The heroes of the COVID supply chain crisis, the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA), walked off their jobs last night. Where is Mayor Pete? Is sleepy Joe still snoozing on the beach in Delaware? Their silence is deafening. This is not the leadership we were promised during their 2020 campaign.
November's election options can be distilled into two key questions:
1. Are we economically better off today than four years ago?
2. Is the world safer today than four years ago?
Is the ILA strike the “October surprise 1.0”?
Yesterday’s financially illiterate headline in the UK’s Daily Mail set the tone:
"Experts warn store prices will soar and shelves will be empty as greedy dockworkers strike over 80% pay raise.”
While it’s true the strike will cost billions of dollars’ worth of trade per day at our busiest ports, resulting in higher prices and empty shelves across America — is the ILA work action justified? Who is to blame? Could the strike have been avoided?
The dispute: Last night, workers rejected a wage hike of 50% over six years and demanded an increase of nearly 80%. Union members, whose historic strike may choke supply chains and cost billions, are seeking a wage increase from around $81,000 per year to $145,000 per year over six years.
Are the ILA demands unreasonable or greedy as the Daily Mail’s “experts” contend? No. The ILA is not greedy to seek cost-of-living increases that are close to the real rate of inflation.
The message these ILA pay packet increases, demanded by Main Street workers, is telegraphing: Inflation is set to gallop much higher, and governments, politicians, and the mainstream media have been dishonest with their “rosy” economic assessments since the Great Financial Crisis began in 2007.
The causes of the inflationary surge that began in 2021, trace directly back to reckless spending by the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President and Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris, in the form of their “Inflation reduction Act” and “Green New Deal.”
Both policies caused higher inflation. The Federal Reserve’s money printing and keeping interest rates far too low for too long, enabled the continuation of fiscal profligacy across the board. The most recent example: U.S. house prices have increased over 50% in less than four years. Who is shocked by workers demanding higher wages to keep up with the inflation caused by Bidenomics?
What would the reality of Harris/Walz victory be for Americans?
The Harris plan:
- Higher inflation.
- A grant of blanket immunity for 30 million illegal aliens who invaded our open borders.
- End the filibuster.
- Pack the Supreme Court of the United States.
- Add two “Democrat” states to the union.
- Ramp up the war on free speech and total bigger government control.
- Raise taxes and increase government spending.
May we trust the arsonists who poured gasoline on the fire to extinguish the blaze?
Will the self-proclaimed middle-class, pro-worker Biden/Harris administration seek a court order under the Taft-Hartley Act, restricting workers' rights, for an 80-day cooling-off period, in order to slide through the election? If Biden calls on the Taft-Hartley Act, workers will show up and cut their productivity by 90% — and get paid for destroying supply chains.
The thing is, if the U.S. was being run by competent leaders in the first place, we would not be in this position today.
Could a plan emerge to hire the 30 million illegal migrants, or “new entrants” — a cheaper labor force and voting block allowed in by Harris, Biden’s border czar? This would certainly result in the loss to illegals of tens of thousands of jobs currently held by American workers.
Inflation, incompetence, and a lack of leadership caused today's economic problems. Policy failures such as “Bidenomics,” which Harris assured Americans “is working,” and the Inflation Reduction Act that caused inflation — both enabled by the Federal Reserve's money printing — brought us to this point.
The questions remain: Will we allow Harris’ misdirected plan to become policy for the next four years? Are we economically better off today than four years ago? Is the world safer today than four years ago?
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Mitch Feierstein knows the financial industry inside out. For the past four decades he consistently created opportunity and value where others have failed to look. He is a successful investor and CEO of the Glacier Environmental Fund Limited. Prior to Glacier, he was Senior Portfolio Manager of the Cheyne Carbon Fund, part of one of the largest and best-respected hedge-fund groups operating in Europe. He has acted as a consultant for a number of governments in their disaster and contingency planning. He is the author of Planet Ponzi, the only insider's account of the credit crisis detailing; How we got into the mess, what happens next, and what you need to do to protect yourself. He divides his time between London and New York.