It’s most likely that sinking poll numbers, more than anything else, prompted the Biden Administration’s latest deflective policy initiative. A “Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing,” to be jointly run by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission was announced in early March, charged with pursuing “unfair and illegal” pricing. Disinflation has slowed notably throughout the first two months of 2024 and with an election coming, a pivot was essential. Characterizing stubbornly high prices as “gouging” not only angers financially beleaguered Americans, but deters inquiries regarding the effectiveness of the much-touted, and now seldom-mentioned, 2022 spending bill opportunistically titled the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
It cannot be stressed enough that prices have continued to rise since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in August of 2022. The White House website itself refers to that legislation as the “most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.”
US CPI Urban Consumers Index (blue), US CPI Urban Consumers Ex Food & Energy Index (red), passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (green) (Source: Bloomberg Finance, LP)
A look at the last 12 months of Consumer Price Index trends, broken into flexible and sticky prices, makes clear the primary source of the recent gumming-up of price deceleration. As a refresher, sticky prices are those which adjust slowly in response to changes in supply and demand — often due to contractual agreements, menu costs, regulatory requirements, and other sources of rigidity.
Atlanta Fed Flexible CPI (12 month, black) vs. Sticky CPI (12 month, blue) (Source: Bloomberg Finance, LP)
Any enforcement action by this new investigatory body will necessarily be arbitrary, as all characterizations of pricing as excessive or predatory (or reasonable, for that matter) are subjective. Historically, official attempts to define gouging have pursued different approaches, but primarily refer to prices rising to a degree that generates politically actionable complaints. At times a “price increase threshold” has been cited, defining some dollar amount or percentage increase as excessive. Elsewhere, the designation of goods and services as “essential” has been used to justify interfering in the function of markets. Emergency circumstances have also been invoked — ironically, precisely when unfettered prices are at their most critical — to justify invalidating the decentralized workings of the price system.
Prices are vastly more, both in their derivation and economic function-- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
It is a known fact of basic economics that the government's increasing the money in circulation is the sole cause of inflation.
Inflation begins and ends with government.
This should be common knowledge but the government and media hide it.
We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort. We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. ~ Edmund Burke
Happy Easter! US Interest To Hit $1.6 Trillion By Year End, Making It The Largest US Government Outlay (Endless Wars And Exploding Entitlements Now Over $214 TRILLION) confoundedinterest17 #bubble, #inflation, Agency MBS, Banking, C&I, CDS, CMBS, CRE, Credit, ECB, Economy, Existing Home Sales, fannie mae, Fed, Freddie Mac, GDP, Gold, GSE, Healthcare, Housing, Inflation, Jobs, Mortgage, New Home Sales, Oil, Pension, Powell, PPI, REITs, russia, Silver, SPX, Stocks, Treasuries, Treasury, Uncategorized, Wages, Yellen, Yelllen, Yield Curve March 31, 2024 https://confoundedinterest.net/2024/03/3...r-214-trillion/
Happy Easter! I mean Happy TRADITIONAL Easter, not a Biden weird trans celebration.
Biden and Congress (Schumer, Johnson, McConnell, etc) spend and borrow like its cottage cheese.
After hitting $1 trillion in late 2023, interest expense on US debt rose to a record $1.1 trillion in late March, and ii) while US debt is now rising at a pace of $1 trillion every 3 months, US interest expense is rising at a just as torrid $100 billion every 4 months (this interval will also shrink to three months very soon).-- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
The Unfrozen Cave
»
»
HARRIS/Xiden Administration
»
Biden’s ‘Strike Force’ Recalls Nixon’s Economic Plan
Unfrozen Cave Water Cooler
0
Print view
Fri Mar 29, 2024 10:39 am
reply
