Gary Cohn appears on Face The Nation to discuss the finance, the economy and the pain felt by consumers. He won’t say it directly, for obvious reasons, but what Cohn describes in terms of political support boils down to Main Street business supporting Donald Trump and Wall Street Multinational Corporations supporting Joe Biden. That is ultimately what is obvious at a macro level.
I’m starting the video at 03:08 for the purposes of emphasizing inflation. What Cohn says about U.S. inflation is essentially accurate and I have a Cliff Notes, tldr, HERE. However, what Cohn says about tariffs creating inflation is not accurate, as outlined by the 2017 through 2020 results of Trump tariff policy. Cohn says, “No one absorbs tariffs, except the consumer,” this is false. As we saw in 2017, 2018, and 2019 China, Asia and the EU essentially dropped their export prices to retain access to the USA market and offset tariff costs. That’s just a statistical reality.
The transcript is HERE; however, I want to draw attention to a geopolitical aspect that is not getting enough attention. Specifically, the cost of FOOD PRODUCTS and the attached inflation.
Why is food inflation continuing to be a problem? Why is food inflation not just a USA problem? Why are the EU farmers protesting? These questions are easily answered, and yet no one in the Western financial press will explain.
The Build Back Better agenda, known in the USA colloquially as the Green New Deal, carries with it massive increases in cost for energy products. Fertilizer, which needs natural gas, and farming, which needs large amounts of fuel, diesel and fuel oil, uses costly energy products. Packaging, plastics (petroleum derivatives) and cardboard also require large amounts of energy.
The manufacturing (heating, cooling, freezing) as well as storage and transportation of food products also use massive amounts of energy. Additionally, and specifically because of the nature of their consumption, the increased energy costs associated with generating food travels quickly through the supply chain.
Food inflation is always the first thing you notice when the prices of energy products skyrocket. This is well known and not subject to debate; everyone accepts this.
In the past 30 +/- years, large multinational corporations known as Big Ag have created a system where the USA generates a massive amount of the global food supply.
The advent of modern farming fertilizer, pesticides, seed genetics and other farming products/equipment that increase crop yield, has also been a big factor in the capacity of the USA and Western farming world to increase production. As the globe became more reliant on the production efficiencies of the Big Ag “Western world,” they simultaneously became dependent on the outcome. That dependency put them at risk of feeling the impact of inflation when you think about the farm products.
The result was that when Western Ag farming costs skyrocketed, the high cost of harvest outcomes were not just felt in the USA and/or Western nations. As food production costs increased, the higher costs of production transferred into all the exported products. Food inflation was exported globally.
The Western Build Back Better and Green New Deal energy policies subsequently meant the world was going to pay a higher price for food globally. That’s what happened.
The Yellow Zone was responsible for a higher percentage of global food production. The Yellow Zone is also the place where energy policy was changed in such a radical format that massive increases in energy costs were created.
The Yellow Zone (geopolitically the “West”) drove up the cost of farming, the Gray Zone pays a higher price. This was all by design and not accidental. The corporations who supported the BBB/GRD agenda all benefit. The citizens who need to eat, do not benefit.
So, when you see EU farmers protesting against the ridiculous ENERGY POLICY changes of the West, you must accept the USA bears a greater responsibility for creating and demanding the increased prices that farmers globally are having to deal with.
In Gray Zone areas, where domestic food production costs are not subject to the changed energy policy, there is little to no food inflation. However, the more dependent the country is to food imports (ingredients or final product) the more they are impacted by rising farming costs.
Grey Zone countries that can self-sustain on the production of food and have no energy agenda have little food inflation.
The more the country is strangling energy production and driving up energy prices, the higher the cost of farming and subsequently the higher index on food inflation. The two metrics are directly related.
Food inflation globally is a big problem. Western energy policy is exactly why!
My overly simplified view of inflation is that it’s origins stem from a government printing fiat money to fuel its outrageous spending. It’s not that prices are going up, it’s that the value of the money is being diluted through it’s artificial overabundance, thus reducing its value.
Government spending of fiat printed money is only one origin of inflation.
A different cause of inflation is being described here. When the price of energy increases, it causes the price increase of everything dependent on energy. Food prices which are heavily dependent on energy, are going to increase as the price of energy increases.
Precisely.
The Derps attacked energy, spiking prices as intended, exacerbated the problem by spending insanely, then pretended to attack the problem by hiking interest rates, all to create the desired destruction.
Biden attacked our energy production on Day 1.
On Day 2 the inflation began and has never stopped.
To support your contention, an example: As I prepared 2021 taxes, I ran across gasoline receipts from early January 2021, and the end of the same month, in southern California. The earlier receipt was $2.69/gallon, the later receipt was $3.25.
What changed? Among the 17 Executive Orders the current resident signed on Day 1, were those that halted energy production.
Biden is a societal vandal who enjoys causing misery, pain, and destruction.
Yes during the election certification heist, I contacted Sen.Cornyn office urging him to not
certify the
fraud as Xiden was going to squelch energy production in the U.S..
The gaslighter that answered the phone argued with me.
I told him yes, Joebama said that he would do that
and why would a senator from an oil/ng_state be okay voting for that.
Howdy C! Remember BK noting a dearth of influencers today?
They’re here in force on this very post!
👻
Always on a weekend…later in the evenings…more so on other threads and not as much on the daily or presidential.
Using each element to fuel the other aspects of inflationary cause.
Morning my friend,
One of the points made on the CToC show a while back was that putting more people on the current grid with the illegal invasion/legal immigration and grid attacks, drive up costs, fake scarcity etc was to break the current system for their Flintstone’s “Green Nazi” shlock plans.
It would also be partly why Tesla has been suppressed. Did you ever read the story of Nikola & his cat? Think “Free Energy”. That would be anathema to the criminals running the show, they couldn’t control it, and they couldn’t pretend it was scarce/finite like they do with Petroleum.
You have described the process accurately. Now we need to understand that THEY ARE NOT STUPID. This wasn’t accidental. The understanding of how the markets and economies work is very plain.
Think of Scott Peck – When you see evil you will feel confused. Because it looks crazy. It isn’t. It’s just evil.
Think of Bonhofer = Auf Der Dumbheit. Stupidity isn’t a lack of intelligence. It is a moral failing.
“For behold even now the Devil desires to sift me like wheat.” (Resonating with your Scott Peck quote.)
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Great insight into financial manipulation, easy read. No chg E- book download. David R Webb is author. Quick, easy, great read!
Truck fuel and associated products like DEF in your dessiel gets more and more expensive. DEF without which the truck won’t run, is expensive and the equipment is expensive and runs the cost of the truck up, and runs up the costs of operating. You see those expenses in you retail and grocery stores.
