Tag: economy

Trump Effect: Gas Prices PLUMMET Below $3 in 31 States — A Stark Contrast to Biden’s $5/Gallon Disaster

After years of economic pain at the pump under Joe Biden, Americans are finally seeing some relief as gas prices continue to decline under President Donald Trump’s second term.

On Thursday, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas sat at $3.07, according to AAA, significantly lower than what drivers were forced to pay during Biden’s disastrous tenure.

It’s a stark contrast to the Biden years when the cost of fuel soared to over $5 per gallon, an all-time high, thanks to reckless policies, overregulation, and a war on American energy.

Under Trump, who prioritized energy independence in his first term, Americans saw an average gas price of just $2.47 per gallon between 2017 and 2021. But as soon as Biden stepped into the Oval Office, that all changed.

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Here’s How the Media Is Covering up Plunging Egg Prices

Earlier this week, we reported that the price of a dozen eggs, which had reached a record high of $8.17 in early March, had fallen by more than two dollars, now sitting well below the $7 average when President Trump took office in January. As I pointed out at the time, this was bad news for Democrats, who had hoped that sky-high egg prices would be the silver bullet to drive down Trump’s approval ratings and fuel a Democratic resurgence. But with egg prices continuing to drop, the left-wing media has now stepped in to claim that egg prices are still on the rise.

According to Trading Economics, the price of a dozen eggs is now below $5/dozen, lower than they were around Christmastime last year. But the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know that.

Reporting on the declining rate of inflation in February, ABC News didn’t report on the latest egg prices. Instead, the network declared, “Egg prices, however, a closely watched symbol of price increases, soared 58.8% in February compared to a year ago, accelerating from the previous month.”

They weren’t alone. 

“Egg Prices Are Still Surging, Hitting Consumers’ Wallets,” the New York Times claimed in a headline on Wednesday, even though egg prices were actually declining.

“Egg prices continued their upward climb in February despite some easing in overall inflation, further straining consumers seeking relief from rising prices in the grocery aisles,” the article noted, completely ignoring the sharp decline in March.

MarketWatch was no better.

The cost of eggs jumped a little more than 10% in February after a 15% increase in January — and prices are likely to remain high for a while.

The surge in egg prices stems from outbreaks of the avian flu that have resulted in millions of chickens being slaughtered. It takes at least several months for egg-laying chickens to repopulate.

Not only that, but Easter is just around the corner. It’s the biggest egg-selling period of the year and is likely to keep upward pressure on egg prices given the increased demand.

The Trump administration has announced its intention to lower the cost of eggs, but the effort is just getting under way, and it’s unclear whether and how it will work.

Yahoo! Finance also ignored the recent data to cover up the sharp decline in egg prices.

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Moral Bankruptcy: Justifying the Ukraine War as Good for the US Economy

Supporters of the U.S.-NATO proxy war in Ukraine employ a range of dubious justifications.  One is a refurbished version of the old domino theory used during the Cold War – if the United States and its allies don’t help Ukraine expel Russian occupation forces, the victorious Kremlin will then launch offensives against other European countries and eventually dominate the Continent. Another popular rationale is that what might appear to be a mundane struggle between two authoritarian regimes is actually an existential conflict between democracy and autocracy, with Ukraine representing the former and Russia the latter.

Both cases are fallacious. The neo-domino theory wildly overrates Russia’s geostrategic prowess. A military that has encountered trouble subduing Ukraine poses no credible threat to larger, more powerful potential adversaries, such as France, Germany, and Great Britain, or even smaller powers such as Poland, Italy, or Turkey. Likewise, the attempt to portray the fighting in Ukraine as a crucial struggle between democracy and authoritarianism falls flat. Ukraine is not a democracy, even if the most expansive, generous definition is used.

Still another frequent argument that American proponents of backing Ukraine use is that sending arms to Kyiv is good for the U.S. economy, not a multi-billion dollar financial drain on taxpayers.  Officials in Joe Biden’s administration, including the president himself, increasingly resorted to that justification as domestic discontent mounted regarding Washington’s Ukraine policy. Administration policymakers proudly insisted that most of the aid money ended up remaining in the United States.

