Shell and Chevron both announced record earnings this last week. Workers’ wages decline relative to inflation. How does it make sense to blame wages for inflation?
It’s deflection and not trustworthy but when people spend all day getting brainwashed by FOX news how can you expect anything else. It’s all pretty obvious. I don’t claim to be a brainiac by any measure but it’s pretty obvious to me that what republicans are doing all over the place is not sustainable.
Not sustainable, are you sure? i see no signs of Republican voters not continuing to be led by right wing media, whether it is Fox News or Ben Shapiro or Truth Media focusing their attention on identity politics while ignoring how the rich are screwing them. Infact, i think they support the policy's that the Donor class gets pushed making the poor and middle class poorer? Right?
Not to mention no one, from the middle class, at least will have money to spend which will effect economy. There will be more going over the edge into poverty which is where things are going now.
I’m not talking about voters. I’m talking about what republicans agenda is. Take SS or privatization. Take Medicare away or privatization. Take away healthcare. No regulations on any corporations so they can gouge consumers. And much more . How are people supposed to live if they keep running every one down so they go bankrupt with medical bills and no money. They make our SS, our ONLY source of income a game they play with. And if they privatize it you can be sure some private corporation will be paying their brokers off the backs of senior citizens.
I get what you are saying and it is beyond me . I think are many reasons people vote the way they do but one of the big ones, I think, is because people don’t pay attention. They never watch what their own representatives are doing and what they are voting on. They get sensationalism from Fox News and right wing and don’t look deeper. Or they just simply vote R just because their family does or they always have. It always blows my mind that republican voters still believe Reagan was the best prez ever. We didn’t know it at the time necessarily but we sure do know now what trickle down caused.
The reason they fall for the nonesense that Fox puts out is that even when the Dems had power they still got screwed. Dems have done no better for them than R's.
At least FOX makes fun of people that don't think like them and that gives them a sense of superiority in a society that, when not watching the tube, is treating them with less and less respect. From declining wages to lost hope for the future and all of the social problems that come with that they seek comfort. And that is what Fox and righ wing media gives them. Well the comfort of hating someone.
The left has never helped them economically and demands that these people bow to the liberal establishment and admit they were wrong on everything just to call themselves a liberal. I don't think making fun of Republican voters is going to change their minds.
They are certainly betting on that with Fox News and right wing sites. Trump said he loved the ignorant. Easier to manipulate. A culture war with provided fear and hate is easier to manipulate people who are uneducated.
If you are on this Substack you most likely have critical thinking skills. I am assuming that the 80% of voters that think increasing wages cause inflation, that the rich are taxed too much or that cutting taxes to the rich helps the economy are not using their critical thinking skills. So no, most Americans lack critical thinking skills when they expose themselves to media like FOX, CNN and MSNBC on a daily basis
Yep. This is the way things have been going lately though. Once the evil ones saw how trump manipulated and scammed all those people who are short on critical thinking skills ( or just plain money/power hungry) they patterned their own goals with the same methods since it was so dang easy to fool them. Not sure where we are headed but it looks pretty sinister.
DeSatan could be much more dangerous then Trump ever was and he’s doing a good job carrying out fascist agenda in Fla. Trump was ac stupid idiot and look what he caused. DeSatan is as lawyer which makes home worse.
He is working with many of the older, oldest generations who are filled with fear. So they hear him and they think he is the only way that their former world can remain the same. What they don't get is that things change. PERIOD. That is what life is all about. Change. Constant motion. Absolutely no stopping it.
Shell and Chevron's "record" profits are largely due to higher oil prices. The primary cause of that is of course not wages.
Anytime you hear a Media person or person of note, Elon Musk for example, implying that higher wages are causing inflation you can assume they are either a paid shill for big business (like most law makers in BOTH parties) or they are simply an ignorant fool, like Musk.
Kevin McCarthy has demonstrated that he is willing to destroy this country, even the world, to obtain and maintain the speakership for himself. Maybe he is being paid by AIPAC, which has generously funded efforts, recently extending to Democratic Party primaries, to effect the election of reliably pro-Israel candidates. Interestingly, my Republican former (due to redistricting) congresswoman, who is an immigrant from Ukraine, was at first opposed to removing Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee, but ultimately voted with her party. Now, she has announced that she will not run for reelection in 2024, ostensibly to spend more time with her family. I'd like to believe that she has felt a twinge of conscience at what the Republican leadership is demanding that she do.
I would like Biden to address corporate profiteering and abuse of workers in his State of the Union address, to communicate to the public what you have said in this coffee klatch and your essays.
How, after the past 2 years of war, can ANY Ukrainian immigrant be a Republican?
I don't think AIPAC supports Marjorie Taylor Greene or any of her allies.
Omar is Somali, not "Palestinian" and it took years to educate her. She has gotten a lot of PR in the past several days. I am a card carrying Semite and I have seen NO evidence that AIPAC lobbied against her. From the flip side she is evidence that reason can work.
Thank you. Rebekha, for pointing this out. As an atheist I hesitate to mention that Jesus, wise man that he was, was most certainly Jewish, preached in Synagogues, quoted from and believed in the Torah. The "bible" most English speaking Christians read is from the 17th Century King James version which was loosely translated from Greek, Latin and Hebrew manuscripts still available. (Many works were destroyed in the burning of the great library in Alexandria
The Ukrainian congresswoman lives in a heavily Republican county. Until recently, for those who wanted to enter politics in that county, the Republican Party was the only game in town. It's still overwhelmingly Republican. Also, she has adopted a practice of persistently denouncing socialism.
