The REAL Reason Inflation Is So Bad

You know, I almost fell for it. No, not the fact that COVID played the biggest role in our current inflationary spiral. And it had absolutely nothing to do with Vladimir Putin and his little war with Ukraine. I thought it was simple economics. You print more money, the money therefore becomes less valuable because there is more of it in circulation, and voila! You get inflation, because it takes more of the money to buy the same goods. The goods didn’t go up in price, the money went down in value.

I think I was wrong.

While from an economics point of view, I think the above example is valid and holds true most of the time, I’m beginning to wonder if that was the case here. Sure, Donald Trump printed trillions in getting the COVID stimi’s out to everybody. And yes, Biden did the same thing a little more than a year ago when he got those $1,400 checks to everybody. And yes, Biden added to the mess with the $1.9 trillion infrastructure package. But I’m starting to think that the reason inflation is still so bad is something else altogether.

It was the gas prices. And it was Biden’s plan all along.

I don’t think this was a mistake on Biden’s part. I watched some YouTube videos of Biden on the campaign trail and in debates back in 2020. He was adamant that he was going to bring the fossil fuel industry to it’s knees. He even bragged, “No drilling for oil or gas on federal lands. No offshore drilling. No fracking on federal lands. No Keystone XL Pipeline.” He has gone the extra mile to raise the price of gasoline on purpose. And the reason is simple. He’s in bed with the electric vehicle manufacturers. Oh, he thinks it’ll help save the planet (it won’t). And he thinks that it will help wean America off it’s insatiable desire for gasoline and cars (again, it won’t).

So, Biden starts increasing the price of gas by making it much more difficult for the oil and gas companies to refine the raw material. And what happens? There’s less gasoline and natural gas to go around, and a nation that just a couple of years ago was “energy independent” and was actually an exporter of fuel, becomes beholden to Saudi Arabia, Russia, and even Iran.

That is why the price of oil and natural gas products have skyrocketed. It was his plan all along. And what happens when the price of gasoline and diesel gets jacked to the moon? Truckers find it more and more difficult to fill up and still make a profit on their runs. Shipping companies that have to fuel large cargo ships to ply the oceans aren’t making a profit. Airlines can’t transport people and goods as cheaply as they could. And that causes shortages. Shortages causes price increases. And you have shortages of baby formula, sriracha, toilet paper, and lots of other goods.

America runs on oil. America gets products to the store shelves with oil. There is no other way to do it. And when you put obstacles in the way of getting those goods to market, you are going to cause inflation. And how much is caused by Biden printing all of that money? Well, he got $1.9 trillion from Congress earlier this year. Currently, as of May 25th, there is $2.277 trillion in cash floating around the United States. So, Biden’s little “rescue plan” added a whopping 45% to the nation’s cash supply. Yes Virginia, that is going to cause inflation!

But the real culprit in all of this is the price of oil that Joe Biden is manipulating by not letting the oil companies drill, by not allowing coal companies to mine, and by not encouraging an “all of the above” strategy when it comes the United States’ energy policy.

It’s just one more snafu you can add to Joe Biden’s already lengthy resume!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Now You Have THIS To Worry About

If you’ve been to the grocery store in the last month, you’ve seen a 10% increase in the cost of whatever it was you’ve bought on average. If you’ve been to the gas station, your average cost of gas is up 50% over what it was just last year. But the cost of goods is only the beginning. We’re now starting to see something just as startling and worrisome.

It’s called “shrinkflation”.

Look at it this way. You go into a store to buy a candy bar. It’s 2.25 ounces and cost say, $1. Well, rather than up the price to $1.50, as you’re seeing at the gas pumps, you now go into the same store and buy the same candy bar for $1. Only different is, it’s in 1.75 ounces. You’ve basically lost a half ounce of candy for the same cost. That’s the same thing as a 22.2% cost increase.

It’s happening to potato chips, and candy bars, and snacks of all kinds. You’re going to see it in jars of peanut butter, and beans, and ketchup bottles soon. It’s one way to give consumers the impression you’re fighting inflation, when in actuality, you’re raising prices probably more than you would if you just kicked the price up a dime or two.

