Category: Economy

Bidenflation Is Even Worse Than You Think.

It doesn’t take a master’s degree in economics to understand that prices are up in every sector of the economy. The economy under Joe Biden is nickel-and-diming us at every turn, and Americans can see past the smoke and mirrors that the White House is using to try to convince us that everything is fine.

The federal government’s measure of price increases, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has consistently shown that inflation isn’t going away. The most recent CPI report indicates a 3.2% increase in prices from Feb. 2023 to Feb. 2024. That’s a significant increase, but it only shows the increase over a rolling 12 months.

To get a clearer picture of what Bidenflation looks like, we need to compare prices between now and when Biden took office. That’s what TIPPinsights did, and the results show you that Bidenflation isn’t just worse than the White House wants you to believe — it’s worse than you might have realized.

“We developed the TIPP CPI, a metric that uses February 2021, the month after President Biden’s inauguration, as its base to measure the rate of change,” TIPPinsights explains. “All TIPP CPI measures are anchored to the base month of February 2021, making it exclusive to the economy under President Biden’s watch.”

The rationale is that a year-over-year comparison looks at current prices next to already inflated prices, which masks the effect of inflation over time. The TIPP CPI measures Bidenflation as a whopping 18%. TIPPinsights broke down various sectors of the economy in a similar way that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does in its CPI.

Related: Welcome to Nickel-and-Dime Nation

Here’s a sample (emphasis in the original):

Food prices increased by 20.6% under Biden compared to only 2.2% as per BLS CPI, a difference of 18.5 points.

TIPP CPI data show that Energy prices increased by 29.6%. But, according to the BLS CPI, energy prices improved by 1.9%. The difference between the two is a whopping 31.5 points.

The Core CPI measures the price increase for all items, excluding food and energy. In the year-over-year measure, the Core TIPP CPI is 16.5% compared to 3.8% BLS CPI, a 12.8-point difference.

Further, gasoline prices have increased by 29.9% since President Biden took office, whereas the BLS CPI shows that gasoline prices have improved by 3.9%, a difference of 33.8 points.

Americans have noticed these differences in prices. Two recent TIPP polls have shown this phenomenon. One shows that 84% of American adults are concerned about inflation — 51% “very concerned” and 33% “somewhat concerned.” It’s the 25th consecutive month that over 80% of people surveyed have expressed concerns about inflation.

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Retail sales tumbled 0.8% in January, much more than expected

Consumer spending fell sharply in January, presenting a potential early danger sign for the economy, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Advance retail sales declined 0.8% for the month following a downwardly revised 0.4% gain in December, according to the Census Bureau. A decrease had been expected: Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were looking for a drop of 0.3%, in part to make up for seasonal distortions that probably boosted December’s number.

However, the pullback was considerably more than anticipated. Even excluding autos, sales dropped 0.6%, well below the estimate for a 0.2% gain.

The sales report is adjusted for seasonal factors but not for inflation, so the release showed spending lagging the pace of price increases. On a year-over-year basis, sales were up just 0.6%.

Headline inflation rose 0.3% in January and 0.4% when excluding food and energy prices, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. On a year-over-year basis, the two readings were 3.1% and 3.9%, respectively.

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This is your brain on Marxism.

 Treasury Secretary: “We don’t have to get the prices down because wages are going up.”

 

Why Americans Have Lost Faith in the Value of College: Three generations of ‘college for all’ in the U.S. has left most families looking for alternatives.

The political turmoil that rocked universities over the past three months and sparked the resignations of two Ivy League presidents has landed like an unwelcome thud on institutions already struggling to maintain the trust of the American public. For three generations, the national aspiration to “college for all” shaped America’s economy and culture, as most high-school graduates took it for granted that they would earn a degree.
That consensus is now collapsing in the face of massive student debt, underemployed degree-holders and political intolerance on campus.
In the past decade, the percentage of Americans who expressed a lot of confidence in higher education fell from 57% to 36%, according to Gallup. A decline in undergraduate enrollment since 2011 has translated into 3 million fewer students on campus.
Nearly half of parents say they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college after high school, even if there were no obstacles, financial or otherwise. Two-thirds of high-school students think they will be just fine without a college degree.
The pandemic drove home a sobering realization for a lot of middle-class American families: “College for all” is broken for most.
Arthur Levine, president emeritus of Columbia Teachers College and author of “The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present and Uncertain Future,” compares this moment in post-secondary education to the seismic change that followed the Industrial Revolution. That 19th-century wave of disruption washed over schools designed to meet the needs of a sectarian, agricultural society and transformed higher education into a sprawling system of community colleges, land-grant universities and graduate schools.

