JoeBama’s National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, the twenty-something central planner in charge of all White House economic policy, tells a curiously skeptical Jake Tapper that things are working swimmingly, exactly according to plan.

According to the Biden-Deese theory on sustainable economic policy, massive spending creates massive inflation; which creates an increased demand for government subsidy to afford basic products; which creates a growing dependency on the government; which creates a need for massive spending.  Wash-Rinse-Repeat.

This is exactly the expanding economic dependency model sold by socialists around the world for generations, which Barack Obama and his Biden administration promise they have now perfected in order to remove the pesky inequities always associated with unbridled capitalism.  Smile everyone, government cheese aplenty….

https://youtu.be/xxtO0xIhw74

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In a rather ironic note, the parseltongue White House explanation is so disconnected from common sense, that furrowed brow’s brain is having an out of body issue, seemingly he is watching himself participate.   The producers shift the camera angles quickly to compensate.

It would appear that somewhere in the recesses of Tapper’s frontal cortex, there remains a glowing ember of the common sense particle.  Unfortunately for the CNN host, the synapse for the common sense particle is pinched between the ‘Smarter than thou tumor‘ and the expanding grey brain matter of moral relativity needed to sit silently and listen to bulls**t.

Within this cognitive conflict, you can visibly see Tapper’s guilt hypothalamus trying to make him uncomfortable… he sighs heavily as the infrequently exercised guilt glands attempt to trigger him to react.  Alas, the party groupthink microchip in his ear warns him to stay quiet.

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Yesterday, data on the wholesale “Producer Prices” was released showing an 8.6 percent increase in prices for final demand products {DATA HERE}.  That is the increase in cost within the system of bringing products to market.

Today, the “Consumer Price” data was released showing a massive 6.2 percent increase in prices {DATA HERE} for goods that are currently available for sale.  The overall rate of inflation is now 6.2% year-over-year.

When you overlay inflation atop wage growth, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) report now shows a decrease in “real wages” of 1.6 percent {DATA HERE}, which is the increase in weekly pay minus the additional costs to buy stuff.   The working class is losing ground rapidly.   Things are ugly and they are fixin’ to get uglier.

Before getting to the part where we can explain exactly how much more we can predict to pay for current products in 90 days (yes, that approximation is possible), first lets look at the actual data on the current inflation rate for products we are buying today.  [Table 2] is the easiest reference for category specific review.

Overall, the prices for groceries (food at home) went up 1.1% in October and 5.4% for the year.   However, several products in the supermarket have jumped massively. Beef jumped 1.9% for the month and is 20.1% higher overall.  Bacon went up 2.1% for the month and is now 20.2% higher for the year.  All processed foods increased at a rate about four times higher than fresh unprocessed foods.

Fuel oil went up 12.3% in October and is now 59.1% higher for the year.  Unleaded regular gasoline went up 3.9% in October and is now 51.3% higher for the year. Piped natural gas went up 6.3% for the month and is now 28.1% higher for the year.  Used vehicles are now 26% higher than last year, and new cars went up roughly 10%.  You can scroll down Table-2 to see each category (second and third columns show year and monthly increases).  It’s unnerving to see the scale of inflation while knowing it will get worse.

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This might be somewhat preaching to the choir, but it’s the only way I know to help Treepers prepare their families according to very visible economic signals happening just over the horizon. Back in August, when we discussed the massive inflation that was climbing straight up, I warned everyone to look behind the finished good prices, into the prices of origination and intermediate goods. {Go Deep}

The “producer price index” is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages: Origination (commodity), Intermediate and Final. The final product inflation rate in July (reported in August) was alarming at 7.8%. However, we warned of much higher flowing into the supply chain.

Today, The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released stunning price data for October [DATA Here], showing a dramatic 8.6% price increase in Final Demand products at the wholesale level.  As expected prices are still going up, and there’s no end in sight, because the raw material inflation is still higher than current.

[BLS] “The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.6 percent in October, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved up 0.5 percent in September and 0.7 percent in August. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index rose 8.6 percent for the 12 months ended in October.”  (more)

I modified Table A (final demand product pricing) taking out some of the noise to make it a little easier to see the big picture of what is happening.

When you see the wholesale level of prices almost double the increase in consumer level inflation rate, you can predict that consumer prices will likely go even higher.  Future finished goods at a retail level will carry the current wholesale price increase.

