inflation

Dems Sell Well

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

“This is a direct threat to our very democracy.”

Have you heard that before and again and again?  How could you have not heard that over-hyperventilated accusation?

Our civil servant friends from the left have perfected its delivery with the tone, tenor, and repetitiveness that they are very skilled at doing in marketing their message.

Have you ever wondered aloud what exactly this vague and veiled threat to our democracy is?  Maybe it comes down to what your definition of “is” is.

Is it avowed socialists like Bernie Sanders wanting control? Is it three or five avowed socialists running for office this midterm? Is it China or Ukraine or both compromising the Biden family?  Is it America turning away from oil and gas to make us weaker and weaker before it’s time to do so?  Is it an open border that welcomes good people and bad people and fentanyl?  Is it spending trillions that we don’t have which turned into wicked inflation?

Is it none of the above?  Maybe it’s none of the above when it comes to the November 8th midterms.

For now, it’s the constant war on Trump, trumped-up charges or not(in our best Kamala voice).  After all, he would not allow for a peaceful transfer of power.  And it’s voting rights whether you’re a citizen or not and have a voter ID or not.

And, heaven forbid we forget, it’s also climate change which also doubles as the greatest existential threat as well.

It’s MAGA.  It’s more Trump.  Trump.  TRUMP.

Why is it the above?  It’s because the Dems said it so and the media trumpets (we had to) it over and again.  Dems sell, sell, sell.

But, don’t take our word for it.  The American Association of Retired People (AARP) just released the results of its new poll of America’s 50+ crowd.  And they honed it down further to 50 years and older women.

What’s on their minds?  The top three concerns for them with five weeks to decide who to vote for are 1) voting rights, 2) threats to democracy, and 3) inflation.

Voting rights?  This group has been voting freely for 32 years or more.

And, “threats to democracy” finished ahead of the worst “inflation” in 40 years.  Perception is reality.

They were also asked what would benefit them the most.  The number one answer, you ask.  They are looking for protection from Social Security cuts.  Social Security has been borrowed and stolen from repeatedly.  But, it hasn’t been cut, ever.  Ever.  This year’s cost of living increase to SS checks will be the biggest percentage-wise since 1978.  Worry not, or worry a lot apparently.

The AARP “She’s the Difference” poll finds that 51 percent of likely women voters age 50 and older have not made up their minds for whom they will cast their ballots in November.

How many voters is that altogether?  Americans over 50 represented 1/3rd of voters in 2018 and 2020.  Half or more are women.  So, it’s about 1/6th of all voters or 17% of the nation’s total.  That is Yuge as one used to say.

So, if you’re expecting a red wave this November, maybe not.  If you’re expecting to hold on to the House as Nancy Pelosi droned on about Sunday, maybe not.

But, if you’re over 50 and identify as a female one party sent you an invitation.

The other is a bunch of old fuddy-duddies.

 

 

The Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

President Joe Biden and CBS’ 60 Minutes got together for an interview (we use that term loosely these days) that aired Sunday night.  We believe his performance landed somewhere in between two other great theatrical performances.

On the high side, it landed just below John Belushi playing Bluto in the 1980 hit Animal House.

Bluto: “What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

Biden:  “The pandemic is over.”  We still have a problem with Covid.   But people aren’t wearing masks anymore.  People are in pretty good shape.”

On Monday the White House was power walking that utterance back.  CNN, “the most trusted name in news,” reported yesterday that the White House says that its Covid-19 policy is unchanged despite Biden’s comments that the pandemic is over.

In interviews, six administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment said the president’s statement would probably make it harder to persuade people to get shots or secure new money from Congress, noting those efforts have already lagged behind their goals.

Maybe those in the military who didn’t get the jab or four can get back to defending the country?  Maybe we can stop suspending loan payments? Another round of noninflationary covid-19 stimulus checks anyone?  Etc.

In other words, it’s hard to keep giving away money and telling the same lie if the leader doesn’t go along with it. Maybe the White House can’t handle the truth?

So, on the low side, it landed just above Jack Nicholson playing Colonel Jessup in the 1992 drama A Few Good Men.

