Biden had a lot to brag about after the most recent jobs report. My conservative listeners could not deal with it. But why did he feel the need to say he is a capitalist?
Biden takes a lap
The January jobs report is out. Not only was it a blockbuster report for January, but it showed an increase in employment in the last couple of months. In other words, the reports that many Republicans attempted to use as Biden’s failure showed the economy continued strong. This type of report was unexpected. DailyKos reported it as follows.
The January jobs report released Friday morning was predicted to be weak thanks to the omicron surge, and Republicans were doing victory laps in advance. Former Trump mouthpiece Sean Spicer tweeted that “the White House spin on tomorrow’s jobs report will be fun.”
On Fox & Friends: ”How does the White House spin this?” and “What vaccine do you get for job loss?” and, in giant red letters, “MORE JOB LOSSES.”
Well, it turned out the White House doesn’t need to spin anything. Friday morning, it was President Joe Biden who had the opportunity to take a victory lap—this one based on the facts, not wishful thinking. “America’s job machine is going stronger than ever,” Biden said, touting truly impressive jobs numbers. Not only did January’s jobs report seriously exceed expectations, but November and December’s jobs reports were revised upward by huge numbers. Dow Jones had estimated 150,000 new jobs in January. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reality was 467,000 new jobs.
”This morning’s [jobs] report caps off my first year as president, and over that period, our economy created 6.6 million jobs,” Biden said. “If you can’t remember any year when so many people went to work in this country, there’s a reason: It never happened.”
Biden’s use of Keynesian economics principles over the constancy of the failed supply-side economics proved its success. There was one sentence in the President’s speech he felt compelled to say.
“I’m a capitalist,” Joe Biden said. “But capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It’s exploitation. So I’m going to continue to do everything in my power to work with Congress to make our capitalist system work better, provide more competition, and lower prices for American consumers.”
Unfortunately, the President tagged himself unnecessarily. He did not need to do that. He needs to perform with fiscal policies that work. Let others fight about the attempt to redeem failed economic systems.
The President said that capitalism without competition is not competition. Capitalism has nothing to do with competition. It has everything to do with shareholder profit maximization at all costs. If anyone has any doubts, I suggest reading Milton Friedman’s quote.
Because capitalism’s sole purpose is to maximize profits for shareholders, the few, monopoly is a natural progression. Pilfering the worker and environmental abuse is the natural outcome. We do not have to question this reality anymore. We are living it, and it is all for them to see.