I never said Ilhan Omar is Palestinian. I know she lives in an area with a large population of Somali immigrants. Her district also includes a substantial Jewish population that helped elect her. But as far as I can tell, AIPAC doesn't really care about anti-Semitism in this country, only about willingness to unconditionally support Israel. In the 2022 Democratic primary for Michigan's 11th Congressional District, AIPAC poured money into the campaign of non-Jewish Haley Stevens to help her defeat Jewish Andy Levin, I assume because AIPAC thought Stevens would be more accommodating to Israel than the progressive Levin. I suspect that Majorie Taylor Greene's Jewish space lasers don't bother AIPAC, as long as she reliably votes in support of Israel.
I replied “other” because all universal norms are being breached. One has no clue from one day to the next what the next crisis will be. For me, it has to with escalating as usual, (sorry, I lied) ....gun violence and a court decision that rewards domestic abusers with more guns to kill more domestic partners and instigate more mass shootings. And now? Congresspeople wearing AR-15 lapel or tie pins instead of the American Flag 🇺🇸 bejeweling clothing. Watching those four days in the House agonizing over the Speakership with 15 votes; each one after McCarthy sold out another piece of his soul? Along with the American Dream. We’re left with the MAGA’S worst offenders playing games with governance, “revenge politics.” Will not one House representative call into question his leadership? (His rules, his loss!) We’re losing our Democracy and have no 💵💵💵 to fight with. It’s all going into the pockets of those who manipulate the tax codes to their advantage (billionaires) and corporations exploiting chaos, supply chain issues, inflating prices, while paying executives outrageous salaries. FDR and his NEW DEAL being brought to its knees, along with my paid Social Security. I see no reason for optimism on any front. Too many lobbyists, too many opinions, too much speculation, too many global and national unknowns. 🥲
When I read Powell's remarks, it almost seemed like the equivalent of economic blood letting with leeches. The goal seems to be to push interest rates to the point that there is higher unemployment and suffering by the common person who works for a living and would be devastated by unemployment.
Perhaps policy responses need to move on to a more evidence-based approach?
Dr. Doug Gilbert ; It IS economic blood letting with leeches. The leeches being the usual greedheads ; the very ones who were given 1.8 $Trillion by the MAGAt King who appointed Jerome Powell !
Perhaps we should all consider what you just said. Our so called free market economy seems to be based more on trickle down than percolate up. If accumulating wealth is presented as a gambling game and not actually based on workers working then - there is the excuse for favoring the wealthy on all accounts.
I don't really have an opinion on where the economy is going--not trained in economics, so don't have enough knowledge or data to have an intelligent opinion--but I do have a question that perhaps Robert would address in a future newsletter. I get that the only tool that central bankers seem to have is interest rates, so they use it. Supposedly, raising interest rates fights inflation. But, aren't higher interest rates themselves a form of inflation? Our paper this morning reported that average price of a detached (single family) house is down an average of $244,000 CDN over a year ago. OK, that is deflation. But the Bank of Canada rate is 4.25 % higher than a year ago and mortgage rates are also higher such that people who are up for renewal find that their monthly payments are now significantly higher than they were. That is inflation. So, if raising interest rates causes high inflation for many households (those not currently buying a house), how does raising interest rates cut overall inflation? I get that raising the price of mortgages reduces the number of people who decide to buy a house, so the average price of houses goes down, but it would seem that would be significantly fewer people than those currently paying off a mortgage for a house that they bought in the last 25 years. And, at least locally, landlords use higher interest rates as an excuse to raise rents, so many renters face inflation of rent. What am I misunderstanding here? Please, Robert, could you explain this so that those of us who have no formal education in economics can understand? I for one would be very grateful.
As Robert has pointed out there are other factors that are causing inflation such as corporate greed. Interest rates are only one tool they have. The other tools very well may be up to the legislators.
If they raise interest rates they figure people will buy less, thereby, driving demand down, which will cause prices to drop. I don’t have formal economic edu either but this is how it’s been explained to me.
But prices aren't dropping are they. In California there continues to be an overall steady rise. The huge increase in homelessness is not (as some have claimed) from an influx of homeless from other States, our homeless are homegrown and a large portion are literally 'homeless' having been evicted because they could not afford the rent.
And as River has said,and others, corporate greed has driven much of the price gouging and inflation. We need regulation so corporations can’t gouge and raise prices on everything including housing.
Yes. Im not sure what’s going on in California because natural gas has dropped considerably in Colorado. But everything is more expensive and people live more and more on the edge. It’s no wonder there is a large homeless population and growing all over.
The next 2 years won't see much coming out of Congress. Except for Republican nonsense. But that means the Democrats have a lot to run on, showing what happens when you give the majority to a party that has no intention of doing anything but cut taxes for the rich. We should have healthy majorities in both Houses in 2024, plus Biden in the White House.
Those videos are crazy. Unreal how stupid people are. What is concerning tho, is the gerrymandering and voter suppression going on and what happened in Fla. DeSatans tactics turned Fla strong red and that’s a scary thought.
