Tag: inflation

27% of Americans Are Skipping Meals Because of Skyrocketing Food Costs, Survey Shows

The price of food has jumped by 25% since the start of the pandemic — even more if you factor in the cost of a quick trip to the store, which takes into consideration the price of fuel. Now, a new study says there are some major ramifications.

Intuit Credit Karma, which provides information about financial products, says that more than one-quarter of the people it surveyed said they have skipped meals or sacrificed other spending due to rising costs. The survey of 2,011 adults was conducted online in the United States during the week of May 7. 

According to the survey, 28% said they are putting off paying for necessities, such as rent or other bills, to afford groceries — while 27% say they are occasionally skipping meals. Another 18% have applied for or have considered applying for food stamps and other types of assistance, and 15% rely on or have considered visiting food banks for their groceries.

Keep reading

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Screws Seniors with the Biggest Medicare Premium Increase Ever

One of the classic strategies in the Obama/Biden playbook is policy that sounds good in the short-term, but whose long-term consequences won’t be felt until after an election. That way if Democrats win, they’re insulated from voters holding them accountable; but if they lose, they can blame Republicans when things go south.

This was undoubtedly one of the plays the Biden administration had in mind for the gallingly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). But this disastrous legislation hasn’t just sabotaged Americans’ wallets, it’s sabotaged their health as well.

Snuck into the IRA was a poorly drafted provision that attempted to lower out-of-pocket expenses on prescription drugs. The IRA lowers the out-of-pocket maximum for seniors from about $3,300 to $2,000 by shifting the responsibility for the $1,300 difference to insurance companies. To no one’s surprise, the insurance companies pass that cost to consumers in the form of higher premiums and restricted access to prescription drugs.

This year, premiums for Medicare Part D are up more than 20 percent for the more than 50 million Americans enrolled. In 2025, they could increase again by more than 50 percent! We hope people are paying close enough attention during open enrollment in October to compare this price spike as President Biden campaigns on how he “fought Big Pharma to lower drug costs!”

The brilliant design of the Medicare Part D program 20 years ago was harnessing competition. Deploying the free-market principle that competition leads to lower prices, Part D allowed private insurance plans to compete for Medicare dollars to keep costs low and save seniors money.

Keep reading

Think Inflation Is Done? Think Again!

In this article I focus on two reasons why inflation will rise leading to higher, not lower, interest rates and bond yields. The first is the destruction of credit’s value through its non-productive expansion, mainly by governments running budget deficits. The second has had almost no attention but is at least as serious: the consequences of the repatriation of supply chains being accelerated by trade tariffs and sanctions. I shall briefly comment on the first before turning my attention to the second.

Budget deficits always debase the currency

Margret Thatcher said something on the lines that socialism fails when it runs out of other peoples’ money. We appear to have reached that point. Rapacious tax policies are now reducing their yield. We are now sliding down the after-end of the Laffer curve. The economic force which drives any economy is being strangled by the burden of government.Leopold, LesBest Price: $17.09Buy New $17.80(as of 11:37 UTC – Details)

Consequently, with mandated welfare and other expenses increasing, hopes that economic growth will reduce budget deficits are misplaced. Estimates for budget deficits in nearly all high-tax jurisdictions will turn out to be overly optimistic. This has important implications for inflation which are currently being ignored by everyone from governments, central banks, and down to investors.

Take the situation in the USA. As recently as February, the Congressional Budget Office forecast a budget deficit of $1,507 billion for the current fiscal year. Yet in the first six months, the deficit was already $1,100 billion, according to the US Treasury’s own figures. But this fails to explain the pace of borrowing. According to the US Debt Clock, US national debt is $34.77 trillion today, an increase of $1,600 billion this fiscal year so far. At this rate it will be $2.4 trillion by end-September, nearly a trillion over the CBO deficit estimate. It represents 9% of GDP, raw unproductive credit driving GDP higher and creating an illusion of a strong economy.

I suspect the budget deficit could turn out to be even worse, partly because it is a presidential election year, partly because the debt ceiling is not in place until January 2025, and partly because the productive economy is already in recession. This last assumption is based on simple arithmetic. If, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics GDP grew by 4.5% in the year to last March, allowing for a budget deficit injection of 9% means the private sector actually contracted by 4.5%.