Stuff costs a lot now… and because the inbound stuff to make the finished goods is still climbing in price…. stuff is about to cost even more.   You can see this in the inflation rate of intermediate goods which I have highlighted below.

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A comprehensively incompetent U.S. Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, has the audacity to say that Biden’s administration has no responsibility for gas prices likely to reach $4/gal, and Americans this year are almost certain to pay historic amounts for home heating oil and natural gas.

Everything in this soundbite from her interview with CNN is stunningly false, manipulative and misleading.   The U.S. has an abundant amount of energy resources, likely more oil than all other OPEC countries combined in Alaska alone.   The issue is a current administration that refuses to extract oil and natural gas because they are purposefully and intentionally intent on destroying the U.S. economy under the guise of climate change.

Granholm admits that gasoline is likely to go beyond $4/gal in the national average, and home heating costs are almost certain to crush Americans this year.  Infuriating to see such willful stupidity go unchallenged.  WATCH:

So 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.

• Permit the use of preexisting approved leases in ANWAR (Alaska) to put more volume into the Alaskan oil pipeline that is severely underutilized.
• Finish the Dakota access pipeline.
• Reapprove the preexisting energy leases in New Mexico, Arizona, NE Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
• Retract the stoppage of the Keystone pipeline to permit efficient oil transport shipments from Canada.
• Stop blocking the expansion of coastal oil refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama (regulatory issue), as well as Northwest, Northeast and Southeast Seaboard.
• Continue to develop natural gas as a clean burning fuel.
• Drive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as an export.

None of this requires any approval from OPEC.  Strategically, the all of the above approach enhances U.S. national security and diminishes the influence of Russia, China and Iran.  Within six months of the above, gasoline will plummet.

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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked what the Biden administration plan was to increase U.S. oil production.  Her response is exactly what you might believe it would be from a thoroughly incompetent ideological administration.  WATCH:

So 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.

• Permit the use of preexisting approved leases in ANWAR (Alaska) to put more volume into the Alaskan oil pipeline that is severely underutilized.
• Finish the Dakota access pipeline.
• Reapprove the preexisting energy leases in New Mexico, Arizona, NE Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
• Retract the stoppage of the Keystone pipeline to permit efficient oil transport shipments from Canada.
• Stop blocking the expansion of coastal oil refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama (regulatory issue), as well as Northwest, Northeast and Southeast Seaboard.
• Continue to develop natural gas as a clean burning fuel.
• Drive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as an export.

None of this requires any approval from OPEC.  Strategically, the all of the above approach enhances U.S. national security and diminishes the influence of Russia, China and Iran.  Within six months of the above, gasoline will plummet

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As we have continued to point out, a federal vaccine mandate might sound like a good idea on a think tank, academic or white-paper policy level of consideration; but on a practical level, wiping out a large percentage of your most productive workforce over a vaccine mandate is unworkable, and might even end the operation of the entire business.

That is the message today within an article written by Politico about several large federal contractor companies warning the White House they may need to drop their federal contracts because they simply will not be able to continue business operations if they lose their unvaccinated workforce on December 8th.

Thus the power of the blue-collar workforce is being recognized:

WASHINGTON DC – Objections among certain vendors over President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors are reaching an inflection point. As the deadline for workforce vaccination approaches, some trucking companies are mulling whether to end their work with the federal government altogether, according to two industry insiders.

In an interview, the American Trucking Associations’ executive vice president for advocacy Bill Sullivan told POLITICO that some companies may simply decide that the cost of the mandate is not worth the government’s checks. Sullivan said he has raised concerns to the White House, Office of Management and Budget and other executive branch officials. He noted that if companies drop their contracts, it may be harder to get certain foods to troops, transport fuel for military vehicles, or even deploy the National Guard.

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In a rare act of journalism, NBC actually followed up on the October 13th grand proclamation of Joe Biden to speed up California ports.  What they found is exactly what everyone suspected, the grand prose from the White House was a political pantomime – absolutely nothing has changed.  WATCH:

As noted, and as previously outlined, the issues with the backlog of the California ports have absolutely nothing to do with rapid unloading of ships and container vessels.  The issue is the inability of California truckers to move those containers.  The problem is a shortage of CA emission compliant internal transportation trucks to move the containers out of the port and into the U.S. mainland.

