taxes and regulation (the reduction of the latter two being the primary reasons the prior administration was able to encourage domestic production–everything else is good, but making it a national priority is what really brings out the entrepreneur in folks).
So basically, for Biden to promote a made-in-America agenda would require him to backtrack on everything he promised during his campaign. In itself that shouldn’t be a problem, he has no real principles to defend. The real question is: why is this being portrayed as an opportunity for Biden to make his mark, rather than as the more mundane option of being a chance for Biden to build on success?
“The real question is: why is this being portrayed as an opportunity for Biden to make his mark, rather than as the more mundane option of being a chance for Biden to build on success?”
For the same reason you’ll never see the media acknowledge that Biden’s covid vaccination plan is building on the success of Trump’s Warp Speed initiative to rapidly develop the vaccines.
How Biden can save America
To quote Captain Blackadder: Well, his immediate resignation and suicide would seem the obvious suggestion.
Thinking this through, President Kamala Harris is not a reassuring prospect!
It’s all around us;
All this that the article says was entirely obvious 20 years ago to anyone who thought it through. I watched with amused horror as big Corps exported jobs chasing cheap labour knowing it’d be in my favour down the line since our solution to lower unit costs was, er, fewer not cheaper people. And so it has proved to be.
Oh well, I guess this is what you get when the qualifications to hold high office are pap like PPE and the Board stands for re-election every 4 years. Much hope of high level strategic thinking and decisions that defer gratification in that environment is there?
Sounds suspiciously like some Trump administration wish list, reheated and garnished anew. “We should have picked our own cotton” is more than just a mildly racist trope. And along with “there is no free lunch” we forget at our peril that accurate description “the high cost of cheap labor”.
I had hoped Unherd would, indeed, get around to various economic issues and this article is refreshing. Of course, part of the ability to built factories and produce widgets rests on energy policy of which the US has decided it’s own cheap energy must not be used. The other factor is tax policy that favors industry of which the US has decided that free stuff is more important than economic clout. Corporations obviously never pay taxes but the politicians see them as way to hid the tax which devolves to citizens. So despite the notion of building anything, the politicians seem more intent on further transfer payments for which they personally are rewarded. Trump was trying to change the system which was roundly denounced by all vested in the system who have done well to demonize him. Sadly Trump, the man, has personal characteristics against him in spite of trying to develop solid policy to change the system.
A few upticks in interest rates will see a terrible collapse of the house and then awful changes will be needed to build anything. The politicians will not be immune to citizen anger.
America’s “bloated defence budgets” may well be what saves the West from totalitarianism in due course.
However I do mostly agree with the rest of the article.
This makes good sense. But our imports-dependent American globalism has built up an inertia of rest that will be very difficult for corporate decision-makers to reverse.
President Biden will be swimming upstream in advocating the reformative changes you prescribe. He is already paying a dear polls-price for his corrective approach to governance.
Sadly, the bluster of our former president has occluded sound decision-making and reformative governance.
America is, as we say here, up the creek without a paddle. And our very experienced President is stuck with the job of turning the ship around while prevailing global currents draw homegrown capitalists in the opposite direction.
I hope we don’t run Joe into the ground; he is not exactly a spring chicken, as JFK was, or Clinton. He is going to have to get some serious help from the Lawrence Summers crowd to pull this redirective turnaround in a more appropriate direction to solve the mega-problems of this Era.
Biden can’t even feed himself.
Think of how enticing it would be for US companies to return manufacturing to America if they could be assured non-union factories? And they can in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi where the best automobile plants in the country now operate. The unions have destroyed manufacturing in the north by inflating operating costs and lowering productivity and charging a premium for the privilege. If manufacturing is coming back, it’s setting up shop in the deep south.