A new opinion has been coded into the mainstream media software: Americans need to stop complaining about an 8.6% consumer price index (CPI). The NPCs inside the fake news industrial complex presented similar suggestions for inflation-anxious households, proving again that the fourth estate establishment has no clue about the real world and is disconnected from the realities of normal people trying to keep the lights on, the refrigerator stocked, and put clothes on their back.
Michelle Singletary, a personal finance columnist, recently appeared as a guest on MSNBC and urged the millions worried about price inflation to simply “stop complaining.” She stated on the progressive news network: “There is a great deal of Americans [sic] where it is uncomfortable that they’re spending more, but they are not gonna go under. You’ve got to stop complaining. You still have your job so I’m gonna need you to calm down and back off.”
MSNBC had previously purported that “the inflation we’re seeing now is a good thing.”
Bloomberg tweeted this opinion, too: “Inflation is a lesson in appreciating what you had instead of just complaining about losing it.” The same Twitter account had also recently provided tips on how to fight inflation if you earn less than $300,000, such as taking the bus and eating lentils.
This is not the first time that the members of the Red Guard cartel have been flippant about inflation and the broader economic calamities. Former White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, called the supply chain crisis a “tragedy of the treadmill,” while President Joe Biden suggested that recession concerns are nothing more than Republican talk. Of course, none of this is surprising because they think the solution to Americans’ gasoline woes is to buy a $50,000 electric vehicle.
A Dollar for Your Thoughts
This year, the US dollar has been one of the top-performing currencies in global forex markets. With the global economy in disarray, whether falling equities or slowing GDP growth, investors are seeking refuge in the conventional safe-haven asset. So, it is not entirely surprising to see the US Dollar Index (DXY), a gauge of the greenback against a basket of currencies, soaring nearly 9% year-to-date.
“The dollar has assumed the role of the global stagflation hedge with dollar cash being one of the few financial assets offering returns,” wrote Deutsche Bank currency strategist George Saravelos in a research note to clients.
But why the dollar? Global incompetence. It is because everything else, including the dollar’s safe-haven fiat counterparts, has been a disaster in 2022. This has been the story for years now.
The Japanese yen has failed to generate any momentum because the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has left interest rates at or below zero. The Swiss franc might return to full strength again after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) raised rates for the first time in 15 years. Traders are not pouring into the British pound because they do not think the Bank of England (BoE) is hiking its benchmark rates fast enough. The Russian ruble, which is now the world’s best-performing currency, cannot attract new investors because of sanctions and restrictions. The Canadian dollar, usually a beneficiary of skyrocketing commodity prices, has failed to keep up with the buck.
In any economy, this might be good news for Americans because their money can go farther, and they can purchase more cheap imports with fewer dollars. In this economy, none of that matters anymore.
Some Bull from Bullard
St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard has been both decent and disappointing when discussing monetary policy and the broader economy this year. Case in point, Bullard’s recent appearance at a UBS conference in Switzerland. On the one hand, he stated that the Fed needs to raise interest rates faster to tame inflation. On the other, Bullard thinks the US economy is in the early stages of expansion.
[substack align=”left”]Indeed, as Liberty Nation recently noted, his boss, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, would be better served if he were to emulate his predecessor, Paul Volcker, and light up a cigar and jack up rates. This would be the only way to get serious about inflation rather than nibbling away at the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index.
“You got to take your best shot and see if we can get that to happen,” he averred. “If we don’t do that now, you could suffer a decade of high end variable inflation.”
That said, to think that the economy will not slip into a recession without pandemic-era easy money policies entrenched into the marketplace is laughable, at this point. The financial markets are pricing it in, an economic downturn is the base case for Wall Street, Main Street is anticipating one, and Powell even told Congress that it was possible. Bullard projects that the US economy will grow at a rate of about 2% annually.
It should be interesting what the latest Atlanta Fed Bank’s GDPNow model will show on June 27. If the estimate is negative ahead of the second-quarter headline GDP reading, what excuses the occupants residing within the corridors of power will recite is going to be popcorn entertainment. Remember, another quarter of contraction means a technical recession.