Agreed.
From my 20th century economic class, first thing the professor stated and quite simply to always remember in real life, the definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods.
No need to elaborate on that anymore.
There are two causes of inflation. One cause of inflation is demand side inflation where too many dollars are in the hands of consumers and their spending is causing the price to rise. Demand side inflation is also caused by the government printing money. When the Fed raised interest rates, they pretended that the inflation taking place was demand-side inflation.
The kind of inflation that Sundance is describing is supply side inflation. That is the main kind of inflation in food prices. Supply side inflation occurs when the costs of production increase as a result of the increase cost of SUPPLIES. Energy is one of the main inputs into production cost of food. When the cost of the supply of energy increases, the cost of food increases.
Isn’t the problem still too many dollars chasing too few resources. Energy production was curtailed across the board by the Biden Administration. In order to get the reduced amount of energy more of those too many dollars had to applied.
… and the too few product was oil and natural gas!
Covid was used as a back door way to raise wages. Why go back to work if you can be paid to stay home and not work. Employers had to entice workers to come back. Same work, higher wage, more expensive product. Covid was used to strangle the labor supply. So an employer spends more for the same amount of work, with dollars that the employee will use to purchase more expensive things. The money to pay people not to work must either come from the wages of those who work or be printed. In either case the result is the same. An employer pays more for wages and the wage earner pays more to live. The only one who is ahead is the grifter- the one who produces nothing.
Matthew 23:4 For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. 5 And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes.
Wow!
Must be nice having too many dollars and not enough goods to buy.
Trust God. Fear not.
I never met an economics major transferring to the physics department.
Why should they? The “dismal science” is far more mentally challenging than any hard science. A lot of logic has to come into play (of the “if X, then Y variety”), much more than any hard science which relies more on provable data.
I like the mental calisthenics more so than plugging numbers into already proven true formulae. Go figure.
The post described the problem as energy inflation due to strangling the energy supply.
As I read it, that is the reason for the present increased food prices (food inflation?). My Econ. 101 text gave “a general increase in prices” as the definition of inflation, but “too many dollars chasing too few goods” is a far better definition.
“In all instances, inflation is a monetary phenomenon.” …”Rising prices no more cause inflation than wet streets cause rain.”— Milton Friedman (Rising prices are businesses’ reaction to inflation, not the cause.)
Economists divide inflation into two types: demand pull and cost push (assumed self explanatory).
Today’s inflation was kicked off when the economy was struggling to get to some degree of normalcy following the COVID lock downs. While businesses had cut back production during that time, consumers were larded up with cash from the relief checks…and a whole lot of pent up demand. So much demand, the business couldn’t produce the goods necessary to meet the demand fast enough, so we experienced demand pull inflation.
All the while the Biden administration was making energy production more costly and less productive, making transportation of goods and services more expensive, as well as all those whose businesses depend on transportation to deliver their products they sell, making them more expensive–a perfect example of cost push inflation (which is what Sundance was talking about with the rising food prices). Note that in both cases, it is “too many dollars chasing too few goods” –a monetary thing as stated by Friedman.
All in all, following the COVID “overreactions,” by our government, especially by the Biden administration (with only a modicum of input by the Trump administration), a perfect storm was created to cause the inflation we have experienced since, and there’s no abatement in sight.
No. What Sundance is describing is not too many dollars chasing too few goods which is DEMAND-side inflation.
Sundance is describing the cost of SUPPLIES (energy supplies) increasing the cost of food.
Wrong. It’s the same on either side –decreased supply w/no change in demand (decreased petro suppliesto move the demanded goods), results in increased costs to move goods, the price bid higher by those who demand the goods with their “too many dollars”(the increased costs being passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices).
The “equilibrium price” of any product is that point where supply and demand intersect when graphed against price–a monetary phenomenon.
There are 5 factors each that can shift the supply curve AND the demand curve, and increasing/decreasing prices is common to both –a monetary phenomenon.
And just by the way, inflation isn’t divided into “demand side inflation” and “supply side inflation.”
The correct terms are “demand pull” and “cost push” inflation. Both are “too many dollars” driven–a monetary phenomenon.
What do you call it when electric companies build new facilities for “renewable energy” and pass those costs to consumers? That is supply side inflation.
No, that is cost push inflation.
Well F Joe, Cliff Claven called, he wants his shtick back.
Who?
Cliff Clavin is/was a fictional character on the American TV comedy series “Cheers” (1982-1993), and was played by John Ratzenberger. The character was a postal worker, and was the bar’s “know-it-all”.
That’s why he called you, no doubt.
So in the end whatever the cause we get “trickle down dollars” to spend that allow us to buy fast food for example where the suze of the burger etc keeps getting smaller paid with smaller value ” trickle down dollars”👀😳
“Trickle down” and “supply side” are two terms I refuse to use or validate. They were used to denigrate Reagan before he was even elected.
They are nowhere to be found in any serious academic economic text because they are made up terms by the left.
And speaking of “before Reagan was elected,” the rampant inflation at that time was when I noticed the use by food producers to start what is now been newly coined as “shrinkflation.” Food producers have the luxury to do that, but few others do. E.g., Hershey’s would cut the size of their chocolate bars in increments of tenths of an ounce, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you factor in the millions of chocolate bars produced you’re talking quite a bit of savings for them.
Consequently, after Reagan was elected, I realized that inflation had been “tamed,” when I saw multiple candy bars offering “20% more free, 10% more free,” –rather than cut the price, they offered more product for the same price.
But it wasn’t Reagan, it was Paul Volcker at the Fed raising interests rates to cut the money supply drastically (Remember the extremely high interest rates then, and high interest paid in Money Market accounts? The high interest on CD/s? Received a statement from my bank the other day–interest earned on savings: $.03. LOL). Will that work today? Yes, but it will be extremely painful, more so than in 1981.
The current ongoing “green new deal” agenda that has pushed energy costs to completely unsustainable levels is simply a large “climate change tax”, paid by you, the already overburdened taxpayer.
Energy costs figure into the overall inflation bigly.
Think of it like election fraud. There are many ways to inflate.
Others are listing theirs. Here’s another. It’s called scarcity.
And it’s happening because illegal aliens are getting first choice of everything.
Remember the powdered baby milk shortage? The illegal aliens didn’t have that problem. They had shelves full of product just waiting for the babies to arrive.
The illegals come in and are given money. They produce nothing. Inflation starts.
Then some richer people decide they want some of what the illegals are buying and will pay more. More inflation, and then scarcity. At some point the free market will produce more of those goods and the price should moderate or drop. But with government interfering all the time, the market may not adjust. Government causes most of our problems. Government needs to be small enough that it can’t interfere in the marketplace, but big enough to protect us from business crooks and monopolies. When government sets economic policy big problems follow. It may take 80 years to implode like the old Soviet Union, but implode it will. Our government is now as big as the old Soviet Union and just as effective. We are on a rocket ship to implosion if Trump does not win.
