Inflation Rises More Than Expected, Posing Dilemma For Federal Reserve

Today, inflation rose again, surpassing expectations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) underscores the ongoing challenge faced by the Federal Reserve in meeting its target goals of reducing inflation to 2%. Inflation increased by 3.5% compared to last March, marking a faster pace than February's 3.2%. What implications does this have for interest rates?Eddy Gifford, Wealth Advisor at TACTIVE, joins OAN's Alicia Summers to shed some light on the matter.

Dan Ball W/ Steve Moore, New Damning Inflation Report Out Today, 4/10/24

Inflation Rises More Than Expected, Posing Dilemma For Federal Reserve

Today, inflation rose again, surpassing expectations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) underscores the ongoing challenge faced by the Federal Reserve in meeting its target goals of reducing inflation to 2%. Inflation increased by 3.5% compared to last March, marking a faster pace than February's 3.2%. What implications does this have for interest rates?Eddy Gifford, Wealth Advisor at TACTIVE, joins OAN's Alicia Summers to shed some light on the matter.

Wall Street Week 02/16/2024

In this edition of Wall Street Week, Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury Secretary & Wall Street Week contributor, tells us why he thinks there is a meaningful chance that the Fed's next move could be upwards. Lisa Erickson, US Bank Wealth Management Head of Public Markets Group (TK). Robert Steel, Perella Weinberg Vice Chairman, tells us about the budget challenges facing New York and other cities around the country, and Richard Haass, Centerview Partners Senior Counselor & Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus tells us how foreign policy could affect the elections this year.

Janet Yellen Says ‘We Don’t Have To Get The Prices Down’~Then John Kennedy Reacts~COMPARED TO 1923 IN GERMANY’S HYPERINFLATION

Inflation rises faster than expected in January, up 18% since Biden took office; Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Monica Crowley discusses the strain inflation is having on the middle and lower class

COMPARE NOW TO THE GERMAN HYPER-INFLATION OF 1923:

THE GERMAN HYPERINFLATION OF 1923: A RETROSPECTIVE

5 trillion (5 Billionen, 5×1012) marks, Stuttgart, 1923

notgeld farbw 3 mio 08 1923

Hyperinflation: The Most Notorious Story of Inflation - (Weimar Republic) Germany

 

Inflation Surges Beyond Expectations, Undermining ‘Bidenomics’ Narrative

The Consumer Price Index report for December, released today, reveals an annual inflation increase of 3.4%, surpassing expectations. Core inflation, which factors in food and energy prices, rose by 3.9%. Ed Sidell, CEO and Chief Investment Advisor at EGSI Financial, discusses with OAN's Alicia Summers how the uptick in inflation challenges the mainstream narrative, suggesting that the fight against it is not as robust under 'Bidenomics.'

World’s Worst Philanthropist Honors Our Second-Worst President, JIMMY CARTER

World’s Worst Philanthropist Honors Our Second-Worst President
(AP Photo)
When you think of Jimmy Carter and his disastrous presidency, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Galloping inflation? The energy crisis? The national “malaise”? Appeasement of the Soviets? Appeasement of the Palestinian jihadis?

All that and more can be said about Carter’s sorry record as president, topped only lately by the frankly anti-American Biden regime, but as far as the world’s worst and scariest philanthropist, Bill Gates, is concerned, none of that is President Cornpone’s greatest achievement. The Gates Foundation has just awarded Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter with a lifetime achievement award for their “near-eradication of guinea worm disease.”

No, I am not making this up. Atlanta’s WSB reported Wednesday that America’s second-worst president, Jimmy Carter, and his wife Rosalyn “have been awarded for their lifetime of philanthropy and leadership with a lifetime achievement award from the Gates Foundation.” By “philanthropy and leadership,” of course, the Gates Foundation means “sanctimony and globalism.”

