With the “transitory” inflation narrative dead and buried, the powers that be have shifted to a new tactic to deflect their responsibility for rising prices – blame somebody else.
Elizabeth Warren recently claimed that rising prices were due to “price gouging” by “greedy” corporations. But the evidence says otherwise. In fact, producer prices have risen faster than consumer prices. That means businesses have only passed on some of their higher costs to consumers. If anything these “greedy” corporations have allowed consumers to gouge them.
You’re being squeezed by inflation. You can’t find what you’re looking for at the store due to widespread shortages. And when you do find what you need, it takes forever to check out of the store because the labor market is completely out of whack.
But really, the problem is with you. Your expectations are just too high – at least according to Washington Post columnist Micheline Maynard.
It’s become increasingly hard to hide the inflation problem. Even without the sizzling hot CPI numbers, the average American experiences rising prices every day at the grocery store and the gas station.
With it becoming harder and harder to blow inflation off as transitory, apologists for the central bank and the federal government have shifted to a new strategy — try to convince you that inflation is good for you.
I would probably have a hard time convincing you that the higher prices you’re paying at the grocery store and the gas pump are “good for you.” But there are people out there making that claim.
A Peter Schiff put it, double-barrel inflation is locked and loaded. But after yet another month of hotter thane expected CPI, the central bankers at the Federal Reserve continue to insist that inflation is “transitory” and blame it on everything except their monetary policy.
These central bankers lack any sense of self-awareness. If they did, they would recognize, as Ron Paul does, that their policies are a complete and utter failure.
When we talk about “inflation,” most people immediately think about rising prices. That is indeed one of the effects of inflation. But that isn’t inflation itself. Properly defined, inflation is an increase in the money supply. In fact, that used to be the standard definition of inflation. Over time, the government has changed the definition. Today, pretty much everybody defines inflation as rising prices.
As Ron Paul pointed out, the recent brouhaha at the Federal Reserve when information came out revealing several central bank officials making multiple multimillion-dollar stock trades in 2020 even as the Fed was putting its big fat thumb on the economic scales was a minor thing compared to the bigger scandal – the everyday operation of the Fed.
The Fed engages in price-fixing. And it fixes one of the most important prices in the economy – the price of money. Peter Schiff said this always ends in a disaster.
There was a recent scandal at the Federal Reserve when information came out revealing that several central bank officials made multiple multimillion-dollar stock trades in 2020 even as the Fed was putting its big fat thumb on the economic scales. But as Ron Paul points out, there’s an even bigger scandal over at the Federal Reserve and it’s a matter of policy. The Fed’s manipulation of monetary policy and the broader economy impoverishes ordinary Americans, even as it enriches the elites, and facilitates government debt and deficits.
We’ve written extensively about the “war on cash.” In a nutshell, governments would love to do away with cash in order to better track and control their citizens. There have been numerous moves closer to a cashless society in recent years, from capping ATM withdrawals to doing away with large-denomination bills. Last year, China launched a digital yuan pilot program and the US has floated moving toward a digital dollar.
The Federal Reserve not only runs US monetary policy with its interest rate manipulations and its quantitative easing program; it also “regulates” financial institutions. That’s why the fact that several Fed members made multiple multimillion-dollar stock trades in 2020 even as the central bank was putting its big fat thumb on the economic scales is more than a little problematic.