Your view is not overly simplified. It IS correct. Inflation is an artificial increase in the money supply. PERIOD
When we realizedThis we wi END THE FED and put control of the money supply back with the market instead of the oligarchs.
That is always the primary cause of inflation. Other causes are fairly small and not long lasting. Increases in actual productivity are needed to offset increases in costs.
Correct, but that’s only one specific case. Any change that creates an imbalance between the money supply and economic output changes the value of money. In the current example, we have multiple causes hitting at the same time. The government printed literally trillions of dollars out of thin air (over an above “normal” defict spending) for COVID relief. At the same time, lockdowns crashed the economy and cratered real GDP. Pushing and pulling at the same time, ballooning the money supply and also creating scarcity. Inflation compounded real price increases.
taking-ebook-c044a5e.pdf
This on line book is easy and fascinating read. “The Great Taking by David R Webb”
eye opening details on global financial manipulation
Drill, baby, drill & eliminate all the ridiculous red tape and subsidies to BS ‘alternative’ BBB energy.
Oh, and Cohn is just another con man.
<…and Cohn is just another con man.>
Only difference is the ‘h’ 🙂
Here’s a snapshot of the problem, as you rightly outline, Sundance.
I can’t comment further. My eyes have rolled into the back of my head.
John Kerry evidently does not live in reality. Neither does he visit reality when on vacation.
Sane people don’t give a damn about emissions.
Nor Ukraine.
I’ll never forget Zhenzhis Khan.
John Kerry isn’t Irish.
He’s a distant relative of the original priestly tribe. Look it up.
John Kerry on a good day is almost as good as Biden on a bad day. Kerry is what we call half smart. He is dumb as a box of rocks, but Kerry thinks he is an Einstein.
People would feel better if Russia REDUCED kerry..
He’s just a gold digging POS. Think about your average gold digger.
And a serial marrier of rich widows.
And a traitor…
Let’s not forget that one.
He had to do that to balance out being part of the “poor” side of the Forbes family.
We shouldn’t be too hard on Lurch, he is kindly reminding us in his own special way, that he is still a doddering imbecile.
The original Schiff boat “veteran”, John Khan-man Kerry
And boom…
John Kerry’s genius😵💫
-Watch: James Taylor sings tribute for Paris attack victims
If by “genius” you mean cringe …
One of the most insane statements ever made by a guy who is prone to making extremely insane statements….kinda sums this administration up in a nutshell.
I’ll see your Kerry and raise you a Gore and Brandon :-p
Wonder what the going price is for a man’s soul.
10% ??
For a Dim, not much. For Brandon it was a few sniffs…
For a Christian, absolutely not for sale at any price or for any reason. 😉
The blood of Christ.
I have a baseball bat … an end loaded big barreled lightweight aluminum bat … and I would love to bring it to a tour of Biden’s cabinet. And yeah, I was a power hitting, switch hitter … with even MORE power from the left than from my dominant right side. I’d like to “show” Kerry my swing … with beautiful rotation and weight transfer … just like the REAL Big Leagues.
We all know who the sociopaths and psychopaths are- so why are they still being allowed to spread their humanity killing poison??
They could be stopped and removed.
Johnny one note.
We’d feel better if John Kerry would reduce his mouth emissions..
.🎯 ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Welcome to Remulac, Earthlings.
“no one absorbs tariffs, except the consumer,”
“China, Asia and the EU essentially dropped their export prices to retain access to the USA market and offset tariff costs.”
Tariffs cuts into the hidden subsidies that many of the producers in these trade blocs(China/ Asia/EU) enjoy…
China in particular has a very opaque covert Government subsidy system, that’s primarily used to drive foreign competitors out of business.
European countries did pretty much the same thing. When I was in college, did research into trade policies and their effects for a business class. Europe had a bevy of them, including outright tariffs, but a considerable amount were in hidden costs dealing with the hoops they put importers through (what PDJT often calls “unfair trade practices”).
The notion that all taxes are passed on to the consumer is not true.
Property taxes are not passed along. A retailer cannot raise his price to absorb the added cost of doing business. Rather, he must increase his sales volume to cover that cost of doing business. (How many hamburgers must I sell to pay my rent?)
Most in the general public look at property tax as just that-a cost of doing business. I recently spoke to someone whose tax bill was raised and will be going to $148,000 from $56,000. Not only will it take a staggering increase in sales to cover that “cost of doing business” but if he was planning on selling that property, its value has just been severely impacted, and his nest-egg has just been broken.
The governments are working in many ways to destroy small business and the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great. Biden stated in his SOTU speech that teachers are not paid enough- well, let them go find another job that pays better.
Do you own your home or do you rent it from the government? Don’t pay your property tax and you’ll find out.
The Declaration listed the Pursuit of Happiness as an inalienable Right. This term evolved from the right to own property. Our God-given right to property has been debased. We are now seeing our currency being debased by thugs who think it is their property and right.
This recent story (March 8th) exactly fits your question on property ownership and taxes:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13169067/Moment-stage-4-cancer-sufferer-evicted-home-High-Court-enforcement-officers-watched-police-long-running-council-tax-bill-battle.html
Although the story doesn’t specify who legally owns the property, that it is being sold to repay the debt implies that it “belongs” to the evicted occupants.
Worldwide, governments are practicing tyranny.
In one of Trump’s recent rallies, he talked about the tariffs on China. They are taxes. Trump stated the the prices at the time reflected that those increased costs were not passed on by the Chinese. The Chinese ate those increases to maintain sales to the US consumer. Trump brillianlyt knew that was going to be the case.
Its not as if the companies paying the tariffs can just raise their prices to offset the cost any differently than a hamburger stand when the landlord raises the rent.
I knew a rigger who said the main reason he relocated businesses was property taxes, because the taxing body thinks they have the company by the balls since they’ve invested so much in their plant. But at some point the battered partner says enough and picks up and leaves- sunk costs are simply spilled milk.
We need more tariffs for multiple reasons- bring back jobs, increase national security, reduce transportation waste/reduce fuel demand. Keep it local.
Yep, nailed it again.
As an aside, and with a similar basic thesis, years ago, when diesel from corn first began, Fidel Castro argued that it would drive up the price of corn, and specifically, that it would in turn, improvish Latin American economies dependent on corn as a basic food item.
African countries had riots over the consequences of that stupid policy.
Raping land to grow fuel that is inferior to that required to harvest it is insane.