You won’t see that at the gas pump because in this country, we buy gasoline by the gallon. All of the pumps would have to be changed out to sell them by the liter as they do in Canada, or quart sized, which if it ever got to that would probably cause riots. But for hard goods, you certainly will see it!

And apparently the FED, who’s really only job is to control the money supply, and thus inflation, is not able to apparently control where we are right now. They are planning at least four more interest rate hikes. In March of 2020, interest rates were between 0% and 0.25%. Today they are between 0.75% and 1%. The fed will most likely increase the rates 50 basis points (half a percentage point) each time. That brings the prime rate, which is at 4% today, to 5.5% before the end of the year.

And what will that cause?

People will not be as willing to purchase a new car (which is outrageously expensive right now, and in short supply). They won’t be as willing to purchase a new house (which should bring housing prices down in most major cities), and they won’t do major construction work on their existing home that requires them to get a home equity loan or some other loan to pay for it. In short, you’re going to see a slowing of the economy. And that is an economy that is already contracting at a rate of 1.5% in the last quarter. One more quarter of that and we are officially in a recession. And, there is just one person to blame for this recession. Anyone want to take a guess? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not Vladimir Putin!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

As If Dems Didn’t Have Enough To Worry About…

Can we stoke the anti-Democrat fire just a little bit more? Oh, it probably won’t effect you if you’re working and you get your healthcare through your workplace. It probably also won’t effect you if you’re on Medicare or Medicaid. But if you’re one of the 13.8 million Americans that have to use the “healthcare exchange” (read that as Obamacare) to get their healthcare insurance, you’re going to be pissed come October.

That’s because the increase coming this year is going to be huge!

See, last year, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan. Basically it subsidized a good portion of the increase in Obamacare. So people that use that particular method to get their healthcare did indeed see an increase, but nowhere near what they would have had the federal government not stepped in. Well, that program expires on December 31st this year. And with inflation at levels we haven’t seen in 40 years, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession, even some Democrats realize now is not the time to be renewing that program.

And that means that there is going to be a huge increase in the cost of Obamacare to some 13.8 million people, about two weeks prior to the midterm elections. And Dems just don’t have any way to handle that bad news.

Already only 25% of the country think we’re “on the right track”. Joe Biden has been upside down in polling on every single issue except how he handled COVID, and that was by the slimmest of margins. Democrats in both houses of Congress have to deal with high inflation, a poor economy, a southern border catastrophe, crime in the streets, school shootings, a war going on in Ukraine that we’re a part of (even if it’s only sending materiel and money), and an incredible pushback to the Woke community. If the Dems needed any further signs that the stars just aren’t aligned for them this year, this certainly handed it to them.

I mean, how do you think 13.8 million people are going to react when they see that their healthcare is going to be 20-25% more expensive in 2023? And these are most likely the people least able to deal with an increase that large.

Maybe that’s the reason why no one wants Joe Biden to campaign for them this year? Just a thought!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

OH! Did I Say That?

Look, we are all human. We all make mistakes. I get that and I certainly appreciate that. God knows, I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes in my life. In fact, if you check with my wife, I’ve got to be in the top ten at mistake making!

But you don’t expect this from the so-called “experts”. Especially when they seem to be as well educated, and have held the high positions that someone like Janet Yellen has had.

And yet, she has now admitted, she was wrong about inflation.

Yes, Janet Yellen, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who’s only real job is to control inflation, and now the Secretary of the Treasury, has admitted that she was wrong about inflation.

This was Yellen on CNN: “I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I didn’t at the time fully understand.”

So, let me understand this, because this is one of the few times my wife would shake her head and say she couldn’t believe it if I happened to be right and some liberal economist with degrees in economics from Brown, and Yale (where she got her Masters and PhD), could be so far off base.

Yellen couldn’t believe that if you have large shocks to the economy, and we want to read that as over-printing of money, and cancelling oil drilling lease sales in federal lands as well as other administration policies that have utterly failed, inflation wouldn’t take over.