A rough and ready calculation perhaps, but it is important to understand that not only is the expansion of non-productive government debt concealing the true economic situation, but it is also debasing the currency. And currency debasement becomes reflected in higher prices. In other words, the inflation of CPI prices is not over.

The rest of this article examines how and why government attempts to protect domestic production and employment through trade tariffs and sanctions end up accelerating price inflation even more. The world saw the economically destructive consequences of anti-trade policies in the wake of the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which are still relevant today.

Keep reading

NYC hotel rates reach record highs as city fills rooms with illegal immigrants

New York City hotel prices have reached an all-time high due in large part to the unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants arriving from the southern border. The city turned to hotels to house the immigrants, many of which are paid to house the immigrants. 

As of late 2023, the average price for a one-night stay at a hotel in the Big Apple was over $300, an increase of nearly 10 percent over the previous year. While that has dipped slightly over the first few months of 2024, the summer tourism season is expected to bring with it another jump in prices.  

City policies, such as the “Sanctuary Hotel Program,” as reported on by the New York Times, also have contributed to the increase by shortening the supply of open rooms. When it was started in 2022, city officials said that the hotels were paid between $139 and $185 a room each night, whether or not the room is occupied. 

As The Times reports, inflation also played a role in the rising costs, even though the rate of inflation has fallen since 2022. 

Despite the high cost of accommodation, the city is anticipating around 70 million visitors this year. Hotel Association of New York City CEO Vijay Dandapani said he believes things will only get better with time.  

“At some point this migrant crisis is going to peter out,” he said, “and … you’re going to have a lowering of rates and it will become more affordable.”  

According to commercial real estate data provider CoStar, over 140 hotels have been temporarily or permanently transformed into shelters for illegal immigrants, bringing with them 16,000 rooms that are no longer available for tourists.  

Keep reading

Chief Economic Adviser Refuses To Admit Biden Is LYING About Inflation

Joe Biden’s chief economic advisor refused to admit Thursday that the president keeps telling a huge lie by claiming that inflation was at 9 percent when he took office when it was really at 1.4 percent and shot up to 9 percent under Biden himself.

During an interview on Fox Business, host Neil Cavuto grilled Jared Bernstein, and told him directly “you’re lying,” and “just as bad” as Biden when he tried to dodge the matter.

After Biden took office inflation surged to rates unseen since the early 1980s, peaking at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in June 2022, a full 17 months after he became president.

Yet, he keeps claiming it was ALREADY at 9 percent and that he inherited a weakened economy from Trump.

Keep reading

Biden REPEATS Whopping LIE About Inflation Being 9% When He Took Office

They say that if you repeat a lie, no matter how big, loud and often then people will eventually believe it, and it seems Joe Biden is doing just that.

On Tuesday Biden repeated the outright lie that inflation was at 9 percent when he took office in January 2021.

Biden was already raked over the coals for this claim last week. There’s no way that he or his handlers don’t know it’s false.

In reality, after Biden took office inflation surged to rates unseen since the early 1980s, peaking at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in June 2022, a full 17 months after he became president.

Yet, he is claiming it was ALREADY at 9 percent.

Keep reading

ALL HE DOES IS LIE: Biden Claims Inflation Was 9 Percent When He Took Office (It Was 1.4 Percent)

It is sometimes hard to tell whether Joe Biden is lying or simply demented, but either way he is spreading false information to protect his terrible economic record.

In an interview on CNN, Biden claimed that inflation was running at nine per cent when he seized office in January 2021:

No president had the run we’ve had in terms of creating jobs and bringing down inflation. It was 9 per cent when I came into office, 9 percent. But it — look, people have a right to be concerned, ordinary people. The idea that you bounce a check and you get a $30 fee for bouncing the check, I changed that, you can’t charge more than 8 bucks for that or your credit card, your late payment, $35. There’s corporate greed going on out there, and it’s got to be dealt with.

The combination of the inflation, the cost of inflation, all those things, that’s really worrisome to people, with good reason. That’s why I’m working very hard to bring the cost of rentals down, to increase the number of homes that are available.

Keep reading

California’s Catastrophic Minimum-Wage Surge: A Recipe for Disaster Unfolds

The Golden State stubbornly disregards warning signs surrounding the wage hike policies advocated by progressive unions.

According to National Review, California recently rolled out a groundbreaking $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers. However, labor unions, and their radical activist allies, are now pushing hard to expand this wage rate into other industries.

