Our friends at The New York Post reported alleged President Joe Biden joked Friday that House Republicans threatening to impeach him for alleged corruption involving his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings may as well add lowering inflation to the charges.
“Earlier this week, the Washington Post suggested Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation is coming down,” Biden said during an economic speech in Maine.
“Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down,” he joked.
It is true that annual inflation fell to 3% last month after peaking at 9.2% one year prior. Biden may claim he deserves credit for the reduction, but in reality, this is another case of a Democrat being both the arsonist and the fireman. The causes of the surge in inflation were the totally out of control spending bills Democrats rammed through Congress in the first two years of the Biden presidency.
Moreover, in the weekend edition of his must-read Committee To Unleash Prosperity Hotline Stephen Moore threw a lot of cold water on Biden’s claim that he cured inflation.
Steve didn’t actually say, “not so fast Joe,” but he pointed out, he forecast the decline in inflation from last summer’s 9.2% high – ahead of much of the rest of the crowd. Steve said it’s not because he was clairvoyant but because he believes the best forward-looking indicator of future inflation is the commodity price index, aka the CRB index.
Check out the chart below. You can see why Stephen Moore and the Committee To Unleash Prosperity saw inflation falling from last summer’s high water mark as commodity prices sank. But look at what has happened with commodity prices over the past month. They are the highest since last summer.
According to TradingEconomics.com, “The CRB Commodity Index rose above 310, reaching nearly a one-year high amid hopes for demand recovery and the end of monetary tightening, as well as gains in the energy and agriculture. WTI crude surged above $79 per barrel thanks to China's pledge to roll out more policies. At the same time, agricultural commodities, which account for more than 40% of the index, continued their upward trend, with prices of cocoa and wheat soaring on shortage fears. Also, the cost of an orange juice broke an all-time record. Meanwhile, copper, considered a barometer for the world's economy, reclaimed $3.9 per pound. Among precious metals, silver hovered around a two-month high of $25…”
This is despite 11 Fed rate hikes over the past 14 months and is not at all consistent with pushing inflation down to the 2% Fed inflation target. Steve Moore says the best way to bring inflation down is not to raise interest rates - which hurt the economy - but to cut government spending by $1 or $2 trillion – which helps the economy, and we agree.
But that’s not where Joe Biden’s Federal Reserve is headed. The Biden Fed hiked rates a quarter point last week after a pause in rate increases in June. Biden policymakers also hinted at another increase to come this year, meaning car loans, home loans and credit sensitive purchases generally will get more expensive.
So, what Joe Biden calls bringing down inflation is more properly called killing their jobs by folks swinging hammers on home construction sites, selling cars in auto showrooms, and showing new and existing homes in real estate offices.
We’re not sure if curing inflation by killing the jobs of millions of Americans fits the constitutional definition of an impeachable offense. Joe Biden can joke about it all he wants, but “curing inflation” by killing jobs sure won’t help Democrats in the 2024 election.
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Inflation is cumulative, not isolated. If it's, say, 6% in March, then 5% in April, then 4% in May, then 3% in June, that's 18% during that four month period. In order to be considered as solved, it would have to be less than zero for a period of time. However, the cost of gasoline has risen over 50 cents/gallon in the past two weeks. The cost of living is up, not down, no matter what Joe Biden says. Since all prices are dependent on the cost of energy, it's likely that inflation will continue, possibly at much higher rates than 3%.
Inflation is cumulative. Once prices of everything go up, they rarely come down Yeah, some individual prices fluctuate. But the only way for prices, as a whole, to return to pre-Biden levels is deflation. And we saw what that does, after FDR wrecked Hoover's recovery.
Think of it this way: If you drive 90 miles per hour for an hour, and ten miles per hour for another hour, you're still 100 miles from home, not back home.
I hate that guy so much...for what he's done to the country and for his rictus grin as he slouches along towards Gomorrah. Ironic isn't it...the father of Borking is the one to proves Bork's theory of liberalism causing the decline of the West. BTW, I also hate him for what he did to one of the greatest Justices to sit on the SC, Clarence Thomas. For that alone, Joke Biden should rot in hell.