I think she needs to give back a few of those degrees. What the hell are they teaching at Yale, anyway?

You and I have for the most part, agreed on what has caused this latest bout of inflation. It was a Trump thing. Over the years Trump was in office, the average Consumer Price Index (CPI) was around 1.5%. Today, inflation hovers at over 8%. You can blame COVID, you can blame Putin, you can blame anything and anybody you want. The fact of the matter is that the FED’s top job is to control inflation. And they have failed miserably. Yellen, Biden, Harris, Jerome Powell, all said a year ago that inflation was “transitory”. What does that even mean? Then the “transitory” became “a good thing”. I can’t imagine when rising prices at the rate we’re seeing is a good thing!

Now, Biden is meeting with bankers, and Powell and others who supposedly have far greater economic knowledge than Biden does to see how to reverse inflation. The sad part is Joe, you can’t spend your way out of an inflationary spiral. You have to pull back and stop spending money altogether. Supply has to outweigh demand. That is simple Econ 101.

I think the mere fact that Janet Yellen would be even open to making such a stupid (and yes, it was not ignorance, it was stupidity) mistake as not knowing what causes inflation, when you’re supposed to be one of the brightest minds in the country on all things economic, you need to resign. Janet Yellen needs to step down, and get a job as a bank teller somewhere in middle America. Her credibility has now reached that of the president and vice president. That’s a sad thing for America. It’s one more example why Democrats can’t be in charge. They just screw it up!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Misguided Tour?

I’m well aware that presidents need to flit around the world and meet with other world leaders. It’s just part of the job description. I’m also painfully aware that when the people who are your constituents don’t list much world happenings other than the war in Ukraine as something that’s on their mind, but are much more concerned about things like illegal immigration, inflation, gasoline prices, supply chain shortages, crime in the streets, and the like, you need to deal with that.

Joe Biden just doesn’t get it.

Biden left last week for a tour of Korea, and Japan. He’s hoping to send a message to both China and North Korea that they are still on his radar. Meanwhile, his approval rating has hit new historic lows, and he hasn’t been able to come up with one solution to any of the problems mentioned above. All he can do is blame Vladimir Putin for high gasoline prices, which is absurd, and pass the buck when it comes to everything else. Talk about a losing proposition!

To add more fuel to the fire, his chief gatekeeper to the media has left. Jen “Circle Back” Psaki, flew the coop for the greener pastures of MSNBC, where she won’t have to work 24/7. In her stead, Biden elevated Karine Jean-Pierre, who in her first week hasn’t impressed anyone with her handling of the press. All she has shown is that she is a very poor reader and an even worse communicator.

So, Biden has done something that his former boss, Bobo Obama also did. Back in his presidency, he took Jen Psaki from the State Department and brought her into the White House. Psaki had done a fairly decent job working with Hillary Clinton, and learned the ropes on Pennsylvania Avenue. So, Biden said, why not try it again? He tapped Pentagon spokesman John Kirby to come to the White House to help shore up a fledgling and faltering communications team, now led by Jean-Pierre.

I find it amazing that the guy that couldn’t leave a 30 miles circle to campaign from when he was running for president just two years ago, would jet off to the farthest corners of the world just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the onslaught of the problems he’s created here at home. And you can add to that the lifting of Title 42, which was set to expire on Monday (at the time of this writing).

No, Joe hasn’t impressed a lot of people. I’m sure that when and if Congress flips to the Republicans this fall, Joe will find a way to blame someone other than himself for the total lack of confidence in his government. The only problem is, running to the other side of the world isn’t going to help. He still has to come home!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

EXTRA! Rough First Day!

First days on the job are always tough. You’re never sure what to expect. You’re not sure what pitfalls are out there, and no one is going to stop what is going on in their work lives to bail you out of a jam all of the time. It’s a tough thing to be sure, and the only way around it is to put your head down and bull through it.

And that’s the type of day that Karine Jean-Pierre had Monday.