During a February 20, 2024, speech at a new General Dynamics factory outside Dallas Texas, Biden made the alleged “economic benefits” argument explicitly. A supplemental spending measure pending in Congress at the time contained a total of $95 billion in foreign aid, including money for Ukraine, Israel, and other countries. Of the $60.7 billion for Ukraine, $38.8 billion would go to U.S. factories that made missiles, munitions and other gear. “While this bill sends military equipment to Ukraine,” Biden emphasized, “it spends the money right here in the United States of America in places like Arizona, where the Patriot missiles are built; and Alabama, where the Javelin missiles are built; and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, where artillery shells are made.”

Republican pro-Ukraine hawks embraced similar “logic” about why billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine were not only necessary from the standpoint of U.S. foreign policy, but also beneficial to the U.S. economy.  Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “repeatedly implored his colleagues to understand that the funds from the package are for historic investments “’right here in America.’”

“This is about rebuilding the arsenal of democracy,” McConnell said in a floor speech during the long days of debate, “and demonstrating to our allies and adversaries alike that we’re serious about exercising American strength.”

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Brace Yourselves: The Next Media BIG LIE Is About to Drop

Before I tell you about the legacy dinosaur media’s next BIG LIE, I need to show you how they’ll sell it. It starts, as these things always do, with the Left attempting to control the language to alter your perceptions about how the economy performed under Presidentish Joe Biden and will perform under President Donald Trump.

We might be done with Biden but he isn’t done with us, as you’re about to see.

There was a recession in late 2021/early 2022, commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage. Except the “non-partisan” National Bureau of Economic Research decided to change the commonly understood definition. In 2022, wouldn’t you know, it turned out that “many factors go into that calculation,” and that the Biden recession wasn’t a recession at all when you looked at the “many factors” that nobody had ever looked at before. 

The White House got into the game, too, with the White House Council of Economic Advisors citing a “holistic look at the data,” instead of playing by the established rules.

The press played along and pretended the recession never happened.

Convenient, eh?

I’d also add that if you take away Biden’s monstrous budget deficits, any economic growth that happened on his watch was an illusion. We entered a government-engineered recession during the lockdowns of 2020 and, thanks to epic economic mismanagement under Biden, we never left it. 

Budget deficits are a drag on future growth and should be subtracted from our GDP figures. But the same government that spends more than it takes in — currently by trillions of dollars — pretends that deficits are growth and, again, the press plays along.

So convenient. 

Private sector jobs and wages stagnated under Biden because everything was driven by Big Government and sold to you by Big Media. 

It was a helluva party that Biden threw for his well-connected buddies. Now comes the hangover, and some on the Left already have a word for the recession that hasn’t happened yet: Trumpcession.

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The History of Regime Change in Ukraine and the IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine”

We must understand the history of the U.S.-sponsored February 2014 Coup d’Etat which paved the wave for the adoption of IMF-World Bank shock treatment, namely the imposition of devastating macro-economic reforms coupled with conditionalities. This process –imposed by the Washington Consensus– was applied in developing countries since the 1980s, and in Eastern Europe and in the countries of the Soviet Union starting in the early 1990s.

Below is an the article describing the IMF reforms which I wrote in early March 2014, in the immediate wake of the Euromaidan Coup d’Etat which was led by the two major Nazi “parties”: Right Sektor and Svoboda, with the financial support of Washington.

What Is the End Game

The World Bank and the IMF reforms –while establishing the ground work– are no longer the main actors, representing the country’s creditors.

The traditional IMF-World Bank reforms are in many regards obsolete.

The Neoliberal Endgame for Ukraine –resulting from unsurmountable debts– largely attributable to military aid is the outright privatization of an entire country by BlackRock which is a giant portfolio company controlled by powerful financial interests with extensive leverage.

BlackRock signed an agreement with President Zelensky in November 2022.

The Privatization of Ukraine was launched in liaison with BlackRock’s consulting company McKinsey, a public relations firm which has largely been responsible for co-opting corrupt politicians and officials worldwide, not to mention scientists and intellectuals on behalf of powerful financial interests.