Colonel Jessup: “You can’t handle the truth.”

Interviewer: “The stock market dove 1300 points.  People are shocked by their grocery bills.  What can you do better and faster?”  Biden: “Let’s put this in perspective.  The inflation rate month to month is up hardly at all.  It was 8.2. or 8.2 before.  You’re making it sound like it went to 8.2 all of a sudden.  It hasn’t spiked in the last several months.  It’s been just barely, um, it’s been basically even.”

It’s scary to even ask this, but “how many people in America think that if inflation hovers around 8.2% annualized month to month that it’s barely going up?”

Does Biden and the White House actually believe the math salad that they are serving the country?  Or, do they believe America is too dumb to understand, so they buy this BS line just like they’ll stand in line to pay more for groceries?

Your physical health is way better, they just don’t want you to think so.  Your financial health is way worse, they just don’t want you to think so.  The 2022 midterms loom.

When Bluto ran out of the frat house no one followed him.  Today, far too many would.

Do the history books today teach us that it was indeed the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor?  Today, we can’t handle the truth.

 

 

 

Island Getaway

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Oprah really knew how to capture an audience.  Way back on December 22, 2010, her spell may have reached its zenith when she shouted out to her live audience, “you get a car, and you get a car!  Everyone gets a car!”

Just about a decade later our president channeled that giving feeling as well.  President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan(ARP), a coronavirus relief package, in the Oval Office of the White House on March 11, 2021, in Washington.

It was a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed without one “yea” vote from the stingy Republicans.  The Democrats, fresh off of a Capitol and Oval Office sweep felt compelled to give back.

Not everyone in America got a car to help beat that pesky virus.  But, some institutions and good citizens got more, way more, after having to shove a Q-Tip halfway to some remote island.

Take the Oral History Association for example.  They received $825,000 in ARP funds for a grant-making project titled, “Diversifying Oral History Practice: A Fellowship Program for Under/Unemployed Oral Historians,” which provided eleven year-long fellowships of $60,000 each for oral historians “from communities that have been historically marginalized in the field,” such as “Indigenous peoples, people of color, people with disabilities, and working-class people.”

Are you wondering what exactly is an Oral Historian?  Let Google be your friend.  Oral historians document the past by preserving insights not found in printed sources. The skilled practitioner must remain impartial, listen, and stay in the background.  Got it?

One of the recipients of the 60k giveaway was Elizabeth “Beth” Castle, a “Shawnee-ancestored anti-racist educator.”  This inspired her to create “A Collaborative Oral History of the Fight Against Mineral and Uranium Mining in the Black Hills, the Origins of the Global Indigenous Movement, and the Ongoing Struggle to Protect the People who Protect Mother Earth.”

We kid you not.

Want another? And, another?

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) received $135 million from the plan and proceeded to hand out half of the handout.  The NEH awarded $50,000 in ARP funds to a nonprofit organization in the Northern Mariana Islands called 500 Sails for “reopening programs that teach Indigenous canoe-building and explore pre-colonial sea life.”

The NEH also helped the Science History Institute in Philadelphia.  They were awarded $359,097 by the NEH to create a “multiplatform project exploring the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine.”

As inflation hit 8.6% in May some economists, including former Obama administration economic advisers, have blamed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package for overheating the economy.

President Biden didn’t feel that way when he signed the bill.

“We need Congress to pass my American Rescue Plan,” the president said at the time. “Now, critics say my plan is too big, that it costs $1.9 trillion. So that’s too much. Well, let me ask them: What would they have me cut?  What would they have me leave out?”

Where are the Northern Mariana Islands anyway?

Here is a hint.

Five dollars per gallon of gas and a free car from Oprah can’t get you there.

And, the freebies should have been electric vehicles.

 

Very Interesting

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Way back when people now in their seventies watched a #1 rated TV show in the early 1970s called Laugh In.  The fast-moving, one-of-a-kind show featured never-ending quick skits, one-liners, and brief physical comedy performed by a troupe of talented actors.