The corn used for fuel you don’t want to eat. The corn you feed to cattle you don’t want to eat. It’s called field corn and it taste terrible. Maybe the problem is in the planting of food corn as opposed to corn for fuel so less food corn is being produced but the corn that’s grown for fuel isn’t food.
Doesn’t matter.
Land is the critical factor here, and the use it is put to.
Taking farmland out of the business of feeding humans is creating exactly the consequences they intended.
Retired Magistrate here: Yes, on taking farmland out of the business of feeding humans.
We used to live in an old farmhouse built in 1857. The house was built on swampland which had been drained and resulted in 3-4 feet of beautiful, black, rich topsoil. I could grow anything; just dug a hole, put the plant in and stood back. Close by was a grain elevator and in the Fall tractors would be lined up for miles to deposit their grain in the elevator for transport by rail.
Now all this beautiful farmland is being converted to high density housing, commercial development and solar farms. The same is happening all over Central Ohio; 15 minute cities are being built in rural communities and destroying what was once productive farmland. As you go further north in Ohio, that farmland has not been developed. In Southern Ohio that land is fairly rocky and hilly, not good for farming. However, the area is so poor that there is no incentive for development and most people continue to live in poverty.
In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, my grandfather made a good living on farming 90 acres of bottom land. We also had 40 head of dairy cows, Holsteins and Jerseys, and our own milk delivery service. Those days are long gone. Now, most farmers around here farm at least 2,000 – 3,000 acres. With the increased cost of fertilizer and diesel fuel for the tractors it has driven the cost of growing the crops even higher. Most farms around here are flying “Trump” flags or flags that tell Biden what he can do to himself.
Trump-2024.
The price of animal feed which is based on corn and all its down stream products is artificially high because of ethanol……..spit. Soybeans is an unacceptable alternative but is overused in feed products and shows up in your meat and egg supply….just ask your hormones.
Yup.
Big Ag, Big Food, Big Harma and Big Green, all getting rich off the misery they inflict on us and this world.
My grandfather had a beautiful farm. He raised beef cattle, had pasture and corn and soybean fields. When I was young we fished in a stream that ran through the property. The creek ran through the pasture land. We caught sunfish, catfish, carp, frogs and turtles- and had to watch out for snakes. The bob-whites were plentiful.
The farm is now operated by mega farm operators who farm thousands of acres. The barbed wire fences were removed so the large equipment could have easy access. The pasture was plowed under and turned into tillable acres. The cornfields run up to fifteen feet of the bank of the creek.
I remember the criticism from some corners of allowing the cattle to drink from the creek, how it eroded the bank and polluted the water. Now the chemical run off from the fields have killed all the fish and the bob-whites have disappeared. And the corn goes to the nearby ethanol plant. This is called progress. Good grief.
I think the point being made alludes to the fact that producing “fuel” corn requires the same agricultural land, cultivation regimen, labor costs, and logistics efforts as would corn(or any other crops) intended for human consumption(or animal) consumption.
In other words, an utter waste of arable land, and emblematic of globalist excess and depravity.
yep.
What everyone seems to be forgetting here is that field corn (as opposed to “sweet corn” for human consumption) is also used for human consumption, in the form of the much maligned high fructose corn syrup, corn starch (for cooking purposes), and to feed our food for future consumption: beef and dairy cattle, goats, chickens, sheep, and such.
I’ve farmed for over forty years on our family owned farm of over 70 years, on which I was raised. My dad once told me that the time may come when we would no longer be able to farm profitably because of the (property) taxes and insurance costs–very prescient, he was.
As to the conversion of arable farm land to commercial and residential development, who is it that was said to own most of America’s farmland some years ago? Widows of deceased farmers. That’s right, elderly widows. And they are the ones selling because their progeny don’t want to pursue farming and they cannot afford to keep the thing afloat.
Want to get into farming? So expensive nowadays that there arose the best and cheapest way to do it some years ago: marry it or inherit it.
It is NOT Big Ag that is putting the hurt on the small family farm, it is Big Government at all levels.
As an aside, to whoever said field corn is not fit for human consumption, just this year a friend gave me all I wanted from about three acres he had planted from some leftover seed someone had given him. I picked 2-55 gallon drums full and having an antique sheller, have been shelling it and using a hand cranked grinder to make meal. I consider myself the Cornbread King and have been using it to make cornbread every bit as good as store bought meal mix.
China simply devalued it’s currency to offset the tariffs and keep the prices of it’s exports the same for Americans.
Cohen knows that because it’s what China always does. To say what he said Cohen has to pretend that he doesn’t know something!
It’s also why theirs will never be a reserve currency.
Inflation? Well … I filled up our car this weekend at the local CHEAPEST discount, independent, gas station and paid $4.29/gal. … then I was out of Arborio rice … for our Risotto, shrimp, asparagus, and mushroom meal tonight so I dashed to Safeway to pickup some Lundberg Arborio rice.
https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.126150193.html
Almost $10.00 !! For a small … yes, small bag of rice!? Thanks Brandon… thanks a lot
Rice is also being targeted specifically as part of the anti-human project.
I remember in 2007, over the summer, the cost of rice tripled. It was no longer offered for free – or at least severely limited amounts were offered as complimentary in Chinese and Thai restaurants that very year. It was also the year that the cost of tea and coffee nearly tripled on restaurant menus. Those weren’t the only items I noticed, but those are the ones I recall. Oh, and that was the summer that I noticed it was no longer possible to purchase 16 ounce cans of vegetables, beans, tomato sauce or any form…I was still “liberal” and didn’t yet realize the extent of the legacy media dishonesty; I still wonder why this was NEVER discussed.
Currently I just noticed that a pound of butter from Winco was $3.98 on my receipt; a month ago it was $3.68. That’s just one example of food inflation.
I now consider $4.25 a bargain at the gas pump in the Southern part of the Communist Republic of California.
As I said … I purchased that $4.29/gal. gasoline at a local independent dealer … in a really out of a way location.
I remember my economics professor talking about how when petroleum goes up everything goes up. He gave an example of something the class could not relate to but he could- record albums, as they contain a petroleum product, as do so many things that we don’t think about.
Nowadays, almost all goods move by truck, so your professor was right on the money.
Some Wall Street traders keep a close eye on the transportation index; the thinking is that when it goes up, so will the market.
and when fuel costs go down, food costs remain the same LOL
Another indexes to track are those of rail (freight) car and container usage. More in motion indicates economic stability or growth. More sidelined euqals the opposite.
