I’m not confident that Joe Manchin will ultimately hold the line on more spending; however, it is interesting that on the same day Manchin is reported to be casting doubt on more Joe Biden social spending {LINK}, the Washington Post published a hitjob on him around his family finances {LINK}.

Accepting there are no coincidences in politics, it would appear the intelligence agencies are firing a warning shot against Senator Manchin based on his financial connections to the West Virginia coal industry.

(New York Times) – WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the most prominent Democratic holdout on President Biden’s $2.2 trillion social safety net, climate and tax bill, cast fresh doubt on Monday on his party’s plans to speed the measure through the Senate before Christmas, saying he still had grave concerns about how it would affect the economy.

Mr. Manchin outlined his skepticism before speaking by telephone about the bill with Mr. Biden, a discussion that aides to both later characterized as positive. After the call, Mr. Manchin, who represents West Virginia, did not rule out the possibility of supporting the measure this month. He said that “anything is possible here” when asked about a vote before Christmas, and that he was still “engaged” in conversations with the White House.

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Well, there’s another “economist” who can be set into the folder of ‘no longer useful’.  During his appearance today on CBS Face The Nation, Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser for Allianz, finishes his segment by revealing his underlying precept: Climate Change policy is now the economic policy driver of all his investment advice.

Within the interview, El-Erian said the “characterization of inflation as transitory is probably the worst inflation call in the history of the Federal Reserve.”  Additionally, El-Erian said inflation is likely to remain high into the next year and perhaps beyond.  Unfortunately, other than those two points of generally well educated accuracy, everything else is wrapped up in the political correctness of climate change…. which, you don’t really discover until the very end of the interview. WATCH:

The baseline for El-Erian saying the Build Back Better spending fiasco is a good thing, is based on accepting the pretense that massive amounts of federal spending will be needed to structurally change the U.S. economy from fossil fuel use to the Green New Deal.   If you do not believe in this transformation, there is no merit to any component of the BBB spending proposal. It really is that simple.

As a consequence, El-Erian is staking the position that climate change agenda politics is now the focal point from which all other economic policy will be determined.  He has conceded in his mind and worldview, perhaps based on his associations and peer discussions, that any forward economic analysis must therefore establish itself from the alternative fuel position.

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President Trump economic policy -vs- Joe Biden economic policy

When wages (blue line) are above inflation (red line) our income is growing, life is good and the working class has more disposable income to enjoy life.  However, when wages (blue line) are lower than inflation (red line) our income is shrinking, life is a struggle and the working class has less disposable income to enjoy life.

♦ Point One – Nothing happens accidentally. The road to a “service-driven economy” is paved with a great disparity between financial classes. The wealth gap is directly related to the inability of the middle class to thrive.

♦ Point Two – There is nothing of value behind the obtuse term “service-driven economy.” The multinationals are paying for this administration, just like they paid the Obama administration; paying for economic policy that advances their interests.  Congress goes along with the K-Street demands, because Wall Street is now the primary benefactor of legislative intent. Nothing about their effort is done with American interests in mind.

To go deep, keep reading.

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U.S. nonfarm productivity is a measure of economic activity within the engine of the U.S. economy.  The U.S. productivity rate is a measure of how much value is produced by the economy through demand for the products and services, and the labor associated with the creation of those products and services.

I have often used the example of making bread {Go Deep}.  If you are making 10 loaves of bread, there is a set amount of cost associated with each loaf created.  The total cost of each loaf is the total cost to produce the entire batch divided by ten. However, if you have customers demanding 15 loaves of bread, you make more profit on the last five because it doesn’t cost 50% more in material or labor to make 50% more loaves.

Your productivity in the last five loaves is higher because the fixed costs of production (raw materials, energy) barely change, and the labor is only slightly higher.  The opposite is also true.  It costs more per loaf to make fewer than ten loaves because the fixed costs and your labor are pretty consistent, yet the finished value of 7 loaves is less than the finished value of ten.

Anecdotally, it has looked for quite some time that around May of this year the economy peaked, plateaued for a few weeks, and then began a slow downward progression.  Today the Bureau of Labor statistics puts some revised data to that third quarter (July, August and Sept) economic activity {data here}.  The quantified results align with what we sensed was taking place.

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This is nuts.  The White House occupant doesn’t have any idea what they are loading into his teleprompter at this point, he just shouts it at the audience as if it’s supposed to make some kind of bizarre sense.   This doofus is totally off his rocker.  What does this even mean?  WATCH (20 seconds):

I’ll look for a more expanded explanation as to what this idiot is supposedly saying.  Good grief, what a knucklehead.

This stuff is just nuts.  This guy is truly a meme of himself….

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According to media reports of the meetings, the people responsible for the Biden administration are instructing U.S. media outlets to report on the economy as if things are going well.

Unfortunately, massive Biden spending programs, in combination with fiscal policy, monetary policy, energy policy and mandatory vaccination policy, have created a perfect storm of inflation. That storm is growing in scale and scope and is likely to get much worse before it stalls.

The White House demands that media must ignore stunning price increases at the supermarket, jaw dropping home heating costs this winter, prices at the gas pumps that are 50 percent higher than last year, backlogs in the supply chain due to environmental regulation at West Coast ports, and a shortage of critical blue collar workers inside the U.S. Main Street economy due to the vaccine mandate. “Other than that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?”

