Knowing, not predicting – knowing – the Biden economic policies were going to create massive U.S. inflation in the years to follow, in 2021 I pinned a tweet thread to the top of my timeline on the CTH Twitter account that could be used as a reference. [You Can Read Here] Not a single month of statistical data has come in the past two years that was not entirely predictable. Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) [DATA HERE] is no different.
Inflation is a measure of the change in a price. It is usually presented in terms of a percentage of change. When inflation starts to lessen, what that means is the rate of the price increase slows down. The price is still going up, but at a slower pace.
February prices overall increased 0.4% for the month, putting the current rate of annual inflation at 6.0%. Meaning prices (on aggregate) are 6% higher than this exact same time last year.
Meanwhile, wages increased 0.2% for the month, and hours worked dropped 0.3% [DATA]. Wages only rising by half the rate of prices, and hours worked dropping, means the net ‘real wages’ declined, yet again, by 0.4%.
Workers are going backwards.
The very real impact on the working class is getting worse. The blue collar team, who works for a living and does not take Instagram pictures of their lunches, are getting crushed in the Biden economy. The divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is getting wider.
Put another way, Team MAGA, the entire continuum of normally apolitical working class, is watching the rust growing and feeling the worst part of the Biden economic outcome. I have often spoken in my immediate circle of influence with the phrase, “financial anxiety is a very real concern the closer you get to the laundromat,” and many people have no idea what that means.
The biggest BS statement of the day goes to CNBC with this sentence:
“Inflation began rising in early 2021 due to a supply-and-demand imbalance. Now, it’s largely fueled by strong demand for labor, economists said.” (link)
I challenge you to find a more encapsulating pile of horsepucky that represents the financial media era of great pretending. When I read stuff like this, I begin to think the next great eruption of a violent war is getting even closer, and this war will have nothing to do with nations.
Our current inflation crisis is directly related to the western aligned intentional Build Back Better/Green New Deal, climate change policy decisions that have destroyed energy production and created massive increases in energy costs. Those costs go everywhere and drive up the unit price of all goods and services.
Nothing about the Biden economic plan, which is really an extension of the collective WEF economic plan, has anything to do with ordinary supply-and-demand imbalances – other than the forced and intentional destruction of oil, coal and natural gas development.
The WEF climate change energy policy is destroying the U.S. economy, creating pain for all U.S. workers and consumers, driving up prices and doing the same thing in every western country that is following it.
Just to reiterate a point.
I charged a $100 travel fee, as the job was outside our area and in 3 feet of snow,
a hundred added labor for snow removal,
land a 150$ diagnostic charge
just to locate a septic tank cover and clean out, only to pop the septic lid(and see it was totally ful)
camera the mainline to the septic baffle, and poke a hole in the line to give the customer a couple extra days to get a pumper out.
Thats $350 just to tell the guy he needed to pump his tank, when the snow melted a bit.
He could have figured that out himself. But that’s what we charge for those services.
So…..
And the taxman gets roughly 50% of that money after income and sales taxes.
The customer probably thought they had a clog because the system was backing up. You had to know by the area that they had a septic system. Why didn’t you ask the customer to check if their tank was full before you came out? The customer would have had to know where the tank cover was located. It looks like you just wanted to make a easy 350 bucks.
That mode of business is a bit outdated and those of us who practiced it were slowly crowded out by the modern business model. We did handshake deals too and dealt with customers on open account with net 30 terms. I often diagnosed customer problems gratis at the plant and told them to give me a call if they needed more help. I called it building customer relations.
My business wasn’t plumbing and septic rather machine work and heavy fabrication. Competing with smooth talking sales people was a chore. I’m glad I’m out of that world now.
It’s too bad there aren’t more people like you in this world.
Woah, that’s a lot of assumptions you just made, batman!
While I am not prepared to respond directly to Sundance’s challenge, regarding a “more encapsulating pile of horsepucky” there certainly are a # of contenders, perhaps that “tie” for the top position
How about the whole rediculous illogic of “Modern Monetary Theory”?
It’s ludicrous, and as a “theory” which is then subject to testing, what we are seeing, right now is the result OF such testing; it fails the test.
Any 5th grader could have TOLD them it would fail, when it was first advanced.
But, MMT gave the idiots “cover” to spend, spend, spend with no concern for tomorrow, and now tomorrow is here.
THEY are just as detirmined to impose Central Bank Digital Currencies (whether we like it or not) as they are to continue the war in Ukraine, until they beat Putin into submission, but NEITHER is going to happen.
Unfortunately, the damage done by their failed attempt, will be catastrophic.
Don’t be sad what must fail is, be glad we’re here to try and make future failures less painful…just as past generations did for us, such as the founding fathers.
Perhaps the greatest failure of this system of finance and banking is that we were never allowed to contribute to it.
I wouldn’t fight a banker’s war, but I will gladly go to war with a banker.
correction…..IS CATASTROPHIC but the damage hasn’t hit enough Americans square in the face just yet.