The only investment in the stock market that effected my financial health was through pensions. Our original pension which was figured according to time worked and age of retirement was frozen. after I had worked more than 20 years. The pension was a big reason why I had continued to work there. In its place, we were given a 403B which we contributed to and our contributions were matched (at least some of the time) by our company. Initially, those of us who had been employees for many years, were given a small deposit into our 403B. They had paid many of such low, and sometimes, no, raises that the cost of living was more than we were making, much less to invest. One year our raise was one half a percent in January and another half a percent in June. One year we got a raise, substantial only in comparison with past “raises” and they took it back in higher medical insurance premiums, higher deductibles, higher copays, coinsurance. (This also happened one year with a social security “”raise.” Every year the CEO cried impending poverty and then came out in the green the next year. This is NOT an exaggeration. The CEO received large financial gains for his “achievement.” My employer was a “non-profit” hospital. Profits can be negated by buying properties to be used for “hospital office space,” etc. Eventually they merged with a hospital that was doing poorly financially, (it had bought up lots of properties leaving it with a low credit raising) opening the door even wider for profits for my hospital. The CEO appeared to know nothing about healthcare, nor was he inclined to concern himself with it. They took advantage of people who worked because they wanted to provide good care to their patients. Many of these long-term people were let go “for any reason or no reason.” NO CONTRACT. Many of these were people had worked themselves up to good pay and benefits. They were great employees who had skill, experience and were dedicated to their jobs. DO NOT WORK WITHOUT A UNION.
If you think this is not your problem listen to this. Now the hospital is short of healthcare workers, especially nurses. In the emergency department, people are lined up along the hallways head to foot. Some get their care in the hallway. Some get ER beds. Some in ER beds are waiting for inpatient rooms to open up, so they can be admitted. I can speak from personal experience with a relative the care is haphazard. IF YOU NEED EMERGENCY CARE TAKE AN ADVOCATE WITH YOU., if at all possible. Traveling nurses may not be proficient in finding your medications in the computer. Medications may be overlooked and not given. You may not get more than even the scantiest information from ER doctors, patient aides, and nurses. Nurses change with shifts. When I called from home at midnight and asked if my elderly relative, whose blood pressure was very high and had high levels of carbon dioxide in his blood, due to breathing issues, was being checked on, her response was that she had just started her shift and had five patients assigned to her. Finally after 24 hours he was seen by a hospitalist, who gave him the care and concern he needed. Of course she had other patients to care for. In my opinion, if we can take health insurance out of healthcare and take profit out of healthcare we will all get better healthcare. At this point, what have we got to lose?
I hear your concerns after working as a nurse for 30 Years. Nurses were getting some of the worst insurance then other equal professions when I was working. People assume since you work in a hospital you get good insurance. NADA. And I completely agree with the advocate and tell this to my friends and family that I will volunteer if need be. Hospitals are dangerous places these days. But nurses have shot themselves in the foot for years pushing to get more and more degrees. When I went to school for LPN nursing at a vottech the tuition was $900.00 and I had enough for books and some left over. That same education is now $30-40,000.00 depending on where you go and they no longer offer it at votech schools, if you can even find them. I worked in every department of the hospital.ER, Telemetry, med/surg, medical, I was routinely floated to the medical ICU. When I graduated from nursing school with an AD degree I worked in SICU with trauma and severe brain injuries. I was good at my job and fascinated with the science. Now you need a BSN 4-5 year degree for entry level at most hospitals in my area. And a masters to work in high level ICU areas. It’s too much education. It doesn’t take that much to be a good nurse. And ,BIG SURPRISE, there are nursing shortages all over the place. I’ve seen this writing on the wall for years, even before a pandemic, because of the aging population. AND years ago when I tried to get nurses to unionize the corporation rolled out union busting rhetoric and put the fear into people that they would lose their jobs, even tho it’s illegal. It was a lost cause.
I don't believe the debt ceiling was mentioned. Regarding "Florida Man," the news came this week that the state's school athletics boards were going to require students to submit regular menstrual cycle reports. Plenty of stuff to feel queasy about.
Being a member/supporter of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement), I can report that things are very pessimistic there too. The same battle against the same corrupt power structure. But I also get the feeling that forces are building up like a spring that is being put under great pressure. The pandemic -- which is by no means over -- revealed how much latent power lies in the hands of "essential workers." And it will remain latent until it's organized.
A quick stress reliever for me -- being a child of the 50s and 60s -- "discovering" gems of old garage and psych tunes that I'd never heard before. YouTube has provided a seemingly unlimited universal jukebox. Just this week I heard for the first time Bessie Banks' original (1963) recording of "Go Now" -- the song that was later the Moody Blues first giant hit.
Florida man on tracking student menstrual cycles.....the rhythm method!!!!???? Or worse, the Handmaids tale come true. Justice Coney- Barrett (sp) will love it. I guess privacy is not an individual freedom or constitutional right.
I read somewhere that one of those hardline'thug' states was considering criminalizing miscarriages,as in maybe a woman did it to herself (like self abortion).
Thank you, Thomas. I did not mention the Debt Ceiling yet because it is not immediate, close; Biden originally stated it was not negotiable but has had a brief conversation with McCarthy to open the door. Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen is doing temporary fixes until ? about June; she is very competent and can keep the ship afloat for the time being. I sincerely hope both parties recognize the extreme danger ⚠️ of not coming to an agreement on funding our government. National and Global impacts are involved. I hope that this will be resolved; the noise will get louder and I do not embrace that. I trust the President, the Senate, and the Democratic members of the House to bring as much pressure as they can to a reasonable conclusion.
I said recession because the only tool the Fed sees is interest rate manipulation. The cause for inflation is unbridled greed of large corporations and financial institutions.
It's national security. Current inflation was aggravated and exacerbated by Trump who tried to RAISE oil prices by doing deals with Saudi to limit production. Inflation benefits Saudi/OPEC/ Putin and hurts the west. There's a war in Ukraine. Iran, China may be physical threats.
We should have been able to fight price fixing and price gouging. Take courage that California is suing Amazon, alleging it broke state competition laws, that Amazon keeps prices artificially high via practices barring wholesalers and third-party merchants from offering lower prices to other retailers.