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 It’s the groceries, stupid: Why the pundits are puzzled by Biden’s putrid polls.

By regularly griping about the supposed mystery of why so many voters say they prefer Donald Trump or another Republican, President Biden’s pundit backers mainly expose their own elitist ignorance.

Because if they’d been shopping to feed their families these last few years, they would have noticed the average grocery bill has shot up 25%.

And wage growth hasn’t remotely kept pace: It rose less than inflation for Biden’s first two years, and while the 2023 stats aren’t final, it wasn’t a ton better last year.

Inflation has eased some in recent months, but remains well above 3%  —  and may well spike back up as Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping create new global supply-chain disruptions.

Perhaps because they drive electric vehicles, the pro-Biden pundits may have missed the huge hike in pump prices on his watch  —  a daily nightmare driven largely by his policies.

And while Democrats may find it convenient to forget, plenty of voters will recall how this president spent months insisting inflation was “transitory” even as it was raging up toward 9%.

Oh, and few pundits are all that young, so they also lack personal experience of how high interest rates (raised to combat Bidenflation) are a huge reason why buying a first home is increasingly out of reach for the middle class.

All a huge contrast with the three pre-COVID Trump years, when median, inflation-adjusted incomes rose more than 10%  —  and lower-income earners made faster gains than they had in decades.

Of course it’s not just the economy: Anti-Biden voters also see the collapse of border enforcement  —  and are more likely to feel the impact of the illegal migrant surge than the nation’s elites.

Voters also likely recall the disaster that was Biden’s bugout from Afghanistan (which he insists was a “success”)  —  and can’t help noticing the major wars in Europe and the Middle East that erupted after that brutal sign of beyond-weak American leadership.

Leadership that looks even weaker every time the fast-aging prez does any public speaking that doesn’t involve a teleprompter (and sometimes even then).

This president’s poll ratings are under water on just about everything, and the reasons are pretty obvious to the average Joe and Jane.

Bottom line: The pundit class’ confusion over Biden’s unpopularity is just one more proof of George Orwell’s maxim: “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.

Burning Down (The Economic) House?
Food Prices UP 20% Under Bidenomics, Credit Card Delinquencies Now Higher Than During Covid As Credit Card Debt Grows To All-time High To Cope With Inflation

Is Biden trying to burn down the economic house? Under Bidenomics, America’s middle class and low wage workers are suffering from a wild, wild life in terms of inflation.

First, food prices are up 20% since December 2020. Talk about destruction of middle class wealth!

That is in addition to gasoline prices are up 64% under Biden while rent growth is up 252%. Well, Biden waived through millions of illegal immigrants and rent had to rise. Biden and Washington DC’s broken borders is Livin’ La Vida Loco.

To cope with inflation (that Paul Krugman claims is over but the last inflation report showed that the tinders of inflation are hard to extinguish), consumers have turned to credit cards to survive. In fact, credit cards have expanded 38% since April 2021 despite rapidly rising interest rates. And credit card delinquency rates are rising and are now above Covid-era economic shutdown levels.

Despite Krugman and Yellen’s screaming that inflation has been crushed, US household are anticipating FASTER inflation. To paraphrase the Emperor of Austria from “Amadeus,” “You are passionate Krugman and Yellen, but you do not persuade.”

And Billions Biden has just recorded the third largest deficit in history.

The Great Reset is a Globalist Trojan Horse using the cover of “Climate Change” to destroy American Economic Power and transfer power to the IMF

The World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” (which Biden is implementing) is Neo Marxism packaged in a way that if you oppose it you either want to destroy the environment or you are a racist.

Supporters of the World Economic Forum and sympathizers of the Fabian Society are using the facade of “Climate Change” to subvert democracies worldwide and impose a “Great Reset”  to eradicate national frameworks and create globalist, borderless, godless, neo-Marxist, multicultural, open societies. The destruction of the centrality of the U.S. dollar in the Global Financial System and the transfer of Economic Power to the International Monetary Fund is key in the Globalist’s strategy. They are using “Climate Change” as a cover to replace democracy and capitalism with a neo-Marxist global tyranny.

The Biden regime has embraced the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. Critical Race Theory is an integral part of the Great Reset by which education and social contracts are being modified.

On December 3, 2020 Justin Haskins wrote in the Hill “According to the Great Reset’s supporters, the plan would fundamentally transform much of society. As World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab wrote back in June, “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

“Internationally, the Great Reset has already been backed by influential leaders, activists, academics and institutions. In addition to the World Economic Forum and United Nations, the Great Reset movement counts among its the International Monetary Fund, heads of state, Greenpeace and CEOs and presidents of large corporations and financial institutions such as Microsoft and MasterCard…

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Bidenomics! Average American Can’t Afford Homes In 99% Of Country

It’s time for your daily dose of Bidenomics — where the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.