The award that Mr. and Mrs. Peanut got is called the Goalkeepers Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Gates Foundation explained why they deserved this illustrious and coveted honor: “From the near-eradication of guinea worm disease to their work for peace and democracy, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s trailblazing leadership has made a difference for the world. We’re thrilled to give them the Goalkeepers Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Well, yeah, Carter certainly has made a difference in the world. He weakened America on the world stage in what turned out to be the final stages of the Cold War, which his successor, Ronald Reagan, brought to a close by abandoning Carter’s policies of appeasement. He emboldened genocidal Palestinian jihadis by forcing Israel to accept the fiction of Palestinian nationality and make numerous other concessions in the widely and unjustly hailed Camp David Accords. He embodied pusillanimity as he adopted the pose of the self-righteous schoolmarm, scolding America to turn down the thermostat in response to a fictional energy crisis (created by a forest of regulations that Reagan cleared away, thus ending the crisis).

Political cartoonists of the day took to portraying Carter as a tiny man seated in a massive presidential chair; throughout his presidency, the conviction grew among Americans that he was just too small a man for the job. Thus it is fitting that Bill Gates would look up from his efforts to depopulate America and the world and decide that the great achievement for which Jimmy Carter ought to be remembered and honored is the “near-eradication of guinea worm disease.” Maybe it takes one worm to eradicate another.

Related: Jimmy Carter’s REAL Personality and What It Reveals About the Left’s Hypocrisy

After all, what else could the Gates Foundation say? That Carter emboldened and strengthened America’s enemies, as has nearly every president who has followed him into the Oval Office? That the “malaise” for which Carter wagged his finger at Americans has now become the official policy of the Biden regime? That regime appears bent on removing every source of comfort and happiness from American lives and leaving us riding stinking, jam-packed electric buses on the way home from our joyless jobs to our overcrowded, dilapidated, crime-ridden yet high-rent apartment blocks, where a revolting meal of bugs awaits us.

Carter set the ball rolling toward that dystopian future when he called upon Americans to swelter in the summertime and freeze in the winter so as to address a crisis he created. Half a century later, the America-Last successors of Carter are preparing to force Americans to take similar steps to solve the fake crisis of “climate change” as Merrick Garland’s Gestapo is poised to put dissidents on terror watch lists.

The father of the dystopia we already enjoy is Jimmy Carter, and so he is more deserving of an award from the sinister and dystopia-minded Gates Foundation than anyone else, with the possible exception of Old Joe Biden himself. But hey, there’s always next year to honor the conscienceless kleptocrat who now sits in the Oval Office.

If Gates does honor Old Joe, he could throw in a new award also: the Jimmy Carter Award, given to the president of the United States who damages the country the most while crowing about how much he has accomplished and smugly hectoring the American people to look up his works and hail him for his magnificence. Who would have thought that Jimmy Carter, of all people, would become the paradigmatic president in our Age of Absurdity? But here we are.

Auto Strike is Threatening the Economy & Inflation~Biden is destroying the auto industry~Vehicle Prices Could Increase~Ex-Chrysler, Home Depot CEO Speaks to Bartiromo

Former Chrysler and Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli explains why he thinks the UAW strikes will 'go on for a while.'

'ACTIONS NOT WORDS': UAW president withholds Biden endorsement

Former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon discusses the ongoing UAW workers' strike, Biden's self-described role as a 'pro-union president', and voters' concerns that Biden isn't healthy enough to serve.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., discusses the United Auto Workers strike's impact on the economy and his support for a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.

Inflation Jumps in August As Warning Signs Blink Red at the Fed

Inflation Jumps in August As Warning Signs Blink Red at the Fed
AP Photo/Tony Dejak
The Biden administration may have been hoping that inflation would continue its fall from a 2022 high. But the Consumer Price Index jumped half a percentage point from 3.2% in July to 3.7% in August.

While gas prices accounted for about half of the increase, there were worrying signs in other sectors of the economy as well, signaling to the Federal Reserve that, despite the steepest rise in interest rates since the early 1980s, inflation has yet to be beaten back.

Airline fares jumped nearly 5% in August, driven by higher jet fuel prices. And the 10.6% rise in gas prices was the result of OPEC+ maintaining its cuts in production.

Joe Biden tried to adorn the pig with a deep shade of red lipstick.

“Today’s report provides more evidence that core inflation is trending down toward pre-pandemic levels at a time when employment remains strong,” he said in a statement.

“I know last month’s increase in gas prices put a strain on family budgets. That’s why I remain laser-focused on cutting energy costs, including by investing in clean energy to bolster our energy security.”

