Regardless of what the White House, liberal pundits, and mainstream media outlets are claiming, inflation is here, and it’s real. The United States has now experienced the largest 6-month period of consumer price increases in almost 40 years. The Biden economy is now an ongoing disaster as the cost of household goods from fuel to groceries has continued in an upward direction. The result creates less overall disposable income and means more of each paycheck is eaten up by essentials that hit low-income households the hardest.
The Biden administration, in trying to sell a rosy economic outlook and a booming future, is growing increasingly out of touch with what Americans are experiencing every day:
Inflation jumped to the highest level in nearly 40 years, fresh data released on Friday showed, as supply chain disruptions, rapid consumer demand and rising housing costs combined to fuel the strongest inflationary burst in a generation.
The rising costs spell trouble for officials at the Federal Reserve and the White House, who are trying to calibrate policy at a moment when the labor market has yet to completely heal from the pandemic, but the risk that price increases could become more lasting is increasing.
The Consumer Price Index climbed by 6.8 percent in the year through November, the data showed, the fastest pace since 1982. After stripping out food and fuel, which can move around a lot from month to month, inflation climbed by 4.9 percent.
There is no positive spin for these numbers. The cost of nearly every item is far higher than it was a year ago. Some of these increases are due to demand, of course, and some are due to government spending and actions which have created situations of lowering supply, such as Biden’s anti-consumer actions of shutting down oil pipelines.
This is a snapshot of the economy right now and areas that are seeing the largest increases:
Inflation in November hit 6.8%. Here are the biggest annual increases:
Gas +58%
Rental car 37%
Used car 31%
Hotels 26%
Steak 25%
Utilities 25%
Bacon 21%
Pork 17%
Furniture 12%
Fish 11%
New cars 11%
Chicken 9%
Bikes 9%
Eggs 8%
Coffee 7.5%
Apples 7%
Milk 7%
Flour 6%
Rent 3.5%— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) December 10, 2021
Note the top item, gasoline, which is up 58% since last year while the White House parades around reports of an average 3-cent decrease. It’s simply not in line with reality or with what people see every day on their way to work, school, and the grocery store. When the cost of something rises 58%, then drops less than 1%, that’s not a victory.
While the economic growth underneath these numbers is a generally good sign, it’s the top-line price increases that are alarming some analysts since we have not seen these skyrocketing rates in decades.
Whose fault is Inflation?
See the data — and the trend. The explosion of Biden/Pelosi spending and borrowing ushered-in this reckless era of economic deceleration combined with soaring prices.
Stagflation, 1970's style. pic.twitter.com/JTq3jsjsh4
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) December 10, 2021
The Biden administration, despite warnings for months, continued to ignore the problem calling it transitory in nature. It’s not transitory, and the data never supported such a claim. The rate has continued rising despite Biden economic advisors downplaying the problem and now acting as if they’ve been caught off guard.
The truth here is that Biden and his team and no idea how to handle the country right now, and more government spending or aid to the economy will not help correct the situation. Fixing supply issues will do far more than pouring more gas on fire through trillion-dollar spending programs and new entitlements. The lie that the infrastructure bill would do anything in the short term to ease inflation has come back to bite Democrats hard.
Despite all the bad news, of which there is plenty, there might be signs according to some analysts that things could slow down early next year:
Aichi Amemiya, senior U.S. economist at Nomura Securities, said a continuing shift in consumer spending from goods to services could help calm inflation. Signs of improving transportation costs and auto production hint that inflationary pressure could begin easing early next year, though it is likely to remain high in December, Mr. Amemiya said.
Food and energy prices—which had been pushed up by pandemic-related disruptions as well as by weather and geopolitical factors—have shown signs of easing as well.
There’s a lot of open-ended scenarios in those predictions, but let’s hope for the country’s sake things eventually head in the right direction.
For now, Americans will be stuck with rising costs and low supply, a spiral that will keep feeding on itself. Wash, rinse, repeat this cycle until things can calm down and the government realizes it cannot spend its way out of inflation.