In today’s lesson, we’ll learn how the fact that the average American can’t afford to buy a home in 99% of the country is evidence of a historic economy.

On Thursday, CBS reported that real estate data provider ATTOM reviewed median home prices in 575 counties across the country and concluded that the average income earner — somebody who makes $71,214 a year — could afford to buy a home in just 1% of those areas in 2022.

Chief Economist at Redfin, Daryl Fairweather, told CBS, “The only people who are selling right now are people who really need to move because of a life event — divorce, marriage, new baby, new job, etc. That lack of new inventory is keeping prices high.”

Part of the reason why homeowners are holding onto their homes is because of high interest rates — which were hiked to historic levels in hopes of slowing down runaway Bidenflation.

That inflation was caused in part by massive government spending. The president’s solution has been more government spending.

Last week, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) blamed part of the problem on corporations buying single-family homes as well.

“They have access to lower interest rates,” Vance told ABC6. “They have access to cheaper money, and they completely crowd out the availability for homes for people who want to just buy a piece of their community.”

Some of those companies have ties to the Chinese Communist Party — something Vance says is nonsensical to allow.

“I look around and say, ‘What are we doing when we’re letting the Communist Chinese Party buy up homes that should be going to Ohio citizens?’ It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Overlooked in the housing crisis has been the role that legal and illegal immigration has played. As flagged by The Washington Examiner last spring, several studies have shown that immigration, lawful or not, impacts both rental and home-owning prices. In short, the millions who enter the country each year drive up demand, which drives up prices.

“I think it’s very hard to talk about the housing crisis in Ohio or across the country without talking about the immigration problem,” Vance said last week “When you let, let’s say, 10 million or 15 million people into the country illegally, those people all need homes.”

Given the fact that one of the most basic elements of the American dream is out of reach for the American people, you’d think Washington might want to address it. Instead, the vast majority are concerned with either making the southern border more accessible, or they’re focused on providing aid to Ukraine. Or both.

Given the enormity of the housing crisis, you would hope that the Republican Party would jump on solving it, thereby securing electoral victories in the process. Aside from Vance and a handful of others, not many in the GOP seem too concerned about it.

So, instead, Biden will continue to bloviate that the American economy is booming, we need to accept millions of foreigners each year, and that we have a duty to spend billions in Ukraine. If you haven’t picked up on it, Bidenomics is code for “America Last.”

Final Second Quarter GDP Estimate Remained Unchanged at 2.1%

The third and final estimate for real gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2023 was unrevised. It showed that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.1%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Compared to the first quarter, the deceleration in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected a slowdown in consumer spending, a downturn in exports and a deceleration in federal government spending that were partly offset by an upturn in private inventory investment, an acceleration in nonresidential fixed investment, and a smaller decrease in residential investment.

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The Biden Admin Just Declared ‘War on Consumers’

In the Biden administration’s whole-of-government attempt to force a transition to supposedly “green” and ethical energy that’s anything but — just ask the whales off the coast of New England or forced/child laborers in EV battery supply chains in Africa — another department is jumping into the crusade.

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released its “Principles for Net-Zero Financing & Investment” to press ahead with “best practices for private sector financial institutions that have made net-zero commitments and promote consistency and credibility in approaches to implementing them.”

These principles, the Treasury Department and Secretary Janet Yellen say, are key to “supporting the mobilization of more private sector capital to address the physical and economic impacts of climate change and to seize on the historic economic opportunity presented by the green transition.”

To that end, Yellen and her department heralded “a number of announcements from civil society including a $340 million commitment” from the likes of the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Climate Arc, ClimateWorks, Hewlett Foundation, and Sequoia Climate Foundation over the next three years “to support the continued development of research, data availability, and technical resources intended to help financial institutions develop and execute robust, voluntary net-zero commitments” and “facilitate the transition planning efforts of non-financial sectors of the economy.”

According to the Treasury Department, the “climate crisis is propelling a massive economic shift and is hitting the most vulnerable countries and communities first and hardest” and there’s an “increasing demand for technologies, products, and services that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support a clean energy future, and help adapt to a changing climate across all sectors.” Notably, however, that demand is not high enough to see the market move truly voluntarily to meet it. As such, “[i]n the United States, government support is playing a role in accelerating this transition,” the Treasury Department admitted as it pushes for more net-zero agreements and investment, as seen in the principles released on Tuesday.

