Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never return to that time in the performance when you did not see them.  I have often repeated this phrase specifically as it pertains to political motives and the intents of the professionally republican, the DeceptiCons.

Late December, the New York Times reported {LINK} that South Dakota Senator John Thune, the heir apparent to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, was considering retiring because the Trump influence, the MAGA base, was not in alignment with his corporate and Wall Street donor class worldview.

Those who have watched closely know Senator Mitch McConnell has positioned Senator Thune to take over in the Senate (zipper problems not withstanding).  The Machiavellian purpose of the positioning is to put Thune in place as a line of defense to protect the interest of the political establishment and the aligned Fourth Branch of Government.

Now, follow this sequence closely….

Yesterday, the New York Times announced that Thune was indeed going to run for reelection {LINK}. “Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, announced on Saturday that he would seek re-election, after an aggressive lobbying campaign by colleagues prompted him to put aside concerns about the future of his party and pursue a fourth term.”

Today, the usually invisible other Senator from South Dakota, Senator Mike Rounds, appears on ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos, to undermine Donald Trump and say the former president “could be prosecuted” for his involvement in the J6 terrorist attack “if the DOJ has evidence.”

I am prompting the remarks from Mike Rounds below.  WATCH:

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Things that seem disconnected but aren’t.  The thirteen bullet points below are the issues we will first notice as the general food supply chain begins show signs of vulnerability.  This outline explains why it is happening and how long it can be expected.

In the previous October, November and December warnings we emphasized preparation and counted down the 90-day window.  Now, as we enter the final two weeks before mid/late January, the date of our original prediction, it appears that some media are starting to catch up and the larger public is starting to notice.   [NOTE: We nailed the timeline almost to the week]

Feel free to note in the comments section what is happening in your area.  Hopefully, most of us are much better positioned than the average person who has not been following this as closely over the past several months.

Initial food instability signs in the supply chain.  Things to look for: 

(1) A shortage of processed potatoes (frozen specifically).

And/Or a shortage of the ancillary products that are derivates of, or normally include, potatoes.

(2) A larger than usual footprint of turkey in the supermarket (last line of protein).

(3) A noticeable increase in the price of citrus products.

(4) A sparse distribution of foodstuffs that rely on flavorings.

(5) The absence of non-seasonal products.

(6) Little to no price difference on the organic comparable (diff supply chain)

(7) Unusual country of origin for fresh product type.

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The U.S. government does not operate in a vacuum without knowledge of what is happening and a solid perspective on what is likely to happen.  Whether they listen to the commonsense advisors, or whether the control officers intentionally keep counter positions away from the principle, is another matter; however, the officials generally know what is most likely to happen.

The White House put Port Envoy John D. Porcari, who is also intricately involved in the supply chain taskforce, on the podium today to discuss supply chain issues.   The full video of his remarks is posted below, but my spidey sense is telling me they know what we know, and they are starting to prepare for what will ultimately become impossible to ignore.  WATCH:

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It’s not just a port issue, as we have discussed on these pages, the interventionist policies and regulations from the people creating the COVID response (writ large) have been fubar from the beginning. {Go Deep} When they shut down the restaurants and hospitality sector (2020 lockdowns), the advisors and bureaucrats triggered a cascading series of events inside the food supply chain.

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We said it was happening {Go Deep}, and it is.  Last month CTH put the preparation window at 60 days +/- depending on region.  That window is now around 30 days before the next spike in inflation shows up from cumulative costs snowballing throughout the supply chain. 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 it would get worse. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) then released stunning price data for October [DATA Here], showing an even more dramatic 8.6% price increase in final demand. More intense warnings shared.

Today, we get the November BLS Result [DATA Here], and unfortunately the results are showing what was expected.  The cumulative costs of massive increases in energy prices are building into the supply at an astonishing rate.  The November data shows a rate of wholesale final goods inflation at 9.6%, the largest single month comparative rate increase in history.