In recent months I read somewhere that there are over 6000 products that rely on petroleum and/or natural gas production. Most people don’t think about the clothes they wear are frequently produced with fibers based on petroleum* (polyester, nylon, spandex); nor do we think about the re-usable plastic food storage containers as being petroleum-based. Most lipstick brands use petroleum products. On and on…
*Are those nincompoops who destroy art in museums to “stop oil” wearing petroleum-based clothing? Probably. If the clothing is water-repellent, stretchy, durable, and cheap, the answer is most likely ‘yes.’
just like the animal rights activists use leather shoes and handbags
Quite a momumentl discussion, for the Corporatists, along with the “Faux” green agitprop, are assulting literally every human on the planet with pressures on water, fertilizer, and regulation that is absolute nonsence.
There is no Carbon issue, that is wealth distribution.
Gore and Maurcie Strong took Revells research, and repurposed to create the eventual RIO Accord, and the Convention on Biodiversity, which the Senate Rejected.
Carbon Is Life.
The cost of energy no question about it!
Gary Cohn, never mentioned energy once. Goldman Sachs pig. He’s part of the problem.
Insolence is such an unattractive quality in other humanoids! How does this guy make a living???
Speaking of taking enormous amounts of electricity. There is an EV battery plant being built in Kansas and the residents surrounding it for hundreds of miles get to subsidize the new electrical requirements needed for the plant, in addition to some of the highest rates on the planet already and going up, up, up.
Gotta’ love that green new deal.
$Green$ For Thee, But Not For We.
Build Back Better
Flatten Freedom First
Sean Hannity calls it build back broke.
Now look at the energy consumed by the ever growing data centers, cloud servers, and AI processing clusters – all things the government and big business are pushing and replicating at ever faster rates.
Then there is the most energy inefficient means of doing many things possible – electricity – be it for cars or heating or cooking. Instead of locally consuming the fuel as efficiently as possible for the task, they instead want to create it at centralized (controlled) locations and distribute it over a lossy transmission system. In the case of travel, one then stores it in lossy batteries, then transmit it once again over a lossy system to an electric motor. Of course, the added weight of the batteries causes further energy losses – as does their mining and production. Never mind the reality that there aren’t enough natural resources to put everyone in electrical cars. Nor is energy production with solar and wind reliable enough to handle the base loads of most modern societies.
It isn’t that consumer energy consumption is bad, it’s that they want to control everyone, as well as have almost all the energy for themselves (and to drive the average citizen into abject poverty, owned by the government).
As well as driving most of us into the ground.
Only then could the supply of mineral and electrical resources be sufficient for their Eloi and Morlock games.
“you must accept the USA bears a greater responsibility for creating and demanding the increased prices that farmers globally are having to deal with”
Disagree considerably with the above statement. The other western nations have CHOSEN to pursue the BBB/GND policies in regards to energy – in fact most of them were considerably ahead of the U.S. and doing so while PDJT had the U.S. humming. Their love of the GND is a very long affair. Additionally, the WEF (which is not dominated by the U.S. – in fact it’s the other way around currently) is the prime mover of the energy and food policies that have precipitated the issues.
An add-on: It isn’t ONLY energy price increases and in the EU, increasing scarcity, but also the created reduction of the supply side of the equation by overt policies such as those Dutch farmers and Irish farmers have been subjected to along with the more covert tactics that have been taking place since 2020 (fires, fake flock and herd ‘pandemics’, buyouts by China, etc.)
I have to agree with Gary Cohn. Tariffs are a consumption tax and consumption taxes by nature hurt the low and middle-income more than the rich.
Cohn makes the point that when it comes to protecting US-made goods a tariff on imports can be justified but when so much that is imported from China is not made in the USA such tariffs are just a tax grab.
I found this interesting website that shows the impact of the trade war on tariffs: US-China Trade War Tariffs: An Up-to-Date Chart | PIIE
In 2018 before Trump started his trade war the average tariff on Chinese goods entering the USA was 3%. By comparison, China had average tariffs of 6.5% on US imports. China had higher tariffs but not that much higher. What Trump should have done is negotiate with China to harmonize tariffs but instead, he chose to start a trade war. Thanks to that trade war the average tariff on Chinese goods entering the U.S. is now 19.3%. The average tariff China places on U.S. imports is now 21.1%.
Thanks to Trump’s trade war the tariffs on Chinese imports have gone up 16% since 2018. I doubt Chinese exporters are swallowing the difference. It is just too great when margins are already slim.
So what did Trump’s trade war accomplish other than add another layer of tax on the middle class and low-wage earners? There can be no doubt that these increased tariffs contributed to inflation – it is just a question of how much.
The trade war was harmful in other ways. China used to be the biggest export market for Boeing and Boeing is (was?) the largest American exporter of manufactured goods. China retaliated with higher tariffs on Boeing and Boeing’s share price took a big hit. How does it make sense to put tariffs on Chinese televisions when the US doesn’t have a domestic market to protect when it results in a company like Boeing being harmed in retaliation?
Of course, when Biden got into office he didn’t try to negotiate with China an end to the trade war because he didn’t want to lose this new form of taxation.
👻👻
Maybe if Boeing made aircraft that did not fall apart in mid air. They could sell more of their planes.
“Thanks to Trump’s trade war the tariffs”
There China was just walking down the street… Minding their own business right?
If you Believe Donald Trump started the trade war, you are pretending not to know things.
There is no question that Trump started the trade war. In 2018 on average China’s tariffs on US imports were 3.5% higher than US tariffs. Not right and it needed to be remedied but 3.5% isn’t a big number. Instead of negotiating harmonized tariffs with China – Trump decided to slap massive tariffs on Chinese goods which only hurt American consumers as well as America’s premier manufacturing companies like Boeing. It was a dumb move by Trump who doesn’t seem to have an understanding of the big picture and who only acted on his gut instinct which more often than not is wrong just look at all the disastrous hires Trump made as president – did he hire one decent person? I don’t think so.
poppycock
The PRCs Illegal trade practices kicked off the “trade war” long before PDJT became President.
Theft of American Intellectual Property.
Secretly subsiding exports to harm US producers.
Attempting to export Trojan Horse telecommunications infra into the US.
These illegal actions kicked off the trade war a lot earlier than 2016.
It unfortunately took folks in the US a few years longer to realise that they were getting nutshots in the dark from China.
Donald Trump was just the person that switched the lights on…
Bull roar.
ANOTHER FILTHY LIAR
The most interesting discussion about what petroleum really is occurred on Tucker Carlson.
Petroleum is a renewable resource, not a limited fossil fuel. By telling us that it is a limited fossil fuel, the elites control the narrative making people afraid it will run out and so telling us that it is necessary to develop some other form of “renewable energy”.
https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-encounter-fossil-fuels
Oh, come on now. Everyone knows that it was the dinosaurs caught in the La Brae tar pits that created the oil that was found in California thousands of years later…
;-p
As well as on Saturn’s moon Titan.