We are in a downward spiral and the idiots at the top echelon of decision making can’t see the problems they are creating for themselves….not just us, “We the People.”
No, inflation is excess money entering the system over and above productivity.
Changes in prices are evidence of inflation, but can occur for many other reasons, most notably changes in the scarcity of a good or service.
Please, Sundance, how can you not know this?
Wrong.
And your tone toward our beloved host whom lets us ALL come here for FREE, was rude.
Inflation is unchecked rise in price. Period.
The factors of inflation can be such things as too many dollars looking for fewer products. However, we know that is not the case here.
Captain Applesauce and his BBB/Green New Deal implements a policy of purposely destroying the cheap and wildly abundant coal oil and gas energy sector in favor of expensive electric/solar/wind.
These massive increases in energy are then applied to every single good and service, thereby massively inflating the price.
Sundance has written before in other articles that the money supply is the underlying cause of inflation. I think in this instance he is looking at the shortest possible route to inflation relief for the American middle class and poor. Energy policy would be that short term key to relief. Who knows how long it will take the Fed to unwind their balance sheet? We’re not going to grow our way out of this either, at least not with this president.
“Changes in prices are evidence of inflation, but can occur for many other reasons, most notably changes in the scarcity of a good or service.”
Let’s say your statement is correct, for this purpose we will ignore what I think to be true.
You mention scarcity of goods, let us also assume this is the case.
Why are goods and/or services scarce?
Ask yourself who put the excess money into the system since it was not due to productivity?
If inlation is ‘largely fueled by strong demand for labor’, shouldn’t wages be rising higher than inflation?
Hence Sundance’s commentary
In 2020, a 20 pound bag of bird seed at Home Depot was priced at $6.99. Today it sells for $16.98. Bird seed.
Chicken feed is way up too, 50 lbs is now 18.99, used to be 13.99. I use bird seed both to feed wild birds and as scratch grain for my hens, especially in winter when the girls need more carbs to keep warm.Tractor supply has fifty pound bags for about $20, if you have a place to store the excess. But with the longer days I’m getting a half dozen eggs a day.
I spent $80 for 2 20lb bags of mixed seed and 1 40lb bag of sunflower seeds. Poor birds are going on a diet.
Sundance, I’ll take that challenge and raise the stakes. My answer would be, any NY Times column by Paul Krugman.
“financial anxiety is a very real concern the closer you get to the laundromat,”
I am 60 year old white male living in Chicago. Divorced a few years ago and still living in an apartment w/out a washer or dryer. I use the local laundromat in a south side of Chicago neighborhood. The poor use a laundromat…those on the bottom rung. Those LEAST able to absorb ANY price increase for ANYTHING. Biden has not seen a poor person in the last 30 years and if he has… does NOT remember it now…
Last 30 years? That’s a joke. I would be surprised if he ever met a poor person. Those Elitist tend to not go anywhere near the “normal” people. We scare them with reality
As we watch the market slide down till we quit seeing green and red is common.
The market isn’t tied to reality, green doesn’t mean “we” are doing better. It only means “they” are doing better, though sometimes some of us who make up “we” manage to ride “their” success for a time.
Just like your next-door neighbors who have a boat, 6 bedroom house, luxury cars and fancy vacations might actually be poorer than the alcoholic on the street in rags. So too can the markets be green while all of us are cut down and bleeding out. If it goes red, it could flash so fast that only those who’s full time job is to watch will see it. For the rest of us, we’ll be left in the literal and metaphorical dark.
When someone breaks into your home at night, you don’t have the luxury of getting to know their name, you just strike them down and then maybe ask questions later, though I suppose it shouldn’t be a requirement, you already know who they were….someone willing to put you and your innocent family at risk for their own gain. Honestly, that answer is sufficient for me, no name needed beyond “enemy”.
“Inflation began rising in early 2021 due to a supply-and-demand imbalance”
This is not an entirely wrong interpretation of what happened. Remember all of the massive supply chain disruptions caused by bad Pandemic policies? Remember all of the desperate money printing and deficit spending to create economic stimulus? Reducing supply while artificially stimulating demand is a perfect recipe for price inflation.
The Federal Reserve will electronically print MONEY out of
thin air to help assure that banks have the ability to meet the
needs of all their rich depositors (> $250K). This will make
inflation go through the roof.
—
Inflation will destroy the Low, Middle and Upper Class.
In other words, inflation will destroy the USA.
Labor is only a problem because the government wants it to be that way. Everyone who can be taken care of by the government is being hounded to sign up for this and that and settle in as squatters that the government supports.
In general, people won’t work unless they have to. They don’t call it Uncle Sam for nothing. But, the bell is about to toll for everyone.
Hey, Did our taxes this morning and the accountant figured we have 2022 losses of over $25,000. We were able to deduct $3,000 off our income to offset our tax bill. Dirty filthy scum in DC that calculates our taxes is happy to give our money to foreign countries and illegal immigrants but when it comes to US citizens, we get the prick.