An old clip of former President Donald Trump making the argument that the election of President Joe Biden would only result in a rapidly dropping stock market came back to the forefront this past Friday evening in the wake of Wall Street witnessing a bloodbath.
Data from the Federal Reserve seemed to indicate that the targets for the federal funds rate went up by 0.75% on Wednesday evening, which managed to shift the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which keeps track of a block of the 30 most prominent companies across American exchanges, crashing by over 500 points. In the wake of stagnating on Thursday, the index then dropped by another 500 points by early Friday evening to roughly 29,400. On the day Biden officially took office, January 20, 2021, the Dow officially closed while sitting at just above 30,900.
“They said the stock market will boom if I am elected,” stated Trump as part of one of the 2020 presidential debates. “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.”
Nasdaq Performance 612 days in office
President Trump: +44.17
President Biden: -19.24%pic.twitter.com/DOitQP1a7h— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 23, 2022
As reported by InteractivePolls, a well-known conservative polling group, which highlighted a clip from the debate via social media, The extremely tech-laden NASDAQ had climbed by about 44% at the time of Trump being 612 days into his first term. At that same point under Biden’s leadership, however, the index had managed to drop by roughly 19%.
As has been seen, the economy of the United States has withered over the past 2 years through multiple disruptions — which included supply chain bottlenecks, labor shortages, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia — all of which have had a significant impact on the worsening of inflationary pressures.
Overall price levels between August of last year and August of this year saw an 8.3% jump, as stated in data released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pointing out a minor moderation from an 8.5% year-over-year rise for July and a 9.1% year-over-year rise for June. Despite the moderation in inflation on a year-over-year basis, the month-to-month prices for food, medical services, and shelter went up, while overall core inflation — a metric that excludes the costs of energy and food, which are far more volatile on average — continued to climb.
Officials from within the Biden administration have tried to claim that the economy is strong, despite the clear evidence otherwise. When Peter Doocy, a correspondent for Fox News, questioned White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about a poll sporting results highlighting that 83% of the American people think that the economy is “poor or not so good” earlier this past year, she chose to double down on the lie about the economy that the economy had actually gotten better since Biden took office.
“What I’m trying to say to you is that the economy is in a better place than it has been historically,” stated Jean-Pierre. “And so, we feel, here at this administration and other experts as well … we feel that we are in a good position to take on inflation. We are in a good position to really start really working on lowering prices.”
A key driving force behind these inflationary pressures has been the oppressive cost of energy. Biden has been trying to push renewable power while leasing out far fewer federal lands in regards to drilling for natural gas and oil than any of his predecessors since WWII. At the start of his term, Biden also canceled the planned expansions to the Keystone XL pipeline project.