One such actor was Artie Johnson.  Like the others, Artie played a wide range of characters.  But, without doubt, his two most famous were 1) a soldier who emerged from a bush to utter the line, “very interesting, but stupid!” and, 2) a grown adult on a tiny tricycle who “biked” briefly until he always unceremoniously crashed.

This brings us to the 46th President of the United States- Joseph Biden.  How?  Well, he’s in his seventies.  Sunday while biking at roughly two miles per hour he fell down.  And, later that day safely away from the bike he uttered something very interesting, but some say stupid.  Actually, he uttered some things, plural.

When doting reporters following his every Delaware vacation move asked about inflation and the economy, Biden bristled.  “A recession isn’t inevitable.  We have a chance to make a fundamental turn toward renewable energy, electric vehicles, and not just electric vehicles but across the board,” Biden countered.

Inflation is at a 40-year high.   The national average of gas prices crossed over the $5/gallon threshold, the highest ever.   Second place was $4.11 back in 2008.

Post-Covid transitory inflation that transitioned to Putin’s price hike is now not leading to an inevitable recession.  Unless we are already in one we suppose.

Biden followed up this exchange in Delaware by telling a reporter that “his team” would sit down with oil executives to demand they produce more oil and question their high profits.

The great unifier, who suspended multiple domestic oil leases, is now blaming greedy oil companies. So, while none of this is his fault, at least it gives us a chance to buy an electric car with batteries made from fossil-fueled plants.

But wait!  There’s more!

The President said Monday he is considering creating a federal gas tax holiday, which could save Americans as much as 18.4 cents per gallon.  His ex-boss, former President Barack Obama, was against such a move on the campaign trail back in 2008, the last time prices were near this high.

Obama said at the time that a gas tax holiday was a “gimmick” to save Americans half a tank of gas over the summer so that lawmakers could “say that they did something.”

With gas at five bucks a gallon, the tax is not even 4% of the total cost to Americans to fill up.  Gimmick indeed.

It also suspends the collection of said tax money that is supposed to keep up the nation’s roads and bridges.  There go the roads that we can’t afford gas to drive on!

At least we printed a trillion a year ago that we don’t have to repair our infrastructure.  That trillion wasn’t inflationary either, was it?

We have windmills to fall back on.  We do unless the wind isn’t blowing.

Not to worry, in Washington the political winds are always blowing.  At the moment they’re straight out of the left.

Maybe we should all just try to ride bikes from here on out.  How about that idea?

Very interesting.

But………….

 

 

Big Stage, Bright Lights

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Be careful what you wish for.  Sometimes the big stage and the bright lights are too big and too bright.

Ask the Kenosha prosecuting attorney if he agrees with the above.  He’s either smart reaching for a mistrial or real dumb at his job.  We’re picking plum dumb.

The Rittenhouse case is going so poorly that you would think the witnesses he called were defense witnesses.  The judge has all but tossed him from the courtroom.

If you got behind a microphone and asked “why was Kyle Rittenhouse even there?” should you also ask yourself why were the protesters there?  Ah yes, they were protesting (rioting and burning down the town) because of perceived social injustice.

However, the video proved otherwise, and it’s not even debatable.  The DOJ investigated and declined to press any charges against the officer.  It was deemed a necessary shooting.

But, never, ever let facts get in the way of a good narrative, especially in an election year.

Well, if you can’t make a case against the officer, try the “white supremacist” AK-toting teenager. Somebody has to pay.

We would ask LeBron James, but we already know that he isn’t afraid of the bright lights.  He tweeted after Rittenhouse took the stand and broke down, “what tears?????”  There are plenty King, you just aren’t looking in the right place.

Blake is paralyzed.  Two protesters are dead.  Shop owners lost their place of business.  Employees lost their jobs.  All for nothing.  Nothing.   Maybe King James should devote more time to furthering his expertise on human relations in the People’s Republic of China.

There is blood on the hands of more than Rittenhouse in this one.

Ask Kamala Harris if she agrees with the above.