Earth to Joe: “Investing in clean energy” will not — repeat not — cut energy costs immediately. The only way to cut energy costs is to bring more oil to market. It didn’t help that you just closed off 13 million acres in the Arctic from being developed.

Related: Drill, Baby, NOT! Biden Bars Oil Exploration on 13 Million Acres of Arctic Wilderness
Some food prices were lower, bringing overall food inflation to 0.2%, while meat, poultry, fish, and eggs increased 0.8%. But it’s gas prices that have hit the hardest and will no doubt continue to give the consumer a headache.

New York Times:

Prices at the pump remain well below their peak in June 2022, when a gallon of gas cost more than $5 on average. That spike was largely the result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Mr. Biden has since sought to reduce price pressures through a variety of measures, including releasing millions of barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Prices fell steadily last summer, a development that Mr. Biden celebrated.

Administration officials continue to tout that progress, using last June as a benchmark. “If you look at what we’ve been able to do from last summer to this summer — lowering gas prices by a dollar twenty cents, that is because of the work that this administration has done,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters last week.

We are by no means out of the woods yet on prices. And as far as interest rates, the other shoe has yet to drop. In order for interest rates to work, the economy is going to have to slow down. That hasn’t happened much yet, and until it does, inflation will remain an ever-present threat.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates from 5.25% to 5.5% at its July meeting, marking 11 rate increases in the last year. The thinking on the street is that the Fed will hike rates another quarter point at its meeting on September 19.

But there’s much uncertainty, both in the U.S. and globally. Has the Fed gone too far? Will the rising interest rates lead to bank failures or a stock downturn? Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode.

Inflation Ticks Up in July. And That’s Not the Worst of It

Inflation Ticks Up in July. And That's Not the Worst of It
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
After 12 straight months of the inflation rate coming down, prices rose in July — .02% over the price rise in June and 3.2% over prices from a year ago.

“We’ve made this progress while maintaining the broad strength of our economy,” Biden said in a statement, noting that unemployment remained near 50-year lows.

“I’m sure they’ll find something,” Biden joked during a speech in New Mexico, referring to GOP criticisms of “Bidenomics.”

Where do you want us to start, Joe?

How about housing?

Newsweek:

From the fourth quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2022, the U.S. housing market experienced one of the most significant increases in housing prices in American history. Data provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis show that over that two-year period, the average sales price of a home skyrocketed more than 36 percent, from $403,900 to a whopping $552,600.

For the first time in history, the 12-month increase in home prices topped 15 percent for seven quarters in a row, beginning in the second quarter of 2021.

Many current homeowners celebrated the unprecedented rise in housing values, but those rapid increases came with an important caveat: whenever housing prices increase as quickly as they have in recent years, an economic, stock market, and/or housing crash is almost certain to follow.

Then there’s the rest of the consumer price index, still making life miserable for most Americans.

Daily Signal:

The food index rose 0.2%, the energy index rose 0.1%, the fuel oil index rose 3%, the utility (piped) gas service index rose 2%, and the shelter index rose 0.4%, while the energy services index decreased 0.1%, the electricity index decreased 0.7%, the used cars and trucks index decreased 1.3%, and the medical care services index decreased 0.4%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Biden doesn’t drive his own car much, so he probably hasn’t noticed that gas prices are on the rise again. Gas is up 8% since July 1.

Yahoo Finance:

According to eToro global market strategist Ben Laidler, the move in gas prices from $3.09 in December 2022 to the national average price on Monday at $3.83 is an extra annual cost of roughly $101 billion for US consumers in total (based on the estimate that Americans use roughly 375 million gallons of gas each day).

With where gas prices stand — and they should remain elevated — that means consumers have less money to spend elsewhere, such as discretionary purchases.

The last time gas prices surged, Biden decided to draw down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by about 300 million barrels. Biden won’t have that fallback reserve if prices spike again — something that could very well happen given OPEC+ and their desire to squeeze the West. The cartel has finally got Saudi Arabia on board for steep production cuts, and The Kingdom doesn’t appear ready to do the West any favors and boost output anytime soon.

Alfredo Ortiz, chief executive officer and president of Job Creators Network, said in a Thursday statement, “This accelerating inflation shows the inflation fight is far from over, no matter what Democrats and the media say.”