Meanwhile although Microsoft, Google's parent company Alphabet, Meta, IBM, Salesforce and Amazon have been laying off workers, unemployment is the lowest since 1969. To quote Spock : this does not compute.
Again, rates in Japan, Switzerland, Sweden Denmark are 1%. US 8%. Arbitrage. Treasury does not need to confer with the Fed to buy low & sell high.
It sure looks like Republicans CRAVE a recession to undermine Keynesian economics, but the latest jobs report and inflation stats show that they're incompetent boobs.
The response from Paul’s ppl today is so hopeful to me (despair is easy looking at this cluster). I think the American people aren’t as dumb as I feared, and they’ll see what Qevin et al are doing clearly, and turn away.
I really do think we’re at a Fourth Turning event and it’s looking a little better.
If we can avoid some major stupidity w China, and so far old Joe seems to be listening to people smarter than him. You gotta love that about him.
You have a problem with a woman with a PhD in education as an advisor? This is just nastiness.
Joe is listening to his military advisors, not Dr. Jill.
I swear, people like you ruin any optimism in our future.
Please get better information. Joe Biden is a shrewd and experienced politician who is smart enough to pick good advisors. I’d choose him over a drunken pilot, B movie clown who actually did mostly get advice from his wife who got it from her astrologer, or the former guy who is mentally ill ( narcissism is classified as a mental illness by the DSM, and he was stupid as well).
I recently heard an eye-opening interview with constitutional scholar Eric Foner, around his NYT OpEd “The Constitution Has a 155-Year Old Answer to the Debt-Ceiling”. He describes the various provisions of the 14th Amendment.
I did not realize how CLEARLY the 14th Amendment addresses several of the crises we are grappling with — and provides clear recourse.
Quoting from the article:
“Section 3 bars from public office anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and subsequently participated in or encouraged “insurrection.” The events of Jan. 6, 2021, have focused new attention on this stipulation, which could be applied to participants in the uprising who previously held military, political, or judicial positions, including former President Donald Trump.”
Further, Section 2 apparently provides for a reduction in the number of representatives for states that deny citizens the right to vote.
Now we’ve seen Marjorie Taylor Greene bragging on camera that if she and Steve Bannon had run the January 6th event, “we would have brought guns and we would have won!”
WHY THE HELL IS THIS AMENDMENT NOT BEING ENFORCED?!? Whether or not there is criminal liability, at the least the insurrectionists should not be allowed within a mile of any government facility. Instead, they’re welcomed in and allowed to run the show while we wring our hands and fret like arthritic old ladies (“Oh dear! Oh dear! Isn’t it awful?”)
It’s looking more and more like Washington is club whose members are untouchable no matter what — while “The Law” is simply a means to repress and control the masses.
Dire as this all appears, it could be turned around with one discrete change, as stated by former Justice Louis Brandeis almost a century ago:
“We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
There is an aspect here that many are not paying attention to, or rather are trying to control with every means possible.....and that is that old known 'structures' are shaking and the 'old'systems are not working (i.e GOP 20), this also included howe we have given our power away (Media) and it's propaganda war and the rules put in place
to effect control of people......what needs to come down.......Government......the experiment that was the USA over the past 240 years and the system of rules - Declaration of Independence as you point out) this is where the people need to demand the actual implementation of the remedy that you highlight so the other real problem is SCOUTS which has deep roots and need to be questioned as there are hidden aspects to this
It's all about systems and people, what have we given over - our power and choices for short term gain - in the bigger picture short term gain is 20 - 40 years - collective paradigm shifts.
Is it possible for change to come without fracture? NO, people and groups will bring change.
My SWAG on this is wage decline and recession, as they go foot in mouth. Speaking of feet, are you positive there is another shoe to drop?
Kevin McCarthy is nothing more than a self serving butt kisser who will stop at nothing to keep his job.
If you have not read Robert Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100," I recommend you do so, as he predicted the theocracy back in 1939. I first read it in 1976 and was entertained, but when I reread it in 2002, it scared me, as it happening front and center.
Shell and Chevron both announced record earnings this last week. Workers’ wages decline relative to inflation. How does it make sense to blame wages for inflation?
It’s deflection and not trustworthy but when people spend all day getting brainwashed by FOX news how can you expect anything else. It’s all pretty obvious. I don’t claim to be a brainiac by any measure but it’s pretty obvious to me that what republicans are doing all over the place is not sustainable.
Jo,
Not sustainable, are you sure? i see no signs of Republican voters not continuing to be led by right wing media, whether it is Fox News or Ben Shapiro or Truth Media focusing their attention on identity politics while ignoring how the rich are screwing them. Infact, i think they support the policy's that the Donor class gets pushed making the poor and middle class poorer? Right?
Not to mention no one, from the middle class, at least will have money to spend which will effect economy. There will be more going over the edge into poverty which is where things are going now.
Jo
It is sustainable as long as voters vote in the law makers that are passing these laws. How are you going to change their minds?
I’m not talking about voters. I’m talking about what republicans agenda is. Take SS or privatization. Take Medicare away or privatization. Take away healthcare. No regulations on any corporations so they can gouge consumers. And much more . How are people supposed to live if they keep running every one down so they go bankrupt with medical bills and no money. They make our SS, our ONLY source of income a game they play with. And if they privatize it you can be sure some private corporation will be paying their brokers off the backs of senior citizens.
Jo
Republican law makers make the "republican agenda". The Republican "agenda" means nothing with out voters voting for these law makers.
Change the minds of Republican voters and the Republican agenda will change...
The question is why do so many Republicans support such policies?