The bureau even went back and revised/increased the August price index from 7.8 to 8.4 percent, and revised/increased the October figure from 8.6 to 8.8 percent.  The average monthly price increase is almost a full percent… every month.  It looks like the BLS backward revisions are an attempt to smooth down the rate of increase.

(BLS) – “The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.8 percent in November, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved up 0.6 percent in each of the 3 prior months. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index rose 9.6 percent for the 12 months ended in November, the largest advance since 12-month data were first calculated in November 2010.” (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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At the most troubling level, Joe Biden believes what people tell him to say for the reason they tell him to say it.  This reality underscores the reason why Barack Obama’s network selected Biden as their disposable front man in 2020.  Biden sounds convinced, because Biden is convinced.  He’s wrong, factually and fundamentally wrong, but he believes what he repeats in public.

The most painfully obvious examples of this dynamic are present when Joe Biden explains economic things based on what other people have told him.  The guy really is the modern personification of the naked emperor parading around to show off an invisible coat that he genuinely believes he’s wearing. The self-deception would be embarrassing except for the fact he is only deceiving himself; so people laugh…. but this is dangerous.

Questioned today about inflation, Joe Biden starts talking about his Build Back Better program.  It really is worth watching to see how oddly emphatic he is in the belief that if government pays for a thing (childcare, healthcare, prescriptions) the cost of that thing somehow mysteriously disappears.

Biden believes that if government subsidizes something there is no longer a cost associated with it.  He believes this.

Setting aside the historic fact/truth that anything government pays or subsidizes ultimately costs more, the real cognitive dissonance in Biden’s worldview is that any cost associate with a ‘thing‘ disappears if the government pays for that ‘thing’.   From that bizarre viewpoint, the disappearance of public expense for that government subsidized thing then creates “deflation”, or a lowering in overall prices.

This claim is abject nonsense.  Truly and genuinely batshit crazy nonsense.

Example.  According to Joe Biden’s talking point: if government pays for college education, the price of a college student’s car drops.  It doesn’t.  To make that claim is absurd in the extreme.   The college student may have more money to pay for a car if they are not paying for tuition, but the car itself doesn’t change in price.

A person may have more money to pay for groceries if they are not paying for childcare expenses, but the price of the groceries doesn’t change.   The inflation on the prices of products at the grocery store does not change just because some families no longer have daycare expenses.   But Joe Biden believes it does.   (more…)

In the aftermath of the White House demanding that media pundits put a positive spin on economic news, the National Economic Council Chairman, Brian Deese, appears at the Brady Room podium today [Full Video Here] to put the finishing touches on their Potemkin village of economics.

The statistics cited by Deese were jaw dropping in the level of spin used to create them.  First, the economic council cite their own national employment forecasts for economic recovery (under their ‘American Rescue Plan’), then celebrate they are ahead of schedule for a timeline they created.

When asked about inflation, Deese then proclaims he is not going to get into the business of economic predictions; which the media just accept without reminding him that his economic policies are entirely based on his own predictions… which he just cited in the prior moment of self-congratulation.  Additionally, according to Deese (without any citation to demonstrate validity for his claim), the NEC Chairman says “real household income” is at its pre-pandemic level; which seems highly unlikely given the scale of inflation.

When asked if inflation will continue into next year, Deese refused to answer the question.  Keep in mind, the discussion of inflation is a percentage of change from a previous price 12 months earlier.  If an item doubles in price this year (from $2 to $4), and then goes up to $4.50 in the following year, you can claim that inflation is dramatically decreasing.  However, that does not mean prices will ever return to the prior level, or that the next year price is any more affordable.  WATCH:

The fact remains that White House energy, regulatory, fiscal and monetary policies are devastating for Main Street.  All of those policies impact the domestic economy with increased costs from field to fork.

Cumulatively, all of the White House economic policies are increasing housing costs, transportation costs, medical costs, food costs, retail costs and service costs.  At the same time, wages are only modestly rising to keep up with those massive cost increases.  No amount of spin is going to stop the reality of the inflation storm from hitting U.S. consumers.

