Against the backdrop of Rishi Sunak being installed as the U.K. Prime Minister, during his weekly monologue today, a fired-up friend of the Treehouse, Neil Oliver, asks two questions: #1) Why should WE put up with the pain predicted in our future by the same people who made it inevitable?… And #2) How quickly do they think we forget what only just happened?  WATCH:

[Transcript] –  I have two questions this week:

Question one: Why should WE put up with the pain predicted in our future by the same people who made it inevitable?

And question two: How quickly do they think we forget what only just happened? First the pain.

Rishi Sunak conjured up and blew away a mountain of money – hundreds of billions of pounds worth of the funny, all-but-fraudulent money that is the gift only of the private bankers who have him and every other western leader in their pocket.

Now he’s got an even bigger job than before and gets to tell us we’ll have to endure tough times ahead, real pain. That’s real pain for us proles of course – and champagne for him and his pals. All of this mess is of his creation – him and his pinstriped cronies – and yet we, who did nothing wrong, are the patsies handed the bill.

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Tucker Carlson used his opening monologue Friday evening to outline his perspective on the Elon Musk takeover of the social media platform Twitter.   Generally, Carlson does a good job framing the big picture of national events; however, Carlson outdid himself on this contextualized delivery.

While the underlying premise of Carlson’s position is structured on a yet-to-be-seen possibility of free speech, the context for the importance of the moment is very well presented.  I hope that Tucker Carlson is correct in regard to the altruistic intent of Mr. Musk.  Well worth watching:

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Earlier today President Trump noted he would not be returning to the Twitter social media platform; he likes Truth Social better:

(Source)

Additionally, with a great deal of interest in what will happen to the Twitter platform, Mr. Elon Musk has announced a diverse moderation council will be created to make content rules and guidelines.  Following up with a reply, “we have not yet made any changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies.”

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This is just too good.  Need to share. [Source]

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CTH has covered the origin of food inflation since we first raised the alarms in the spring of 2020.  A confluence of events starting with the fracturing of the food supply chain (shutting down restaurants, hospitality venues, schools, cafeterias, etc), created the initial major problem.  Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) sold at retail stores could not keep up with demand after 50% of the food supply system was shut down.

Within the U.S. retail food supply chain (350+ million people), manufacturing CPG products relies on a system of staying one to two harvest cycles ahead of demand.  However, when restaurants and fresh food venues were closed, very quickly frozen, bulk stored and siloed U.S. food storage systems, the storage needed for CPG products, were emptied.

Long after the time when all food distribution was reopened, the shortages of CPG products continued. You saw the result with empty shelves at the supermarket.  It takes a long time (years) for those inventories to refill.

We warned of this in 2020 and then followed the predictable outcome in 2021 and 2022.

When Joe Biden then shut down the U.S. energy production system in early 2021, the massive increases in energy costs -and the shortages of natural gas- became fuel on the inflationary fire of CPG goods.  Again, in October 2021 CTH noted that retail prices were going to rise quickly, and they did.

Throughout 2022 food prices have risen dramatically as the food distribution and processing system was now under pressure from all sides.  The shortage of inputs (to refill food storage and warehousing needs) combined with the much higher costs to generate those inputs -the direct result of the exploding energy costs- created massive inflation pressure.  The pricing result we are seeing now (third wave of food inflation) is exactly what we have stated, discussed and predicted for more than two years.

While all food costs are skyrocketing, the prices for manufactured or processed food are much higher than the price increases for fresh food.

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Will big tech and social media remove Joe Biden for violations of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation?  Considering his remarks today, they should.

Reading from a teleprompter loaded with lies about the economy, Joe Biden stunningly states that gas prices are lower today than when he took office. Further claiming that gasoline was $5/gal.  {Direct Rumble Link} Nothing about any of his economic claims is true.  WATCH (1 min):

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Allowing people to return to work after the pandemic lockdowns is not “creating jobs.”  And gasoline was not $5/gal when Joe Biden took office.

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The topline of a third-quarter GDP at +2.6% looks good [DATA HERE]. However, a look into the numbers shows alarm.  The domestic U.S. economy, as measured by Main Street creating goods and services for domestic consumption, contracted in the third quarter.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculation is a valuation of all goods and services created within the economy, minus the value of goods and services imported.  However, even a cursory look under the topline number shows how the import/export dynamic creates the illusion of economic growth.

In the third quarter we exported hundreds of billions worth of energy products, including massive liquified natural gas (LNG) sales to Europe, and oil sales to the global market from the strategic petroleum reserve.  We also sold billions in weapons to Europe. Those sales are calculated as exports, lifting the GDP number (Table 1).  At the same time, imports of durable goods into the United States collapsed; meaning less was deducted from the GDP.  The net import/export impact on the GDP dynamic was +2.77% (Table 2).

Meaning the third-quarter import/export dynamic alone contributed 2.7% growth to the percentage of change for the prior period.  However, the total GDP only rose 2.6%, because the actual economic value created domestically got smaller.  We made less internally, sold less internally and consumers purchased less internally.

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By all outward appearances the acquisition of the Twitter social media platform by billionaire Elon Musk looks like it is going through.

According to bank filings and financial transfer documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal {link}, the process to finalize the purchase is taking place.  Meanwhile Mr. Musk used the platform to notify Twitter advertiser of his intent in the purchase {link}:

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During a White House announcement today, Joe Biden pledged to have all agencies in the federal bureaucracy begin to target private industry for charging service fees, or what the administration calls “junk fees.”   The junk fees relate to everything from bank overdraft charges, to hidden cleaning fees on car rentals, to hotel resort fees and even fees on airlines for seats with more legroom.

According to the White House, the junk service fees disproportionately impact marginalized communities, minorities and low-income households.  The airline fees are particularly racist because the airline prices for more comfortable seats have a “disparate impact” (legal term for federal intervention) on protected categories of people.

Poor people cannot afford bigger seats.  Poor people are disproportionately minority. Ergo a higher percentage of minority people cannot afford the comfortable seats.  That makes charging more for comfortable seats an illegal practice according to the legal theory of ‘disparate impact.’  WATCH:

[Transcript] – […]  Some airlines, if you want six more inches between you and the seat in front, you pay more money.  But you don’t know it until you purchase your ticket.

Look, folks, these are junk fees.  They’re unfair, and they hit marginalized Americans the hardest, especially low-income folks and people of color.  They benefit big corporations, not consumers, not working families.  And that changes now.

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The extreme vitriol against the recent OPEC+ decision to cut oil output, specifically the extreme Biden anger toward Saudi Arabia, now takes on additional context as the New York Times writes about a secretly negotiated deal between the Kingdom and White House officials that was never executed.

As the Times reveals, over the summer the White House thought their team had negotiated a deal with Saudi Arabia for increased oil production that would have lowered oil and gasoline costs in the U.S, strategically timed before the midterm election.

With that agreement in mind, Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia a few months ago. However, as the western alliance began putting more pressure on Russia and increased the activity within Ukraine, the Saudi’s aligned with OPEC+ to support Russia via lowered oil outputs.  The White House felt double-crossed, hence the fury.

(New York Times) –  WASHINGTON — As President Biden was planning a politically risky trip to Saudi Arabia this summer, his top aides thought they had struck a secret deal to boost oil production through the end of the year — an arrangement that could have helped justify breaking a campaign pledge to shun the kingdom and its crown prince.  It didn’t work out that way.

Mr. Biden went through with the trip. But earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by two million barrels per day, the opposite of the outcome the administration thought it had secured as the Democratic Party struggles to deal with inflation and high gas prices heading into the November elections.

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