After making frequent statements that “democracy is under attack”, and recently proclaiming the choices are between “democracy and autocracy” while attempting to force medical treatments on unwilling subjects, today Joe Biden asked social media companies to crack down on any speech that does not comply with the officially approved government narrative. {Direct Rumble Link}

BIDEN: “If you’ve haven’t gotten vaccinated, do it. Personal choice impacts us all — our hospitals, our country. I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets: Please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows.  It has to stop.   COVID-19 is one of the most formidable enemies America has ever faced.  We’ve got to work together, not against each other.” (link)

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Unfortunately, the upward trend is continuing unabated.  The “producer price index” is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages: Origination (commodity), Intermediate (processing), and then Final (to wholesale).  Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released December price data [Available Here] showing a dramatic 9.7% increase year-over-year in Final Demand products at the wholesale level.

I’m not going to beat this dead horse {Go Deep Here}, except to point out a few even larger warning signs that are evident.    Suffice to say, despite the spin likely from defenders of the White House occupant, the inflation impact is continuing exactly as we would expect.

The monthly price increase was 0.2% which would under normal circumstances give the impression that price pressure for the month was lower than previous.  However, there’s a key component clouding the problem.

As noted by the BLS, “A major factor in the December decrease in prices for final demand goods was the index for gasoline, which moved down 6.1 percent.” Gas prices momentarily dropped in the December capture of pricing; this has skewed the data considerably.  As a consequence, the energy costs measured in December looked like they dropped 3.3 percent.

You are well aware that gasoline has jumped back up in price in the past few weeks.  Additionally, total energy costs to you have not dropped at all.  In the background of this momentary skew, the costs of final demand goods after the energy impact rose .04% in December.

The momentary drop in gasoline and diesel fuel in December gives an artificial outcome in the data for all three stages.   Oil prices are back on the climb, and the prices of the goods and services overall to consumers have not reflected any decrease; factually they have increased even more.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the December inflation data today [DATA HERE] for December.  Readers on these pages are not surprised to discover that inflation in the U.S. economy has now reached a forty year high at 7 percent.  {Go Deep}

Unfortunately, the 7% in June of 1982 was when inflation was on the way down from Jimmy Carter’s failed economic policy.  This time our 7% milestone has been achieved while inflation is on the climb thanks to Joe Biden’s failed economic policies.

Carter’s mess was created by regulation, policies and oil prices.  Biden’s mess is created by the same and much more.

Yes, it will be getting worse.

That weird picture with the Bidens and the Carters comes to mind.  The scale within the picture is appropriate when considering inflation and what is to come.  Biden’s inflation is much larger than Carter’s.

As you know, the top line number of 7% is a false premise.  We are feeling much, much higher overall prices in our lives with gasoline, home heating fuel, electricity costs, housing and the astronomical prices at the grocery store.  The BLS data is backward looking, meaning it was compiled in early December 2021 for comparison to December 2020.  Where we are CURRENTLY is much worse than where we were in early December.

We are feeling the front side of the inflation hurricane right now. The consumer prices at end of January and through February are now reflecting new purchase order prices and contract prices to wholesalers, buyers and retailers.  The higher energy costs, fuel costs, warehousing costs, transportation costs and delivery costs are cumulative. As a result, the December report is simply the precursor to what will be much more damaging inflation data in Feb (showing this month) and March (showing Feb).

Additionally, the BLS data captured gas prices at their slight drop from oil prices in late November and early December.  The price of oil has now gone even higher, and the price of gasoline is once again on the rise.  We have not yet seen the worst of this folks.  Hopefully most are prepared.

I modified BLS Table-1, taking out some of the noise, to give the snapshot of how the bureau is compiling data:

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and Port of Long Beach (POLB) to announce the Biden administration officially saved Christmas.  Yes, that actually happened.   Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took it one step further and proclaimed Secretary Buttigieg as the official “man who saved Christmas”.   WATCH:

The Biden administration is making these ridiculous claims, because they know that no one in the media will actually look into the data and challenge them on the insufferable nonsense.  [SEE DATA HERE]

However, beyond the ridiculous claims about increasing port container delivery, when there was actually a decline in port container delivery, the POLA and POLB scheme to hide the ships {Go Deep} has now spread to the Port of Oakland, California.

“Operation Hide the Ships”

OAKLAND – […] Following its success in Southern California, the new system is being expanded to the Bay Area. Ships will wait 50 miles off the coast in a safety and air quality zone until their scheduled arrival time at the Port.

The new system became effective Monday. Ships will get an arrival time based on when they left their last port of call. Before Monday, ships were given an arrival time when they were fewer than 80 nautical miles from the coast.

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The snowball effect of cumulative inflation is going to be on display tomorrow when the BLS inflation data from December is released.  We have previously discussed the unavoidable price increases as noted within the November data Here, and within the producer price data Here.

