Inflation/stagflation Thread

Finance
#804

The headline is too new, just an hour or so, but the satire cartoons just write themselves on this one.

Apparently one of the major factories for formula in the US is shut down pending health / quality control issues, and of course, speaking of priorities…

According to videos posted by a Florida lawmaker, the Biden administration has been shipping “pallets” of baby formula to migrant holding facilities. “They are sending pallets, pallets of baby formula to the border,” said Republican Rep. Kat Cammack in one of two online postings yesterday. “Meanwhile, in our own district at home, we cannot find baby formula"

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#805

No gas shortages, yet. But this is how you get shortages - price controls.

Democratic Congresswomen Kim Schrier and Katie Porter have introduced the ‘Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act’ that will give the President the power to issue an Energy Emergency Declaration that would make it unlawful to increase gasoline and home energy fuel prices…

ahead of midterms?

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#806

Gas lines here we come. Just like the 70s, but for different reasons. Good thing I have 1 elec. car.

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#807

Priorities. I guess 80% of people have gotten covid by now, but 70%+ of them are feeling the pain of inflation.

640×966 112 KB

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#808

This is entirely consistent with Biden’s many “America last” policies.

Is it any wonder the guy is so far underwater in the polls that he is drowning politically! For Biden the preference is to support murder of American babies in the womb in order it not be necessary to nourish them later, after birth.

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#809

You’ve got a rosy rear-view mirror and all kinds of rhetological fallacies to justify your positions. There’s no way of knowing what would have happened had Trump won the election. We’d be in exactly the same situation with most of it, definitely inflation, and probably the war in Ukraine (except it might have been even worse for Ukraine because US wouldn’t have provided as much support, if any).

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#810

No way scripta… I’m sure things would not have changed for the worst under Trump.

Take each immediate action under Biden as he gained the presidency power.

Fired the Pipe line workers. Closing everything connected there.

Shutting down the Border work on the wall. Even allowing all the wall material to decay.

Invading Afghanistan without a working plan. Causing the death of 13 American servicemen. Allowing more military weapons to go to the Enemy.

I’m not that good at mentioning Biden’s poor excuse for a POTUS. But one thing for sure President Trump couldn’t be worse…

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it!!

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#811

Which pipeline? The one from Canada that had like 500 employees? And how much dent would it have made into the prices of oil or gasoline had it been allowed to continue?

And this would have affected inflation and the war in Ukraine how, exactly?

I think you mean leaving Afghanistan. The plan to leave AND the deadline was made by the Trump administration. And has nothing to do with inflation or the war in Ukraine.

You can have your opinions, but they’re sometimes not informed and other times not relevant to the current topic, which is inflation.

#812

Don’t try to put my ideas down. President Biden has the poorest record of any President in my lifetime🤔

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#813

Only if you ignore all the facts.

#814

If you had another chance to vote today, who would you choose? Biden or Trump…

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#815

My choice is obvious, but this is the “Inflation/stagflation Thread” – please stop derailing it.

#816

Of course… Without objections.

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#817

Shouldn’t y’all’s beef be with the apolitical Fed and not the occupant of the White House? Energy prices aren’t the only component of inflation.

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#818

My beef is with both. The fed for not predicting the inflation, then for mis-identifying the inflation as temporary/transistory, and for not recognizing that current federal policies (mainly executive, but also legislative) are inflative. The last item explains why I also blame the current White House occupants.

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#819

Old Joe Biden doing everything imaginable to fight inflation by lowering America’s energy costs:

Thanks, Joe. Will baby formula be next?

ETA

Here are my favorite lines from that one:

  • On Friday a visibly-irritated Joe Biden said that to have done more to prevent the crisis you would have needed to have been a mind reader

except that

  • Critics pointed out there has been a 10% nationwide shortage since August; the Wall Street Journal raised the alarm in January; and the NEC in February

Biden and his cronies had plenty of advance notice. They did nothing. But as always: this is not Biden’s fault.

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#820

India bans wheat exports. Food security means being rich, or making it yourself.

NEW DELHI—India said it would ban wheat exports, in a move that will add to global inflationary pressure and further strain global food supplies that have been disrupted by the war in Ukraine.

“The food security of India, neighboring and other vulnerable countries is at risk,” India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade said in a notice on Friday explaining the ban.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka they’ve moved on from rioting against their leaders to pushing their cars into the river and burning down their homes.

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#821

To be fair, there had been rumblings for virtually his entire term that the Fed should start nudging rates up, but Trump was pressuring them to keep rates low to prop up his precious stock market (No, I have no idea how much of those rumblings where leftist media trying to manufacture more controversy, but it does sound like something Trump would prioritize). By the time Biden took office, some of the damage was unavoidable - which, rather than mitigate, he then proceded to compound even further. Everyone involved is to blame for not heading it off sooner, but it’s a crisis that is much longer than 18 months in the making.

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#822

Shortages because no one will produce/sell gas at a loss? If so, then wont we see a repeat of what happened March 2020, when everyone stopped buying gas and pending oil deliveries couldnt be given away?

I could see, at least in theory, price controls bringing the cost of oil down (and thus the cost of a lot of things down), since it’ll cap what a significant portion of the market is willing to pay for that oil. The only question would be if there’s still enough unfulfilled demand, due to already having removed Russian oil from the market, to offset the impact unlike in 2020.

#823

In places with price controls, if the Biden Fixed Gas Price is too low, ie gasoline cannot be produced at less than this net cost (due to the costs of oil production or purchase in the global market, refining, transport, etc), then very rapidly gasoline will become unavailable, most of the supplies of oil will be throttled back domestically or sold abroad if there’s demand there (and domestic exports are not banned), etc. I guess Dear Leader could nationalize the oil companies and refineries and mandate they produce regardless of losses, but otherwise if you ban selling things at a profit, people who normally make and sell them… won’t. I guess some of the super low cost producers might be able to still do so profitably, albeit less so than otherwise, so supply wouldn’t be gone entirely but fully expect rationing and huge domestic and industrial disruptions.

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