During this week’s Super Bowl ads, Biden slammed greedy corporations for inflation. In his most recent podcast, Peter explains exactly what’s happening with inflation, and why Biden’s blame game has it backward.
Peter opened with the biggest news of the week: January’s inflation numbers. People expected good news, but the actual numbers were considerably worse:
The markets were expecting better-than-expected news. The conventional wisdom is that the inflation problem has been solved: ‘Yes, we’re not all the way back down to 2%. We’re at 3%. But we’re on a good path. After all we started at 9% right we’ve already gone from 9 to 3, right?’
But there was never any reason to expect good news:
We really haven’t had great news. Yes, the year-over-year numbers have been improving. But that’s because of the comparisons to the year prior so we’ve had easy comparisons to make the year-over-year numbers look good.”
The recent numbers came out above expected at just over 3%. This is building a trough around higher base-line inflation:
For the last several months we haven’t made any more headway on bringing inflation down. It’s been pretty sticky. To me, it looks like we’re building a trough. This is the bottom when it comes to inflation. If the CPI were a stock you’d want to get long.”
Peter takes January’s inflation numbers and annualizes them to prove that we’re still way above target:
If you annualize that rate if we had 0.3% every month between now and the end of the year that’s 3.7% inflation that’s not even close to 2%…”
Meanwhile, reckless borrowing and spending in the economy continue. Credit card loans are at record highs. What’s worse is that the rates on those loans are also at record highs:
Credit card debt has hit a record high… what’s more significant is the highest [21%] interest rate to pay on that debt. That is a huge burden on the borrower who has all this debt.”
Reeling in excessive spending and borrowing is another reason why we need interest rate hikes, not cuts. But Biden lays blame for inflation at the feet of corporate America, allegedly the true cause of America’s economic woes:
Corporate America is screwing everybody over because they’ve been [pulling] a fast one, because they’re so greedy. What they’ve been doing is they’ve been reducing the quantity of goods, right? Not as many chips in the bag of potato chips. Not as many sheets in a roll of toilet paper… Right? It’s shrinkflation.”
Biden is demanding a stop, but businesses were forced into this mess by the government:
Why are companies doing this? They’re trying to avoid raising prices, but they have to figure out how to deal with the prices that are rising [so] they’re paying their costs that are going up. Because of inflation. They’re trying to figure out the best way to pass on these higher costs to their customers. And, one way they do that is by shrinking the quantity.”
Really, it’s the government and the Fed causing inflation in the first place:
It’s not the companies that are really pulling a fast one…It’s the government that’s pulling the fast one. It’s the government that is spending all this money and telling the taxpayers it’s free.”
Ironically, Peter says shrinkflation helps give cover to Biden and his reelection as capitalism takes the blame:
If companies were more honest and transparent and reflected all the inflation, and just immediately raised prices, the public would be even more upset. Biden’s popularity would be even lower than it is right now.”
Despite initial optimism surrounding January’s inflation numbers, Peter’s analysis reveals a stark reality: inflation remains persistently high, and misguided economic policies blamed on innocent corporations and capitalism are about to exacerbate America’s financial woes.
