Gasoline prices have risen, on average, 40% in the past 11 months.  This leads to higher consumer costs across the board.  Oil, currently $90/barrel, is going to go even higher as a merge of Biden economic, regulatory, energy and foreign policies are going to make things worse.

As the Obama-Biden administration previously said when they achieved their last historic increase in gas prices, “U.S. energy prices will necessarily skyrocket“, in order to achieve their ideological climate change objectives.

(VIA CNBC) Gas prices rose to the highest level in more than seven years Friday, on the heels of the U.S. oil benchmark topping $90 per barrel for the first time since 2014. 

The national average for a gallon of gas stood at $3.423 on Friday, according to AAA, slightly surpassing the prior high-water mark of $3.422 from Nov. 8.  Friday’s price means consumers are now paying the most at the pump since Sept. 10, 2014, AAA data shows.

The national average stood at $2.44 a year ago.  The rapid rise in prices is contributing to inflationary fears across the economy and is creating a headache for the Biden administration. (read more)

Yes, a president can and does control the price of gasoline.  What can a U.S. President and administration specifically do?  We have abundant U.S. energy resources.  Quite literally the strongest in the entire world.

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There really isn’t an adequate way to encapsulate what the Bureau of Labor and Statistics has done with their reported January jobs result [Main Data Here].   If you want a deep weeds review of the actuarial scheme deployed READ THIS ARTICLE.

In my lifetime of reviewing data and analytics, I have never reviewed a level of statistical manipulation that even comes close to this.  Well, at least not since the 1980’s junk bond valuations used for corporate restructuring and asset removal.  What the BLS produced today will likely go down in the annals of actuarial history as one of the most comprehensively fraudulent manipulations of labor and statistics in history.

In order to get to a point of being able to claim 467,000 job gains last month, the BLS needed to revise four years’ worth of claimed jobs and population data. By subtracting over a million prior jobs from 2021, essentially wiping out the COVID pandemic monthly impact, and by changing the workforce population over the same number of years, the BLS was able to recalculate the current number of people in the workforce and claim 467,000 jobs were recently created.

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President Donald Trump sits down for an extensive interview with Rob Schmitt from Newsmax.  The conversation covers a variety of current topics from foreign policy, Ukraine, Russia to the state of the U.S. economy, oil prices and the border crisis.

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The business and financial wires are melting down today as ADP Payrolls, the nation’s largest private sector payroll providing service, releases data from January showing a drop of 301,000 jobs.  [ADP Raw Data Here]

The financial, economic and business pundits are completely caught off guard and using the words “shocked”, “unexpected” and “surprised,” within their analysis.  These employment numbers just don’t align with an economy growing at 6.9%, as measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).  However, for CTH readers who have carefully scrutinized the economic claims and looked at the bigger picture through the prism of kitchen table checkbook economics, these results are not a surprise.

Every sector of the employment picture on Main Street USA is hit.  The pundits, following the narrative first seeded by the White House on Monday, are pointing to Omicron as the justification inside their review.  That’s nonsense.  For the better part of seven months these same pundits first claimed Delta, then shifted to Omicron as a way to explain the structurally weak economy.  All of that is nonsense.

What we are witnessing are the outcomes of massive inflation now hitting the labor market.  A drop in demand, and a subsequent drop in the employment of goods and services, is an unavoidable outcome of inflationary pressure on wages.

Let me say it again, on a macro level, natural consumer DEMAND has dropped – we are only now starting to see it surfacing in the statistical measures.

This is why White House spokesperson Jen Psaki made that weird statement on Monday.

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It’s always good to review ground reports from middle class Americans.  Much like the feedback from CTH readers, there is a raw honesty you don’t find in any of the economic outlines from financial punditry.

In this Fox News Digital report, Maryland residents react to the consequences of Joe Biden’s economic and energy prices. Maryland has been shifting further to the left socially as the DC-centric commuter base has moved into the suburbs.  However, they are not happy with prices.  WATCH:

The same sentiment is reflected in a recent Gallup poll [data here] highlighting a large majority who note the direction of the country is not good.  Joe Biden policy is crushing the working class, and we can all feel it.  Middle America knows we are going in the wrong direction.