Jean-Pierre took over the job as Press Secretary from Jen “Circle Back” Psaki, who’s moving over to MSNBC. And she was greeted by Peter Doocy from Fox News with an incredibly difficult question for a socialist to answer. Doocy posed the question, “How does raising taxes on corporations lower the cost of gas, the cost of a used car, the cost of food for everyday Americans?” He was asking because Joe Biden tweeted that the best way to deal with the inflation problem was to make sure that the “wealthiest corporations pay their fair share”.

Well, Karine had a problem with that one. Her rambling response included, “So, look…I think we encourage those who have done very well, especially those who care about climate change, to support a fairer tax code that doesn’t change…doesn’t charge manufacturers, workers, cops, builders, a higher percentage of their earnings.”

Huh?

First of all, can anyone tell me what in hell “climate change” has to do with the inflation rate? It has absolutely nothing to do with it other than to once again, foist blame on someone other than Joe Biden for the mess that he got us into with his overspending.

Now, it wasn’t just Jean-Pierre’s response that was very rambling and disjointed. Did anyone also realize the fact she was reading her answer? If you look back at that quote, she said, “a fairer tax code that doesn’t change….doesn’t charge…”. She mis-read the word “charge”. She had her book open to the answer and was directly reading from it, looking down to her left.

Now, I get it that the first day is usually a bad day because you’re the new kid and don’t understand everything yet. But let’s face it. Jean-Pierre just wasn’t prepared to face Doocy. She sat in several times when Doocy sparred with Psaki. She should have known it was coming. In fact, she HAD to know it was coming because she had her answer written out! She read the answer. And it was a terrible answer.

I used to host those weekend shows on talk stations that basically are paid for infomercials. I would sell the time to clients, and then sit in and co-host the show with them if they wanted. And I always told them that the first show they would do would be the worst show they would ever do. And it always was. But you would expect that at this level of government, you’re going to at the very least get someone who is prepared to meet with the press, and be able to cognitively answer their questions without reading the answer. Let’s just hope she gets better! So far, I’m not impressed!

Inflation Pauses…For Now.

It wasn’t anywhere near where the “experts” wanted it. Joe Biden certainly wanted to see better results. Democrats in Congress are still really worried, but for now at least, it looks like inflation is starting to take a bit of a pause. For now.

The April numbers came in this week and showed that inflation has cooled a bit. Back in March, inflation was hitting at an 8.5% clip. That slipped to 8.3% in April as prices only rose by 0.3% during last month. That’s overall. And the drop was not near where the “experts” thought it would end up. They felt that it would be closer to 8.1%, not the 8.3% it ended at. There were several things that caused it.

You may have noticed in April that gasoline took a drop of about 40 cents a gallon. Of course, by the beginning of May, it was back up to where it had been, so that’s nothing to really crow about. What is still disconcerting is that gasoline prices are up about 45% since last year at this time. Of course, Biden is blaming it all on COVID and Vladimir Putin. Except we don’t buy much oil from Russia, and COVID was actually responsible for a decrease in oil prices under Trump. So, why the increase under Biden? Simple. He doesn’t like oil.

You won’t find much relief at the grocery store. Food prices were on a tear, rising about 0.9% in April alone, and up about 9.4% in 2022. Since last year, food prices have risen over 10%. What is also a harbinger that this inflation cycle isn’t over is that in March, “core goods” (which is retail goods other than gasoline and energy) was only up 0.3%. That boosted to a 0.6% increase in April. That also translates into a 7.2% increase for core goods for the year. That’s not healthy.

Basically, if you take gasoline and energy prices out of the mix, you’re going to see us on track for a 10% inflation rate for the year. That’s also not very inviting. Democrats are scurrying to try and find a solution before November. It’s the worst bout of inflation we’ve dealt with since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was finishing cleaning up Jimmy Carter’s mess of a presidency. And it will most likely take a new president to clean up the mess Joe Biden is leaving behind.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

How Are You Liking Inflation? It’s Here To Stay

I know what Joe Biden said. I heard what Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell said. Apparently, what the real money people…the people that make money their profession, their career, and their livelihood have come out and said the idea of the inflationary spiral we’ve witnessed over the last year is not “transitory” as the Biden administration claimed. And as Powell has said, it’s not going to be “coming down substantially next year”. The people that work with this stuff every day for decades on end say, higher prices are here to stay.