I get what you are saying and it is beyond me . I think are many reasons people vote the way they do but one of the big ones, I think, is because people don’t pay attention. They never watch what their own representatives are doing and what they are voting on. They get sensationalism from Fox News and right wing and don’t look deeper. Or they just simply vote R just because their family does or they always have. It always blows my mind that republican voters still believe Reagan was the best prez ever. We didn’t know it at the time necessarily but we sure do know now what trickle down caused.
Jo
The reason they fall for the nonesense that Fox puts out is that even when the Dems had power they still got screwed. Dems have done no better for them than R's.
At least FOX makes fun of people that don't think like them and that gives them a sense of superiority in a society that, when not watching the tube, is treating them with less and less respect. From declining wages to lost hope for the future and all of the social problems that come with that they seek comfort. And that is what Fox and righ wing media gives them. Well the comfort of hating someone.
The left has never helped them economically and demands that these people bow to the liberal establishment and admit they were wrong on everything just to call themselves a liberal. I don't think making fun of Republican voters is going to change their minds.
That filthy party is doing themselves in.I've been hoping and praying the American public sees what they really are!
And Exxon... Anyone have any doubt why gas prices went through the roof and where that money went?
It doesn't make sense , but we are apparently not supposed to know enough to make critical thinking part of the equation.
They are certainly betting on that with Fox News and right wing sites. Trump said he loved the ignorant. Easier to manipulate. A culture war with provided fear and hate is easier to manipulate people who are uneducated.
He worked so hard at it ,it ended up biting him in his big fat bottom.
WS
If you are on this Substack you most likely have critical thinking skills. I am assuming that the 80% of voters that think increasing wages cause inflation, that the rich are taxed too much or that cutting taxes to the rich helps the economy are not using their critical thinking skills. So no, most Americans lack critical thinking skills when they expose themselves to media like FOX, CNN and MSNBC on a daily basis
You've been listening to DeSantis again whittet LOL
I think DeSatan is an fascist authoritarian nutcase.
Yep. This is the way things have been going lately though. Once the evil ones saw how trump manipulated and scammed all those people who are short on critical thinking skills ( or just plain money/power hungry) they patterned their own goals with the same methods since it was so dang easy to fool them. Not sure where we are headed but it looks pretty sinister.
DeSatan could be much more dangerous then Trump ever was and he’s doing a good job carrying out fascist agenda in Fla. Trump was ac stupid idiot and look what he caused. DeSatan is as lawyer which makes home worse.
Worse,and no one's good enough but his loyalists who kiss his boots
He is working with many of the older, oldest generations who are filled with fear. So they hear him and they think he is the only way that their former world can remain the same. What they don't get is that things change. PERIOD. That is what life is all about. Change. Constant motion. Absolutely no stopping it.
Agreed!!!!
It doesn't,lower income people deserve to live too,we're not sub humans.
Always point your finger at the cause that makes you look betterr and puts the blame on something else.
CW
Shell and Chevron's "record" profits are largely due to higher oil prices. The primary cause of that is of course not wages.
Anytime you hear a Media person or person of note, Elon Musk for example, implying that higher wages are causing inflation you can assume they are either a paid shill for big business (like most law makers in BOTH parties) or they are simply an ignorant fool, like Musk.
Kevin McCarthy has demonstrated that he is willing to destroy this country, even the world, to obtain and maintain the speakership for himself. Maybe he is being paid by AIPAC, which has generously funded efforts, recently extending to Democratic Party primaries, to effect the election of reliably pro-Israel candidates. Interestingly, my Republican former (due to redistricting) congresswoman, who is an immigrant from Ukraine, was at first opposed to removing Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee, but ultimately voted with her party. Now, she has announced that she will not run for reelection in 2024, ostensibly to spend more time with her family. I'd like to believe that she has felt a twinge of conscience at what the Republican leadership is demanding that she do.
I would like Biden to address corporate profiteering and abuse of workers in his State of the Union address, to communicate to the public what you have said in this coffee klatch and your essays.
How, after the past 2 years of war, can ANY Ukrainian immigrant be a Republican?
I don't think AIPAC supports Marjorie Taylor Greene or any of her allies.
Omar is Somali, not "Palestinian" and it took years to educate her. She has gotten a lot of PR in the past several days. I am a card carrying Semite and I have seen NO evidence that AIPAC lobbied against her. From the flip side she is evidence that reason can work.
Daniel it seems to escape the minds of the evangelical community that Jesus too was semitic. (and the gospel he taught was the Torah)
Yep. And Jesus was most likely brown given his heritage. Wonder what would happen if they thought about that.
Thank you. Rebekha, for pointing this out. As an atheist I hesitate to mention that Jesus, wise man that he was, was most certainly Jewish, preached in Synagogues, quoted from and believed in the Torah. The "bible" most English speaking Christians read is from the 17th Century King James version which was loosely translated from Greek, Latin and Hebrew manuscripts still available. (Many works were destroyed in the burning of the great library in Alexandria
The Ukrainian congresswoman lives in a heavily Republican county. Until recently, for those who wanted to enter politics in that county, the Republican Party was the only game in town. It's still overwhelmingly Republican. Also, she has adopted a practice of persistently denouncing socialism.
I never said Ilhan Omar is Palestinian. I know she lives in an area with a large population of Somali immigrants. Her district also includes a substantial Jewish population that helped elect her. But as far as I can tell, AIPAC doesn't really care about anti-Semitism in this country, only about willingness to unconditionally support Israel. In the 2022 Democratic primary for Michigan's 11th Congressional District, AIPAC poured money into the campaign of non-Jewish Haley Stevens to help her defeat Jewish Andy Levin, I assume because AIPAC thought Stevens would be more accommodating to Israel than the progressive Levin. I suspect that Majorie Taylor Greene's Jewish space lasers don't bother AIPAC, as long as she reliably votes in support of Israel.