An interesting study from Johns Hopkins University [DATA HERE] shows the 2021 government lockdown did virtually nothing to stem death from the pandemic, but likely created more adverse “social ills” and long-term negative health outcomes.

WASHINGTON – […] The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies.

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote. But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills.

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument,” the paper concluded. (read more)

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The latest BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLT) report [DATA HERE] reflects a headline of 4.3 million U.S. workers quitting in December.  However, that number is 161,000 fewer quits than November. The job openings are starting to fill up.

While there is evidence the mandatory vaccine requirements are still working through the job market, we are still about another month away before the fog clears from the private sector employment data.

This Friday we will see the unemployment data from December, but in the interim this JOLT’s report is tracking with CTH expectations.

The primary driver of the quits rate has been inflation.  Workers seeking higher wages in an effort to deal with inflation can get faster paycheck results by switching jobs rather than asking current employers for more money.

We have been watching this trend for several months.  However, the rate of job-jumping is slowing down as the available jobs to jump into are fewer, and the vaccine mandate impact is settling down.

Despite the number of job openings, blue collar workers are starting to see job vacancies decreasing.  The service industries around accommodation, food services and basic dirty fingernail positions still have many vacancies; this is the epicenter of where the job jumping takes place. Employment in durable goods manufacturing is at that phase where things are about to get sketchy for tradespeople and union workers.

The white collar jobs are static and/or slightly downsizing.  The total number of hires was 6.3 million for December, a drop of 333,000 from prior month.  The number of people hired in professional and business services dropped by 159,000.

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For those who have been following closely, the economic data releases over the past several months have been almost impossible to reconcile from a Main Street perspective.  Additionally, the scale of inflation is skewing everything that stems from dollar valuation.

CTH is certain the fourth quarter GDP statistic (+6.9%) is useless and was an outcome of several flawed metrics: (1) the import data was misrepresented and not accurately deducted (supply chain issue); (2) the value of building inventories was over calculated as an outcome of inflation; and (3) the value of all economic activity was subsequently skewed because the economic outputs (goods and services) were recorded at higher prices.

It has been our estimation that Main Street economic activity was substantially less than the data discussed by financial pundits.

Our review also sees the employment situation on Main Street as considerably less optimistic than claimed.  Bolstering that point, in a very weird and structured preview from the White House, spokesperson Jen Psaki made an odd statement today.  WATCH (14:35 prompted):

Psaki is prepositioning a narrative that employment data in January will be lower than expectations, perhaps considerably lower, as a result of “workers calling out sick” from COVID, ie. the omicron variant, during the time when employment polling was conducted.  That is a very unusual proactive narrative.

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The installed regime of Joe Biden is a joke to the world, and the only people continuing their efforts to prop up the Potemkin village are the irrelevant U.S. media.

Despite their earnest efforts, even the George Stephanopolouses of the world cannot avoid the responses from Americans.  The latest ABC/IPSOS poll [Raw Data Here], which is again a highly skewed effort, shows just how out of touch the policies of the regime are to the domestic audience.

When asked about Biden’s handling of immigration, 64% disapprove and 34% approve.  The open border policy doesn’t have support, even amid the constituencies the regime claims to control.

When asked about Biden’s handling of the economy, 56% disapprove, 40% approve.  Massive inflation created by chasing the unicorn of climate change is hitting everyone hard.  Gas prices, home heating costs, energy costs overall and skyrocketing food inflation prices are a reality that no amount of spin from the stenographers can hide.

When asked about inflation specifically, 69% disapprove and only 29% approve.  Policies have consequences.  As noted by ABC, “Troublingly for the White House, only 1% of Americans view the state of the nation’s economy as “excellent,” and only 23% say it’s “good.” Three out of four Americans said the state of the economy was “not so good / poor.”

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The installed White House occupant was transported by airplane to Pennsylvania today so he could yell at the snow for being cold.

According to national media reports, he successfully completed his mission, was given a pudding cup and subsequently returned to the basement.  WATCH:

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Angry man wasn’t yelling the entire time, there was a moment when he did that creepy whisper voice thing again.

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