I would say “Thanks Obama!” But I don’t think he had as much to do with it as Biden did.

Either way, I bet Obama is loving it. It will indeed systematically change America. It will change your lifestyle, your way of thinking, how much travel you take in the coming years. It will creep into every crevice of your being, from the milk you buy, to the college you send your kids to. It appears, according to the experts, like inflation is here to stay for a good long while.

It’s going to take basically a Ronald Reagan type of individual, working with Congress to stop the insane price increases (which are occurring for no good reason). And most of the money people that I have spoken with over the past six months or so have all been in lockstep saying the same thing. They were saying that this year, inflation would be 7-10%, and that next year it would be 10-13% with a recession thrown in. I’ve heard that more and more from more mainstream financial experts and talking heads over the last month or so.

For someone to come up and say that Biden and Powell were right in their assumption that this was just a cyclical thing that will be gone soon is hogwash. I don’t know anybody in their right mind that has the ability to turn this around that quickly once the prices start skyrocketing.

We’ve seen the inflation in what hurts us the most. We’ve seen in at the gas pumps, which is a direct result of Biden’s wish to push electric vehicles (EV’s), and we’ve seen it in the grocery stores because of “supply chain issues”, also caused by Biden’s economic policies. But clothing is up, travel is up (have you looked online for airfares recently?). About the only thing that you can actually save money on today are cruises, because they are ramping back up after being shutdown due to COVID. And it won’t be long before they are at 90% capacity and they’ll inch those prices back up as well!

No, Joe Biden has proven me wrong. I’ve always said that no one person can do enough damage to harm the United States during a four year term as president. Biden has managed to do so. For that, he ought to be arrested and thrown in jail. It’s just criminal.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Biden Is About To Step In It Again

For a guy that can boast a half century of public service at the national level, Joe Biden really doesn’t get it. He has been a part of a lot of history in the past fifty years or so. He’s seen an awful lot. And in that time, he’s gotten a lot wrong. Robert Gates, the former Defense Secretary in the Obama Administration echoed that sentiment. He’s a friggin’ Democrat. You would figure he’d at least have Biden’s back when it came to stuff like that. But that’s not all Biden has messed up.

And he’s about to do it again.

Biden has told the world that he’s still considering forgiving student loan debt. There are several problems with this, but Biden sees it as a way to get some of the youth vote. The problem is it won’t work on several fronts.

First of all, during the campaign, Biden promised to get rid of up to $50,000 in student loan debt. He’s basically put a hold on repayment during COVID, and wants to extend it through September, but now, he’s looking at actually forgiving debt. Not $50,000 per loan, but more like $10,000. There are problems galore with that.

First of all, students (millennials all) will not be happy with just getting $10k taken off what they owe. They were promised $50k to be forgiven. This is akin to Biden promising Georgians that if they voted for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock for the Senate, he’d make sure that the $2,000 checks would “go out in the mail tomorrow”. Well, it wasn’t $2,000, it was $1,400, and it took two months to get it done. Call it a semi-broken promise with the stimi checks, and it’ll be a semi-broken promise with the student loan forgiveness.

Second, it is going to cost the government $321 billion to remove that much student debt from the books. Basically, the government is going to write the check to the banks who granted the loans in the first place. That is just like the government printing more money. Do you know what that leads to? Inflation! At a time when Democrats in Congress are wracking their brains trying figure out how to slow down the inflation train that seems to be in runaway mode, Biden is trying to speed it up.