“The Fed’s historic interest rate hikes have caused significant problems for small businesses and dramatically reduced their access to credit, but they haven’t been enough to overcome the Biden administration’s reckless spending and anti-energy policies responsible for persistent Bidenflation,” he added.

Talk of “recession” has faded among the moneymen and high priests of finance on Wall Street. But 60% of Americans still give Joe Biden terrible marks on the economy. As American kids head back to school, the economic outlook is forcing parents to rein in their spending as they take a wait-and-see attitude toward the future.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION-LIES, LIES & MORE LIES: Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton holds a press briefing

 

Biden | National News | postregister.com

"BIDENOMICS", OR FULL PROPAGANDA AT WORK IN PREPARATION FOR THE 2024 ELECTIONS?

OR BETTER YET A BLEND OF COLLECTIVISM, FASCISM, COMMUNISM, AND NAZISM, WHICH MUST NOT BE CHALLENGED, OR ELSE THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES!

THIS WAS ONE COMMENT: "This was the biggest gaslighting session that I have ever seen, nothing she said was actually true... She took a bucket of bull crap and threw it on the wall to see what would stick."

 

Olivia Dalton, former spokesperson and communications director at the US Mission to the United Nations, has been appointed as the principal deputy press secretary of the White House, replacing Karine Jean-Pierre, who left the position in May to become President Joe Biden's top press officer.0 Dalton is expected to occasionally conduct press briefings. The White House also promoted other communications aides, including Kate Berner, who was named principal deputy comms director.

Fox News poll reveals what Americans really think about 'Bidenomics'

Public Ventures President Lou Basenese, Speech First Executive Director Cherise Trump, and FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo discuss a Fox News poll on voter confidence in the personal financial situation and the economy amid the Biden administration's touting of the economy.

Maria Bartiromo: This is what 'Bidenomics' really is

GOP rep. exposes ‘underlying cause’ of SVB’s collapse~Biden admin is ‘built upon a lie’ causing ‘disasters everywhere’~Why The US Banking System Is BREAKING UP!!!~BANK Stocks COLLAPSE After Biden Says Banking System ‘Sound’

Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., discusses the impact of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse and slams President Biden’s response on ‘Mornings with Maria'.

Biden admin is 'built upon a lie' causing 'disasters everywhere'

DR. STEVE TURLEY: Why The US Banking System Is BREAKING UP!!!

BANK Stocks COLLAPSE After Biden Says Banking System 'Sound'

The Biden Economy Is Falling Apart, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

BY STEPHEN GREEN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/03/13/the-biden-economy-is-falling-apart-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-n1677787;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The Biden Economy — hailed Monday morning by Presidentish Joe Biden as “strong” — seems like it’s falling apart, everything, everywhere all at once. NYSE halted trading of Charles Schwab, whose shares fell by more than 20%, and even a few Etsy sellers have been impacted by the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse.

Schwab’s fall was the firm’s “most ever on an intraday-basis,” even as company execs assured investors in a press release that “Schwab’s long-standing reputation as a safe port in a storm remains intact.”

Overall, trading of shares in over 30 banks was halted on Wall Street Monday morning, as the entire sector suddenly looks like risk investors aren’t willing to take. Almost everything banking was down, down, down in pre-market trades, which MarketWatch described as “panic-like activity.”

“Among some of those that have already been halted at least twice,” MarketWatch reported, “shares of Western Alliance Bancorp WAL, -51.05% plummeted 78.2%, Regions Financial Corp. RF, -5.33% sank 15.6%, First Republic Bank FRC, -64.05% plunged 65.5%, Comerica Inc. CMA, -21.24% tumbled 39.4% and PacWest Bancorp. PACW, -25.18% took a 47.7% dive.”

Signature Bank, “a key financial institution for the cryptocurrency industry,” according to the New York Post, was shut down on Sunday over a “similar systemic risk” to SVB.

SVB and Signature are the second-and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history, respectively, with combined assets in excess of $300 billion. Depositors will be made whole, even deposits greater than the $250,000 covered by FDIC insurance. “Federal Reserve also said it is creating a new Bank Term Funding Program aimed at safeguarding institutions affected by the market instability of the SVB failure,” according to CNBC.

