Joe Biden should be thinking right now, “If you break it, you own it,” but he isn’t.
Yes, it’s implausible that the president, who has earned the moniker “Sleepy Joe,” has enough self-awareness to own his involvement in fueling the US economy’s precarious position, which is currently experiencing a 40-year high of 7.9% (and rising) inflation.
The trouble for Biden is that inflation is only going to become worse, according to every Wall Street CEO I speak with, no matter how much he blames the Russians for increasing costs on everything from gasoline to groceries. That is, unless Sleepy Joe wakes up and reverses his strange energy policies, which have rendered the United States reliant on despots from Russia to Venezuela. We still rely on oil and gas as the lifeblood of our economy, no matter how hard environmentalists and their lackeys in the White House push for a zero-carbon footprint.
Inflation is a form of theft. It robs money mostly from the poor, working, and middle classes in the United States. Joe Biden, on the other hand, fueled it with irrational fiscal measures, such as continuing to pay people not to work when the economy needed supply to meet surging demand post-COVID.
And he enlisted the help of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who continued to print money long after COVID had ceased to represent an existential threat to the economy. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, this established the stage for the present inflation cycle.
Biden’s energy policies also shackled oil producers to the point where gas prices a crucial component of the consumer price index were growing before the Ukraine invasion compelled Biden to impose an embargo on Russian oil and gas, putting $150 a barrel oil and $8 a gallon gas in the near future.
So don’t be fooled by Sleepy Joe’s excuses; he’s now blaming oil firms for not following through on drilling licenses while ignoring other roadblocks to exploration and drilling.
Another blather from his camp: that increasing US oil supplies will take a year or more to reach markets and will have little impact on prices.
Sorry, but oil is priced in the futures market, and more future supply will keep prices from spiraling much higher, and may even bring them down.
There is a way out for Biden: stop pandering to the left and reclaim domestic energy independence. Someone needs to wake him up to the fact that inflation isn’t going away, and Americans will eventually hold him responsible.
What causes inflation, exactly?
They claim supply chain challenges, growing demand, production costs, and large swathes of relief funding all have a part, although politicians tends to blame the supply chain or the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 as the main reasons.
A more apolitical perspective would say that everyone has a role to play in reducing the amount of distance a dollar can travel.
“There’s a convergence of elements it’s both,” said David Wessel, head of the Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. “There are several factors that have driven up demand and prevented supply from responding appropriately, resulting in inflation.”
Who is in charge of inflation?
Some countries have had such high inflation rates that their currency has lost its value. Imagine going to the store with boxes full of cash and being unable to purchase anything because prices have skyrocketed! The economy tends to break down with such high inflation rates.
The Federal Reserve was formed, like other central banks, to promote economic success and social welfare. The Federal Reserve was given the responsibility of maintaining price stability by Congress, which means keeping prices from rising or dropping too quickly. The Federal Reserve considers a rate of inflation of 2% per year to be the appropriate level of inflation, as measured by a specific price index called the price index for personal consumption expenditures.
The Federal Reserve tries to keep inflation under control by manipulating interest rates. When inflation becomes too high, the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates to slow the economy and reduce inflation. When inflation is too low, the Federal Reserve reduces interest rates in order to stimulate the economy and raise inflation.
What is the primary cause of inflation?
If inflation continues to rise over an extended period of time, economists refer to this as hyperinflation. Expectations that prices will continue to rise fuel inflation, which lowers the real worth of each dollar in your wallet.
Spiraling prices can lead to a currency’s value collapsing in the most extreme instances imagine Zimbabwe in the late 2000s. People will want to spend any money they have as soon as possible, fearing that prices may rise, even if only temporarily.
Although the United States is far from this situation, central banks such as the Federal Reserve want to prevent it at all costs, so they normally intervene to attempt to curb inflation before it spirals out of control.
The issue is that the primary means of doing so is by rising interest rates, which slows the economy. If the Fed is compelled to raise interest rates too quickly, it might trigger a recession and increase unemployment, as happened in the United States in the early 1980s, when inflation was at its peak. Then-Fed head Paul Volcker was successful in bringing inflation down from a high of over 14% in 1980, but at the expense of double-digit unemployment rates.
Americans aren’t experiencing inflation anywhere near that level yet, but Jerome Powell, the Fed’s current chairman, is almost likely thinking about how to keep the country from getting there.
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Photo credit for the banner image:
Prices for used cars and trucks are up 31% year over year. David Zalubowski/AP Photo
RELATED: Inflation: Gas prices will get even higher
Inflation is defined as a rise in the price of goods and services in an economy over time. When there is too much money chasing too few products, inflation occurs. After the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low to try to boost the economy. More people borrowed money and spent it on products and services as a result of this. Prices will rise when there is a greater demand for goods and services than what is available, as businesses try to earn a profit. Increases in the cost of manufacturing, such as rising fuel prices or labor, can also produce inflation.
There are various reasons why inflation may occur in 2022. The first reason is that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, oil prices have risen dramatically. As a result, petrol and other transportation costs have increased. Furthermore, in order to stimulate the economy, the Fed has kept interest rates low. As a result, more people are borrowing and spending money, contributing to inflation. Finally, wages have been increasing in recent years, putting upward pressure on pricing.
Is inflation beneficial?
- Inflation, according to economists, occurs when the supply of money exceeds the demand for it.
- When inflation helps to raise consumer demand and consumption, which drives economic growth, it is considered as a positive.
- Some people believe inflation is necessary to prevent deflation, while others say it is a drag on the economy.
- Some inflation, according to John Maynard Keynes, helps to avoid the Paradox of Thrift, or postponed consumption.
Inflation favours whom?
- Inflation is defined as an increase in the price of goods and services that results in a decrease in the buying power of money.
- Depending on the conditions, inflation might benefit both borrowers and lenders.
- Prices can be directly affected by the money supply; prices may rise as the money supply rises, assuming no change in economic activity.
- Borrowers gain from inflation because they may repay lenders with money that is worth less than it was when they borrowed it.
- When prices rise as a result of inflation, demand for borrowing rises, resulting in higher interest rates, which benefit lenders.
Who is affected by inflation?
Unexpected inflation hurts lenders since the money they are paid back has less purchasing power than the money they lent out. Unexpected inflation benefits borrowers since the money they repay is worth less than the money they borrowed.
What is the best way to get rid of inflation?
- Governments can fight inflation by imposing wage and price limits, but this can lead to a recession and job losses.
- Governments can also use a contractionary monetary policy to combat inflation by limiting the money supply in an economy by raising interest rates and lowering bond prices.
- Another measure used by governments to limit inflation is reserve requirements, which are the amounts of money banks are legally required to have on hand to cover withdrawals.
What is creating 2021 inflation?
As fractured supply chains combined with increased consumer demand for secondhand vehicles and construction materials, 2021 saw the fastest annual price rise since the early 1980s.