TODAY, JUNE 1, 2022,one can read in the heritage press that President Biden is very unhappy during these days of sky high inflation. Not that he empathizes with his fellow citizens who are faced with surging petrol prices which force them decide on lunch or enough gas in their tank to get home for supper. No, Biden was only concerned with the way the subject of inflation was being reported in the press. For him he is too often being lamed for inflation . Yes, even the legacy press, so careful to hide this man’s weaknesses and foibles a few months ago, have actually reported now and again that the President has made some mistakes. Sadly, he is not used to such justified but “rough” treatment.
Inflation has (rightly) depressed the Presidents generally year long falling poll numbers to ever lower and lower levels. The polls are now even with or below those of his detested and maligned predecessor (former President Trump). This is a fact that is reported as particularly irritating to Biden—who so often, publicly and harshly criticized Trump as an incompetent or worse. Now the nations seems to prefer his predecessor.
Over the last few months the President has been confronted by skyrocketing inflation (claimed at 8% today, but people who shop for food and other goods know that prices have surged much higher than that). The price of petrol has hit a record high of over $4.65 per gallon or 50% higher than last year. This is the average number for the nation as a whole, but some states are much higher. Petrol in California has been reported at $8.00 per gallon. On the price of petrol, Biden is often heckled with questions of “Why can’t you do something about it?”
The reason why he can not ‘do anything about it” is that inflation is the unexpected consequence of Biden’s actual plan for the nation. It is of his own making. Shutting down the fossil fuel industry was the first item on Biden’s Bucket List. He cut the US fossil fuel industry off at the knees on the first days of his administration. As a result of his early pronouncements denigrating fossil fuels and their producers, gas and oil from fracking and oil well production fell immediately. Predictably gas and oil prices climbed. That “Biden move” was an intentional act. He purposely rewarded his early anti fossil fuel supporters by throwing a bone to the “Green” fanatics of his Democrat party. They foolishly imagined that such acts would motivate the nation to abandon fossil fuels and turn to renewables. They and the President of course, did not realize that just about everything that moves around in this nation, moves in trucks, trucks which almost all run on diesel fuel (now priced at about $6.00 per gallon). So raising the price of fuel simply made almost everything one purchased much more expensive. Raising the price of a commodity that is essential for almost every other purchase is a sure way to inflate (cheapen) the dollar and reduce the purchasing power of everyone—rich and poor.
Then too soon after he was elected, the President dumped two trillion dollars of borrowed “fun money” into the economic system to help ramp up the post-pandemic economy. But again, the novice crowd in the Administration did not realize that a large amount of cash was already circulating in the system, chasing scarce goods and services. With goods still recovering from pandemic scarcity-there was too many dollars chasing to few goods—a recipe for inflation. Then too the slow ending of the pandemic left the nation with a great deal of pent up post pandemic demand, and adding trillions of dollars in cash only served to super charge and stimulate inflation.
While these troubling events were brewing and inflation was rising, the Administration foolishly continued to deny there was an ‘inflation” problem. They blamed the rising gas prices on the pandemic and supply chain problems. The time for the FED to have raised interest rates to control the problem was at the beginning. But that did not happen because the Administration simply denied inflation was real—claiming it was only a temporary glitch.
In fact in the face of these worrying circumstances they continued to attempt to pass the signature Biden massive “Build Back Better” $4 trillion dollar boondoggle, which ignoring its monstrous price tag and deficit funding would have been an inflationary disaster. Thanks to two wise and heroic US Senators, Sen Manchin, (D,WV) and Sen Sinema (D,Az) who would not support the President’s plan “because it was inflationary” the bill did not pass. The two senators were harshly condemned and branded Democrat and Biden ‘traitors”. But they were hero’s for American workers, tax payers and business folk. The President and his party are of the opinion that they can spend their way out of any problem. They were simply unaware of the fact that—inflation is one problem that can not be solved with more government cash outlay. Dumping more money into the system for whatever “good’ purpose would only act to increase inflationary pressure and serve as hidden “inflation tax” on all those who could least afford it. More money in the system simply further erodes the value of the existing dollars held in the hands of workers, businesses, and investors.
So although the President is unhappy with the blame he gets for inflation—he did it to the himself. He took a booming economy and degraded it into one with the highest inflation rate in 40 years, and one teetering on the cusp of awful stagflation—high inflation, high unemployment and falling GDP. He did it no one else.
Biden Did It!
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