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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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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Yesterday the White House occupant equivocated any current supply chain shortages to the 1980’s Christmas shortage of Cabbage Patch dolls {link}.  According to the White House narrative there are no shortages of essential products other than a few hard to find non-essential toys.

Obviously, that level of executive office propaganda is intended to gaslight a national audience into questioning themselves when they see shortages of highly consumable products like pet food and grocery store items.  Unfortunately for the White House the supply chain issues are of such widespread frequency even the allied narrative engineers cannot ignore them.   NBC reported that chicken tenders are “in short supply” at stores and restaurants as President Joe Biden’s supply chain crisis persists, during a segment on NBC’s “Today”  on 12/2/2021.

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Strange how there’s no shortage of Marijuana in the supply chain…. And no, you are not crazy if you notice these things.

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At some point you have to wonder if the Obama team behind the scenes is intentionally putting words in Biden’s teleprompter because they want him to be mocked in public.

Earlier today Joe Biden compared the shortage of essential products, pet foods, raw materials, petroleum products and chemicals in the U.S. (due to his self-inflicted energy policy) to the shortage of Cabbage Patch dolls in the 1980’s.  Seriously, you really cannot make this stuff up. WATCH:

I would hazard a guess the speechwriters debated using Tickle Me Elmo as an example, and then decided it was a just a smidge too far.

Good grief, this is enough to really make you wonder….  How long?

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NBC ran an interesting segment on how to cope with the massive inflation and additional costs caused by Joe Biden.  Given the collapsing state of the U.S. economy, and crushing price increases for products created by White House policy, the administration previously suggested we should lower our expectations.

NBC takes the ‘lower expectations‘ theme to entirely new levels.  I’m not sure they thought through the meaning of Thanksgiving prior to the suggestions; however, Biden’s NBC stenographers have a few interesting recommendations.

The first suggestion is don’t buy the Thanksgiving day turkey, it’s too expensive.  The second odd suggestion to save money is do not invite friends of family to dinner.  WATCH:

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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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Somewhere in the upper northeast there must be an economic school or think-tank where leftist graduate students are taught how to verbalize cognitive dissonance using the same 300 words and emojis in a sequential pattern.   Two of the most visible alma maters’ of this school are Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and a fellow named Brian Deese, who is now the White House National Economic Council director.

In his latest exhibition of post-graduate cognitive dissonance, Deese nuts, the primary architect of the JoeBama economic program, appears on NBC to proclaim that massive U.S. inflation is somehow connected to the fact that 5 to 11-year-old children are not yet vaccinated. [Video at 01:30]  Once the children are vaccinated, some unknown and difficult to explain metamorphosis will take place amid the American workforce allowing the U.S. economy to stop inflation.

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Neel Kashkari is head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. If you know the financial lingo, you can see the dire forecast behind the opaque language.  In plain-speak, Kashari is saying when it comes to prices and inflation, “we’re screwed“…

In this interview with CBS talking head Margaret Brennan, Kashkari admits inflation is still going up, and it will get worse. Keep in mind, the lingo of the inflation conversation is discussing “percentages of change.” Kashkari claims the percentages of change will start to slow in a few years, but the prices will never return to their former level.

The percentage of inflationary change (this year vs last year) will continue going up, as prices continue to skyrocket over almost every sector. CTH points out this issue, because as the Fed continues printing current money, the value of future money drops and the price of goods continues to climb. The fast-turn goods rise in price quickest (now recorded at 6.2%), and the inflation on slow-turn durable goods lags but hits even harder.

Current real inflation inside the ‘total’ economy, the cumulative snowball that is coming down the mountain, is over 20% and still growing. This situation puts the forecast prices of 2022 goods at an alarming level. WATCH:

The fed has no tools to slow the rate of current inflation, as interest rates are disconnected {Revisit The New Dimension in Modern Economics} from the cost of goods produced. The only thing the Fed can do is to stop purchasing debt (Quantitative Easing), stop purchasing our own bonds, at a slower rate.

Despite being a progressive himself, even Neel Kashkari is telling congress to stop spending money.

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This article is written as both a representative disconnect of the current administration, and also as a direct warning to readers of a never before seen increase in U.S. food prices.  As grandma always said: “charity begins at home.”

Earlier today in Paris, France, Kamala Harris waxed as philosophically as she could about the inequities around the globe.  Specifically, she proclaimed that world leaders have no excuse for some unknown “we” creating enough food to “feed the entire world” while children are hungry.

The words written for Harris to recite may sound good to an audience who values their own virtue through hollow soundbites and empty phrases; however, there is a very stark and concerning disconnect specifically when it comes to U.S. leadership making these proclamations.  Watch first 30 seconds (prompted):

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“Why have we allowed so many of the world’s children to go hungry when we know that we produce enough food to feed the entire world. […] We must instead agree that these growing gaps are unacceptable,” Harris proclaims with maximum virtue-signaling emphasis in the effort to raise her approval rating.

Meanwhile, the Biden-Inflation cost of food in the United States is increasingly becoming a problem for working class Americans.  Forget feeding children around the world, we are weeks away from people not being able to feed their own kids, and massive shortages in the stop-gap systems like food banks.

I’m not sure people understand yet exactly how desperate things are going to become, so let me be very specific for an audience of long-term readers who have my track record of accuracy to measure my predictions.   Within the next 120 to 180 days, you are about to see butter cost $8 to 10.00/lb at your local supermarket.  Bread will cost $6.00 a loaf, minimum, and other key staple item food prices, in the first two quarters of 2022, will increase 20 to 30% from where they are right now.

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The screamingly high rate of pricing inflation is catastrophic to the American working middle class; however, there is one small benefit.  More and more people are waking up to the reality that free market principles have been destroyed; what we have now are markets controlled by massive multinationals.

This isn’t news for CTH readers.  Long before prices started to rise, we stood up against pressure from so-called ‘conservative’ pundits to outline that free markets were a joke in the modern economic era.  The truth inside the economic argument is precisely why we stood up to support candidate Donald J Trump in 2015; and the truth inside that economic argument is exactly why we will stand again to support him if he runs again in 2024.  Everything, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g… every scintilla of a thing, centers around the economics of it.  Economic security on every scale is what keeps YOU free.

In a brilliant outline of how the beef and cattle industry is now trying to fight back against the multinationals of Tyson Foods, JBS, Cargill and National Beef, Matt Stoller uses the cattle industry to talk about what we have outlined on these pages for ten years.   The distance from the red line (steer price) to the blue bar (beef price) is the scale of the multinational profits inside this controlled commodity:

MATT STOLLER – […] Despite high consumer prices, independent ranchers are losing money, and going out of business. “If we don’t get some of these problems fixed quickly, we won’t have any independent ranchers in this country,” explained Oklahoma Farmers Union president Scott Blubaugh.

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