Inflation Getting Worse, Biden Does Nothing but Blame Others

Today’s Consumer Price Index report contains numerous signs that inflation is not yet peaking and actually may be accelerating. Before talking about that, I feel it’s my duty to report President Biden’s response. “Exxon made more money than god this year,” he said, and then proceeded to bash the oil companies for not drilling. Why aren’t they drilling? To paraphrase his indecipherable word salad, it’s because when they make more money, they buy back their stock — which should be taxed. In other words, blame “Big Oil.”Later, his NEC director, Brian Deese, said that if you really isolate what’s going on here, the problem is that Vladimir Putin decided to take on his irresponsible war.There you have it: The blame game. Big Oil. Big Pharma. Big Poultry. Blame business, and of course blame Vladimir Putin. What isn’t mentioned is what’s really driving inflation — the lagged impact of massive federal spending, borrowing, and money printing. On top of that are Mr. Biden’s radical environmental policies, which have made it virtually impossible to get a permit for almost anything. Oil. Natural gas. Pipelines. Highways. Roads. Bridges. Even wind and solar farms will be stopped by the woke policies of the most radical EPA in history. Don’t forget to throw in the energy and interior departments pursuing the same “Green New Deal” agenda.So, oil companies don’t feel like making long-run investments? That’s because they read the newspapers. They know all about the Biden war on fossil fuels and they figure there may not be a fossil fuel industry after Mr. Biden gets done. Frankly, I can’t blame them.Anyway, it turns out that topline CPI over the past three months increased 10.7 percent at an annual rate, which is a couple of points higher than the 12-month rate of 8.6 percent.Core prices excluding food and energy picked up 6.3 percent over the past three months, which is higher than the 6 percent 12-month change.Outside of food and energy, housing and shelter prices are picking up steam: 6.7 percent over the past three months, compared to 5.5 percent over the past year. Another bad trend. Services prices, not good: up 9 percent the past three months, compared to 5.7 percent for the year.Even if you took out energy, services prices are up 8 percent, compared to 5.2 percent for the year.Used car prices are booming. So are new car prices. Health care costs are starting to pick up steam. Power and utilities are off the charts.Electricity is up 18.3 percent for the past three months, compared to 12 percent for the year.Consumer confidence plunged today in the University of Michigan report, and inflation expectations in that tally went up again. The Atlanta Fed wage tracker is up 6.1 percent for May. That’s another troublesome number. The other day, the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, our friend from the hostage video, claimed that Europe and all the big countries have the same inflation problems that we do in the U.S. That is a big falsehood. A couple of months ago, the San Francisco Fed showed the core inflation in the U.S. was more than double that of the OECD countries. A former Clinton and Obama economist, Jason Furman, just the other day in a WSJ op-ed showed that the U.S. has had about 3 percentage points more cumulative inflation than the Euro area since the onset of the pandemic.In fact, U.S. core inflation in May is up 6.3 percent, as I mentioned, while it’s only 3.8 percent in the Euro area. Wages in the U.S. are growing about twice as fast as in the Euro area. Most of this is because our fiscal policies in the U.S. have created a significant excess demand, while Europe’s nominal GDP remains several percentage points below trend.Messrs. Furman, Sommers, and Ratner have consistently warned about excess spending. But neither Ms. Yellen nor Mr. Deese nor their boss, Mr. Biden, will admit to that, and never owning it means never understanding it. I remember, years ago, the famous movie, “Being in Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.” Being in high inflation is really a different matter.Another thing Ms. Yellen refuses to learn: When she testified before Congress this past week, she continued to push the FY23 Biden budget that has at least $5 trillion in new spending and $3.5 trillion in higher taxes, both of which would massively increase inflation.Of course, with today’s report, real wages continue to plunge more than 3 percent. Frankly, the economy is barely at break even, having dropped 1.5 percent in Q1.The latest GDP tracker from the Atlanta Fed is 0.9 percent for Q2.Most regrettably, the Federal Reserve which erred mightily along with the Bidens a year and a half ago, will now have to adopt a much more aggressive policy to raise the target rate and pull cash out of the economy. To quote my pal Steve Forbes: “If they can print money, they can un-print it.” There’s probably no way out of this inflationary recession scenario. As an optimist, though, I have a different plan. First, make the Trump tax cuts permanent and slash personal tax rates in a simplified code that would increase the production side of the economy. Second, deregulate energy and industry everywhere, also boosting the supply side of the economy. Third, freeze domestic spending. Fourth, defend the value of King Dollar. Wrapped up in a balanced budget plan, this will skyrocket growth and crush inflation. It doesn’t have to be any harder than this. The cavalry is coming.From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.

Inflation Getting Worse, Biden Does Nothing but Blame Others

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