Those assumptions are BS.
I have an idea that these poor excuses for humans will be very sorry for what they did.
I replied “other” because all universal norms are being breached. One has no clue from one day to the next what the next crisis will be. For me, it has to with escalating as usual, (sorry, I lied) ....gun violence and a court decision that rewards domestic abusers with more guns to kill more domestic partners and instigate more mass shootings. And now? Congresspeople wearing AR-15 lapel or tie pins instead of the American Flag 🇺🇸 bejeweling clothing. Watching those four days in the House agonizing over the Speakership with 15 votes; each one after McCarthy sold out another piece of his soul? Along with the American Dream. We’re left with the MAGA’S worst offenders playing games with governance, “revenge politics.” Will not one House representative call into question his leadership? (His rules, his loss!) We’re losing our Democracy and have no 💵💵💵 to fight with. It’s all going into the pockets of those who manipulate the tax codes to their advantage (billionaires) and corporations exploiting chaos, supply chain issues, inflating prices, while paying executives outrageous salaries. FDR and his NEW DEAL being brought to its knees, along with my paid Social Security. I see no reason for optimism on any front. Too many lobbyists, too many opinions, too much speculation, too many global and national unknowns. 🥲
That was a clear assessment and I agree.
Here's a good reason,light always conquers dark,the battle can be enormous,but LIGHT ALWAYS CONQUERS DARK!
You are certainly on the right track, Judith
When I read Powell's remarks, it almost seemed like the equivalent of economic blood letting with leeches. The goal seems to be to push interest rates to the point that there is higher unemployment and suffering by the common person who works for a living and would be devastated by unemployment.
Perhaps policy responses need to move on to a more evidence-based approach?
Did Powell raise rates just before the jobs report?
The last time was Dec 14 th by .50%
The last time was Feb 1 by 0.25% -- just prior to the jobs report.
The jobs report was for January,tho. That’s how I was reading that.
Are you asking that question because you wonder if interest rate was influenced by jobs report?
I think it should have been. Dr Gilbert’s thought echoes mine in that I think Powell is not altruistic .
Dr. Doug Gilbert ; It IS economic blood letting with leeches. The leeches being the usual greedheads ; the very ones who were given 1.8 $Trillion by the MAGAt King who appointed Jerome Powell !
Perhaps we should all consider what you just said. Our so called free market economy seems to be based more on trickle down than percolate up. If accumulating wealth is presented as a gambling game and not actually based on workers working then - there is the excuse for favoring the wealthy on all accounts.
I'm waiting for a thunderous avalanche of shoes .... waiting, not very patiently.
Heather - let us know about the axe throwing.
I don't really have an opinion on where the economy is going--not trained in economics, so don't have enough knowledge or data to have an intelligent opinion--but I do have a question that perhaps Robert would address in a future newsletter. I get that the only tool that central bankers seem to have is interest rates, so they use it. Supposedly, raising interest rates fights inflation. But, aren't higher interest rates themselves a form of inflation? Our paper this morning reported that average price of a detached (single family) house is down an average of $244,000 CDN over a year ago. OK, that is deflation. But the Bank of Canada rate is 4.25 % higher than a year ago and mortgage rates are also higher such that people who are up for renewal find that their monthly payments are now significantly higher than they were. That is inflation. So, if raising interest rates causes high inflation for many households (those not currently buying a house), how does raising interest rates cut overall inflation? I get that raising the price of mortgages reduces the number of people who decide to buy a house, so the average price of houses goes down, but it would seem that would be significantly fewer people than those currently paying off a mortgage for a house that they bought in the last 25 years. And, at least locally, landlords use higher interest rates as an excuse to raise rents, so many renters face inflation of rent. What am I misunderstanding here? Please, Robert, could you explain this so that those of us who have no formal education in economics can understand? I for one would be very grateful.
As Robert has pointed out there are other factors that are causing inflation such as corporate greed. Interest rates are only one tool they have. The other tools very well may be up to the legislators.
If they raise interest rates they figure people will buy less, thereby, driving demand down, which will cause prices to drop. I don’t have formal economic edu either but this is how it’s been explained to me.
But prices aren't dropping are they. In California there continues to be an overall steady rise. The huge increase in homelessness is not (as some have claimed) from an influx of homeless from other States, our homeless are homegrown and a large portion are literally 'homeless' having been evicted because they could not afford the rent.
And as River has said,and others, corporate greed has driven much of the price gouging and inflation. We need regulation so corporations can’t gouge and raise prices on everything including housing.
Yes. Im not sure what’s going on in California because natural gas has dropped considerably in Colorado. But everything is more expensive and people live more and more on the edge. It’s no wonder there is a large homeless population and growing all over.
The next 2 years won't see much coming out of Congress. Except for Republican nonsense. But that means the Democrats have a lot to run on, showing what happens when you give the majority to a party that has no intention of doing anything but cut taxes for the rich. We should have healthy majorities in both Houses in 2024, plus Biden in the White House.
Amen,amen,amen!!!
You would think but they own so much media and people on the right are dug into the brainwashing of Fox and company.
Right, but happily there are more Democrats and Independents than MAGAs.
Speaking of which, I saw a video of a journalist talking to people at a Trump rally. Unbelievable!