The VP, her nervous laugh, and “cringe-worthy” moments travel together.  This time she descended on France for whatever reasons that pale compared to the mess that this side of the pond is in.  Undeterred, Harris broke into some drivel about “The Plan” in front of worldwide cameras and decided now was a good time to throw in a bad attempt at a French accent.

You can run, but you can’t hide.  And, she can’t run for any office again and be taken seriously.  And, the race is on.  She’s trying to run from the Biden Administration and the Biden Administration is trying to run from her.  Ten months into the second-highest job in the land and her approval rating sits at 28%.

As a reminder, she was so popular in the party that she withdrew from the presidential nominee process before the first primary with a less than a 1% poll number.

Ask Joe Biden, when he wakes up if he agrees with the above.  His approval rating stands at 38%.

Why? Afghanistan, border chaos, vaccine mandates, out-of-control social program spending, decades high inflation, a November 2nd ballot box wake-up call, and Senator Joe Manchin comes to mind.

Sunday his Department of Energy Secretary took to the talk shows.  Jennifer Granholm said oil is a global market “controlled by a cartel, the cartel is called OPEC.”  To think that just a dozen months ago America was darn near energy independence.  Asked if she would ask the US producers to ramp up production, she laughed loudly and said, “that is hilarious.”

Folks paying $4-6 a gallon don’t get the joke.  Inflation is the biggest tax on the low to middle-income families you can assess.  They spend all that they make to provide for their families.  The more things cost, the less they can buy.

Be careful what you wish for.

 

 

Ho, Ho, No

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yes DC, there is a Santa Claus.

“With holidays coming up, you might be wondering if the gifts you plan to buy will arrive on time,” President Biden said from the White House yesterday. “Today we have some good news: We’re going to help speed up the delivery of goods all across America.”

And ole Joe, one of Kris Kringle’s older elves is here to help.  The White House responded to the roughly 66 container ship backlog by finalizing an agreement for the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach to become a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operation just like the hours that Santa’s helpers keep this time of the year.

The hope is that nighttime operations will help to break the logjam and get that temporary inflation, which isn’t so temporary, under control.

Want to know a Santa’s secret?  The port has been operating 24/7 for the last 21 days.  Want to know another?   Consumer prices climbed 5.4% from a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, way above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

Higher energy, food, and shelter costs were prime drivers of price increases in September.   There isn’t too much energy coming into LA’s ports.  And, it accounts for zero shelter cost increases.

Ah, but it’s been said before, and savvy politicians will say it again.  And, again.   Never, ever let a good crisis go to waste.  Alas, the president is trying to use the predicament as a selling point for his policy plans that are undergoing congressional scrutiny.

“We need to take a longer view and invest in building greater resiliency to withstand the kinds of shocks we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out, the risk of a pandemic, extreme weather, climate change, cyberattacks, weather disruptions,” he said.  That’s a mouthful of leftist cookies and milk if we’ve ever heard it.

What’s so weird about this is that Santa and his elves work in the harshest climate of all, the North Pole.  And, we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out that jolly ole Nick guy and his reindeer get to millions of homes, up and down chimneys, and deliver on promises all in one 24 hour window.  That’s a supply chain logistics model to emulate if ever there was one.  And, yet, it doesn’t work this year.  Hmm.

And, lost in all of this is that the ports are but one small piece of the puzzle.  Up and down the supply chain- wages, raw material shortages, manufacturing shortfalls, lack of truck drivers, lack of retail workers, etc all have a role.  Oh, and the government is stuffing money in the stockings hung on the mantle without care.

Rudolph’s red inflation nose is flashing so bright, that the Fed might need to deliver an interest rate lump of coal increase sooner than later.   That, of course, assumes coal is still an allowable fuel source should the Democrats pass the Reconciliation Bill, but we digress.

University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson noted on Twitter the “economy is in a very fragile and unprecedented place.”  “No one really knows what’s going to happen,” wrote Stevenson, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.

Maybe Santa could trade in his old, old sleigh. We hear used vehicles are commanding top trade-in dollars these days.

The problem with that is he’d need to buy a pricey new one.

And, those come from China, through the LA port, and are back-ordered until mid-2022 we heard.