By Charles C. W. Cooke
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
‘JUST IN,” declares Bloomberg: “US futures drop after core CPI
rises more than forecast.”
Yes, yes, I know. Bloomberg is talking about the
futures market. But, ultimately, that’s not the most important
question, is it? The most important question is what happens to people. And for
millions of them, inflation continues to be a roiling disaster. Processing the
news, the Washington Post noted its most obvious implication.
“Inflation,” the Post recorded, “ticked up again in March compared with the year
before — in yet another sign that the economy doesn’t need high interest rates
to come down any time soon.” To recap, then: We have persistent inflation in
our economy, and, to fight it, we need to set interest rates at levels that
they would not have reached this suddenly absent that provocation. Great.
That interest rates have been raised as precipitously as
they have was sadly necessary. But that’s all it was: necessary. Day in, day
out, our media class wonders why the public does not like this economy, and
why, as a result, it does not like this president. Is misinformation to blame?
Is it civic ignorance? Has Donald Trump corrupted voters’ minds, perhaps? The
truth, of course, lies elsewhere. The public does not like this economy
because, far from being the “transitory” phenomenon that the White House promised,
“unexpectedly” high inflation continues to be a problem, which has to be
treated with “unexpectedly” higher interest rates. And the public does not like
this president because it understands that, rather than retrench in the wake of
the bipartisan Covid-era spending spree, he and his party made things worse.
Americans, history shows us, will forgive a president who is obliged to fight
inflation with higher interest rates — unless, of course, he is the same
president who is blamed for the inflation in the first place. Joe Biden wants
to be seen as a doctor. Unfortunately for him, he’s also seen as the guy who
put the patient in the hospital.
That this has not yet destroyed Biden’s ersatz “Scranton
Joe” image is a testament to the corruption of the press. It is not “the rich”
who are suffering in this economy; it’s everyone else. Rich people have
disposable income that serves as a buffer against the increased cost of goods.
Rich people have large mortgages that are being inflated away. Rich people are
enjoying the offsets provided by the bracket adjustments in our income-tax
system. Rich people have spare cash that they can invest at the newly higher
rates, or place into the healthy stock market. All in all, rich people are
doing fine. It’s the Americans whom Biden believes he is championing who are
screwed. Grocery prices are up by more than 30 percent since 2020. The
costs of new mortgages have
skyrocketed, as have the costs of financing, insuring, and repairing a car. It is true that some Americans will
obtain some relief from these pressures if they have a lot of debt, but for the
poster boys of government largesse — the elderly, and those who own no property
— the situation is disastrous. Were the president a Republican, we would hear
about it every day.
But the president is not a Republican, and, to make the
incentives even more acute, this is an election year. So instead of an honest
accounting of the status quo, we are treated to feigned surprise, cynical whitewashing, and a near-pathological use
of the passive voice. That Biden arrogantly dismissed the many warnings he was given is never mentioned.
That one of his biggest “achievements” is a law titled “The Inflation Reduction
Act” that had nothing whatsoever to do with reducing inflation is left
criminally under-discussed. That even now — with “surprisingly stubborn inflation” a fixture of our
politics — Biden is still attempting to justify his illegal transference of
student-loan debt on the grounds that it “could boost consumption” has raised
virtually no eyebrows at all. By design, our presidents are neither kings nor
gods, and, in consequence, they ought not to be held responsible for all that
happens in our enormous and complicated economy. But by the time that Joe Biden
engaged in the conduct that, per Morgan Stanley, “turbocharged consumption and drove
inflation to 40-year highs,” there is no doubt that he knew the risks that he
was taking. As is his wont, he proceeded unperturbed. There will be
consequences for that decision.
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