Biden's claims on the economy are pure malarkey

By Rich Lowry

When President Joe Biden says something isn’t inevitable, it is time to count on it as a dead-lock guarantee.

The president’s handling of events has been poor and the same with his policies. But nothing has been quite so bad as his snakebit, maladroit, poorly informed, dishonest attempts to spin away the miserable results of his governance, especially on the economy.

If he says the border is not a crisis, there must be people crossing the Rio Grande en masse and getting admitted into the United States and bussed to locales around the country in shocking numbers.

If he says the Afghanistan withdrawal was an “extraordinary success,” it must have been a shambolic embarrassment that left Americans behind, despite Biden’s assurance that would never happen.

If he says the pandemic is effectively over, as he did last July, it must mean a new wave of the virus is about to send case counts soaring.

Even if none of these things had happened and Biden never said a word about them, he would have torched his credibility on the economy alone. He’s produced a steady, ongoing farrago of false assurances and blame-shifting that has amounted to a master class in not convincing anyone of anything, except to tune out whatever he says.

According to Biden, things are never as bad as they seem, and by the way, even if they are, they are definitely not his fault.

The mantra from the president and his team now is that a recession is not inevitable, which, on its own terms, is not the most reassuring message. Something may not be inevitable and still be possible or even much more likely than not.

The rule-of-thumb definition of a recession is two quarters of negative GDP growth. In the first quarter, GDP contracted 1.4%, and an Atlanta Federal Reserve forecast pegs second-quarter growth at around 0, or on the knife’s edge of a second negative quarter in a row.

In other words, what Biden insists is “the fastest economy in the world” may be hardly growing at all.

If the United States does dip into a recession, we can be sure that Biden will be among the last to acknowledge it, just as he and his team pooh-poohed rising inflation as long as they could. It may be that “not inevitable” ends up being the new “transitory,” a wishful claim that says more about the people making it than underlying conditions.

Biden is serving up large helpings of what he famously called “malarkey” in his 2012 vice-presidential debate.

He likes to maintain that he cut the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars when, in reality, the deficit had already been forecast to come down after the surge of pandemic spending — and his COVID relief bill added substantially more deficit spending than there would have been otherwise.

He’s called the idea that his COVID bill fueled inflation “bizarre” (while conceding that you could perhaps argue that it had a “marginal, minor” impact). Yet former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers famously predicted that the massive bill could stoke inflation, and Biden himself name-checks Summers as an economic authority.

Walking on a Delaware beach while on vacation, Biden upbraided a reporter for saying, truthfully, that economists are saying that a recession is more likely than ever. The president joked that she sounded like a Republican before lapsing into his rote line that a downturn isn’t inevitable.

Biden likes to insist that Americans can “handle the truth.” Yes, they can, and the truth is that poor Biden policy choices have worsened economic conditions, as shortages disrupt the workings of the economy and inflation eats away at paychecks. Americans can acknowledge all this — indeed, feel it every day — while not liking it or being willing to tolerate it.

All indications are that Biden himself is the one who can’t handle the truth.

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Infection Without Vaccination Gives Immunity: Study

Having two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine has been linked with negative protection against symptomatic infection with the disease, scientists say, while a previous infection without vaccination offers around 50 percent immunity, according to a study analyzing the Omicron wave in Qatar.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 15, examined the Omicron wave in Qatar that occurred from around December 2021 to February 2022, comparing vaccination rates and immunity among more than 100,000 Omicron infected and non-infected individuals.

The authors of the study found that those who had a prior infection but no vaccination had a 46.1 and 50 percent immunity against the two subvariants of the Omicron variant, even at an interval of more than 300 days since the previous infection.

However, individuals who received two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine but had no previous infection, were found with negative immunity against both BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron subvariants, indicating an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 than an average person.

Over six months after getting two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, immunity against any Omicron infection dropped to -3.4 percent.

But for two doses of the Moderna vaccine, immunity against any Omicron infection dropped to -10.3 percent after more than six months since the last injection.

Though the authors reported that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine increased immunity to over 50 percent, this was measured just over 40 days after the third vaccination, which is a very short interval. In comparison, natural immunity persisted at around 50 percent when measured over 300 days after the previous infection, while immunity levels fell to negative figures 270 days after the second dose of vaccine.

These figures indicate a risk of waning immunity for the third vaccine dose as time progresses.

The findings are supported by another recent study from Israel that also found natural immunity waned significantly more slowly compared to artificial, or vaccinated, immunity.

The study found that both natural and artificial immunity waned over time.

Individuals that were previously infected but not vaccinated had half the risks of reinfection as compared to those that were vaccinated with two doses but not infected.

“Natural immunity wins again,” Dr. Martin Adel Makary, a public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Twitter, referring to the Israeli study.

“Among persons who had been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, protection against reinfection decreased as the time increased,” the authors concluded, “however, this protection was higher” than protection conferred in the same time interval through two doses of the vaccine.

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Australia: Alarming warning over new Omicron sub-variants on the rise across the country with fears infections will rise - and no one is safe

Health authorities have issued a warning over a new Omicron subvariants on the rise across the country as experts expect they will soon become the dominant strains.

Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 have been both detected in Queensland and NSW, with cases rising in recent months.

On Thursday, authorities from both states on issued an alert amid concerns the variants could result in a wave of new Covid cases.

'It is expected the Covid-19 sub-lineages BA.4 and BA.5 will become the dominant strains in coming weeks,' NSW Health tweeted.

'This is likely to result in an increase in infections, including in people who have previously had Covid-19.'

In a similar warning, QLD Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard estimated the variants would become the main strain within 'two weeks'.

However, he stressed that intensive care admissions remains low for all strains of the virus, which was a testament to the efficacy of vaccines.

'We must stress that all Covid-19 variants can cause severe illness, especially in vulnerable people,' Dr Gerrard said.

'We strongly encourage Queenslanders to remain up to date with their boosters, particularly those over 65 years of age and those with impaired immunity,' he said.

'This virus will continue to mutate so we all need to remain vigilant and responsive by staying home when sick, washing your hands regularly, keeping your distance from others where possible and wearing a face mask when you can’t.'

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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