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1. Disruption.
It’s everywhere and not the good kind. What doesn’t feel a little chaotic in society right now? Anything? From sticker shock when buying stuff with inflation running at now over 30-year highs to often not being able to find the stuff you want to buy at any price. What we’re seeing as we’re nearing two years into this pandemic is every bad decision made by politicians and businesses coming back to bite us.
According to FactSet, 71% of US companies have supply chain issues right now. That’s why even going to the store can be a bit chaotic. The lack of control of manufacturing processes overseas, politicians incentivizing employees not to work, politicians issuing mandates along with companies and organizations caving that have driven people out of work. This is what happens when bad decisions are made in succession. And it’s not hard to explain.
The United States became the world’s leading superpower in under 150 years because of personal freedom and hard work. The very things that have been under constant pressure during the pandemic. We’re facing the level of disruption today because the decisions being made by leaders in our country largely don’t resemble what allowed this country to prosper. The United States didn’t become the world’s leading superpower because of Chinese labor, paying people not to work, or pushing people who want to work out because of forced vaccinations. That’s the kind of stuff that’s happening today that’s leading to so much disruption.
Fixing this won’t happen overnight but the roadmap is easy. Continue to bring manufacturing back to the United States. Don’t incentivize people not to work. Stop pushing people away who are already working. And let’s be clear about a concept that’s been far too often lost during this pandemic. Freedom. Mandates are the anthesis of freedom which means they’re anti-American policies. It’s time to disrupt the disruption and get back to the principles that made this country what it became.
2. It still gets better from here.
Florida entered this week with the great news that we’d reached three-month lows in our weekly trend for new COVID-19 cases as we’re close to having completely put the Delta surge behind us. The news certainly still gets better from here. That’s because the Mayo Clinic’s highly accurate 14-day projection tool says that the worst-case over the next two weeks has Florida pacing about the same number of cases as today with the most likely outcome taking us down to around the levels we last saw when you still thought of flying when you heard the name Delta. The better news even about a winter surge is that this pandemic has played out nearly identically to the 1918 pandemic and if history were to repeat itself, that’d be the final surge of the pandemic.
3. Our view of Joe Biden.
As fast as Florida’s decline in COVID-19 cases has been, President Biden’s approval ratings are falling even faster and he’s now reached a new low point in his presidency. In the RCP average of polls over the past week, Biden’s approval stands at just 43% compared to 53% disapproval. Among likely voters, his rating drops still further to 41%. That’s two points worse than Trump’s approval rating on this date in his presidency. That matters considerably as Democrats in Congress weigh what to do with the legislation that stands before them. Joe Biden has made clear those proposals are his agenda. But it’s clear Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of his agenda. Doing something may well be worse than doing nothing from the perspective of many Congressional Democrats nervous about what the 2022 midterms may bring. The lower Biden’s approval ratings go, the better the chances that his “Build, Back, Better” agenda go down with them.