Time To Pay the Piper as Reality Closes In Around the Woke Bidenomics Team

The plunging stock market has finally reached bear market territory, a nearly 20 percent drop since its January high. The market’s been falling all year, so this comes as no great surprise. I take no pleasure from it: More than 100 million Americans are invested one way or another in various retirement accounts. The vast majority of these retirement-savings investors are middle-income working people. They’re not rich. They don’t own the bulk of the market wealth. For them, though, the monthly reports from various financial planners or brokerage firms are important. Very important. For most of my career, I have argued that the best investment strategy for the long run is stocks. Jeremy Siegel of Penn wrote the book on this, as did Burton Malkiel of Princeton, and I think folks who followed their advice to buy on weakness and hold for 40 or 50 years have done very well. This current bear market correction is certainly not the end of the world. For those who are faint of heart, I recommend not opening your monthly statements when they come. At least for a while. For others, I suggest deep prayer and meditation. We will get through this. Let’s not forget, though: There’s no question in my mind that however temporary this is, it’s the Bidens’ radical, progressive, big-government socialist economic policies that have been driving down stocks all year. Excessive federal spending, the war against fossil fuels, and the Fed’s money printing have all contributed mightily to a sharp rise of inflation. That led to a closely linked upturn of market interest rates and a pronounced drop in the living standards of typical American families, where spiking inflation has completely undermined solid wage and salary increases. Real wages have fallen for 13 consecutive months, according to some metrics. If you look under the hood of the major stock market averages, you see it clearly.The S&P 500 Retailing Index is down more than 31 percent year-to-date. And if you tack on the Producer Price Index increase of 11 percent, those consumer-related stocks are off more than 40 percent this year.Similarly for the Home Builders Index, which is now approaching a 50 percent loss. Semiconductors are near a 40 percent drop. The Consumer Discretionary Cyclicals are off more than 40 percent. Infotech is off more than 35 percent.I don’t mean to bore you with numbers, but I’m trying to explain that if you look under the hood of the major averages, key economic-sensitive sectors have been in a deep bear market for quite some time. They are pointing toward recession. They could be discounting inflationary recession, which is the worst of all worlds. The 30-year mortgage rate is at 5.5 percent. Ten-year treasury notes have just about doubled, to 3 percent. The Federal Reserve’s target rate, which is hovering at just under 1 percent, could go as high as 3.5 percent by year’s end, according to a sound money advocate, Jim Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. Unfortunately, the Fed fell under the woke spell of Bidenomics — spend, borrow, print — and remained in denial about the inflation threat of these left-wing policies. Now, we all have to pay the piper as reality closes in around them. I will again say: The only way to stop inflation is by abandoning the progressive agenda. Stop the massive spending. Stop the regulatory control over the economy. Stop the radical climate policies that have produced less energy, higher gasoline prices, and huge consumer angst. People in the Biden White House choose to ignore the stock market. Big mistake. At their own peril. The stock market is reflecting what the rest of the country is saying. The latest AP poll shows President Biden’s approval at 39 percent, disapproval at 60 percent. A CNN poll shows 86 percent are either “concerned” or “scared” about the country’s direction, whereas 14 percent are either “excited” or “optimistic.” I’d truly like to meet that “excited” crowd. That was a joke, but this is serious business. If I may summarize these feelings, the key point — whether it’s the stock market or consumers or working families or well-heeled businesses — is that nobody has any confidence in the Biden administration. Virtually nobody. And confidence matters a lot. A free-market economy is built on confidence. But that confidence has to rest on the rule of law, limited government, sound money, minimal tax rates, and the great American idea that as good as the country is today, it will be even better in the future. We’ve lost that for the moment, but we will get it back. Trust me: The cavalry is coming. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.

Time To Pay the Piper as Reality Closes In Around the Woke Bidenomics Team

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