Imagine it’s November 2020, and I offer you the following vision of Joe Biden’s first year in office:
Stocks will soar. Consumer-spending growth will set land-speed records, and the president will oversee the best labor market of this young century. Coming off a flash-freeze recession, the U.S. unemployment rate will dip under 5 percent, lower than it was in every month of 2016. Blessedly, pay is rising fastest for low-wage workers. The number of job openings will set an all-time record, making this year possibly the best for finding a new gig since the end of the Second World War.
Sounds pretty good, huh? Then I offer another vision:
Americans hate foreign-policy mess on TV, but the U.S. will withdraw from Afghanistan with (no matter where you stand on the ethics) an indisputably messy finale. Americans are sick of plague, but over the summer, a new coronavirus variant will take over the country, killing tens of thousands of people and keeping masks pinned to faces. Americans don’t like overall inflation, and they really, really don’t like higher gas prices, but both will increase faster than at any point since the early 1990s.
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