Inflation

Ms. Yellen regrets

Featured image In Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” the heroine announces that she’s unable to lunch today. Why? She has a good excuse — because she was strung up by a mob for killing “the man who had led her so far astray.” Now Ms. Yellen regrets. Janet Yellen holds the venerable office of Secretary of the Treasury. Former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Yellen is well qualified for the job and »

Mean-Spirited Joe

Featured image Joe Biden is delivering his State of the Union speech tonight. Apparently he will chide Americans for not appreciating his wonderful economy; declining real wages will not be mentioned. He will denounce “shrinkflation,” as though people are too stupid to know inflation when they see it. Nor will Biden mention the eight million or so illegals who have streamed across the border, wreaking havoc, since he opened it. Biden has »

The price of inflation

Featured image Jeffrey Anderson presents a comparative analysis of presidents and inflation. The mainstream press to the contrary notwithstanding, he explains what Biden has done to make us feel so black and blue. It’s not our imagination. It’s the inflation, stupid! See his City Journal column “No great mystery.” Anderson manages to review the data and perform the analysis with a sense of humor. The daycare minders at the White House have »

Shrink this

Featured image President Biden has posted a Super Bowl message. The message I extract from it is slightly different than the one he is peddling. The message I get from it is that he and his handlers think we’re dumber than doornails. We may be stupid, but you can’t clobber us in the face and pretend the other guy did it. Biden may not remember that he and his fellow Dems are »

The Train Wreck of Price Controls

Featured image Having unleashed a wave of inflation not seen for more than 40 years, Democrats naturally are shocked to discover inflation is not popular with Americans. So naturally liberals are dredging up the only policy worse than inflation as a proposed remedy—price controls! What a great idea. Our friends and Kite & Key Media are on it, and offer this nice treatment of the issue. Not that any liberals are capable »

Brooks’s complaint

Featured image Having spent $78 on lunch at the Newark Airport, New York Times columnist David Brooks seized the opportunity to present himself as a man of the people in the Xeet below. Like Bill Clinton, he has felt their pain. Before he got burned in Newark, however, he apparently couldn’t understand the economic plight of Bidenomics. The X community has added a note that gives Brooks’s complaint a little “context.” This »

Translate this

Featured image President Biden visited Ingeteam Inc. in Milwaukee yesterday to talk about the Hawaii wildfires he missed while sunning on the beach in Delaware over the weekend, tout the benefits of the Inflation Ignition Act, and lie about Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. Some intrepid reporter ought to write a noirish nonfiction exposé of the Biden presidency titled The Long Vacation with the subtitle And the Vacant Mind. The White House has »

Sitting on $17 billion

Featured image The state of Minnesota overtaxed us by $17 billion in the last biennium and is sitting on the surplus. The funds should be returned on a pro rata basis to those of us who were compelled to fork over the dough, but that’s not what state Democrats have in mind, even when they couch their proposals in the language of “rebates.” That much I can tell you. The Star Tribune »

Yellen not sayin’ again

Featured image When Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen toed the administration line on inflation being “transitory,” she exposed herself as a political hack. Why anyone should even believe anything she says is not exactly a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. No one should. The Wall Street Journal leads off its editorial today with reference to Yellen: Janet Yellen offered more assurances Thursday that U.S. banks are safe and sound—and we »

Biden administration’s profligate spending claims another victim, more will follow

Featured image As Warren Buffet once famously said, “Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.” And last week, that turned out to be the Silicon Valley Bank, whose customers include tech startups, venture-capital firms, and Napa Valley wineries. SVB’s leadership certainly deserves their fair share of the blame. Bankers, more than anyone else, knew that an aggressive interest rate tightening cycle lay ahead. Federal Reserve »

Why Silicon Valley Bank Failed

Featured image Economist John Phelan offers this succinct explanation of how government policies contributed to the collapse of SVB: On Friday regulators shuttered Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and seized its deposits in the largest U.S. banking failure since the 2008 financial crisis and the second-largest ever. We shouldn’t be surprised. Neither should we relax. To recap: Between June 2006 and December 2008, the Federal Reserve’s target for the federal funds rate was »

The Price of Bidenflation

Featured image Yesterday the stock markets had their worst day of the year, so far. From today’s Wall Street Journal: Walmart and Home Depot offered cautious outlooks as consumers spend more on food and less on electronics, apparel and home improvements, with inflation and changing habits hitting demand for many goods. All of this is, and has long been, blindingly obvious. The federal government engaged in trillions of dollars in mostly wasteful »

What’s Next For Inflation

Featured image Americans’ standard of living has been hammered by inflation the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades. There has been lots of happy talk from the administration, but no one thinks prices are going down any time soon. What, then, is going to happen? My colleague John Phelan offers an answer: prices should be rather stable for a while, unless the federal government embarks on a fresh money-printing spree: »

“The tweet was not complete”

Featured image For some reason or other Biden spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre’s explanation of the tweet — let’s declare it the tweet of the year — deleted by the White House this morning reminds me of Johnny Cochrane’s closing argument on behalf of O.J. Simpson. Both O.J. and Biden are guilty. However, Cochrane got his guilty client off. KJP just kept reading out her talking point. A reporter asks about the White House's »

Biden’s leadership revealed!

Featured image President Biden was firing off disgusting lies at mind-boggling speed yesterday, so the competition is stiff. However, I think this one posted to the official White House Twitter account inarguably deserves recognition as the lie of the day. In the tweet Biden claims responsibility for the COLA increase in Social Security disbursements next year. The White House attributes the increase in “Social Security checks” to Biden’s “leadership,” which is true »

Tea leaf of the day

Featured image I’ve been looking for tea leaves to read in connection with the midterm elections next week. The Twitter feed of Interactive Polls links to the Wall Street Journal poll reported here in today’s paper. (The tweet links to an accessible version of the story here.) The poll was conducted by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio and Democratic pollster John Anzalone. I trust that when commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, they »

Ramirez strikes on Halloween

Featured image Michael Ramirez observed Halloween yesterday with the editorial cartoon posted here at his Substack site (below). He calls it “Scary Inflation.” President Biden seems to have taken over from “Dr. Jill.” As Dracula strikes Biden covers for him. We are to believe that all is well as Biden touts the wonderworking power of the Inflation Reduction Act. Ramirez himself strikes in this cartoon with a dry and biting wit. Copyright »