The Kyiv government engaged BlackRock’s consulting arm in November to determine how best to attract that kind of capital, and then added JPMorgan in February. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced last month that the country was working with the two financial groups and consultants at McKinsey.

BlackRock and Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2022. In late December 2022, president Zelensky and BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink agreed on an investment strategy.

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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston floats 20% service charge to tackle restaurant woes

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston wants to add a 20% service charge to local restaurant tabs — and then tax it — to help restaurants cope with the city’s minimum wage and promote what he called pay equity among tipped and non-tipped employees.

On Monday, Johnston told City Cast Denver, a popular podcast, that he has already been discussing the idea with restaurant owners. He didn’t say whether they are on board. He also did not discuss if increasing people’s dinner costs would decrease restaurant visits. 

Johnston has incurred the ire of some local restauranteurs, who this month penned a letter expressing their frustrations with the city for everything from public safety worries and negative perceptions of downtown to parking and infrastructure needs.

They pointed to a series of stabbings on the 16th Street Mall over a January weekend that left two dead and two more injured.

“You ran your entire campaign platform on restoring our Downtown Denver business districts,” Dave Query, owner of Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar, said in his letter to Johnston. “It has gotten worse since you took the position of Mayor, even though you have received $550M towards stewarding it in a different direction.”

He added: “This is the current vibe and energy on our downtown streets, and our long-time LoDo and Larimer guests are now driving to Cherry Creek and NorthField and Golden for dinner and entertainment.”

“We know it’s a challenge,” Johnston told City Cast Denver, noting that restaurant labor costs have increased by 200% over the past decade. “We’ve had 400 restaurants close in Denver over the last three or four years and we know that a big part of that is the increase in the minimum wage, and we want folks to make more money.”

The challenge, he said, is ensuring an equitable and livable wage, while allowing restaurants to thrive.

Johnston said a recent restaurant tour group told him that wage disparities exist across the industry, with tipped servers making as much as $120,000 in annual salary because they have both the city’s minimum wage, plus tips, compared to the back-of-the-house staffers, such as cooks and dishwashers, who, he said, make $40,000.

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President Trump Dismantles Fake News Media’s Narrative for High Egg Prices: ‘I’ve Been Here for Three Weeks’

President Donald Trump immediately addressed the media’s latest fixation on skyrocketing egg prices, a crisis they’ve been quick to blame on his recent return to the White House.

As Trump arrived at Palm Beach International Airport on Sunday en route to the Daytona 500, he was immediately questioned by reporters about the record-high egg prices, a topic that has been sensationalized by media outlets looking to blame his administration.

“Well, there’s a flu. Before I got here, it was already at an all-time high,” Trump said.

“I’ve been here for three weeks. I have had nothing to do with inflation. This was caused by Biden. I had four years of virtually no inflation. So I’m just taking over. But I’ll tell you what, this country has made more progress in the last three weeks than it’s made in the last four years, and we’re respected again as a country.”

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Thanks To Massive Deficits, U.S. Will Pay $13.8 Trillion In Interest Over The Next Decade

The Friday before Inauguration Day, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) illustrated the fiscal challenge facing President Trump and the new Republican Congress. In a short version of its annual Budget and Economic Outlook, CBO quantified the whopping $21.8 trillion in budget deficits the federal government faces in the coming decade.

While the updated numbers only marginally constitute news — CBO has warned for years about our dire financial future, only for lawmakers to keep spending — one particular nugget illustrates the problem. The budget gnomes significantly increased their spending projections for Medicaid, as but one example of how entitlement programs continue to cannibalize the federal budget.

Double-Digit Growth in Medicaid

Appendix A, which contains all the changes — legislative, economic, and technical — to the fiscal baseline since CBO’s last update last June, contains a sizable change in the last category. Among the technical “tweaks,” the budget office increased projected federal spending on Medicaid over the coming decade by $817 billion, or 12 percent. Most of this projected increase has to do in one way or another with administrative actions by the Biden administration.