Investment holdings at SVB, however, are wiped out. “When the risk didn’t pay off, investors lose their money. That’s how capitalism works,” Biden said in his national address on Monday.

That’s what happened with Lehman Brothers, too, in 2008, before bigger faults were discovered and Washington went into Bailout All the Things Mode. This new crisis might just be getting started.

What went wrong? In a word: Inflation. In a few more words: The higher interest rates needed to combat inflation smashed the cheap-money expectations that SVB’s bond portfolios required. Other sectors of the economy that have become addicted to historically low-interest rates include high-tech, particularly startup firms, and the housing market.

“I would be surprised if there weren’t other things that break. Maybe not directly related to the problems of SVB, but to some degree, we’re already seeing breakage in terms of things like weakness in the housing market, and other areas that are clearly in recession in the economy, even if we’re not in an overall recession,” warned Schwab’s chief investment strategist, Liz Ann Sonders, on Monday.

It’s been one helluva morning, and that’s just in the banking sector. Looks like it’s time to haul out the Chart of Doom that surfaced on the internet back in 2008.

Biden Economy

Laugh. It beats crying — unless you’re one of those Etsy sellers who hasn’t been paid in days.

On Sunday, Etsy reported that “a small group of sellers… had their payments delayed on Friday” due to impacts from SVB’s implosion. “We expect we will be able to begin processing these payments as soon as tomorrow, March 13,” but as of this writing, there haven’t been any updates. Some sellers have been forced to put their stores in “vacation mode” because, without any money coming in, they can’t afford to pay for shipping on wares going out to customers.

So it isn’t just the big players getting hurt in the Biden economy, but there could be worse to come.

Inflation remains stubbornly high, due in large part to the Fed being both slow and timid in its rate hikes. We have a dismal 1981 inflation rate (properly figured) and a good-times 1995 Federal funds rate. Something’s gotta give.

Nevertheless, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in an investor’s letter on Sunday that “we no longer expect the FOMC to deliver a rate hike at its March 22 meeting with considerable uncertainty about the path beyond March.” If the problems we’re seeing in the banking system take a toll on consumer and investor confidence, then the Fed will do what it always does in that situation: easy money, baby!

But easy money during an inflationary period just adds fuel to the fire.

“We’ve made strong economic progress in the past two years,” Biden said Monday. The RNC Twitter account responded with a few inconvenient truths: “When Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4% and gas was $2.39/gal. Today, inflation is at 6.4% and gas is $3.47/gal.”

And that was before the big bills started coming due for three years spent shutting down and re-regulating the economy while printing up trillions in funny money.

I could say “I told you so,” gentle reader, but you were telling me, too.

Biden, Harris Say They’re Doing a Great Job Lowering Your Energy Bills

BY RICK MORAN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/03/11/biden-harris-want-you-to-know-about-the-great-job-theyre-doing-lowering-your-energy-bills-n1677444;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

“I took the most aggressive action ever — in all of history in any country — to take on the climate crisis by lowering your home energy bills,” crowed Joe Biden during a speech touting his insane budget proposal. He might as well have claimed that he took “the most aggressive action ever — in the history of the universe” for all the truth there was in that statement.

The Republican National Committee was bewildered.

“Huh?” wondered the RNC. “Electricity is up 11.9%, fuel oil is up 27.7%, and natural gas is up 26.7% over last year.”

Not to be outdone, Vice President Kamala Harris had her own fantasy to share. On Feb. 24 during a speech at Bowie State in Maryland, Harris created a shopping list for Americans to buy stuff with all that money they were saving because of lower energy costs. “For working families, we have reduced heating and electricity bills so folks have more money in their pockets to buy things like school supplies, replace the dishwasher, or take a family vacation,” she said.

Can you take a family vacation on the difference between what gasoline cost in July and what it cost in February? Maybe you could ask your neighbor to put you and the kids up for a few nights. And what kind of dishwasher would you be able to buy?

Related: The Economic Case for Net Zero Is Zero

Our incurious and slavishly devoted media can’t rouse themselves to comment on the utter stupidity of both Biden’s and Harris’s flagrant lies.