Third, while the forgiving student debt may be popular among today’s college crowd, and those with the debt, it’s not popular with people who have gone through the college loan dance and paid theirs off. It’s been asked multiple times if THEY would also get some sort of break on what they had to repay, and the answer repeatedly comes back as “NO!”. People that are out there working, dealing with 8.7% inflation, and gas prices at historic highs are not real keen on helping out college kids…especially those that majored in Women’s Studies, or Philosophy, and can’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage.

Finally, in case you’ve missed it, the economy in this country is not doing well. The GDP dropped 1.4% in the first quarter. That’s not a good sign. And when the government is going to step up and spend $321 billion that they don’t have to spend, it’s going to cause even further ripples. Remember…a recession is defined as two straight quarters of decline of the GDP. Well, we’ve had one. And traditionally when the Fed decides to raise interest rates, it doesn’t help the GDP a bit. The Fed has hinted they are going to raise interest rates seven times this year. And we are going to be looking at a recession next year for sure.

In short, the country cannot afford to tackle student loan debt today, or in the future. As someone that paid off my wife’s student loans back in the day, I’d be the first to say, if you took out $100,000 in student loans to study a major like Art History, or something that there aren’t any jobs in, you’ve made a bad life choice. You need to realize that. Rather than ask the rest of America to bail you out, I’d suggest you get another job, maybe one that allows you to make a real living, and stop working at McDonalds!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

What Is Going To Be Democrats’ REAL Problem In November?

I think we’ve all been conditioned by both the mainstream snowflake media and the less biased, regular media to the fact that the Republicans are poised to take over the House of Representatives in the fall. I’ve seen figures ranging from a ten seat majority upwards to a sixty seat majority! No one, not even Nancy Pelosi herself questions that fall from grace that is about to be bestowed on the Dems. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, you’ve got an equally tenuous situation, where the Republicans and Democrats are tied at 50/50, with K-baby Harris acting as the Democrats only shield in votes…that is when Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema don’t screw up the process for them!

So, what is the real problem Democrats are going to be facing in both sides of Congress this year? It’s simple. It’s over-promising. And yes…you can most likely blame Joe Biden for that. Think back to the 2020 campaign, and Biden was making promise after promise. He was going to do away with student loan debt (before he decided to limit it to $10,000). He was going to rejoin the Paris Accords, which he did, and usher in a Green New Deal of sorts (which he didn’t do). He was going to reopen the Iranian Nuclear Arms Deal that his old boss, Bobo Obama claimed as him legacy item in foreign policy. And he was going to bring Americans together in a way that Donald Trump never was able to do. He was going to work across the aisle. He was going to solve the COVID problem, because while he touted that Trump didn’t have a plan, he did.

It was that over-promising that has gotten the Dems in trouble. The voters wanted to see voting rights reform, immigration reform, and to do away with the filibuster in the Senate. They wanted to see some sort of Build Back Better plan, which was DOA in the Senate.

Biden promised the world to voters. He delivered a few things, such as the $1.4 trillion infrastructure bill. He was finally able to deliver Stimulus 3.0 to the tune of $1,400 (not the $2,000 he promised), only two months late. But as far as the other stuff? Nope. Hasn’t come close.

So, those in the House and the Senate that are running for reelection are going to have to ask their Congressmen and women, and their Senators why it is, with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, so little actually got done to help the American people? Instead, they printed money so fast and furious that inflation soared to 8.7% so far this year and only has signs of going up. You and I are paying more for groceries, and gasoline than we ever have in history. And, we are still dealing with hundreds of ships sitting off the coast of California, because our supply chain problems are still with us.

Not only that, but we have about ten million open jobs, and no one to fill them. We’ve coddled so many people with so many extended unemployment checks, and universal income child care checks that those folks would rather stay at home, sit on the couch and watch Dr. Phil than actually be a productive member of society.

Over-promising is fine, if you can deliver. So far, in the minds of the voters, what mattered in 2020 hasn’t been delivered, and we’ve got new problems that no one seems to be addressing. THAT is why the Democrats are going to lose come November. And truth be told, I’m not sure a Republican Congress can do any more to right the ship. May they can just bail the water a little faster.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!