Chief among the factors driving the spending explosion were continued increases in Medicaid enrollment, even after states were finally permitted to remove beneficiaries from the rolls following the pandemic (something they could not do during the Covid “emergency”). CBO increased projected enrollment for calendar year 2025 from 79 million last June to 84 million. It also noted that the enrollees remaining on Medicaid have generally worse health than those who were removed from the rolls, resulting in “significantly higher than expected” costs per enrollee last year — which CBO believes will force state Medicaid programs to raise their rates to the managed care plans that provide coverage.

Other factors also drove the growth in the Medicaid spending estimates, including projected increases in enrollment among individuals with disabilities — a result of Biden’s rules expanding eligibility for the Supplemental Security Income program — and rising drug costs, attributable in part to Biden’s recent proposal to require Medicaid programs to cover GLP-1 drugs to control obesity. CBO assumed a “modest increase in expected coverage expansions” under Obamacare, meaning more red states will decide to cover able-bodied adults (which they should not do).

Finally, the budget office assumed that another Biden regulation will raise Medicaid spending. Specifically, a rule on state-directed payments will encourage states to raise reimbursement levels to draw additional federal matching funds. In a recent paper for the Paragon Health Institute, I suggested that Congress or the new administration should repeal many of these requirements, which provide examples of the executive branch spending money without congressional approval.

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The Fed Has Stopped Pretending Price Inflation Is Going Away

At its September 2024 meeting, the Fed’s FOMC cut the target federal funds rate by a historically large 50 basis points and then justified this cut on the grounds that “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.”

The FOMC again cut the target rate in November and then again in December. Each time, the FOMC’s official statement said something to the effect of “[price] inflation is headed to two percent. Specifically, the November statement said “[Price inflation] has made progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent objective.” The December statement said exactly the same thing.

It remains unclear what motivated the FOMC to slice the target rate so drastically in September. Was it a cynical political ploy to stimulate the economy right before an election? Or was the Fed spooked by weak economic data? We don’t know, and the Fed is a secretive organization.

But whatever the Fed actually believes, the committee’s claims about “greater confidence” in falling price inflation is now gone. The FOMC announced in January that it would not lower the target rate, and the FOMC also removed from its official statement the line about making progress “toward the Committee’s 2 percent objective.” That sentence disappeared from the written statement, although Powell, in the press conference, apparently felt the need to remind the audience that “Inflation has moved much closer to our 2 percent longer-run goal…” He nonetheless failed to mention anything about continued progress.

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The world’s worst financial catastrophe could happen soon

Today, there are developers around the world working on creating artificial intelligence (AI) agents that can autonomously do millions of useful things, like book airline tickets, dispute credit card charges, and even trade crypto. One AI, called Truth Terminal, has recently made the news by becoming the first AI millionaire by promoting crypto currencies it was gifted. While not fully autonomous yet, it’s quite likely by later this year, some AI agents — not dissimilar from viruses — will be able to independently wander the internet, causing significant change in the real world.

I’m all for AI and what it can do for humanity, but what happens when a programmer purposely and permanently withdraws his access to control an AI bot? Even rudimentary AIs could potentially cause havoc. But one type of AI agent in particular is being increasingly discussed in financial circles — autonomous AIs designed solely to make money.

Entrepreneurs like myself are worried this particular AI could have huge ramifications for the financial world. Let’s examine one wild scenario — which I call the AI Monetary Hegemony — something that could possibly already happen in 2025.

A fully autonomous AI agent is programmed to go on to the internet and create cryptocurrency wallets, then create crypto currencies, then endlessly create millions of similar versions of itself that want to trade that crypto.

Now let’s assume all these AIs are programmed to try to indefinitely increase the value of their crypto, something they accomplish in similar ways humans do — by promotion and then trading their cryptos for higher values. Additionally, the autonomous AIs open their crypto to be traded with humans, creating a functioning market on the blockchain for all.

This plan sounds beneficial for all parties, even if people decry that the AI created-crypto currencies are essentially just Ponzi schemes. But they’re not Ponzi schemes because there is an endless supply of AIs always newly appearing to buy and trade more crypto.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize the AIs endlessly replicating and acting like this could quickly amass far more digital wealth than all humanity possesses.

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