In examining California’s wage policies, it becomes obvious that the likely outcomes have a predictable path. One notable case study highlights the consequences of a near-$20 minimum-wage model, which unfolded within the state’s purview.

In 2021, Unite Here Local 11, a prominent labor organization situated in Los Angeles, orchestrated a series of actions that resulted in a $17.64 minimum wage for hotel employees within West Hollywood. This wage floor represented the highest across the nation. 

Not content with this achievement, the union swiftly expanded its advocacy efforts towards larger targets. These efforts eventually resulted in the adoption of this wage standard across all sectors within the municipality.

Keep reading

How Blackrock Investment Fund Triggered the Global Energy Crisis

Most people are bewildered by what is a global energy crisis, with prices for oil, gas and coal simultaneously soaring and even forcing closure of major industrial plants such as chemicals or aluminum or steel. The Biden Administration and EU have insisted that all is because of Putin and Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. This is not the case. The energy crisis is a long-planned strategy of western corporate and political circles to dismantle industrial economies in the name of a dystopian Green Agenda. That has its roots in the period years well before February 2022, when Russia launched its military action in Ukraine.

Blackrock pushes ESG

In January, 2020  on the eve of the economically and socially devastating covid lockdowns, the CEO of the world’s largest investment fund, Larry Fink of Blackrock, issued a letter to Wall Street colleagues and corporate CEOs on the future of investment flows. In the document, modestly titled “A Fundamental Reshaping of Finance”, Fink, who manages the world’s largest investment fund with some $7 trillion then under management, announced a radical departure for corporate investment. Money would “go green.” In his closely-followed 2020 letter Fink declared,

“In the near future – and sooner than most anticipate – there will be a significant re-allocation of capital…Climate risk is investment risk.” Further he stated, “Every government, company, and shareholder must confront climate change.” [i]

In a separate letter to Blackrock investor clients, Fink delivered the new agenda for capital investing. He declared that Blackrock will exit certain high-carbon investments such as coal, the largest source of electricity for the USA and many other countries. He added that Blackrock would screen new investment in oil, gas and coal to determine their adherence to the UN Agenda 2030 “sustainability.”

Fink made clear the world’s largest fund would begin to disinvest in oil, gas and coal.  “Over time,” Fink wrote, “companies and governments that do not respond to stakeholders and address sustainability risks will encounter growing skepticism from the markets, and in turn, a higher cost of capital.” He added that, “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects… we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” [ii]

From that point on the so-called ESG investing, penalizing CO2 emitting companies like ExxonMobil, has become all the fashion among hedge funds and Wall Street banks and investment funds including State Street and Vanguard. Such is the power of Blackrock. Fink was also able to get four new board members in ExxonMobil committed to end the company’s oil and gas business.

Keep reading

Another Grocery Staple Surging to Record High – The Days of Cheap Breakfasts Are Gone

Joe Biden alone has already caused the price of everyday staples to soar, but there are other pressures also forcing an increased burden to fall on all Americans.

Thanks to those external pressures, this month, yet another staple food item has soared to prices that won’t come down any time soon.

Coffee is absolutely essential for millions, and many Americans claim they can’t get their day in gear if they don’t have a jolting cup of Joe, and they don’t mean Biden.

But there will soon be more financial pain going forward with your morning cup. Get ready to see your coffee prices given a jolt as supply problems, hoarding, and contract defaults are tearing through the coffee producing industry worldwide causing prices to soar. This is only adding to the skyrocketing costs of breakfast, which is at its highest point since 1979 as it is. And experts say those higher prices won’t go away any time soon, if ever.

The cost of robusta coffee beans soared more than 30 percent early in April and 50 percent now as a heat wave has settled in over Vietnam in one of the world’s top coffee growing regions, according to Bloomberg.

The price jump for robusta has also put pressure on arabica coffee, causing arabica futures to rise more than 3 percent, surpassing the $2-per pound mark for the first time since December, the outlet added.

“Weather conditions are not encouraging,” representatives of London-based importer DRWakefield said this week. “There are still concerns over a possible water shortage for irrigation, which may hurt the output of the next season.”

About 40 percent of the world’s coffee supply is made up of robusta beans whereas the arabica bean is the source of around 60 percent, according to Nespresso.

Keep reading