As a result… the politically expedient goal to get rid of the optical problem (the ships) by offloading containers into a California port system, that is already overwhelmed with tens-of-thousands of containers, is only making the original issue exponentially worse.  More people are now starting to understand the internal issue that has been created by recent California laws, rules and regulations.

Daniel Greenfield at Front Page Magazine has a solid outline of the emission compliance issues and the problem of independent truckers not being able to work in California:

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Earlier today White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki falsely claimed a United States President can do nothing about gasoline prices.  This is an oft familiar claim by the political left, it is also one of the more transparently false assertions in their arsenal of deceit.  First, WATCH:

So 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.

• Permit the use of preexisting approved leases in ANWAR (Alaska) to put more volume into the Alaskan oil pipeline that is severely underutilized.
• Finish the Dakota access pipeline.
• Re-approve the preexisting energy leases in New Mexico, Arizona, NE Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
• Retract the stoppage of the Keystone pipeline to permit efficient oil transport shipments from Canada.
• Stop blocking the expansion of coastal oil refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama (regulatory issue), as well as Northwest, Northeast and Southeast Seaboard.
• Continue to develop natural gas as a clean burning fuel.
• Drive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as an export.

None of this requires any approval from OPEC.  Strategically the all of the above approach enhances U.S. national security and diminishes the influence of Russia, China and Iran.  Within six months of the above, gasoline will plummet.

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Hundreds of requests for details on the specifics of the container shipping backlog.  So, I spent 3 days calling sources, digging for details and gathering information on the substantive issue at hand.  The epicenter of the problem is not what is being outlined by financial media, corporate media and politicians who have a specific interest in distracting from the issues at hand.  This has nothing to do with COVID-19.

The issues being discussed today relate to events that happened a long time ago.  As a matter of fact, it was so predictable that Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx, Samsung, The Home Depot and Target all had taken actions years ago -long before COVID- because they knew this day would come.  It was not accidental that those companies showed up at the White House to discuss the issue, because there’s now a full court press to hide it.

There is one very specific regional issue driving the problem.  Read on:

The trucking issue with California LA ports, ie the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), is that all semi tractors have to be current with new California emissions standards.  As a consequence, that mean trucks cannot be older than 3 years if they are to pick up or deliver containers at those ports.  This issue wipes out approximately half of the fleet trucks used to move containers in/out of the port.  Operating the port 24/7 will not cure the issue, because all it does is pile up more containers that sit idle as they await a limited number of trucks to pick them up.  THIS is the central issue.

On October 16, 2020, the EPA reached a settlement agreement [DATA HERE] with California Air Resource Board (CARB) to shut down semi tractor rigs that were non-compliant with new California emission standards:

2020 SAN FRANCISCO – “Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced settlements with three interstate trucking companies imposing $417,000 in penalties for violating the California Air Resources Board’s federally enforceable Truck and Bus Regulation, Drayage Truck Regulation and Transport Refrigeration Unit Regulation.

“As trucks are one of the largest sources of air pollution in California, EPA will continue to ensure these heavy-duty vehicles have the needed pollution-control equipment and operate in compliance with the rules,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator John Busterud. “These companies have agreed to bring their trucks into compliance and operate more cleanly in all communities they serve.”

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There’s hypocrisy, there’s double speak, there’s stupid decisions based on politics…. and then there’s this level of Biden hypocrisy and stupidity that cannot be adequately encapsulated.   President Trump’s energy production policy made the U.S.A. energy independent.  We were actually exporting oil and gas to other nations.

However, in the previous six months Joe Biden has:  (1) Shut down oil and energy development in ANWAR {LINK} which would increase use of the Alaska pipeline. (2) Blocked the Keystone Pipeline from completion {LINK} (3) Banned energy development on federal lands {LINK}. (4) Shut down the sale of energy leases in the Gulf of Mexico {LINK}. and (5) Blocked energy development in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Alabama {LINK}  … As a direct and immediate consequence, gas and fuel prices have skyrocketed.  The price of Unleaded Regular Gasoline is now up over 60% from 2020.  Now THIS:

The price of gasoline is directly attributable to Joe Biden policy in his war against oil.  However, now that Americans are being crushed with massive prices for gasoline; and Biden is getting massive heat for his ridiculous position; this insufferable administration has the absolute nerve to ask Russia and mid-east oil producers, OPEC, to increase their production. {LINK}  You cannot make this up…

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