While the data being released tomorrow is backward looking, we are in the eye of the inflation storm right now.  The consumer prices at end of January and through February are all reflecting new purchase order prices and contract prices to wholesalers, buyers and retailers.   As a result, the December reports will be the precursor to what will be much more damaging data in Feb and March.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki began trying to get ahead of the consumer price release with a short briefing to the traveling press pool earlier today.  A short audio-only soundbite reflects the political problem the White House knows they will soon be dealing with. LISTEN:

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It is difficult to imagine how the Biden administration can possibly spin the economic reality of increasing, unavoidable inflation making the economy weaker over the next year.  However, somehow, they will try.

The AP is reporting that 68% of Americans now say the economy overall is their number one concern.  Meanwhile, the federal reserve of New York is reporting the inflation results from December are likely to be the same, if not higher, than the inflation results in November.

The Biden administration has continued to push additional federal spending under the auspices of Build Back Better as the bridge to offset the impact from their Green New Deal energy policies.  In fact, if you look at how the massive spending effort has been shaped, it becomes clear the overall goal is to push a new energy policy and then hide the impact by using COVID as the cover for the subsidies to try and offset the impacts.

It is a sneaky program when reviewed in totality.  Shut down oil and natural gas production, cancel leases, block pipelines and use the regulatory arm to shut down any additional growth in the oil and gas industry, including refinery capacity.  Then, try to hide the consequences by subsidizing the core constituencies who would normally be immediately impacted.

Unfortunately for the Biden architects, no amount of legislative spending is going to be able to offset the massive economic impact of implementing the Green New Deal by executive order, regulatory changes and administrative policy.  The American people are not blind to consequences, and when they start to look deeper into the causes of this inflation, what they discover is easy to see.

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The people behind Joe Biden rushed him to the microphones today to proclaim the success of his economic policy.   Biden read from their prepared script for almost fifteen minutes [VIDEO HERE], then told the assembled press pool that “COVID was here to stay”, but not really “here to stay”, but his policies, rules and regulations that are driven by COVID are “here to stay.”

Did anyone else catch that?

Whiskey – Tango – Foxtrot… he said the quiet part out loud.

In essence, what Biden was saying was that even when the virus is no longer being a daily driver of government policy, the policies themselves will never go away.  Just like the Patriot Act, under the guise of anti-terrorism created the permanent security state, so too is COVID-19 creating the permanent government control state under the guise of public health.

As if that isn’t alarming enough, what the White House occupant outlined regarding the economy just has to be watched or read [Transcript Here] to be believed.  The most eye-opening part of his comments is that he really believes this stuff they tell him to say. So, obviously the people typing the words into the teleprompter either: (a) believe it themselves; or (b) more likely, know what they are doing is going to end up with the total collapse of the U.S. economic system, and that’s okay because the guy reading it is disposable for their plan.  I believe the latter is accurate.

Take a look at one metaphor Biden read from his teleprompter to see exactly how insane these policies are when said out loud.  Keep in mind, this is a direct quote from the transcript as he read it (emphasis mine):

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Today is one of those days where you just want to tune out the insufferable nonsense because, well, good grief, this DC effort is at such a stratospheric level of ridiculousness, that most sane and stable-minded people choose to part company with the political insanity.

However, to put the scale of these ridiculous narrative engineering efforts into their appropriate context, you might find this article worth reviewing – SEE HERE

“The truth is that above all, January 6 is a political myth, transformed from a historical event into an ideology designed to protect and stabilize a regime whose supporting institutions are deteriorating.” (read more)

~ Pedro Gonzalez

The CDC updated their COVID tracker data today [SEE HERE].  According to the CDC yesterday there were 828,417 new cases.

Apparently, the Biden administration cannot get their arms around it… COVID is turning from a political opportunity into a political liability.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the November job openings and turnover data today [DATA HERE] showing 370,000 workers quit their jobs in November bringing the quits rate now to 4.5 million people.

From the report, “Quits increased in several industries with the largest increases in accommodation and food services (+159,000); health care and social assistance (+52,000); and transportation, warehousing, and utilities (+33,000).”

Over the 12 months ending in November 2021, hires totaled 74.5 million and separations totaled 68.7 million, yielding a net employment gain of 5.9 million for 2021. However, while the unemployment rate drops with fewer people working, the employment picture overall appears to be tenuous.

The FRED personal savings rate for Americans overall [DATA HERE] has been dropping rapidly since March 2021, the last federal COVID employment bailout injection. All of the federal assistance has created massive data skews in the savings rate, as federal subsidies gave an artificial boost to the U.S. savings rate.

It appears that the aggregate American worker is now using their savings, created by COVID bailouts, to offset the massive inflation created by the COVID bailouts.  The net result is a workforce going into negative savings each month as inflation driven expenses (energy, fuel, food) are higher than earnings.  This is an unsustainable situation.

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