Monthly Archives: June 2021

Inflation Excitement

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Current inflation is running at 5% year-on-year, which is quite high by relatively recent standards, and so is much worried about. But what does that rate mean, really? After all, economic activity came to a near standstill during—and especially at the outset of—the Wuhan Virus situation, which led to a sharp fall-off of both demand and production, which thoroughly contaminated what otherwise would have been useful price information. The on-year part of that comparison is a large aberration.

This graph summarizes the inflation situation; it compares the year-on-year inflation rate with the inflation rate when the on-year year is 2019, the year immediately preceding the virus’ onset.

That’s not so bad.

But it doesn’t mean that we should stop worrying about inflation. The past is all we have for predicting the future, but predicting still, as an American philosopher has noted, is hard, especially when it’s about the future.

There are a plethora of things that go into inflation, and three of them are the amount of demand, the amount of stuff with which to supply that demand, and the time-to-time relationship between the two.

Currently, as our economy reopens—or as Americans reopen our economy despite the diktats of Liberal Elites—all that demand, pent up through most of 2020, is sharply returning, and it’s adding to the ordinary levels of demand we Americans have for stuff. The producers are having a hard time ramping back up to satisfy that demand, particularly the pent-up-caused overshoot, and especially producers of hard goods with long chains of supply are having trouble catching up.

Also slowing that supply recovery is the recovery of our labor force. Millions of Americans were thrown out of work during the virus situation, and millions of them are returning to work as we reopen the various aspects of our economy. But millions more—a minority, but a significant enough one to have measurable impact on production recovery—are staying at home, honoring Progressive-Democrats’ wish that they do so by collecting the moneys those Progressive-Democrats are paying them to stay home rather than return to work.

How long will this present burst of apparent inflation last? Will it become inflation worth worrying about as the rate stays high while 2020 recedes into the past?

At bottom, that will depend on the availability of stuff relative to our demand for it, and that will depend on how long Progressive-Democrats will succeed in paying Americans to not work.

And you have to ask yourself why Progressive-Democrats want to keep Americans on their welfare payroll.

Illegal Voting

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An Illinois Progressive-Democrat wants to legalize it. Celina Villanueva (D-Chicago) is sponsoring a bill that would let illegal immigrants vote in school board elections.

The proposal could require the State Board of Education to create an affidavit helping non-citizens register for school board elections.
“For too long, these families have been systematically excluded from participating in our democracy even at the most basic level,” Villanueva said.

There are two key items here. One is that non-citizens are not part of our democracy, they are guests here, and so it’s entirely correct that they should have no say in how we citizens choose to govern ourselves. If they wish to become citizens, we should welcome them with open arms.

The other key is that illegal immigrants aren’t even here legally; they’re not guests, they’re interlopers.

That should be obvious even to a Progressive-Democrat.

You Didn’t Build That

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The Progressive-Democrats are continuing their attack on American citizens being successful. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) has populated her Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.

The past several decades have shown with devastating clarity the marked imbalance between the financial fortunes of CEOs and workers….

Never mind that the last four years before the present Progressive-Democrat-run administration and Congress has seen a marked decrease in the disparity in the financial fortunes of CEOs and workers, as workers got bigger pay raises, in per centage terms, than have the CEOs, significantly closing the gap. Never mind, either, that that decrease in the financial fortunes gap also has been markedly potentiated by the historic lows in minority and women unemployment as those especially on the bottom rungs of our economic—financial fortune—ladder saw marked increases in their wages: they got actual jobs, they became workers.

Pelosi went on:

The devaluing of work has had a negative impact on consumer confidence, job creation and economic growth….

Never mind that the only ones devaluing work, and through that negatively impacting consumer confidence, are Progressive-Democrats with their government (not economic) policy of paying people not to work. Never mind, either, that Job creation has been so anemic under this Progressive-Democrat government that there are millions more jobs available than there are workers willing to take them—especially in the low-skill milieus—because Progressive-Democrats insist on paying those least fortunate to not work, to continue being the least fortunate.

Pelosi’s wonderful select committee? It’s chaired by Congressman Jim Himes (D, CT) and populated with Progressive-Democrats like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY), Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D, WA), Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D, OH), Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D, WI), Congressman Vicente González (D,TX), Congresswoman Angie Craig (D, MN), and Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D, CA).

It’s hard to find farther left members, even for the Progressive-Democratic Party.

Pelosi to Americans: you didn’t build that. You’re not going to, either, without Government.

Americans

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Silverton, CO, mayor, Shane Fuhrman tried to do away with the practice of saying the Pledge of Allegiance at town Trustee meetings. His excuse was his claimed need to duck away from unspecified “direct and indirect threats” and supposedly inappropriate comments he heard “in and out of public meetings” and because of his vague and undefined “general divisiveness and issues created in our community.”

A Trustee demurred, and so did town attendees at the meeting. They stood and recited the Pledge.

These are some of the average Americans for whom the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party have such contempt.

When Hillary Clinton Sold

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…a significant fraction of our uranium reserves to Russia, she was a piker.

Within months of President Joe Biden [D] halting the Keystone Pipeline, pausing new oil and gas leases on federal lands, and imposing further restrictions on US oil companies, US oil imports from Russia set a new record in March.

And

Crude oil imports from Russia in March stood at 6.1 million barrels, making Russia the third-largest oil exporter to the United States.

And

Biden’s policies have resulted in US oil production falling by 1.715 million barrels per day from a year ago….

Clinton made us dependent, in large part, on one of our enemies for the resources needed for our deterrence against that enemy’s nuclear attack.

Biden’s policies are making us dependent on that same enemy for the energy to power our economy and so our ability to survive even in peace. And by buying Russian oil, Biden is paying our enemy for the privilege of being dependent on it.