Yes, yes, I know:
When it comes to the economy, in fact, Biden is in trouble. The 46th president pledged more than $1 trillion on the Inflation Reduction Act (which at the time was estimated to boost inflation slightly) at a time when it was clear far too much money had already been pumped into the economy – all in a crude attempt to secure some political leverage.
Instead, he is forced to grapple with abysmal polling, which illustrates just how disappointed Americans are with the economy’s performance.
Polling from Gallup this autumn finds that only 20pc of Americans consider the country’s economic conditions to be “good”, compared to 60pc who consider those conditions to be either “only fair” or “poor”.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of respondents fear the outlook for the economy is moving in the wrong direction, with 73pc reporting that they believe these conditions are getting worse, while only 24pc think they are improving.
This kind of doom and gloom perspective of American voters compares, Gallup says, to attitudes more than a decade ago, during the time of the financial crash.
It’s a fairly standard observation that we never really do know we’re in recession until it’s almost over. That’s slightly a joke, but only slightly.
Looking at the profit reports of American companies there’s an awful lot of “consumer demand is weak” and “sales difficult to complete” and stuff. The renewables supply chain is destocking like billy-oh. Fortunately I’m not a macroeconomist and so don;t have to actually argue this in detail. But I’ve a suspicion that the US economy actually is in recession right now.
Which makes Biden toast this time next year of course. But, obvs, we’ll see.