Abstract 

　　Throughout much of 2023 and 2024, the Biden administration argued that their brand of economic policy – ‘Bidenomics' - has saved the U.S. population from recession and the inflationary crisis, and moreover, that a new era of post-neoliberal productive growth has prevailed. A number of economists, journalists, and even social media influencers joined the brigade to provide support for the administration’s PR campaign. They argued that the population has with a ‘negativity bias', saturated with frightening narratives about the economy that lead to a distortion of economic reality. The hard, economic facts, we were told, show a booming economy. Among other indicators, they point to a reduced inflation rate, the stock market at an all-time high, increased productive output, and corporate profit rates finally rising in early 2024 after falling for three straight quarters. In what follows, I offer further data to counter their claims and overall narrative of a stable, healthy U.S. capitalist economy. In doing so, I seek to convince the reader that the American capitalist economy, while escaping a technical recession in 2023 and 2024, has been in a state of crisis marked by various financial-economic conditions and regulatory decisions, pre- and post-Covid in nature. I address the current state of the economy from the perspective of both capital and labor, describing conditions in terms of statistical trends in financial and economic activity of banks, businesses, and population. I start more abstract and historical, highlighting a number of indicators of crisis at the level of gaps between productive and fictitious capital, and then I explore some every-day, material conditions faced by individuals as economic actors. Ultimately, the picture I paint will be one of capitalist crisis at the level of banking, business, and labor/population. 

　　Keywords 

　　Political economy; bidenomics; recession; critical macro; finance studies; capitalist discourse 

　　From: Critique 2024 52 (4) 

　　Editor: Wang Yi