Good news--Joe Biden says inflation has dropped ten months in a row

[JustOneWay]

You should tell that to the sycophants in the press, who refuse to actually report on him.

What are they (whoever they are) not reporting which you think they should?

 

[USincognito]

You should tell that to the sycophants in the press, who refuse to actually report on him.

Eric Boehlert debunked the "liberal press" trope for years before his tragic death, but I wouldn't expect someone who thinks "all they do is ask him about ice cream" to be the height of witty political discourse to actually read any of his articles.

 

[RoBo1988]

Eric Boehlert debunked the "liberal press" trope for years before his tragic death, but I wouldn't expect someone who thinks "all they do is ask him about ice cream" to be the height of witty political discourse to actually read any of his articles.

Eric Boehlert wrote for Media Matters, and Salon. Both very partisan left-wing. That's like me, telling you that World Net Daily debunked his opinion, etc.; I'm sure you'd just say "uh, okay", and accept it as fact, right?
FOX's Peter Doocy, Real Clear Politics's Phil Weggmann, and Simon Ateba (Today's News Africa) are the only ones with a pulse in the White House Press room. The rest are cardboard cutouts.
Where are the Jim Acosta's and the gnashing of teeth, that I seen with the previous administration in the WH Press corps?

 

[Wings like Eagles]

Anyone that believes anything the media reports on as truth, is totally blind and lost.

 

[USincognito]

Eric Boehlert wrote for Media Matters, and Salon. Both very partisan left-wing.

Media Matters, sure. Salon, no. But that's irrelevant to the content of his media criticism. Address that if you can.

That's like me, telling you that World Net Daily

If you think WND is the same as Salon...

FOX's Peter Doocy, Real Clear Politics's Phil Weggmann, and Simon Ateba (Today's News Africa)

Doocy's daily gotcha questions are asked to entertain the red hats, not to inform.

 

[gaara4158]

There is truly no pleasing some people. A decline in inflation is a good situation - you don’t want it reverting to deflation or you’ll see everyone’s assets decline in value while their currency appreciates, disincentivizing spending. You don’t want inflation to be too steep either, though, or people will be priced out of essential goods.

No, a decline in inflation without eliminating inflation altogether is what we want to see. Biden is right to use it as a feather in his cap.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

I have been paying less for eggs this month.

 

[tz620q]

For using the correct definition of economic terms?
I can see why right-wing messaging would want to portray accuracy as unbelievable, but that's not really a criticism of Biden.

I agree with you about using consistent terms; however, you can't call it bad messaging when people have lived through the worst inflation in 40 years and you point to the new number and say, "Look, it is getting better. Haven't I done a wonderful job!" Our memories just aren't that short. Same thing applies to gas prices. After hitting historic highs, saying they are now lower is disingenuous, since most of us can remember the high gas prices from a year ago. I don't place the blame solely on Biden; but a wise person would have foreseen the shocks to the economy coming out of COVID and tried to ameliorate them.

 

[DaisyDay]

I agree with you about using consistent terms; however, you can't call it bad messaging when people have lived through the worst inflation in 40 years and you point to the new number and say, "Look, it is getting better. Haven't I done a wonderful job!" Our memories just aren't that short. Same thing applies to gas prices. After hitting historic highs, saying they are now lower is disingenuous, since most of us can remember the high gas prices from a year ago. I don't place the blame solely on Biden; but a wise person would have foreseen the shocks to the economy coming out of COVID and tried to ameliorate them.

What makes you think that he didn't try to ameliorate them? Do you think the after-effects of covid were worse here than elsewhere?

 

[SavedByGrace3]

President Joe Biden claimed Friday that inflation has fallen for 10 straight months, just days after the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge rose in April.

Joe Biden’s bullish inflation claims come days after surprise uptick - Washington Examiner

President Joe Biden claimed Friday that inflation has fallen for 10 straight months, just days after the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge rose in April.Biden's comments came during a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation, in which...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Good to hear. I just must have been going to the wrong stores.