“This announcement from the Department of the Treasury forcing financial institutions to adopt net-zero principles should come as no surprise to American consumers as the Biden Administration openly declares war on consumers,” reacted Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research.

“Treasury Secretary Yellen, with her announcement of these new net-zero principals at the Bloom Transition Finance Action Forum, has made it abundantly clear that the Treasury Department is working with and for ESG activists like Michael Bloomberg to make the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) goals for financial institutions into U.S. government policy, leaving consumers with nothing,” Hild added. “The Biden Administration is littered with former BlackRock employees such as Brian Deese and Eric Van Nostrand who are pushing these liberal, progressive, net-zero, and ESG policies on Americans, rather than focusing on reducing costs at the grocery store and gas pump and tamping down inflation.”

“Make no mistake, the Biden administration is running cover for the financial industry’s net zero cartel, protecting megalomaniac CEOs like Larry Fink and leaving consumers with nothing,” said Hild.

As summarized by the Treasury Department, the principles established to reinforce the woke, economically damaging priorities of the left are:

PRINCIPLE 1: A financial institution’s net-zero commitment (commitment) is a declaration of intent to work toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Treasury recommends that commitments be in line with limiting the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5°C. To be credible, this declaration should be accompanied or followed by the development and execution of a net-zero transition plan.

PRINCIPLE 2: Financial institutions should consider transition finance, managed phaseout, and climate solutions practices when deciding how to realize their commitments.

PRINCIPLE 3: Financial institutions should establish credible metrics and targets and endeavor, over time, for all relevant financing, investment, and advisory services to have associated metrics and targets.

PRINCIPLE 4: Financial institutions should assess client and portfolio company alignment to their (i.e., financial institutions’) targets and to limiting the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5°C.

PRINCIPLE 5: Financial institutions should align engagement practices — with clients, portfolio companies, and other stakeholders — to their commitments.

PRINCIPLE 6: Financial institutions should develop and execute an implementation strategy that integrates the goals of their commitments into relevant aspects of their businesses and operating procedures.

PRINCIPLE 7: Financial institutions should establish robust governance processes to provide oversight of the implementation of their commitments.

PRINCIPLE 8: Financial institutions should, in the context of activities associated with their net-zero transition plans, account for environmental justice and environmental impacts, where applicable.

PRINCIPLE 9: Financial institutions should be transparent about their commitments and progress towards them.

The voluntary net-zero commitments the Biden administration is seeking to foist on the private sector, however, may put companies which join them in legal jeopardy.

As Townhall has reported previously, state attorneys general from across the U.S. have put insurance and financial service companies on notice that their net-zero commitments may constitute a violation of antitrust and consumer protection laws.

One recent letter to signatories of a net-zero commitment led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti noted how such net-zero alliances see companies “colluding to limit consumer choices and manipulate market outcomes in support of international climate activists,” moves that “could violate [his state’s] antitrust and consumer protection laws.” As AG Skrmetti rightfully noted, “[d]ecisions about energy policy should be made by our elected representatives, not by transnational corporate alliances.”

Already, an earlier warning to insurance signatories to a net-zero pact saw several companies back out of the agreement rather than face additional scrutiny from state attorneys general for their activities that may have constituted antitrust violations.

Despite such warnings about net-zero priorities being potentially in violation of state law, the Biden administration and its climate alarmist allies in the private and nonprofit sector are plunging ahead with more agreements — an unsurprising development from the administration that has not allowed federal law or the U.S. Constitution curb its ambitions, leading to a series of high-profile losses before the Supreme Court for its attempts to force an energy transition.

EVs Are Supposed to Be Cheap to Maintain—Our Kia EV6 Isn’t So Far
The EV6’s first service visit left us scratching our heads and $200 poorer.

Our 2022 Kia EV6 recently went in for its first scheduled service, something we initially assumed would be an easy, mundane task. Electric vehicles, after all, have simple powertrains with fewer moving parts than their gas-powered counterparts—and no oil changes! This is supposed to make EVs cheaper to maintain. So you can imagine my surprise when it came time to pick up our EV6 and I was slapped with a $230 invoice. Thank goodness for company credit cards.

The shocking bill capped off what began as a crummy Sunday morning. While I was loading the EV6 for a day at the beach with my pup, I noticed a completely flat driver’s side rear tire thanks to a screw. It was in a spot on the tread that looked patchable, but since the EV6 doesn’t have a spare tire (only a liquid seal kit that would’ve ruined the tire), I decided to take advantage of Kia’s free roadside assistance and have it towed to my local dealership with a service department that was open on Sundays. Big kudos to them for that.