Then there are all of the hydrocarbons that make up an appreciable percentage of the gas giants’ atmospheres…obviously they have humongous cow herds there 😉
We need to rocket Algore and the Greenies out there to solve the problem right away!
Elon’s Starship is poised for a third flight on Thursday . . .
This book will blow your paradigm, on many facets of our planet’s evolution! Highly recommended.
The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth Of Fossil Fuels
That book has been talked about on CtoC Maquis. My Geology teacher told us Petroleum is renewable. He also told us about Pole Shifts. I guess he was a politically incorrect teacher!
Or perhaps an Edgar Cayce fan?
we run our cars on dinosaur carcasses LOL
Easy, concise, and truthful.
Thank you Sundance, I just wished more people would come here and read.
wall st…old guard republicanism(at least until the newly minted,graduated and liberally indoctrinated drones start taking over)…..
this guy is everything that`s wrong with the republican brand…..guys like cohn ignored the culture wars(and “encouraged” republican pols to do the same) while they lined their own pockets and the dems played the long game….
guys like cohn are the reason the dems own every major institution in america…..cohn did very well for himself……our manufacturing sector?…middle america?….the middle class?….not so much….f him with a rusty chainsaw…
💯💯💯
Recall Tucker’s visit to a Russian supermarket. He and his crew made a list of their typical grocery cart and shopped. The cost after foreign exchange was approx a fourth the crew paid at home in the US. Russia holds our former status as energy independent. Thank joe biiden for our inflation.
You can blame energy, food, and many other things. But War is the largest driver of inflation. Printing money out of thin air to fund pointless, needless, wars devalues the dollar and causes the price of everything to rise rapidly.
Wonder why energy is so high? U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest user of petroleum products. After losing wars for the last 60 years or so. US taxpayers sure are not getting much “Bang for their Buck”.
These Wars we are mindlessly getting into will destroy the dollar…. or worse.
Death by 1000 cuts.
Not to mention importing millions of unskilled, non assimilating, third world bums on our dime.
Why do I always see food, vegetables and the like, from OTHER countries?
Shipping…the art of ‘cold storage’ has been perfected…as has the art of shipping in refrigerated containers/container ships.
I recall when the fruit and vegetable farms in California
were going bankrupt because of diverted water supply
by EPA and other state and federal officials. Generations
of farm owners were closing and going bankrupt.
Then, almost miraculously, fruits and vegetables were
labeled grown in other countries, South America and Mexico.
All the avocados I see in the store are from Mexico.
And, I recall at the time, Sarah Palin, running for VP,
made the quip that in Alaska they would call the tiny
fish they were so called protecting, “bait”.
30-40 years ago, fruit grown in other countries was heavily marketed by way of the idea:
Having access to fruits and veggies that are ‘out of season’. And we bought it, hook line and sinker…
BTW…as a kid growing up in the old Canal Zone…we had an avocado tree where it produced fruit that were literally 3-4 times the size of what one finds in the grocery store…the same with Mangoes, no hybrid GMO…those trees were already 50+ years old in the 70’s……we would find a mango on the ground and pick it up and eat it while walking down the street…bees chasing us as the mango juice dripped off of our chins…
….same with the avocados….would pick them up off the ground, bring them in the house and eat them. Those were the days…
My grandfather said something similar about the lemons in Lebabon. Much larger than ours and much less tart. He ate them like fruit.
Sixty years ago, the same experience was enjoyed in central Florida – just add navel oranges and tangerines to the fruit basket. Big, plentiful, delicious.
In Clermont there’s a tourist structure called The Citrus Tower. Sixty years ago, from the top you could see productive citrus groves in every direction, virtually to the horizon. Today, you see tickytack subdivisions.
I look for and buy veggies from other countries. They are more organically grown. Much better for you than the GMO, pesticide drenched, tasteless crap American Big Ag grows.
Many US agricultural food products are banned from import in other countries because of all the chemicals, hormones, ect they contain.
Is it any wonder cancer rates are so high? Big pharm and Big Agriculture are joined at the hip.
Big AG Grows food that makes you sick. Big Pharm pops up ans says “We have a pill for that.” They dont even try to hide it anymore. Monsanto and Bayer are one big sick family.
Sundance – I agree on everything you have written. However can someone explain how food Mfg and the retail stores are having record profits?? As they not only have high prices but shrinkflation, crappier cheaper ingredients, or remove ingredients that made their products palatable altogether.
Yes food from farm to Mfg is more expensive, Mfg wages are higher, Mfg transport is higher – so I understand the increase in prices to cover that. But record profits on a lesser quality and amount to boot??
No there is major greedflation happening.
I purchase a large jar of honey every two/three months as we use
it in our tea. One month it cost $10.00+. Three months later it
cost over $16.00.
Your honey example might be helpful, perhaps because I remember talking about it with the guy who bought my CA property and has his honey mfg facility located there now. He was lamenting the brutal wholesale market he was dealing with. I suggested using the location to his advantage and developing a direct to consumer retail channel to keep more profit in-house.
As it was, he was selling barrels of honey to a co-op, which sold them to processors through brokers and the processors then sold them to distributors who sold them to grocery stores and other retailers, then to the consumer.
As a small honey producer, it was difficult to absorb the economies of scale in the distribution network to access the much larger potential of the big retail marketplace than he could reach on his own. The question to me was did he need all that scale, and the attendant cost, to balance his production?
My suggestion to him was to essentially do what I did, create a customer (end user) base that matched the business process and maintain it over time. I did that for nearly 40 years operating in my niche of heavy industry. His product was even better suited (small, easily portable, non-toxic), along with the advent of the internet and ease of advertising and shipping to a wide audience direct from the manufacturer.
When I sold the place last summer, he was retailing 2lbs for ten bucks, so five bucks a pound. However, that was just a tiny part of his revenue, the bulk of which went for less than half that in wholesale quantities and, by his account, often a struggle to maintain profitability.
Business in CA is brutal, at least by this native’s account, and ag itself is brutal too. Worked in it, petro chem and the oilfields in my work life. One thing I noted was working through Carter’s inflation and Covid inflation was completely different, central of which in the latter was government interference in my work life. That’s why I closed the business. Done 🙂
I still use honey but we have no local producers so have to buy it at the store. I use it as a sweetener instead of cane sugar. It costs more per unit used but IMO is worth it.
Inflation is a complicated topic. I track a tiny niche of it that’s relevant to my now-short life and make decisions based on that. Else, I’ll leave it to the big brains to figure out.
Less people are dining out. So, more are buying groceries. The clear implication is that grocery stores increase in profitability is primarily a function of increased volume.
Beef and chicken and eggs under attack. Wonder why? Add California Salmon.
