While the White House continues to dodge the rather obvious issue of crippling inflation and incipient economic collapse, other bankers more in tune with reality have issued a clearer image of the future of the nation.
Notably the image conveyed by Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President and CEO Raphael Bostic, who made it abundantly clear that inflation remains an extremely persistent problem across the United States.
“Inflation is high. It’s too high,” Bostic declared, “and we really need to do all that we can to make it come down. And when we think about its source, it’s because we have very high demand.”
Well, one thing is for sure: The “source” is hardly Putin and Putin alone, much as the White House attempts to blame all inflationary aspects on him (when they aren’t blaming Trump, that is).
The only thing the White House isn’t blaming is itself for taking so many anti-economic measures in the first place as soon as Biden sailed into office, including the killing of the Keystone XL pipeline and a host of other unpleasant actions that are not exactly designed to stimulate economic growth.
Just consider how long the debate over transgender bathrooms went on as the economy crumbled.
“We have not enough supply … [W]hat we were hoping would happen is that we’d see some movement on the supply side, to move the supply up so that there wasn’t so much of an auction on goods that are in the marketplace. But that hasn’t happened. And that really has meant that we have had to turn to our policies to try to take demand down,” Bostic continued.
No kidding. Those “policies” include aggressively jacking rates and decimating retirement accounts after the markets predictably crashed.
Though such a crashing may well result in an even greater red wave in the fall.
Bostic did shy away from admitting the economy is in a recession, adding that many jobs continue to be created.
“We’re still creating lots of jobs on a monthly basis. And so I actually think that there is some ability for the economy to absorb our actions,” Bostic noted, adding that his “expectation” is “to get inflation more under control” as the nation “[moves] along.”
Yeah well, hopefully the nation may “move along” under more sane, conservative leadership. Inflation might come down a tad more quickly in such a case.
Moreover, Bostic also noted that job losses in the near term are likely crucial to offset even greater challenges in the long run.
“I do think that we’re going to do all that we can at the Federal Reserve to avoid deep, deep pain,” Bostic warned.
Translation: Further interest rate increases, thereby making it much more expensive to borrow money for a car or a home, coupled with increased job losses as it becomes too expensive to hire laborers.
And that’s during a time when Facebook and Snapchat have already announced sizable, effective downsizing plans.
Refreshingly, Bostic did not entirely blame Putin like the lazy White House (“Putin’s price hike?” Get real).
Instead, he acknowledged the obvious supply issues that resulted from the conflict, thereby worsening the inflation Biden already established for more than a year before Putin invaded.
“The situation in Russia that you spent the first part of this show on has got everyone on edge,” Bostic continued, “but we do know that some bottlenecks are starting to ease. And I’m hopeful that over the next several months, we’ll start to see that gap between the high demand and that lower supply narrow significantly, which will then translate into inflation moving closer to our target.”
One would hope … unless Biden starts another war elsewhere in the world, as he’s effectively threatened to do in Asia.
Author: Ofelia Thornton
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