Inflation
November 1, 2022 — Scott Johnson
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
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October 19, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Stacey Abrams represents the beating heart of the Democratic Party. Pressed on the relative salience of abortion and inflation, Abrams explains: “Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas. It’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women this is not a reductive issue.” Showing the advantages of a sophisticated vocabulary, Abrams aptly expresses her point. Let us not “reduce” abortion to an issue of
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October 19, 2022 — Scott Johnson
We are within three weeks of the midterm elections. Democrats’ control of the White House leaves them in a good position to mitigate anticipated losses by taking action to affect the political environment. President Biden’s handlers seem to me not to have chosen well so far. The Biden economy inflicts pain on a daily basis. What have they got for that? They served up the Inflation Reduction Act. In other
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October 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Cost of living data are out for September, and they are grim. The Wall Street Journal reports: U.S. consumer inflation excluding energy and food accelerated to a new four-decade high in September, a sign that strong and broad price pressures are persisting. The Labor Department on Thursday said that its so-called core consumer-price index—which excludes volatile energy and food prices—rose 6.6% in September from a year earlier, the biggest increase
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September 27, 2022 — Scott Johnson
President Biden has delivered the worst inflation in 40 years. We see it one way or another every day. One effect of the current inflation is decline in real wages. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Biden has no idea what it means or that he is willing to say anything to try to mitigate the political damage that it is inflicting on Democrats who have enacted
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September 19, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I would be embarrassed to conduct an interview with the president that was as lame as Scott Pelley’s lovefest with President Biden on 60 Minutes last night. The Biden administration accorded Pelley a substantial amount of time to chat with Biden and Pelley returned the favor with a variety of softballs and dropped balls as well as his own apologetics — to no one’s surprise, of course, but still. It
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September 15, 2022 — Scott Johnson
President Biden threw a party at the White House to celebrate the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act on Tuesday. I noted it in “KJP on the IRA.” Asked to explain what the IRA would do to moderate inflation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded in word that, when translated, indicated it would do nothing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended the party, as did Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Byron
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September 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The White House celebrated the passage of the bizarrely named Inflation (tax, spending, climate) bill yesterday. President Biden spoke at excruciating length on the White House lawn. He had the crowd yearning for an encore by Nancy Pelosi, or even James Taylor. Opening with “What a great, great crowd,” Biden may have succeeded in avoiding the utterance of a true statement in his entire spiel. The White House has posted
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September 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Dow was down 1,276 points today, or 4%. Why? The August inflation number came in worse than expected: The new data showed the consumer-price index rose 8.3% in August from the same month a year ago. That was down from 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June—the highest inflation rate in four decades. But on a month-to-month basis, the figures showed inflation accelerating in August, dashing investors’ hopes that
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August 22, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Sunday morning gabfests have become an embarrassment of cliché and vacuity. The talking heads account for the embarrassment. The Biden administration officials account for the vacuity. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is a case in point. She appeared on FOX News Sunday yesterday touting the freebies and subsidies available under the terms of the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act. Reduce this! FOX News has posted video of the segment in
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August 12, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Drawing on this week’s BLS report on the Consumer Price Index, President Biden and his flacks promoted the idea that inflation had dramatically fallen to 0 percent last month. I noted the administration’s 0 percent chorus here yesterday. Is it too late to cancel the destructive monstrosity moving through Congress under the misnomer of the Inflation Reduction Act? That is one question the Democrat media adjunct failed to raise as
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August 8, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The political news of the day is the passage of the shove-it-down-your-throat absurdity of the Inflation Reduction Act. What this country needs is a vastly expanded Internal Revenue Service! (said no sane man or woman ever). Adding to the insufferable stupidity and deceit of the bill’s provisions is the insufferable stupidity and deceit of the media coverage of the bill itself. Feel the excitement coursing through Politico Playbook’s “How it
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July 19, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Free Beacon has compiled the video below to commemorate the one-year anniversary of President Biden’s dismissal of inflation as “temporary.” It’s a long way to temporary. The Free Beacon prefaces the video with a summary by Andrew Stiles: Exactly one year ago today, on July 19, 2021, President Joe Biden delivered a momentous address on the state of the U.S. economy. The speech, in retrospect, was a chilling portent
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July 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Wholesale prices shot up 11.3 percent for the year ended in June according to the producer price data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS Producer Price Indexes home page is posted here. The BLS press release on today’s data is posted here. The BLS press release usefully breaks down the sources of the increase. On a monthly basis the index rose 1.1 percent in June. CNBC’s
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July 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Inflation hit a new four-decade high in June as prices rose 9.1 percent from last year — 1.3 percent from the prior month — according to the data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning. The BLS’s “all items index increased 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981.” I put it this way: We see it everywhere
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July 6, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Miranda Devine paused to take in the wisdom of Biden’s National Economic Council Director Brian Deese in her New York Post column this past Sunday: If you had the unpleasant experience this July Fourth weekend of paying close to $5 for a gallon of gas, you can always comfort yourself with the idea that your pain is for a good cause: the “liberal world order.” So said Brian Deese, White
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June 8, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The venerable office of Secretary of the Treasury goes back to Alexander Hamilton. Looking over the roster of former Secretaries, one can observe that it has rarely been held by lightweights or hacks. Janet Yellen makes a mockery of the office. She degrades the office in performing its responsibilities poorly and ranging far afield to parrot the shibboleths and follies of the Biden administration like a Stalinist apparatchik. Yesterday Yellen
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