Chicken and eggs used to be an affordable and easily accessible form of dietary protein…protein is necessary for human growth and development.
I HATE salmon.
Its great for ‘training treats’ for dogs…I have a few recipes…
This near lifelong resident of Alaska sadly says you were never taught to prepare it correctly. I’d have you drooling over it!
Your loss.
Used to be a big consumer of fresh salmon, especially if guests were coming to dinner. I still eat it frequently, but the only kind I buy now is wild caught Atlantic, in a can, from Aldis’s. Three ingredients: salmon, water, and salt. Time consuming to scrape away all the fatty skin and most of the bones, but worth it to me.
A lot of the water issues in NorCal stem from the government/environmental movement to maintain delta flow, mostly for flora and fauna. That’s where most of the water, pre-dam, from northern and central CA, used to end up.
That’s another very complex battle that’s been going on for decades. I worked in ag so kind of participated in the water wars since I worked on the equipment, starting way back in the 70’s when PG&E was building the Helms pump project between Wishon and Courtright reservoirs in the Sierras.
I boggles the mind how much water ag uses and how important it is to food costs. I’m surprised actual kinetic war hasn’t started in CA over water.
I only serviced agriculture as a vendor and no way would I want to be an actual producer. It’s insane. Nuts. No wonder faceless corporations have taken it over. Just dealing with them was insane enough. 🙂
mankind has never earned the ability to govern itself …it’s continued over the top stupidity and arrogance … always gets it in trouble … and the people that make the decisions never have to pay for that said arrogance and stupidity … OUR REIGN OF TERROR ON THIS PLANET … is just about over … the true ‘OWNER’ of this planet and our CREATOR’ … the benefactor who blessed us with these blessings is closing the door on those blessings … ‘PAY ATTENTION’ peasants … the whirlwind of problems besetting this planet is being instituted by ‘GOD ALMIGHTY’ TO … FOR THE LAST TIME ‘ to get mankind’s attention to what is really going on … ‘HE’ has had enough of mankind’s mismanagement and outright ‘theft ‘ of every blessing man kind extracts from this planet …
See the girl with the red dress on
She’ll do the Boogie Woogie all night long
Alright, hehe, huhu, alright
3 key economic realities:
Sundance is the only analyst reporting in the media today that gets this right.
Am not a finance person…I engage in and study “Kitchen Table Economics 101″…my text books vary but are mostly the grocery store weekly sale pamphlets.
Lots of theories about why it happens…but how about this one:
Every time we have a democrat administration…we go thru financial pain via unemployment (and unemployment is out there) and inflation along with gasoline issues and heating issues…Carter…Clinton…Obama…and now this one…yes, one could add uniparty globalists…
And every democrat admin chips away at the middle class slowly but surely and some don’t or can’t claw their way back…am I better off now than I was during the Carter years? Hell no! Clinton? Bush? Bribem? No. I look at metrics in my life, just like a big corporation looks at their productivity metrics.
Second verse, same as the first…….
Abundance in goods and services keeps prices down and spurs improvements to better compete. Scarcity raises prices as consumers scramble to buy what is still available and the need for improvements evaporates.
It started Jan 2021 with the closure of fossil fuel production, scarce gasoline and diesel, scarce organic compounds for manufacture, scarce fertilizer for agriculture and a flood of money so everyone could strip the shelves bare.
Part of the abundance may be related to the chyna issues of cheep junk in big box stores…for the last so many years, we were, or a lot us, were on a huge spending spree of consumerism…
I noted an odd, to me anyway, occurrence during PDJT’s ‘drill baby drill’ era….. I watched as new wells were drilled and old ones reactivated in fields long left dormant due to the high cost of extraction, fields I’d worked in the 70’s and 80’s.
It was odd because I remember very well working on the boilers that ran day and night steaming the field (injecting steam into the strata) to thin the crude to get it out. My job was keeping them running and repairing the pump rods (those things the horsy looking machines ran) along with working on the natural gas compressors.
In any event, at a time of low oil prices, I found the reactivation of long-dormant oil fields to be quite odd. There must’ve been a reason. Follow the money I guess. And, yeah, once Xiden got in, the area turned into a ghost town again; the new well structures sitting dormant. Odd.
The unelected communist junta is intent on causing a world wide mass extinction event.
Communists doin what communists have always done. They’re evil.
Control the food ..If you truly want to screw DC NYC ATLANTA ST LOUIS LA CHICAGO.. Stop food delivery’s by truckers you will break the SOBs.. Big time….
Vulture Capitalists like Cohn cause the sale oF US Steel to Japan to save a penny on American pensions. Come more tariffs and they will build it.
No, we don’t need 2 million more people imported for “skilled” jobs. Our people here can’t get skilled jobs because they don’t exist! Our “skilled” jobs have been shipped overseas. Our factories have closed, leaving no skilled jobs in the US. Marge was throwing in the little jab of divisiveness of union vs. non-union.
I would argue that his example of $100 of groceries in 2017 now being $125 is way off! Try at least $150! You are getting packages of food with almost 1/2 of the product you used to get, but they’re charging you double the price from 2017; therefore, you have to buy two packages of the product “Hey, you family of four, here’s 3 chicken breasts..divvy them up you plebes!”
These people completely overlook the middle class, who will soon all be in the poor class.
It really is us against them.
Chicken thighs at Sam’s Club were $.95/lb under Trump but are $1.38 with Biden. That is a 45% increase. I suggest Sam’s is using this to subsidize their rotisserie chickens which are still $4.98 each.
Ever notice the only time talking heads like Cohn ever care about the cost to consumers is when they’re discussing policies that protect American industry?
Contrast to the cost of their Green New Deal and other environmental programs. Then there is no limit to the financial and economic pain they are willing to inflict on consumers.
I was a committed free trade supporter when I was young. However, as I’ve experienced the real world I’ve come to realize that “free trade” is a ideal, and it doesn’t exist in the real world anymore than “true socialism.” Especially considering the 800 pound gorilla in the room, China. A communist country engaged in economic warfare against the United States, which has successfully co-opted Western political, financial, and industrial leaders using the wealth they siphon out of the West.
It does not matter what form of government is used by a country …. with respect to international “free trade” or what ever term is sued to describe global commerce.
The real issue is if the “Economic Powers” and Government of a nation desire to PROTECT specific Economic Sectors as well as any level of motivation to protect the labor force within their sovereign borders. That is the actual motivation behind trade agreements as well as tariff policies, which impact consumer prices of imported and domestic goods v/v inflation at the shelf ranging from 20-50%.
In the US (the land of the free ///sarc), 2008-2016 and 2020-to present … the US Economic Powers and members of the US Government are aligned to maximize their own profits at the expense of loosing ground in terms of capabilities within GDP producing Economic Sectors as well as at the expense of Citizens living in the US (native, legal residents and illegal residents).