As we shared during the Obama-era baseline budget spending and deficit mess: “Half of something you just quadrupled is not less than you started with.”

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Considering the recent Democrat freakout over the ‘economic narrative‘, which included a request for corporate media to circle the wagons, their desperation is starting to make sense.

Patrick Murray is a notoriously partisan pollster from Monmouth University {use searchbar}.  Leftist favorite Murray puts the spin in spin-master when it comes to media polling and narrative engineering.

The Monmouth engineer recently released a heavily spun poll warning the communists and leftist Democrats, showing checkbook issues are the top concern priority for Americans – far beyond any concern about the COVID madness.

Keep in mind, Murray skews polls in extraordinary ways; however, yet even Monmouth cannot avoid seeing that 29% of leftist Americans are very concerned with inflation, while only 18% are concerned with COVID [pdf here].  Monmouth’s polls are always skewed with responses from the DNC base, so consider that result amid their own tribe.  Democrats are twice as worried about their household bills and inflation as they are worried about Omicron or any variant therein.

This explains the massive freakout in the backrooms of the White House and DNC at the moment.  Their economic policy chickens are coming home to roost.

“Concerns about inflation have taken center stage in discussions around America’s kitchen tables. And, as one would expect, many are placing the blame squarely on Washington,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. (link)

When you ignore the public spin Murray puts on the polling (Republicans horrible etc), the bottom line is devastating for Democrats.  This aligns with a recent Wall Street Journal survey showing that Latinos are flocking to the Republican Party, and there is now an even 50/50 split amid Hispanic voters.

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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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You might have heard media talking about the cost of the “average family Thanksgiving dinner” being 14% more this year than last year [Video Example].  The media is quoting a survey conducted by the Farm Bureau [DATA LINK].  The survey is an exercise in abject nonsense.  Before getting into the details, let’s give an example of how the media is reporting about it [20 seconds] WATCH:

According to the Farm Bureau data being promoted by the media in 2021, a full Thanksgiving dinner for ten people costs  $53.31  – which is 14 percent higher than last year.

FEED TEN PEOPLE for $53.31 ?

I had to look and see what fairy dust these people were smoking to come up with that number.

I found the Farm Bureau website, found the internal data and checked the shopping list pdf.  Here’s what they claim:

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The southern border is a mess, and border state Latino Democrats are switching to the Republican Party.  The Texas border region overwhelmingly increased their support for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, and are now voting for local Republican candidates.  This is the MAGA influence of Trump and the America-First Main Street realignment.

Inflation is skyrocketing and will continue getting worse through 2022.  Wage growth is nowhere near enough to keep up with food inflation.  Gas prices have almost doubled in some areas and will continue to increase due to Biden energy policy.

The Democrat regulatory environmental programs in coastal areas are creating massive supply chain issues.  Home heating costs this winter will be 60 to 70 percent higher due to Biden energy policy.

The Joe Biden vaccination mandate is creating a workforce crisis and escalating backlash created by toxic federal overreach.  Several blue states (CA, NY, IL) are losing congressional seats due to population losses, while red states are gaining congressional districts due to population growth.  Insane spending by Democrats continues without pause or consideration for the inflation they are creating.  The great ideological cleaving between Democrat communists and middle-class Americans continues.

Polling indicates there is a major storm on the horizon for Democrats, as their ideological thirst for power is transparent {link} and being rejected.  As noted by the Washington Post, “On Tuesday night, voters in Columbia, S.C., elected a Republican, Daniel Rickenmann, as their next mayor — about a year after voters in the county voted for Biden by a 38-point margin,” yet we all know the result will be attributed to racism or something equally as stupid.

Every single policy the Biden administration touches creates a crap storm of anxiety for the ‘Main Street’ American worker.  The only group benefiting from JoeBama is the same group that funds them, Wall Street.  Making matters worse, the political communists behind the policy execution are brazen in showcasing how the destruction of the American economy is their intent.

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