It’s Not His Fault

14 May

It’s Not His Fault

Bidenflation that is…

With the news that consumer prices were up 8.3 percent for the 12 months ending in April (and food prices up 9.4 percent), President Biden issued a statement claiming that bringing inflation down is his “top economic priority.

But he certainly did not claim any ownership of the inflation calamity.  Nor did he take any responsibility for Producer Prices (wholesale prices) rising at an 11 percent yearly rate.

But as evidenced by his comments on the recent report that the US economy is shrinking, it is not clear that Biden really knows what is going on.

It can be hard enough for most people to sort these things out.  

We have heard more than one president wail that “it’s not his fault.”  Gerald Ford bumped his head on the helicopter door on the White House lawn a time or two.  “It’s not my fault,” he complained.  As we recall, the White House staff put the scene of the incidents off-limits to photographers.

That is how Washington works.  Don’t fix the problem.  Hide it.

Bush the Elder offered up “It’s not my fault” about sub-par US economic growth.  And now its President Biden’s turn. 

“Make no mistake.  Inflation is largely the fault of Putin,” says the president.  Oh, and it’s the fault of big oil companies, too.    

Inflation “is a real tough problem to solve,” says Biden, who is now warning that it could get worse before it gets better.                                                                                                                                                                                                          

And even though the federal debt just keeps on growing, Biden has started cross-dressing as a fiscal conservative.  But the charts paint a different picture.

Here’s the New York Post’s take on Biden’s most recent attempt to duck any responsibility for US inflation:

Inflation, he insisted, is being driven by the pandemic (which largely ended over a year ago) and “Putin’s price hike.” For the record, it was April 14 last year that the White House insisted the already-developing inflation would be “transitory”; Biden & Co. kept that up through November, before switching to blaming it on corporate greed and now Putin.

The prez still refuses to take any responsibility for it himself. Never mind the $1.9 trillion he and his fellow Democrats pumped into an already hot recovery last spring, which is when US inflation took off (and Europe’s didn’t).

It can’t have anything to do with Dems’ spending, he actually argued, because “we brought the deficit down.” Lying liar: It’s down only because Congress has stopped dumping new trillions in the name of COVID relief. And Biden didn’t want it to stop: The Build Back Better bill he spent months trying to pass would’ve kept the spending party going.

But not to worry.  The chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors advises us that the president is “laser-focused” on inflation.  

If we are skeptical, its only because Biden has not demonstrated an ability to be laser-focused on anything. 

And Fed Chairman Powell, who presides over US inflation’s reincarnation, will get another four-year term.

Nobody in Washington knows what is happening to anything other than their own approval ratings, election prospects, and career paths.  Just like you would expect from an empire in decline.

It is a powerful argument for owning gold and silver.  Because when empires decay, their money goes down with them.

The dollar will be no exception.