Ten months? We should be into negative prices.
Seems all the stores in our town have not heard about this reduced inflation. I will be sure to tell the managers and wait to see if they reduce the prices.
These are just more Jedi Mind Tricks the are playing on the stupider among us.
"Down inflation is. Store shelves full they are..."

 

[mark46]

Despite his accomplishments, Biden is no shoo-in. His age is a big factor.

not against Trump
If Trump is nominated, the only issue is an up or down vote on Trump.

 

[mark46]

Ten months? We should be into negative prices.
Seems all the stores in our town have not heard about this reduced inflation. I will be sure to tell the managers and wait to see if they reduce the prices.
These are just more Jedi Mind Tricks the are playing on the stupider among us.
"Down inflation is. Store shelves full they are..."

View attachment 332367

You simply don't understand what is being said.

The rate of inflation is about 4%; that is, prices in May are only 4% higher than May 2022, rather than the 8% comparison rate earlier this year. The GOAL is for inflation to be at 2%. Yes, that means that prices should be going up every year.

 

[mark46]

Ten months? We should be into negative prices.
Seems all the stores in our town have not heard about this reduced inflation. I will be sure to tell the managers and wait to see if they reduce the prices.
These are just more Jedi Mind Tricks the are playing on the stupider among us.
"Down inflation is. Store shelves full they are..."

View attachment 332367

I don't not doubt your PERSONAL experience.

For the rest of the country, the rate of inflation is decreasing and has been for a year.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

You can twist and turn these discussions all you want. But the people who pay for groceries at the checkout counter know the truth. Prices are still going up. And we will never go into negative inflation meaning that the prices are permanently up almost 20% over 3 years.

Value of $1 from 2019 to 2023
$1 in 2019 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.19 today, an increase of $0.19 over 4 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 4.44% per year between 2019 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 18.96%.

Try to make it sound better if you can. Smoke and mirrors. As they pile the national debt higher and higher, it is only going to get worse.

 

[mark46]

You can twist and turn these discussions all you want. But the people who pay for groceries at the checkout counter know the truth. Prices are still going up. And we will never go into negative inflation meaning that the prices are permanently up almost 20% over 3 years.

Value of $1 from 2019 to 2023
$1 in 2019 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.19 today, an increase of $0.19 over 4 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 4.44% per year between 2019 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 18.96%.

Try to make it sound better if you can. Smoke and mirrors. As they pile the national debt higher and higher, it is only going to get worse.

Bolding a number doesn't make it more relevant.

Wage growth vs inflation U.S. 2024 | Statista

The rate of inflation overtook the growth of wages in April 2021. High rates of inflation means that consumers are seeing a decrease in purchasing power

www.statista.com

A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS

1) Sometimes wages increase faster than inflation, sometimes more slowly than inflation.

2) Increasing prices are NOT bad if wages increase faster than inflation. We do NOT, do NOT want decreasing prices. Deflation is the mark of a failing economy. The goal is a 2% increase per year, although I could see policy makers at times accepting 2 1/2 or even 3%. Currently, the rate is 4% and will likely be down to 3% during the next year.

3) I suppose we could debate about how much Trump and/or Biden (and China and Russia and supply chain) are responsible for the increases in the inflation rate. One can certainly argue that the decrease in the rate over the last year is NOT due to Trump. These changes in inflation rate are at least partly due to the policies of another politician.

 

[A2SG]

You can twist and turn these discussions all you want. But the people who pay for groceries at the checkout counter know the truth. Prices are still going up. And we will never go into negative inflation meaning that the prices are permanently up almost 20% over 3 years.

Value of $1 from 2019 to 2023
$1 in 2019 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.19 today, an increase of $0.19 over 4 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 4.44% per year between 2019 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 18.96%.

Try to make it sound better if you can. Smoke and mirrors. As they pile the national debt higher and higher, it is only going to get worse.

If prices go up more than the rate of inflation, then there are other factors involved.

Such as companies raising prices beyond what they need to, in order to increase profits.

-- A2SG, but if you'd prefer to blame Biden for these things, that's your choice.....

 

[Pommer]

You simply don't understand what is being said.

The rate of inflation is about 4%; that is, prices in May are only 4% high than May 2022, rather than the 8% compasion rate earlier this year. The GOAL is for inflation to be at 2%. Yes, that means that prices should be going up every year.

