I thought Barbra was smarter than Alyssa Milano, Rob Reiner and Joy Behar.
I’m sure she is, or once was; dementia creeps up on you. I really don’t know how to explain this.
Is she being cleverly deceitful? Yes, some prices are falling, like gas, but prices as a whole are not. They are still rising, the effects of Biden’s inflationary policies are still hurting the middle class and the poor, and the Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction” Act: has had slightly more salutary effects than Gerald Ford’s W.I.N. button, but nothing to boast about. Inflation “coming down” means that the rate of prices going up is lessening, not that prices are actually less than they were. Does Streisand really not know that?
The claim about Trump is definitely deceit. The mainstream media helped with that one,using the pandemic lockdown results that savaged the American economy to conclude that, as CNN, that scrupulously unbiased news source, wrote in September 2020 as part of the media’s push to elect a mentally-declining President because the public thinks he’s a nice guy, “Trump’s job losses are the worst of any American president on record.”
Of course, before the schools were closed and businesses shuttered because the public health officials panicked, Trump’s job and inflation record was excellent. Well, yeah, said scrupulously non-partisan CNN, “But there are many who question whether the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic is responsible for deeper economic damage than would have taken place had the White House taken a more active role in fighting coronavirus.” You know: “many.” Oddly, CNN couldn’t find an expert who was ready to go on the record with that analysis. That was because the “many” who said that were part of the Democratic effort to use he Wuhan virus to bring down Trump, and it worked.
In addition to wondering if Barbra wrote and believes this idiotic and misleading tweet, I wonder how many Americans are so gullible that they accept Babs’ declaraion as an accurate representation of fact. The thing has over 6,000 “likes”: do they like it because it attacks Trump and pretends Biden’s record is better than it is, or do they like it because they think it’s true?
And how many American regard political analysis from celebrities as any more persuasive or likely to be perceptive than political analysis from their dry cleaner? Celebrities have an ethical obligation not to abuse their influence and make the public less informed, and that is what tweets like this do.
Shut up and sing, Barbra.
Ethics Alarms 
“Yes, some prices are falling, like gas, but prices as a whole are not…. Inflation “coming down” means that the rate of prices going up is lessening, not that prices are actually less than they were. Does Streisand really not know that?”
Probably not. She is parroting Democratic Party Talking Points. There is no reason to believe she has any particular understanding of how inflation works. We all know gas prices are lower because of the holidays. Once January gets going, they’ll go up again.
“The thing has over 6,000 “likes”: do they like it because it attacks Trump and pretends Biden’s record is better than it is, or do they like it because they think it’s true?”
Both. Babs’ supporters hate Trump and want to believe that she is providing factual information about the economy that they don’t truly understand any more than she does.
You are correct. I don’t understand why we give celebrities pedestals on which to disseminate their ignorance either, but it’s another unpleasant attribute of American culture that we could do without.
This is kind of a variation on a general theme I’m seeing.
Politicians have always been big proponents of a kind of “stock market line go up, economy do good” thought process. They’ll often miss massive micro problems because they’re looking at macroeconomics. And to a point, that’s fine, especially federally, that’s even understandable. But at some point it has to scale down. Someone has to be worried about micro outcomes. And when basically everyone is screaming for financial relief, it feels like a good time to step outside the stock-market-line-go-up paradigm and look to how your policies are effecting people.
Except the left just seems fundamentally incapable of doing it. Up here in Canada, the Conservatives have 40% support in a five party system because the Liberals have the same blinders on as America’s Democrats: Everyone is bragging about how good the economy is.
And to be fair… They’re looking at all the normal markers: Stock market line goes up! Job creation rates go up! Unemployment rates go down! But regardless of the macro measurement tool that you want to use, the bottom seems to be falling out, and the people in power, the people who’s job it is to manage and oversee the economy seem to fall into two equally clueless categories:
1) “It’s not my fault, everyone is in the same boat!”
