Larry Kudlow: Growth solves a lot of problems, but John Kerry will never understand that

There he goes again, again.  We reported to you yesterday some of John Kerry's cringeworthy, crime-climate demented speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, but that was only part of the story.  

We can report much more today and the rest of his story gets worse and worse.  But first, I have got to say, quoting my hero, Elon Musk, the smartest guy on the planet, who tweeted the "WEF" (World Economic Forum) "is increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don’t want." Amen to that!  

Now, back to Mr. Kerry.  He just went all touchy-feely, E.T. on us, talking about an extraterrestrial force that brought people to Davos to save the planet.  Of course, all those rich elites came in private planes that totally polluted the planet.  

Kerry said in this bizarre speech: "You look at what's happening with species, half the species of the planet have been already killed." I don't know what he's talking about, maybe he means the bird population, killed by giant windmills.  Or the whale population, killed by offshore windmills.  Or the species that haven't been killed yet, but will be killed by all those private airplanes landing in Davos.  

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Then he went through his pessimism about what hasn't yet been done.  Then he went through his attack on economic growth, which we reported yesterday, including his attack on the U.S. Gilded Age, which was one of the greatest periods of entrepreneurial prosperity and capitalism in history.  

Then he starts chanting that the only way to stop global warming is "money, money, money" — he actually had nine moneys in there! But he forgot to say that already $5 trillion or more has been spent on various renewable fuel policies and processes, all without moving the carbon needle.  

We’re going to get an update on that from climate expert Bjorn Lomborg later in the show.  Trouble is, "money, money, money," nine times is just a bunch of government-to-government foreign aid. Which has always been a failure, completely unaccountable, it has nothing to do with free market capitalism — that is, the only tried and true engine of prosperity and carbon reduction.  

Because of his disdain for the private sector, Mr. Kerry will never understand that it's private investment that creates the technologies that will reduce carbon.  In fact, a new one has just surfaced with a breakthrough on direct carbon capture and carbon sequestration tech from a Swiss company that relies on free market incentives to improve the climate and it doesn't go all extraterrestrial on us.  Growth solves a lot of problems, Mr. Kerry.  The richest countries tend to have the lowest carbon emissions. But you will never understand that. 

Anyway, meanwhile, back here in the U.S., markets got a real shock today with some very bad recession-looking numbers on the economy.  

Mr. Kerry and his boss Joe Biden have been spending money, money, money like it's going out of style, with a touch of tax, tax, tax and a big heap of regulate, regulate, regulate.  But, unfortunately, both manufacturing and retail sales plunged in December and November's numbers downwardly revised as well.  It's not a pretty picture.  

For last year's fourth quarter, manufacturing fell 8% at an annual rate, while business equipment, which is really the heart of the story, plunged nearly 13% annualized.  Overall, retail sales for the past three months, well they were down more than 4% annually, core sales off 2%. The only good news — wholesale prices, the PPI, also fell in December, it basically flattened in the last three months. The Federal Reserve is doing its job, despite opposition from Biden's spendthrift fiscal policies.  

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Stocks plunged over 600 points on the bad news, because the bad news bodes poorly for corporate profits — which are the ultimate mother's milk of stocks.  Look, I don't want to get too pessimistic here, but the numbers are the numbers and they're not good numbers.  

It may well be that somebody's going to have to rescue the economy this year.  So, how about cutting spending and taxes and regulations for a supply-side recovery?  "Money, money, money," Mr. Kerry!  Are you ever listening? 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow's opening commentary on the January 18, 2023, edition of "Kudlow."