Exactly, inflation, (at 2-3%) is a feature in our Capitalist system.
So many things go wrong if “prices go down” because the “less and less” ends up costing more and more as people expect prices to drop, (so that they’ll put off big purchases knowing that next year “it’ll be even cheaper”).
I am not a very good capitalist, (I will admit to not being a “good consumer” for the latest whiizmaBang or gewgaw or even secondary-market antiques even though I do have a good eye for it), but the only way a company can afford to sell it’s wares more cheaply, is to move a LOT more of their wares…which you’re not able to do because “we’re thinking about it until the price comes down a wee bit more”.

It will shake the dead out of the economy but there’s a lot of “deadfall”.
Things get unimaginably bad when that happens.

That’s why they got rid of the “boom/bust” systems of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

A 2% inflation-rate is the economy at “idle”.

 

[tz620q]

What makes you think that he didn't try to ameliorate them? Do you think the after-effects of covid were worse here than elsewhere?

I am not an expert on the economy; but from what I saw the COVID pandemic shutdowns were analogous to the world holding its breath. You have some reserves of goods. So the goods don't run out immediately; but you can only go on so long before you have to breath again. Unfortunately, many people don't plan to have a reserve of money for such times and they were left without a paycheck to buy whatever goods were available. So stimulus money at that time is needed to allow people to survive. It was completely predictable at that time that as the goods ran out there would be shortages. From a heartless economic viewpoint, the money and the goods should both run out and the inflationary pressure should be minimized. If you keep pumping money into the economy, you will have fewer and fewer goods being chased by more money and inflation is the result. As you can see, this is the worst of times, since opening the businesses back up causes faster spread of the disease; but keeping the businesses closed will eventually lead to starvation. Our saving grace was that the vaccine development happened much quicker than normal and we were able to start opening back up again before our economy completely tanked.

At the moment that the vaccines started being distributed, you are in a different situation. Now you have to last out the aftershocks in goods distribution. It was inevitable that the world would go through turmoil as economies tried to recover. This is when Biden entered the presidency. His initial approach was to try to reverse nearly everything that Trump had done. Luckily, he was not so foolish as to turn his back on getting the vaccines distributed. In general, his administration did a good job of that (leaving out the debates about vaccine mandates). He did several things wrong on the monetary end of things. The rounds of stimulus checks were poorly timed, since they came out at the time when goods started getting scarcer. In general all of the big spending bills proposed in that first year were idealist nonsense. You can't spend your way out of a shortage of goods. It would have been better to let the economy recover before proposing such drastic expenditures.

The second area where he could have done better is in understanding the underpinnings of our economy. Whether you like it or not, our economy and especially our goods distribution runs on energy and most of that is from fossil fuels. By putting the brakes on fossil fuels, he set up head winds on the recovery of the economy.

The third area is not one that Biden is responsible for; but his response was too weak. Our economy has become too dependent on goods from East Asia. Most of these goods are shipped into harbors in California, where the most ludicrous transportation policies cause inefficiencies in shipping goods to other parts of the country. One of these enacted before the pandemic prohibited trucks older than 2009 (when the first effective EPA standards on over the road trucks came out) from entering the state. That reduced the trucking fleet by a third. Biden could have declared a national emergency that required the temporary lifting of that CARB policy.

These are a few things that I have thought of. Maybe others could share their thoughts here.

 

[Fantine]

Actually the Fed made the announcement. And there was no interest rate hike.
And unemployment is still at record lows.
Thank God we had someone with experience at the helm, who let the experts use their best judgment without interference.
Government is complicated. Trump tried to keep interest rates at zero. He interfered. He probably brought some of our problems on.

 

[USincognito]

Ten months? We should be into negative prices.
Seems all the stores in our town have not heard about this reduced inflation. I will be sure to tell the managers and wait to see if they reduce the prices.
These are just more Jedi Mind Tricks the are playing on the stupider among us.
"Down inflation is. Store shelves full they are..."

View attachment 332367

You're confusing deflation with a drop in inflation.