FoxBusiness:

“Gas prices are up $1.03 a gallon from when Joe Biden took office. Biden’s administration continues to undermine American energy,” RNC rapid response director Tommy Pigott tweeted at the time. “Families have lost $2,250 paying higher energy costs since he took office.”

In December, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special legislative session to tax California’s oil refiners while blaming them for the state’s high energy prices.

Both Harris and Newsom know damn well that people haven’t saved a dime in energy costs since Biden took office. And Newsom knows that refineries aren’t responsible for California’s sky-high energy costs. But even when there’s pushback on these ludicrous statements, the administration just trots out another flunkie to continue the lies.

If only excessive, serial repetition made it so. “Cost relief” is not slightly coming off highs your policies created. You shouldn’t be crowing about it as if you’d accomplished something” explained Hot Air’s Beege Welborn.

That’s straight out of the Joseph Goebbels playbook: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Biden’s Inflation Is Crushing the Middle Class, No Matter What Stupid Lies He Tells

Biden's Inflation Is Crushing the Middle Class, No Matter What Stupid Lies He Tells

BY STEPHEN GREEN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/02/20/bidens-inflation-is-crushing-the-middle-class-no-matter-what-stupid-lies-he-tells-n1672221;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

“Inflation is coming down,” Presidentish Joe Biden insisted in his State of the Union address earlier this month, but new figures show Biden is full of the usual malarkey. “We have more to do, but here at home, inflation is coming down.” Meanwhile, I went to fill up my car yesterday but escrow fell through.

At least I’m not in the market for a new car, something most Americans used to look forward to, but which is increasingly out of reach for millions. Fortune reported last week that “new cars are now toys for the rich,” as “the average price for a new vehicle in the US has jumped to almost $50,000.”

That’s up 30 percent since just 2019. Worse, rising interest rates — a harsh necessity to tame inflation — have caused monthly payments to rise even faster. That shiny new car you might have had your eye on will now cost an eye-watering $777 in base payments alone.

“Every aspect of buying and owning a car has gotten more expensive and outpaced the rate of inflation so it’s important to be more knowledgeable,” CarEdge expert Zach Shefska told Buffalo’s WHRZ News last week.

The average monthly loan payment for a used car is up to $544. As a young lad of 19, way back when, I once spent $700 on a good enough used car, if barely. Not $700 monthly. Total.

There is a silver lining to Biden’s dark cloud of inflation — if you’re a car manufacturer, that is. Car sales might be down — 8% since 2021 — but profits are going nowhere but up. “Ford’s gross profit rose 4.4% in 2022 from a year earlier,” according to that Fortune report, “while GM’s adjusted earnings grew by about $200 million to reach $14.5 billion.” Tesla made an annual profit of $12.6 billion in 2022, with revenues up 51 percent over 2021, “despite missing its sales forecast.”

Must be nice.

Did you want to fill’er up, too? Gas prices are “primed to rise in a few weeks,” according to GasBuddy. They’re already on the way up in the West where I live. Here in Colorado, the average price for a gallon of regular is back up over $4 after briefly dipping to around $3 last year. Californians are closing in on $5 once more, already at nearly $4.75.

Somehow though, a gallon of gas in California is still less than a dozen eggs almost anywhere. “The average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs ran at $4.82 in January,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week. Not only are those eggs more expensive than the most expensive gallon of regular in the country, but it’s also more than the price of a pound of ground beef — that’s the first time eggs have eclipsed ground beef since BLS started tracking those prices more than 40 years ago.

In states like Colorado, where Democrats have passed strict laws regulating how chickens are kept, prices are even higher. My local Kroger-owned grocery store’s house-brand large white eggs are $4.99. The jumbo size will cost you more.

Home price inflation continues, albeit more slowly than before. Prices rose “only” 7.7 percent annually last November, down from October’s hectic 9.2 percent annualized increase. Nevertheless, monthly payments are going up unabated — just like monthly car payments — due to rising interest rates. “Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average on the benchmark 30-year rate rose to 6.32% from 6.12% last week,” according to ABC News. “The average rate a year ago was 3.92%.”

That’s Joe Biden’s inflation tax making us all poorer, just trying to buy the same food, cars, and houses we could buy before his spending orgy began.

The Left is winning its war on the American middle class through attrition.

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