There are nations with governments ranging from democratic based to totalitarian systems better motivated than the US Government to prioritize their own national interests when it comes to economic ad financial matters.
I believed in free and fair competition but once I noticed government picking winners and losers back in the 80’s, along with the stench of Communism, I became a skeptic. I learned it’s hard to profit in a system one is at odds with.
Either play the game or die. Very little wiggle room. I trust the Treepers who’ve operated their own businesses, particularly in manufacturing as I did, have their own stories.
Mine was I used U.S. sourced raw materials until the very end. Steel, aluminum, bronze, nickel, plastics, whatever I could find domestically I bought, even if at a higher price. Profit margins were thin. Competing with corporations manufacturing in China and selling customers on ‘U.S. made’ wasn’t easy when their main concern was price. Hence I carved out the niche of ‘right now’, capitalizing inventory to be able to manufacture to order on short notice where price was less sensitive.
When a customer has equipment down that’s costing them thousands per hour in lost production, they’ll buy U.S. made middle of the night solutions 🙂
My awakening came in 1999. I was purchasing agent for a manufacturing company based in the US, with a newly established maquiladora plant in Mexico to meet the then rising challenge of China. We did purchase some low margin products directly from China, but we were trying to make them in Mexico in order to cut out the middle man and save on freight.
My landed cost for retail-ready finished goods from China was less than the cost of the raw materials in it. I knew, because I was buying the material to make our Mexican copies. Clearly, if the Chinese could make the widget, package it, ship it halfway around the world, and deliver it to my doorstep for less than the raw materials in it there was f**kery afoot.
Thank you, my teacher. 🙏🏻🙏🏻👊👊
McDonald’s cup of coffee was up 11 cents this morning to $1.84. Was 99 cents 2-1/2 years ago.
FJB🖕
Right on cue … did my survey of the 10-15 gas stations that I pass on the way to the gym in Allen, TX.
Overnight …. The price of fuel JUMPED by 20-30 cents per gallon depending if the fuel supplier was subsidized by the US (via National Fuel Reserve Contract) or Venezuelan Government …. price of Regular Gas is now $3.09 to $3.19 per gallon. All other gasoline grades and diesel increased to remain about $1.00 to $1.50 more than regular gas.
Be aware that the refineries will be shutting down soon for maintenance then switch over to making fuel oil and summer gas. Fuel oil for next winter makes sense. Summer gas, particularly boutique ones (varying volatility) makes less sense.
Venezuelan oil is sour, so needs more processing. The oil might cost less but the products typically won’t in the end. It would be better to use Canadian sour for that … but … yeah, stupid policies by our government.
It has been observed:
Inflation and tariffs: Symptoms, and bandaids coming “too little, too late”.
The root causes are largely the continuing (1) deindustrialization that will never be reversed because of (2) DEI; (3) accelerating federal debt largely because of (1) and (2) plus greed and powerlust; (4) biowarfare attrition and democide starting in 2020; and (5) CO2 climate canard.
What a synergy, driven by an “inverse fascism” chain comprised of “public-private partnerships” < driven by the federal government < driven by globalist elites < beholden to China.
Some wonder if there is a common guiding hand behind this synergy sinking the US Bloc (but not BRICS+). The above chain seems to implicate China, no? (Sun Tzu – how to defeat your adversary without fighting, aka the long game – 100 years, to be exact.)
We need to end SNAP and restart programs where families go to a location to pick of nutritious food they can take home and cook themselves, STRAIGHT FROM OUR USA FARMERS.
SNAP helps no one except Wal-mart and convenience stores. We all know about the Wal-mart greed, but let’s talk about how most convenience stores are also owned by immigrants who send a bunch of money back home.
The same goes for schools. As long as they are gubt run, why aren’t they buying food directly from our USA farmers? Most if them couldn’t feed the kids during their China Virus shutdowns and after, because they effed up their supply chains royal and put many out of bz.
We have a direct from producer supplemental program here in Oregon which facilitates some of what you suggest, though by no means is it global, and it does leave out all of the folks who live too far from where the markets are located to reasonably travel there. While there are farmers markets closer, the closest farming area to myself is about a 2 hour round trip through the forest. Else, we neighbors barter among ourselves.
My closest regular store is in a nearby town of about 1500 and is the only grocery store in town. That locally owned store does accept SNAP (here the card is called ‘Oregon Trail’) and I trust plenty of folks use it since the area is more of a subsistence economy except for the tourists.
I still manage, if not indulging, to eat on five bucks a day, a level I set for myself back during Covid. An ‘indulgence’ of late is cod liver for the nutrients since I don’t eat beef anymore. It’s expensive, and yeah it comes from Iceland or Denmark, hence why I call it an indulgence.
It just occurred to me the last time I ate ‘out’ was in September 2020, to celebrate my best friend’s 34th wedding anniversary, about three months before he died of pancreatic cancer. I remember the empty restaurant and wearing a mask. Yikes. Prices weren’t bad though. I wonder if that local dive survived. Small coastal town, mom and pop restaurant.
Anyway, good suggestion on program changes.. About the only thing that would change for me if implemented is I wouldn’t be spending the equivalent of the meager SNAP allotment on ammo each month. That’s what I do now. Live way below my poverty income and prep like crazy. Adapt and overcome.
And you wonder why China has tentacles wrapped around us, I give you exhibit one Mr. Gary “Goldman- Sachs” Cohn!!! 🥴
Blue Horshoe loves Teldar Paper.
There was a time when the government existed on tarrifs. People were able to keep their hard earned money and spend it, or not, as they pleased. Now some have to takeout a loan to pay their taxes after paying taxes all year long. The banks are loving it.
Rule #1 about inflation: Governments are the main beneficiaries of it, so they’ll induce whenever they can.
Rule #2 about inflation: Inflation is the alteration of the supply of or the demand for money such that its perceived purchasing power falls. Governments can and do manipulate both, directly and indirectly.
Any time that governments can interfere with markets, they’ll do it; especially as long as they can get away with it. Governments powerful enough to pick winners and losers in markets will get the attention of businesses. (Hint, either as fascists or communists.) The revolving door between them benefits both, temporarily. Businesses that resist will find themselves attacked.
Oil & gas are critical to a booming economy. Biden cut it off on day 1 of his reign. Jan 2021 gas was $1.97 and 8 months later $5.00. Those dang greedy oil companies.
A gallon of gasoline in 1963 was about $.25. That quarter melted down today would yield enough silver to sell for enough to buy a gallon of gasoline. What changed? Not the availability or work required to produced the gasoline. It was the trillions of dollars that have been manufactured since then.