This is so far beyond hubris, the gaslight from where hubris emanates would take a year to reach it.
Joe Biden spikes the football on the Twitter claiming to have lessened inflation he created. [LINK]
I try not to hold negative sentiments, but I cannot help but loathe this man.
At the conclusion of his speech and remarks at a campaign rally event in Davenport, Iowa, President Trump did something very few candidates would ever do, he held an impromptu “ask me anything.”
A microphone was given to the audience and President Trump took unscripted questions, delivering answers directly from him, “off the cuff.” Most political consultants would recoil from their managed candidate exposing themselves to any random audience question. However, for President Trump the opportunity reflects just another example of an outsider speaking directly to the people he asks to represent. The video of the Q&A is below and represents the authentic nature of “The People’s President.” WATCH:
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You cannot ‘create’ authenticity. Either a candidate has it, or they do not.
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:
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.
Last week, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem broadcast a warning on the Tucker Carlson show about a bill that passed her State House and Senate that she was forced to veto because it changed the definition of money and banned non-govt-issued cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. {Broadcast Warning Here}
The bill stems from the generally innocuous Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which Daniel Horowitz describes as, “a set of standards to facilitate interstate sales and commercial transactions such that all definitions pertaining to such commerce are uniform and clearly understood.” It looks like Horowitz was the first to transmit the public warning, as identified by two members of the South Dakota House Freedom Caucus, and then Kristi Noem became aware – thus the veto.
Governor Noem warned that the bill was already passing through several states, and if you look at the UCC Amendment tracking page [DATA HERE], she is correct. The states in green on the map below are states where the UCC revision bill has already been introduced.
As Daniel Horowitz notes in his initial warning dated March 2, 2023:
“The revisions to Article I are very clear now that Bitcoin will not be money, because even though the definition provides for electronic money … it says that an asset that is adopted by a government as its medium of exchange will not qualify as money … if the electronic asset, such as Bitcoin, existed before it was adopted by the government. So Bitcoin, of course, exists today; it existed before El Salvador adopted it as its currency … so it will never be money for UCC purposes. The same for other kinds of crypto currencies.” So there you have it. Officials clearly mean to pave the way for CBDC while explicitly barring all competition. (more)
BREAKING NEWS – The U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC and Joe Biden collectively announce that *all* depositors with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) will have access to their funds – regardless of amount deposited. Also, all senior bank management has been terminated.
This announced action appears to cover those under FDIC protection ($250k or less) and those above FDIC protection (deposits greater than $250k). The only vulnerability is that SVB “shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected.”
WASHINGTON DC – The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:
Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.
After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.
South Dakota Governor Krisi Noem appeared on Tucker Carlson’s television broadcast last night to send a warning to fellow governors. According to the background story, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill redefining currency and creating rules for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that would block all other digital currencies from being used in the state. Governor Noem vetoed the bill.
When asked why her legislature would do this, Noem responded the state politicians likely did not read the bill as it was constructed by lobbyists. Noem is exactly correct and hits on a subject we have discussed here frequently {GO DEEP}. However, one of the more alarming aspects to Noem’s discussion of the issue is that around 20 other states are considering similar legislation. WATCH:
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This is huge in the geopolitical world. China operated as a broker in the structurally unstable relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
It will be intensely interesting to see how Israel positions itself w/ this new dynamic.
BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia and Iran announced an agreement in China on Friday to resume relations more than seven years after severing ties, a major breakthrough in a bitter rivalry that has long divided the Middle East.
The agreement was a result of talks in Beijing that began Monday as part of an initiative by Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at “developing good neighborly relations” between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the three countries said in a joint statement. The agreement, which was signed by top Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani and Saudi national security adviser Musaed bin Mohammed al-Aiban, said embassies would be reopened within two months.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivers testimony today before the Senate Banking and Finance Committee. During his statements Powell says, “The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated.” Powell continued, “If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes.“… “We will continue to make our decisions meeting by meeting.” … “Although inflation has been moderating in recent months, the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy.”
Everything about the testimony to the Senate, and almost everything within the questioning as presented, ignores the key and central component that inflation is being driven by energy policy. The scale of the pretending around this issue is jaw dropping.
Western governments, including the U.S. through Joe Biden, have limited and curtailed the production and exploitation of Oil, Coal and Natural Gas. At the core of the inflation within those same governments, this is the issue at hand. Energy prices have skyrocketed, driving the cost of everything through the roof. The central banks are raising interest rates in an attempt to shrink the economy to match the drop in energy production. This is their monetary policy (interest rates) attempting to support economic policy (Green New Deal / Build Back Better).
There are no lines for consumers in the U.S and Europe of people buying durable goods, electronics or shopping for non-essential items. Prices on the products within the durable goods economy are not being driven by excess consumer demand. There are not 25% more people buying lemons and milk than this time last year. The prices for goods in general, and for essential goods specifically, have risen as an outcome of the input costs around energy skyrocketing.
Coming out of the pandemic related disruption, the larger story of U.S. manufacturing has been an odd blend of good data and bad data depending on the sector. While some manufacturing was growing as a result of clearing supply chains, other sectors of manufacturing remained soft.
In total, the full supply chain rebound should have completed around the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter of 2022.
However, simultaneous with the correction within the supply chain(s), consumer purchase activity began contracting.
The consumer pullback led to very weak holiday sales last year, and a combination of increased inventories of finished goods.
Keep in mind that Maersk overseas shipping noted significant drops in orders for the movement of material in the third quarter of last year. Considering the lag, the previously noted inventory buildup in combination with the drops in unit sales of durable goods, would generally mean lower manufacturing purchase order activity Q4 (’22) and Q1 (’23). This reality is reflected in the actual data as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
(Via WSJ) – […] New orders for manufactured goods contracted for the sixth straight month through February, according to surveys by the Institute for Supply Management. Manufacturing output is down 1.7% from its postpandemic peak in May 2022, according to a three-month moving average of Federal Reserve data. And the Commerce Department’s measure of civilian capital equipment orders, excluding aircraft—the building blocks of business—was down 3.4% in January from its recent high in November 2021, after adjusting for inflation.
He’s not called China Joe for nothing. This is quite a considerable amount of U.S. tech products delivered to blacklisted Chinese companies. It would be interesting to trace the multinational kickbacks to the Biden administration.
March 3 (Reuters) – The Biden administration approved 192 licenses worth over $23 billion to ship U.S. goods and technology to Chinese companies on a U.S. trade blacklist in the first quarter of last year, according to a document released by a U.S. congressional committee on Friday.
The 192 licenses granted were out of 242 license applications decided between January and March 2022, a chart showed, and 115 of those approved contained controlled technology. Nineteen, or 8 percent of the total number of applications, were denied, and 31 were returned without action.
Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, released the license numbers on Friday after revealing at a hearing on Tuesday that more than $23 billion worth of licenses were approved for suppliers to companies on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s “entity list” in the first quarter of 2022.
In a statement on Friday, McCaul called the approvals unacceptable. “This critical U.S. technology is going to the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance and military efforts,” he said. (read more)
Beijing knows they can purchase U.S. political outcomes. At this point the pretending is embarrassing.