In short, the White House wants the U.S. media to apply more cowbell to their propaganda.

Even CNN is having a tough time accepting the instructions:

The White House, not happy with the news media’s coverage of the supply chain and economy, has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor. Senior White House and admin officials — including NEC Deputy Directors David Kamin and Bharat Ramamurti, along with Ports Envoy John Porcari — have been briefing major newsrooms over the past week, a source tells me.

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Many Americans have no idea that Russia is an OPEC member.  Even fewer recognize that Russia’s primary economic export is energy via oil and gas.  Oil and gas exports drive the Russian economy.  Any U.S. policy that drives up the value of oil and gas directly enhances the economy and influence of Russia.

Thanks to Joe Biden’s specific energy policy shutting down U.S. energy exploration, Russia’s economy is booming and has made billions more in the sales of high priced oil and natural gas into Europe and the global marketplace.  That increased oil and gas revenue is directly responsible for Russia’s ability to expand militarily in the region.

So when it comes to threats, like Russia annexing even more of Ukraine as a strategic objective…. Joe Biden is strengthening Russia on one hand and threatening the strength of Russia with the other.  Russian President Vladimir Putin sees this with clear eyes.

Meanwhile the NATO partners who *claim* to be worried about Russia (they’re really not) are the same nations that are buying the oil and gas from Russia.   This was the ridiculous economic dynamic President Trump confronted when he challenged NATO on their energy and national security policies.   Tucker Carlson discusses this:

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The financial punditry class are befuddled, confused and perplexed. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics released the November jobs report [data here] showing a six figure miss from expectations.  Economists were expecting around 535,000 additional jobs; however, the U.S. added only 210,000 jobs according to the new data.

The situation itself is not that difficult to understand when you look at Main Street.  However, so many of the professional punditry class are confused because they only focus on the Wall Street economy, their only prism of reference for the last several decades.

Americans are preparing, cutting back and hunkering down from the Hurricane that is Joe Biden’s inflation.

Inside the jobs numbers, you will note the areas where consumer spending contraction first hits: retail, luxury, leisure and hospitality, is the area where November employment was flat or jobs were lost.   DUH!

The ‘retail sector‘ lost 20,000 jobs in November.  Think about that.  What usually happens in November?  People are hired to handle holiday seasonal shopping…. but they weren’t… why not?  The professional economic punditry cannot figure it out, so they avoid those questions entirely.  Those questions hold the key to unlocking the understanding.  Does the “pretending not to know things” ring familiar?

The damn jobs report is simply reflecting how Main Street USA workers, consumers, spenders and survivors live when gasoline, energy and food costs necessarily skyrocket.  The November employment results are a reflection of the blue collar prepper mindset.  This is not hard to figure out.   As long as inflation continues to hit items that cannot be avoided, at a level that is two to five times the rate of wage growth, decisions are made that are based on checkbook economics.

The cognitive dissonance is quite remarkable look:

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If you were still on the fence about Omicron being created/used specifically because the people behind Biden were worried about gas prices {Go Deep}, you can quit the straddle.

Energy inflation overall, and gasoline inflation specifically, is the Build Back Better communists’ Achilles heel.  The Biden administration is ideologically committed to climate change policy and as a result they have no supply-side tools to stop gasoline prices from necessarily skyrocketing.  They desperately need the fear of Omicron to shut down the demand side.

Ten days ago the communists said they were releasing 55 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve {Go Deep}, approximately a three day supply of oil given the current level of demand.  Today the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) laughably claim victory over a two cent drop in gasoline price.  Worse still is the gaslighting graph they use to show a downward trajectory on price:

The Y-axis is in increments of half a cent.  The X-axis is showing six days of impact.

Yes, gasoline fell from $3.39/gal to $3.38/gal in the six days after the strategic petroleum reserve release.  We are spared a single penny per gallon in gas price.

Even the leftist media recognize this type of propaganda only makes Democrats look more stupid. A longer review of the Joe Biden price for Gasoline puts that six day Democrat graph into perspective:

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There has been a lot of chatter behind a Washington Post report about the White House planning to introduce new COVID travel and quarantine restrictions tomorrow (Thursday).  However, tuning out the noise – remember which agency of the Fourth Branch uses the Washington Post and things make sense.

The problem for the White House is the public reaction to the new COVID variant Omicron did not meet their expectations.

The White House needs more concern, more fear, more panic to enhance their larger objective {Go Deep}.  The Biden team really need Omicron fear to permeate the American psyche, in order to achieve the Build Back Better agenda.  They desperately need it.

If people just shake it off and go about living their lives, the White House will be facing an electorate angry about inflation; that’s a problem.

The Washington Post report is framed around new international travel restrictions, increased COVID testing, and quarantine mandates as an outcome of the Omicron variant arrival.  However, given the nature of the 48 hour advanced notice provided to The WaPo, it’s likely the announcement tomorrow will contain the change that all vaccine advocates have been demanding, mandatory vaccination prior to any domestic airline travel.  Forcing domestic airline travelers to prove their vaccinated status has been a goal of the vaccine media for several months.

The worker vaccine mandate was unconstitutional federal overreach; the Biden administration knew that in advance and did it anyway because the vaccine isn’t really the end goal, it’s just a tool.  An airline traveler vaccine mandate would be similar federal overreach, and also likely to lose in court; however, that is not going to stop them from announcing one for the same reason they announced the worker vaccine mandate.

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