Those videos are crazy. Unreal how stupid people are. What is concerning tho, is the gerrymandering and voter suppression going on and what happened in Fla. DeSatans tactics turned Fla strong red and that’s a scary thought.
That can be washed right out when ALL people find out what he's really about.
The only investment in the stock market that effected my financial health was through pensions. Our original pension which was figured according to time worked and age of retirement was frozen. after I had worked more than 20 years. The pension was a big reason why I had continued to work there. In its place, we were given a 403B which we contributed to and our contributions were matched (at least some of the time) by our company. Initially, those of us who had been employees for many years, were given a small deposit into our 403B. They had paid many of such low, and sometimes, no, raises that the cost of living was more than we were making, much less to invest. One year our raise was one half a percent in January and another half a percent in June. One year we got a raise, substantial only in comparison with past “raises” and they took it back in higher medical insurance premiums, higher deductibles, higher copays, coinsurance. (This also happened one year with a social security “”raise.” Every year the CEO cried impending poverty and then came out in the green the next year. This is NOT an exaggeration. The CEO received large financial gains for his “achievement.” My employer was a “non-profit” hospital. Profits can be negated by buying properties to be used for “hospital office space,” etc. Eventually they merged with a hospital that was doing poorly financially, (it had bought up lots of properties leaving it with a low credit raising) opening the door even wider for profits for my hospital. The CEO appeared to know nothing about healthcare, nor was he inclined to concern himself with it. They took advantage of people who worked because they wanted to provide good care to their patients. Many of these long-term people were let go “for any reason or no reason.” NO CONTRACT. Many of these were people had worked themselves up to good pay and benefits. They were great employees who had skill, experience and were dedicated to their jobs. DO NOT WORK WITHOUT A UNION.
If you think this is not your problem listen to this. Now the hospital is short of healthcare workers, especially nurses. In the emergency department, people are lined up along the hallways head to foot. Some get their care in the hallway. Some get ER beds. Some in ER beds are waiting for inpatient rooms to open up, so they can be admitted. I can speak from personal experience with a relative the care is haphazard. IF YOU NEED EMERGENCY CARE TAKE AN ADVOCATE WITH YOU., if at all possible. Traveling nurses may not be proficient in finding your medications in the computer. Medications may be overlooked and not given. You may not get more than even the scantiest information from ER doctors, patient aides, and nurses. Nurses change with shifts. When I called from home at midnight and asked if my elderly relative, whose blood pressure was very high and had high levels of carbon dioxide in his blood, due to breathing issues, was being checked on, her response was that she had just started her shift and had five patients assigned to her. Finally after 24 hours he was seen by a hospitalist, who gave him the care and concern he needed. Of course she had other patients to care for. In my opinion, if we can take health insurance out of healthcare and take profit out of healthcare we will all get better healthcare. At this point, what have we got to lose?
I hear your concerns after working as a nurse for 30 Years. Nurses were getting some of the worst insurance then other equal professions when I was working. People assume since you work in a hospital you get good insurance. NADA. And I completely agree with the advocate and tell this to my friends and family that I will volunteer if need be. Hospitals are dangerous places these days. But nurses have shot themselves in the foot for years pushing to get more and more degrees. When I went to school for LPN nursing at a vottech the tuition was $900.00 and I had enough for books and some left over. That same education is now $30-40,000.00 depending on where you go and they no longer offer it at votech schools, if you can even find them. I worked in every department of the hospital.ER, Telemetry, med/surg, medical, I was routinely floated to the medical ICU. When I graduated from nursing school with an AD degree I worked in SICU with trauma and severe brain injuries. I was good at my job and fascinated with the science. Now you need a BSN 4-5 year degree for entry level at most hospitals in my area. And a masters to work in high level ICU areas. It’s too much education. It doesn’t take that much to be a good nurse. And ,BIG SURPRISE, there are nursing shortages all over the place. I’ve seen this writing on the wall for years, even before a pandemic, because of the aging population. AND years ago when I tried to get nurses to unionize the corporation rolled out union busting rhetoric and put the fear into people that they would lose their jobs, even tho it’s illegal. It was a lost cause.
Ever thought of founding a community health co-operative? They do exist.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I don't believe the debt ceiling was mentioned. Regarding "Florida Man," the news came this week that the state's school athletics boards were going to require students to submit regular menstrual cycle reports. Plenty of stuff to feel queasy about.
Being a member/supporter of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement), I can report that things are very pessimistic there too. The same battle against the same corrupt power structure. But I also get the feeling that forces are building up like a spring that is being put under great pressure. The pandemic -- which is by no means over -- revealed how much latent power lies in the hands of "essential workers." And it will remain latent until it's organized.
A quick stress reliever for me -- being a child of the 50s and 60s -- "discovering" gems of old garage and psych tunes that I'd never heard before. YouTube has provided a seemingly unlimited universal jukebox. Just this week I heard for the first time Bessie Banks' original (1963) recording of "Go Now" -- the song that was later the Moody Blues first giant hit.
Florida man on tracking student menstrual cycles.....the rhythm method!!!!???? Or worse, the Handmaids tale come true. Justice Coney- Barrett (sp) will love it. I guess privacy is not an individual freedom or constitutional right.
That’s so ridiculous considering how I regular a women’s cycle can be sometimes. So they could be arresting people not prego at all.
I read somewhere that one of those hardline'thug' states was considering criminalizing miscarriages,as in maybe a woman did it to herself (like self abortion).
