Tag Archives: inflation rate

Does He Even Believe This?

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about Senator Schumer’s explanation of the reason for the defeat of so many Democrats in November’s election.

The article reports:

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that voters “didn’t realize how much” the Democratic Party had done for them over the last four years heading into November’s elections, claiming it played a key role in his party’s demise.

President-elect Donald Trump scored a historic win for Republicans in November, winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote, while Vice President Kamala Harris failed to even match the numbers President Joe Biden had received in 2020. On “Meet the Press,” NBC host Kristen Welker questioned Schumer about his thoughts on the “root cause” of the Democrats’ loss, noting that Democratic strategist James Carville had blamed the state of the economy under the Biden-Harris administration.

“I told my caucus and I’ll say it here, too. We should regard this election, certainly it was a loss, but it’s also a challenge, and we did some things right against very severe headwinds. We kept four of those seven contested Democratic seats, but we did some things wrong and we have to look in the mirror and see what we did wrong,” Schumer said.

“Then there’s some things we didn’t do that we should have done. One of the things we have to do is we must focus on the working families of America,” Schumer added. “We believe in them and we passed all kinds of legislation that helped them with the infrastructure bill which made our economy stronger and employed lots of people.”

Meanwhile, back in reality, on December 22, 2024, The Center Square reported:

President Joe Biden is only a few weeks away from the end of his time in office, and one key part of his legacy is undeniable: inflation.

Biden has battled inflation from the start, but critics say he helped fuel it with trillions of dollars in deficit spending during his four years in office. Federal debt spending is offset in part by printing money, which increases inflation.

Biden has boasted bringing inflation rates down from about 9% earlier in his term to roughly 2.5% currently.

While the rate of inflation has slowed, that doesn’t mean prices have decreased. In fact, they continue rising, albeit slower than earlier in his term.

The federal government released a a key inflation marker Friday, its Personal Consumption Expenditure index, which rose 2.4% last month, a bit less than expected.

Overall, though, prices have risen more than 20% since Biden took office.

It really is the economy, stupid.

Learning From The Past

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the latest economic numbers released by the Biden administration. On the surface, they look wonderful. At closer examination, not so much.

The article reports:

The economy expanded by 2.8% from July to September, according to Commerce Department figures. The growth is said to be driven by consumer spending, also up 3.7% during this time. Job gains actually slowed to the lowest point since 2020, a sharp decline from 254,000 in September to just 12,000 in October, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Yet the regime has plenty of excuses — storms and strikes — and touts how the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 4.1%. Meanwhile the inflation rate is approaching the Federal Reserve’s target, meaning it could lower interest rates as soon as next week. All told, things are looking alright — at least on the surface.

“Consumers are spending. Inflation is cooling. And the U.S. economy looks as strong as ever,” The New York Times giddily ledes with.

When the corporate media and financial regulators are on the same page, there’s always an instinctual reason to be distrustful. During the Biden-Harris administration, all the Very Smart People running the U.S. economy have made a habit of quietly revising their optimistic numbers after they come out. After all, it’s only the initial headlines that count.

The article includes the following screenshot:

There’s some history here–in the Biden administration (and possibly in previous administrations), the initial numbers are not always accurate.

The article concludes:

This might even be an understatement; the downward revisions on jobs numbers have been nothing short of egregious this year. The revised figures between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024 showed there were 818,000 fewer jobs added than initially reported. But the new figures did not trickle out until August 2024, at which point it was safe for CNN to admit that job growth was “far weaker” than many thought. The pattern has continued throughout the year as well, with the last two months’ figures being revised significantly downward after their initial release. August figures were revised down by more than half, from a gain of 159,000 to just 78,000. September was less drastic, but still dropped by 31,000 jobs after revision. With just a measly 12,000 jobs added last month, there’s hardly any room to revise without the figure turning negative. Only time will tell.

Downward revisions are also an issue in growth figures, albeit to a lesser degree. Already poor Q1 2024 growth rates of 1.6% were quietly revised to a sluggish 1.3% at the end of May.

It’s an undeniable pattern. We get these awesome economic releases, a barrage of friendly headlines and then months later quiet updates that dramatically alter the actual, final number. Either all the Very Smart People are much worse at this than they used to be, or there’s some shady politicking at play. With the numbers coming days before an extremely tight election, skepticism toward the latter is certainly warranted. Either way, there’s good reason to think these new economic numbers will go down. It’s only a matter of when.

If the people reporting these numbers are that far off, maybe we need new people reporting them.