By DAVE SCHULTZ
Jim O’Donnell’s annual economic preview was supposed to end at 9 a.m. Thursday. It didn’t end on time. He had a lot to say — and it wasn’t all about economics.
O’Donnell, executive in residence with emeritus standing at Huntington University, has come to Bluffton each January for several years to provide an economic forecast targeted for investors. Thursday morning in the lower level of the Arts, Commerce, and Visitors Centre, O’Donnell ranged far and wide with his observations — about culture, about the state of the nation and the world, about COVID-19, and, yes, about economics.
As always, his presentation was accompanied by charts and graphs and he explained the terms displayed. For instance, he’s pleased that America is “on-shoring,” as opposed to “off-shoring,” a practice he says is “rebuilding America’s manufacturing and industrial infrastructure, leading to good jobs.”
On the other hand, he said, “we live in a time of endless crises.”
“There is a fundamental mismatch in the priorities of the federal government and the needs of the American economy,” O’Donnell said. The real needs of America, he said, are help with inflation, supply chains, policing and crime, education policies, sex confusion, opioid deaths, immigration, “cancel culture,” speech suppression, and China.
“In 2020, Americans thought, generally, that (President Joe) Biden was the sane, moderate alternative to the troubling presence of an erratic Donald Trump,” he said. “Instead of dealing with problems many citizens care about, our leaders focused on endless crises for which only they seem to have the answers.”
Those crises, he said, include shifting COVID-19 rules, climate, race, “gender” freedom, and “domestic terrorism.”
To say that O’Donnell is concerned about inflation would be an understatement. He pulled out a list of 10 subcategories to the consumer price index showing that all of them had gone up at least 11 percent between November 2020 and November 2021. Gasoline was the highest, up 51 percent.
He decried the practices associated with keeping COVID-19 at bay. He said the vaccines are generally a good thing — he has been vaccinated, he said — but the nation has been locked into “safetyism.”
People seem reluctant to being in public, he said, asking: “How do we get back to living our lives?”
O’Donnell led those in attendance on a tour of “E.S.G. and ‘The Great Reset’,” explaining that E.S.G. stands for environmental, social, and governance issues.
As to “governance,” he took on issues pushed forward as gospel such as the rich not paying their fair share of taxes. According to information he provided, the top 25 percent in terms of gross income in 2018 paid 87 percent of the nation’s income tax.
As to “social,” he took issue with the widely stated belief that the U.S. is a deeply racist nation. He compared violence statistics for black and white individuals and found a wide gap.
“Blacks (are) stabbed, shot, beaten at a rate six times higher than whites — about 200 a week,” he said. “Almost 3,000 more blacks are killed than white, though blacks are 13 percent of (the) population — one-fifth the size of the white population.”
“To ‘fix’ this problem for Blacks — and the nation — we need truth, not ‘truthiness,’” he said, adding we must “face hard facts honestly.”
Finally he backed up to the “E” — what he called “‘the Big Kahuna’ of ‘truthiness’” — climate change.
“Dangerous climate change may (or may not) be happening in the real world, but to the Federal Reserve, banking industry, invest(ment) titans, and much more, it is a new religion, offering control of vast flows of government money as well as power,” O’Donnell said.
He took issue with reports of more and deadlier hurricane, more horrific forest fires, and reports of atmospheric degradation. He noted that the Monongahela actually caught fire in Pittsburgh in the late 1960s — but now has kayakers plying its waters.
At the end of his presentation, he said he had a recommendation — consider buying some Treasury Series I savings bonds. The current rate is 7.12 percent a year, up from 3.54 percent. The rate will be reset in April.
daves@news-banner.com
