Posted on 05/24/2021 8:42:14 AM PDT by The Houston Courant
Gasoline prices have reached their highest level since 2014, still a month before summer. Food has gotten 3.5 percent more costly than it was last spring. Transportation and furniture costs are soaring. But Americans beginning to feel squeezed by inflation have a president whose advisors and friendly press offer words of solace. Judge for yourself whether they sound comforting.
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman maintains that “policymakers should keep their cool…” about the nearly 4.2 percent April increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which looks to him “like a temporary blip, reflecting transitory disruptions as the economy struggles to recover from pandemic disruptions.”
What the author of that commentary is missing (besides a thesaurus) is a clear perspective on how what he calls “transitory” inflation can impact economically burdened families. And Krugman is not alone. In the weeks since inflation hit, “transitory” has seen more usage than any other term in the policyspeak lexicon.
Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse earlier this month told Fox News that she and her colleagues “expect that there have been supply chain disruptions that will cause some transitory increases in prices.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had the strange notion to directly (and accurately) attribute some of the current inflation to Joe Biden’s spending policy: “The expectation from economists, both inside and outside of the government, is that the impacts of our proposed investments are transitory, are temporary, and that the benefits far outweigh the risks. We look at it, certainly, through that prism.”
(Excerpt) Read more at houstoncourant.com ...
Have these clowns actually ever looked thru a prism? Explains their distorted views of things.
About 30 years ago we had a coffee shortage. If I remember it was a manipulated shortage to get the price up. Prices went up.
The banana manufacturers saw the coffee price success and tried the same with bananas. People quit buying bananas. The banana cartel gave up and went back to normal marketing.
With GMO available now banana growers could try putting caffeine in them.
Even if the inflation really is transitory (not bloody likely), does anyone expect prices to decrease afterward?
Oh, for the good old days of 2008,when we were all gonna die from Deflation.
“Brace” for inflation ? I have always made out great under inflation. It’s better than the only other choice, deflation.
That’s what I’m seeing at our grocery store, 20% since pre-covid
A Confederate dollar is now worth more than a US dollar.
Remember when obama gas and oil prices were way up there? Gas came back down but for some reason. motor oil stayed high.
I watched a worker at the grocery changing prices on a brand of frozen dinners from $2.32 to $2.48, an increase of $.16.
.16 ÷ 2.32 = 0.068965... = 6.8965...% That hurts!
Food and such never did come back down, for the most part. The ratchet just keeps tightening.
I remember the 1970s toilet paper shortage (caused by a Johnny Carson joke), sugar shortage the same years, and a beef shortage, and the first gasoline shortage caused by the Arab Oil Embargo.
And that was before Jimmy Carter really messed up the oil industry causing the first HIGH increases in gasoline.
Remember, during the Iran oil crisis, when Carter refused to allow the oil industry to charge the higher rate for a barrel of US oil? Only new wells were allowed to sell at the higher price.
The industry simply shut down the old wells, and drilled new wells right next to the old ones and then charged the higher price.
Transitory my foot.
Find your boogie man and let it paralyze you.
Inflation, deflation, Democrats/communists, crime, UFOs, oil price shocks, shortages, gluts, monetary policy, your parents, your spouse, your kids, The FED, the list only grows.
OR, survey the field as it is and take advantage of what’s offered. There is opportunity everywhere RIGHT NOW, just like always. That’s why some people are always being successful while others never prosper.
Fear, boogie men and excuses.
“Transitory my foot.”
Yes, it’s transitory. Did you really think we could have a year of low or no production and NOT have a transitory effect as we start to break out of it?
When the price of oil/gas went sky high under Carter everyone said it was permanent. When it went to $147 under Bush everyone said it was permanent. They traded in their gas guzzlers for econoboxes. A few months later oil was $27 a barrel.
It’s transitory, and people need to buck up and stop being big babies about everything. Opportunity is everywhere right now, just like always.
So the trillions of fake money has had no impact? And the scheme to spend trillions more...will help correct the issue?
70’s toilet paper shortage, Johnny Carson joke.
Longshoremen in Hawaii went on strike. Things tightened up in Hawaii. Some Hawaiian radio talk show host surmised about a shortage of toilet paper. That started the toilet paper panic buying in Hawaii. When the strike broke I joined a ship that was already loaded and ready to go to Hawaii. We were greeted by the local TV who interviewed our captain on the dock. The captain confirmed to them that we indeed had toilet paper for the people of Hawaii.
That is where Johnny Carson got the idea for the joke.
Ok, now the narritive is “transitory”. Soon to be followed by the government basing the official inflation rate to the price of cattle manure, eliminating the “highly volatile” components of energy, food, housing, and medical care.
Americans need to realize that there are actually two different economies (and two sets of economic statistics): Washington (and related entities) and the rest of America. Non-Washington lives in the real economic world of inflation, booms, busts, layoffs, high unemployment, etc, while Washington never experiences anything negative with regard to its economy. Washington’s economy is always booming, no layoffs, no recessions, with nothing to worry about at all except how to keep Non-Washington from becoming too aware of the scam. Inflation is never a problem for Washington as it just makes the trough wider and deeper.
Everybody has their own basket of goods and hence their own inflation rate.
Saw it today. $63.54 for four little steaks at Sam’s. All beef has gone through the roof. Not so much at the sale barn though.
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