A startling disconnect as we edge closer to the 2024 general election: On one hand, so-called “experts” parade optimistic economic reports, but for the average American, the story is starkly different. In heated debates, economists squabble over whether the public is hoodwinking pollsters or if mysterious forces are at play.
Our guest columnist explains how the government is playing a smoke-and mirrors-game with the economy. It’s subtler than making up numbers. They’re pumping up GDP and job figures through hefty spending and hiring. Unlike the struggling private sector, the government can spend tax dollars and create deficit-financed jobs without having to prove their worth:
Two days before Christmas in 1913, Woodrow Wilson gave the United States a Christmas gift that keeps taking. On that day, he signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, creating the US central bank.
Since that inauspicious day, the US dollar has lost 96% of its value.
Was the producer price data that came out late last week really more good news on the inflation front?
That’s certainly how the mainstream media spun it. But as was the case with the April CPI data, the mainstream spin didn’t necessarily reflect reality.
In fact, there is a pro-government, pro-official narrative bias that pervades the mainstream media, including the financial media.
Virtually everybody agrees that government spending is necessary to support the economy and society in general. We may debate vigorously about what exactly the government should spend money on, but few people will entertain the thought that maybe the government shouldn’t spend money at all. Most fail to even acknowledge that even the best government spending comes with a cost.
Your Thanksgiving meal cost about 20% more than it did last year. Why did it cost so much more? As Peter Schiff explained in his podcast, your more expensive Thanksgiving came to you courtesy of the US government and its inflation tax.
President Biden is expected to announce student loan forgiveness on Wednesday (Aug. 24). The plan will reportedly cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for anybody making less than $125,000 per year.
A lot of people think this is like waving a magic wand — poof — the debt is gone. But somebody has to pay and that somebody is the American taxpayer.
Fifty-one years ago this week, President Richard Nixon slammed shut the “gold window” and eliminated the last vestige of the gold standard.
Nixon ordered Treasury Secretary John Connally to uncouple gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the ability of foreign banks to directly exchange dollars for gold. During a national television address, on Aug. 15, 1971, Nixon promised the action would be temporary in order to “defend the dollar against the speculators,” but this turned out to be a lie. The president’s move permanently and completely severed the dollar from gold and turned it into a pure fiat currency.
The CPI fell modestly in July, but prices remained near 40-year highs at 8.5%. Meanwhile, President Biden did a victory lap, and Congress passed an “Inflation Reduction Act” that will only make inflation worse.
It’s easy to look at inflation talk as political banter and wonky economic theorizing, but in fact, it hurts real people. As Brazilian economist André Marques explains, it makes us all poorer.
Rapidly rising prices put the squeeze on everybody’s wallets. A recent study showed that inflation is hitting rural Americans particularly hard. According to the Iowa State University report, people in rural areas now spend 91% of their income on expenses alone. Peter Schiff recently appeared on Rob Schmitt Tonight to talk about the pain of the inflation tax.
Ronald Reagan once said the most terrifying nine words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
One of the biggest problems with government help is that it always comes at a cost. And the burden of that cost almost always falls on the very people that big government claims to help – the poor and middle class.