Irregular
Thank you, Thomas. I did not mention the Debt Ceiling yet because it is not immediate, close; Biden originally stated it was not negotiable but has had a brief conversation with McCarthy to open the door. Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen is doing temporary fixes until ? about June; she is very competent and can keep the ship afloat for the time being. I sincerely hope both parties recognize the extreme danger ⚠️ of not coming to an agreement on funding our government. National and Global impacts are involved. I hope that this will be resolved; the noise will get louder and I do not embrace that. I trust the President, the Senate, and the Democratic members of the House to bring as much pressure as they can to a reasonable conclusion.
And the press, even the liberal press, will report Republican hypocrisy as if it's truth.
The "American" myth says wages do not matter if you "work your way up" the pay scale. Show me a pyramid that doesn't narrow to the top.
I said recession because the only tool the Fed sees is interest rate manipulation. The cause for inflation is unbridled greed of large corporations and financial institutions.
IMHO it's not just the economy.
It's national security. Current inflation was aggravated and exacerbated by Trump who tried to RAISE oil prices by doing deals with Saudi to limit production. Inflation benefits Saudi/OPEC/ Putin and hurts the west. There's a war in Ukraine. Iran, China may be physical threats.
We should have been able to fight price fixing and price gouging. Take courage that California is suing Amazon, alleging it broke state competition laws, that Amazon keeps prices artificially high via practices barring wholesalers and third-party merchants from offering lower prices to other retailers.
Meanwhile although Microsoft, Google's parent company Alphabet, Meta, IBM, Salesforce and Amazon have been laying off workers, unemployment is the lowest since 1969. To quote Spock : this does not compute.
Again, rates in Japan, Switzerland, Sweden Denmark are 1%. US 8%. Arbitrage. Treasury does not need to confer with the Fed to buy low & sell high.
I expected at least some would say the Fed will bring on a recession (Powell is certainly trying).
But we must mostly be optimists.
And that makes me happy.
It sure looks like Republicans CRAVE a recession to undermine Keynesian economics, but the latest jobs report and inflation stats show that they're incompetent boobs.
Meanwhile, they stand with insurrectionists.
The response from Paul’s ppl today is so hopeful to me (despair is easy looking at this cluster). I think the American people aren’t as dumb as I feared, and they’ll see what Qevin et al are doing clearly, and turn away.
I really do think we’re at a Fourth Turning event and it’s looking a little better.
If we can avoid some major stupidity w China, and so far old Joe seems to be listening to people smarter than him. You gotta love that about him.
You have a problem with a woman with a PhD in education as an advisor? This is just nastiness.
Joe is listening to his military advisors, not Dr. Jill.
I swear, people like you ruin any optimism in our future.
Please get better information. Joe Biden is a shrewd and experienced politician who is smart enough to pick good advisors. I’d choose him over a drunken pilot, B movie clown who actually did mostly get advice from his wife who got it from her astrologer, or the former guy who is mentally ill ( narcissism is classified as a mental illness by the DSM, and he was stupid as well).
Brilliant!!!
HA, couldn’t have said it better!!
You are delusional
How I long for a return of Keynes!
I recently heard an eye-opening interview with constitutional scholar Eric Foner, around his NYT OpEd “The Constitution Has a 155-Year Old Answer to the Debt-Ceiling”. He describes the various provisions of the 14th Amendment.
I did not realize how CLEARLY the 14th Amendment addresses several of the crises we are grappling with — and provides clear recourse.
Quoting from the article:
“Section 3 bars from public office anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and subsequently participated in or encouraged “insurrection.” The events of Jan. 6, 2021, have focused new attention on this stipulation, which could be applied to participants in the uprising who previously held military, political, or judicial positions, including former President Donald Trump.”
Further, Section 2 apparently provides for a reduction in the number of representatives for states that deny citizens the right to vote.
Now we’ve seen Marjorie Taylor Greene bragging on camera that if she and Steve Bannon had run the January 6th event, “we would have brought guns and we would have won!”
WHY THE HELL IS THIS AMENDMENT NOT BEING ENFORCED?!? Whether or not there is criminal liability, at the least the insurrectionists should not be allowed within a mile of any government facility. Instead, they’re welcomed in and allowed to run the show while we wring our hands and fret like arthritic old ladies (“Oh dear! Oh dear! Isn’t it awful?”)
It’s looking more and more like Washington is club whose members are untouchable no matter what — while “The Law” is simply a means to repress and control the masses.
Dire as this all appears, it could be turned around with one discrete change, as stated by former Justice Louis Brandeis almost a century ago:
“We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
It’s all true and if they are tried and get to the Supreme Court I don’t trust THIS court would do the right thing.
There is an aspect here that many are not paying attention to, or rather are trying to control with every means possible.....and that is that old known 'structures' are shaking and the 'old'systems are not working (i.e GOP 20), this also included howe we have given our power away (Media) and it's propaganda war and the rules put in place
to effect control of people......what needs to come down.......Government......the experiment that was the USA over the past 240 years and the system of rules - Declaration of Independence as you point out) this is where the people need to demand the actual implementation of the remedy that you highlight so the other real problem is SCOUTS which has deep roots and need to be questioned as there are hidden aspects to this
It's all about systems and people, what have we given over - our power and choices for short term gain - in the bigger picture short term gain is 20 - 40 years - collective paradigm shifts.
Is it possible for change to come without fracture? NO, people and groups will bring change.
My SWAG on this is wage decline and recession, as they go foot in mouth. Speaking of feet, are you positive there is another shoe to drop?
Kevin McCarthy is nothing more than a self serving butt kisser who will stop at nothing to keep his job.
If you have not read Robert Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100," I recommend you do so, as he predicted the theocracy back in 1939. I first read it in 1976 and was entertained, but when I reread it in 2002, it scared me, as it happening front and center.