Requesting roadside service was easy and quick, with the tow truck arriving at my house within 30 minutes. Once we arrived at the dealership, it was quickly determined the tire was not patchable and needed to be replaced. Thankfully, they had one in stock. Our EV6 was just a few hundred miles away from needing its first service, so I requested to have that done while I was there.

According to the owner’s manual, the 8,000-mile service includes a tire rotation and inspection. The list of items to inspect includes brakes, suspension, drive shafts, the 12-volt battery, in-cabin air filter, and more. Nothing out of the ordinary. Which is why we left scratching our heads at the $230 bill, including an “EV service port cleaner” procedure that I didn’t request but was performed nonetheless for $51. If we subtract that interesting port cleaning service, the total for this routine service visit was $179. Still a pretty penny for what amounted to a peek under the frunk and shuffling around a few tires (one of which was getting worked on anyway).

We appreciate this dealership taking us in on a Sunday and Kia’s quick and free roadside tow, but the excessive service cost soured the experience. Thankfully, our encounter appears to be an anomaly. For starters, the same service performed on our otherwise identical long-term Hyundai Ioniq 5 only set us back about $50. And numerous EV6 forums show other owners paying anywhere between $20 and $50 for the first service. We found none over $100, and some were complimentary. Which is what it should be. What better way to build rapport and loyalty than providing free inspections? If such a dealership exists in the L.A. area, we’ll be sure to go there for our next service visit.

 

Evergrande.

The news was all over the media. The default wasn’t yesterday; they got in trouble in 2021 and had sought a “moratorium” in the first week of 2022!

So how is it that nobody gave a crap for the last two years? You’d be carried out on your shield by now and long-ago eaten by worms if you shorted the US market into the original default 2 years ago.

Witness Lahaina. HE, the power company, spent basically all of their money on “green” initiatives rather than basic maintenance and hardening to reduce wildfire risk. They were trading close to $40 before the fires and yesterday touched close to $10; a wild-eyed 75% collapse. That’s a utility and of course now there is a serious financial risk from lawsuits — richly-deserved, if the article in the WSJ is all factual.

But that’s a microcosm of all the distortions that have been embedded in the so-called “green economy”; the virus was also part of it, and the government had their foot on the scale in the “rah-rah” side of it because everyone loves a higher stock market.

The problem is that how you got it matters.

If you got it because the company expanded its business organically, it beat others in the market because they were at least two of “better, faster, cheaper” then you’ve got a sustainable and reasonable price.

If you got it because the government subsidized bad behavior — uneconomic things that cannot work over time because they violate the laws of thermodynamics and are predicated on feelings and political promises then you get a crash because there is nothing under any of the so-called “improvement” beyond hot air.

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Don’t Throw Away Those Silica Gel Packets! Here Are 14 Smart Ways to Reuse Them.

Those tiny little packs of dessicant that come in your new pack of shoes or your vitamins have many uses around your home. Anywhere that moisture is a problem, silica gel packets can help alleviate the issue. Keep them stored in an airtight container away from pets and children (they are a choking hazard) and whip them out in the following scenarios.

Around the Kitchen
  • Keep vitamins from moisture damage. (It’s good to just keep those silica packs that come in the vitamin containers; save them once the vitamins are finished.)
  • Keep dry food and pet food fresh and crispy with a silica gel pack taped to the lid of your storage container.
  • Put a few silica gel packs in the bottom of your clothes hamper to absorb moisture from clothes or damp towels.
  • A pack of silica gel will help dry out wet shoes or boots.

Around the House

  • Reduce condensation on windows by setting a silica gel pack on the window sill. (Remember to keep them away from children and pets)
  • Help dry out a non-water-resistant cell phone by putting it in a sealed bag with several silica gel packs.
  • Protect important documents and photos from moisture with a silica gel pack inside the box or file cabinet.
  • Boxes of paper memories — like old papers, photos or notebooks — in storage? Silica gel packs stored in the same container will adsorb moisture.
  • Store silica gel packs with your tools to help prevent rust damage.
  • Store some in your medicine cabinet if you keep medication in there. The silica gel packs will help keep humidity down.
  • Keep razors from moisture damage by storing them in a sealed container with a silica gel pack.
  • Placing a few silica gel packs between your dashboard and windshield in the car will help keep fogging to a minimum.

When You Travel

  • Keep luggage dry while it’s in storage by tossing a silica gel pack in each suitcase.
  • Toss a few silica gel packs in a Ziploc bag if you can’t dry your bathing suit before packing it.

Bonus Tip: To “reactivate” silica gel packs that are saturated with moisture, place them on a baking sheet in a 200 degree oven away from the heating element for two hours.