NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans is already laying the groundwork for how the stupid media narrative will be spun if the supposedly stellar Biden economy nosedives: blame President Donald Trump.
Romans’ Inauguration Day piece, “The economy starts the year in solid shape. Now it's in Trump's hands,” followed the typical course of leftist media regurgitating devoid-of-context data points the Biden White House sticks to its decrepit economic record like a bunch of barnacles.
Then Romans brazenly set the stage for how coverage of Trump’s own record will go: “The president-elect inherits robust growth, sticky but much lower inflation and cooling but sturdy gains in pay and hiring. His policies could affect all those trends and more.”
You think people are that dumb that they can’t see what you’re doing here Romans?
Romans, who has her own history of spinning herself silly trying to protect Biden’s image on the economy throughout his term, bemoaned how the “last four years’ stunning rebound from the pandemic wasn’t enough to keep a Democrat in the White House.” Now, whined Romans, “Trump is moving back in with many economic winds at his back and a pocketbook-focused electorate watching to see what he’ll do with them.” Oh, there’s “winds” alright, but they're effectively the smelly aftermath of Biden’s policies breaking them in the American people’s faces. If polls are any indication, Americans weren’t too keen on getting any more whiffs of Biden’s economic “winds.”
Romans undercut her own argument by admitting that “[u]navoidable expenses like housing, child care, health care and more remain punishingly high for countless households.” Of course, she didn’t get specific to mention that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate just topped an insane 7 percent for the first time since mid-2024 literally days before her propaganda was published. Then she reverted to twisting facts around like a pretzel: “However, the costs of many daily goods and services have already slowed sharply while workers’ incomes, on average, have more than made up for the hikes.”
First, saying costs “slowed” is a deceptively euphemistic way of saying prices are still going higher but at a slower rate. In fact, consumer prices are now 21 percent higher on average than when Biden first took office, which explains why Trump won. So her touting "2.9 percent" inflation right now is incomplete.
Secondly, Romans’ allusion to workers’ incomes outpacing inflation is also grossly misleading. Her evidence was simply a link back to an old August 2024 NBC News article parroting the talking points of the Biden Treasury Department under former “transitory” inflation apologist Janet Yellen.
In fact, new data from Statista released Inauguration Day — the same day Romans’ piece went out — found that the “largest blemish” on Biden’s legacy was that — *checks notes* — “Wages Haven't Kept Up With Inflation.” Oops.
In fact, “adjusted for price increases, people went from $29.93 an hour to $29.49 an hour during the Biden years. Considering that these are average earnings, it’s fair to assume that many people suffered considerably larger and actually noticeable declines in real wages, leading to the widespread frustration with the Biden economy,” Statista noted.
Oh but Romans wasn’t finished. After spinning the December inflation numbers showing an uptick to 2.9 percent, she claimed, “It’s ironic, meanwhile, that efforts to lower inflation could be hampered by the underlying strength in the labor market and the economy overall.” She pivoted to once again belching up Biden talking points on the so-called “strength” of the labor market and business environment:
Looking to cement its record, the Biden administration released a Treasury Department analysis last week emphasizing that ‘labor market, household, and business indicators are all at levels typical of economic booms, with some — including the prime-age (ages 25 to 54) labor force participation rate, median household wealth, and business applications — at or near historic highs.’
Not so fast. Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni already pointed out Jan. 10, “Full-time jobs have fallen 1.3 million since Jun '23 w/ all net job growth since then coming from part-time work; for the last 18 months, the gig economy has shifted into overdrive while the fundamentals stagnate, if not deteriorate.”
In addition, more than half of all net job growth in 2024 alone was the result of direct or indirect hiring by the Biden government, meaning they’re being subsidized by taxpayers, as Antoni analyzed in another Jan. 10 X post. “[T]his is completely unsustainable and points to a much weaker labor market than the headlines make it appear,” Antoni concluded.
More than half of all net job growth in '24 was either direct or indirect hiring by gov't, in other words, paid for w/ taxpayer dollars - this is completely unsustainable and points to a much weaker labor market than the headlines make it appear: pic.twitter.com/lqfpdjcgzU
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) January 10, 2025
Of course, Romans mentioned nothing about the “widespread labor shortage” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported on Dec. 13, probably because it didn’t fit her agenda to make the Biden economy out to be the best thing since sliced bread. As Romans wrote in her own piece, “context is critical.” Hello!
And how about those “business indicators,” eh Romans? Fox Business reported on a new study from digital lender Biz2Credit, which the outlet said showed how “[t]he backbone of the U.S. economy – the American small business – may be breaking beyond repair without some serious intervention.” Specifically, Fox Business reported, “Data from the study was pulled from more than 100,000 financing applications submitted to Biz2Credit between January 2022 and December 2024, and it shows a sharp decline in the earnings of small businesses toward the end of 2024, a trend the lender sees continuing into 2025.”
Perhaps by “solid shape” Romans was simply referring to a floating turd. Who knows at this point!