Except everyone isn’t in the same boat, some economies are doing significantly worse than others, but everyone is doing fairly bad for the exact same reason: Basically everyone did the same thing and devalued the living bejesus out of their currency by printing off money like it was ticker tape at a Macy’s Day Parade.
2) “The stock market lines go up!”
Except no one cares about those right now. Interest rates are on the rise, which is particularly bad in an era where debt loads have never been higher. Inflation has run rampant, which means that prices are up. Prices being up has led to food bank usage being up 400%. People can’t make bill payments, so foreclosure rates are up. Bankruptcy rates are up.
Democrats, and left leaning people the world over, are stuck in this cycle of misunderstanding, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s a survival mechanism and they’re being purposefully obtuse, or if they’re just so financially illiterate that they actually believe it. The problem is that you can’t gaslight food onto a holiday table, and people are hungry.
“Democrats, and left leaning people the world over, are stuck in this cycle of misunderstanding, and I’m honestly not sure if it’s a survival mechanism and they’re being purposefully obtuse, or if they’re just so financially illiterate that they actually believe it. ”
Leadership also does something else: they try to control morale. If Trump were in office right now, the Democrats and their allies would be pointing to the same micro-parameters you have and blasting it to the Heavens how bad the economy is because they want to fuel fear which tends to make difficult economic times worse.
Since they are in charge right now, the only thing they can do is praise the Emperor and hope nobody notices he has no clothes so that consumer confidence will have some positive economic impact.
Not to mention the fact that inflation absolutely should result in the stock market line increasing, if for nothing else than the fact that each dollar is worth less so for the market to retain its value, the nominal number must increase.
Whatever. I paid $9 this summer for a watermelon and my husband is upset because fuel line and fittings are up 30% and I went to get frames for my daughter’s art and the lady said half her inventory hasn’t been available since Covid and it’s also up 30% on and on…. Nevermind the help issues and the revolving door of supply chain issues everywhere. Or the news that had 30,000 Venezuelan illegal immigrants camped out in Denver or the theft rings stealing from stores. This is not evidence of a good economy. They can say what they want, but the numbers in your corner of the universe don’t lie. People won’t believe the news or politics or some movie star has been when they see the results in front of their faces. Not when they are waiting months to get parts to repair their vehicles and what they used to buy is out of stock and when the orders are chronically late and not everything comes in time and costs more. The “new normal” the politicians told us about during Covid is here and it’s not better than the “old normal”. There’s still supply chain issues. Costs are still too high. Labor is still sub par. I don’t see any of these problems getting fixed.
Bell peppers now cost 4$ a pepper, eggs cost 5$ a dozen, and all the packaged products are about a quarter the size they used to be but cost twice as much in my grocery store. I don’t know who these people think they are kidding but I can read price tags just as well as I can read propaganda and the two do not match.
Have you seen the price of butter?…or even worse, Crisco? 12-packs of soda require me to sell plasma. It’s ridiculous…and not in the stupidly improper way millenials are using the word now so that it means “awesome” or “great”.
Too bad Babs didn’t sing the contents of her tweet in a song. Then I would have never known about it.
Exactly. The numbers don’t lie. Anyone, anywhere can tell you how much better today is than when Trump was president, but I spent over $850 vs half that a few years ago… you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. At this point I don’t know if they’re trying to fool people or convince themselves of the lie.
“CNN, that scrupulously unbiased news source, wrote in September 2020 as part of the media’s push to elect a mentally-declining President because the public thinks he’s a nice guy”
Nice guys do not repeatedly, continually, and for years on end, fondle little girls. It is remarkable the number of Leftys who knowingly sacrifice children to wokism, female athletes to wokism, culture/society/economy to wokism, and the unborn at the altar of convenience. These folks mean it when they chant; Tear It All Down! (starting with women and children)
Oh, he’s definitely NOT a nice guy, and Washington vets know it, but his nice guy act works compared to Trump’s in-your-face “I’ll eat your face, dickweed, and like it, so get out of my way!” persona.