Op-Ed: On BIDE-O-NOMICS

Comments

1. Paul Plante says

   August 13, 2023 at 11:38 am

   So, yes, people, BIDE-O-NOMICS, and to hear Joe Biden tell about, it is the greatest thing to come to America since the combination of pre-sliced white bread and Velveeta cheese to make a sandwich out of on those days when peanut butter and jelly just weren’t going to cut it, because BIDE-O-NOMICS, while there is a lot more work to do, so it is not yet “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” is going to “Restore the American Dream,” and people, truthfully, who in their right minds could not be for that?

   Think of it, people, after all those bleak years of there no longer being an “AMERICAN DREAM” because of the extreme MAGA Republican agenda which was defined by chaos, callousness, and recklessness that Americans continue to reject, that according to Biden re-election campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz, who is the expert on these things, or he wouldn’t be Joe Biden’s re-election campaign spokesman, Joe Biden i9s going to restore it, to which I can only say, “sing Hallelujah and say Amen, happy days are here again and the good times are never going to end,” uh, well, so long as we all get together and appoint Joe Biden dictator for life, so he can continue his work to restore the American Dream though BIDE-O-NOMICS, all the while continuing the fight for the Soul of America while we remain stuck at the Inflection Point, because as Joe himself said at a live performance starring Joe at Flex LTD in West Columbia, South Carolina on July 6, 2023, BIDE-O-NOMICS is rooted in what always worked best for this country, which according to Joe, who would know, because he is Joe Biden and not somebody else, is investing in America, because as Joe tells us, when you invest in our people, when you strengthen the middle class, we see stronger economic growth that benefits everybody, which of course, is a little confusing, because at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023, Joe emphatically told us, “The middle class was built by the middle class.”

   So, people, if in fact, as Joe himself says, and he is the president, afterall, while we aren’t, so we have to believe him, the middle class was built by the middle class, then why on earth do0 we need BIDE-O-NOICS?

   And while we all cogitate on that conundrum from Joe Biden over a cup of steaming coffee on this August Sunday morning, I am going to cut to a commercial break and a pause for station identification to let that all sink in, and then I will be back with even more confusion from Joe Biden, who on July 6, 2023 was quoted as saying as follows, to wit:

   “And — look, former mem- — former Mayor Steve Benjamin couldn’t be here today — and you all remember Steve as your mayor — because he’s traveling with his family.”

   “And it’s great to have him here — have — have him as part of our team.”

   “But his mom and dad are here.”

   “By the way, if you have seats, sit down.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “I once said, ‘Everybody take a seat,’ and there were no seats.”

   “They said, ‘Biden is so stupid, he didn’t know there were no seats.’”

   Reply

2. Paul Plante says

   August 13, 2023 at 10:45 pm

   So, what exactly is BIDE-O-NOMICS, and when did it come into being?

   Is it the same as all Joe’s other economical BORROW-AND-SPEND plans, like the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Act, or is it something new and different, and by the way, with respect to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which act got a lot of play here in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror because it doesn’t reduce inflation, it drives it, in Joe’s “Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Salt Lake City, UT” on August 10, 2023, at a Private Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Joe was dunning the assembled crowd for money, Joe was quoted as saying thusly, to wit:

   “The end result of a lot of these things — and, by the way, the Inflation Reduction Act — I wish I hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.”

   “And so, we’re now in a situation where if you take a look at what we’re doing in the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to make their — meet their basic needs.”

   And that, people, speaking as an elderly disabled veteran on a fixed income who is unable to meet my basic needs, that claim by Joe Biden is absolute horse****, especially since on August 3, 2023, in a Reuters article titled “US services sector slows in July while prices pick up, ISM survey shows,” it was reported that the U.S. services sector slowed in July, but businesses faced higher prices for inputs as demand continued to hold up, suggesting a long and slow road to low inflation, and on August 8, 2023, Reuters had an article titled “US credit card debt tops $1 trillion, overall consumer debt little changed” by Ann Saphir where it was reported that Americans borrowed more than ever on their credit cards in the last quarter, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Tuesday, with balances surpassing $1 trillion for the first time, while on August 10, 2023, CNBC reported that the annual rate for headline inflation for July, while below expectations, actually marked an increase from the 3% level in June, and on August 11, 2023, Reuters reported that U.S. producer prices increased slightly more than expected in July as the cost of services rebounded at the fastest pace in nearly a year.

   And according to recent polls, Americans are largely dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of inflation, with a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos in August 2023 finding that 60% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation, while only 34% approve, and the poll also found that inflation is a top concern for Americans, so that when asked to name the most important problem facing the country today, 22% of respondents cited inflation, which was the second most common response, after the economy in general (26%).

   And there for the moment I will rest, but stay tuned, this BIDE-O-NOMICS story is live and late-breaking, so we will be sure to be back with more.

   Reply

3. Paul Plante says

   August 15, 2023 at 10:19 am

   So, people, is BIDE-O-NOMICS, a massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program in reality, based on a litany of lies with respect to what it is going to do for our nation and its future?

   But what am I saying!

   Of course it is.

   For example, just so many days ago, in his “Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Salt Lake City, UT” on August 10, 2023, at a Private Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, we had Joe himself telling us with respect to his so-called but misnamed Inflation Reduction Act that he wished he hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.

   So there is just one of the litany of lies we are going to be continually barraged with by TEAM BIDEN (cue On the Road Again by Willy Nelson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Ggp3TJjuE ) as it continues its “ELECT JOE BIDEN AND LET’S DO THIS DANCE ALL OVER AGAIN” road tour to every corner of America, no matter how rural, as TEAM BIDEN seeks to win the hearts and minds of every Ameri8can out there, and while we are on the subject of Joe’s IRA, which appears to be a component of Joe’s BIDE-O-NOMICS, the miracle economical plan that is going to restore the AMERICAN DREAM, let’s drop back in time to a POLITICO article titled “Inflation ticks up again as Biden touts IRA” by Eugene Daniels and Garrett Ross on 09/13/2022, where we have some essential history underlying BIDE-O-NOMICS, as follows:

   The topline finding: “Inflation rose more than expected in August as rising shelter and food costs offset a drop in gas prices,” CNBC’s Jeff Cox writes.

   The overall figures: “The consumer price index, which tracks a broad swath of goods and services, increased 0.1% for the month and 8.3% over the past year.”

   “Excluding volatile food and energy costs, CPI rose 0.6% from July and 6.3% from the same month in 2021.”

   The detailed numbers: “Energy prices fell 5% for the month, led by a 10.6% slide in the gasoline index.”

   “However, those declines were offset by increases elsewhere.”

   “The food index increased 0.8% in August and shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, jumped 0.7% and are up 6.2% from a year ago.”

   end quotes

   And today, the price I am paying for a gallon of 89-octane gas has jumped up $.20 from the last fill-up to $4.40 a gallon, this while we read in a Daily Caller article titled, not at all surprisingly, “Biden Admin Delays Refilling Strategic Oil Reserve: REPORT” by Nick Pope on 1 August 2023, as follows:

   The Biden administration reportedly opted Tuesday to not refill the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), citing market conditions, according to Bloomberg News.

   The administration decided against replenishing the key emergency oil supply because it would be too expensive to do so, with oil currently hovering around $80 per barrel, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg.

   The SPR remains at low levels after President Joe Biden released about 180 million barrels throughout 2022 to bring down gas prices ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections, with some experts saying it could take “decades” to replenish the SPR to peak levels.

   Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pledged in July that the agency would replenish the SPR, but she conceded that the undertaking may have to wait until a prospective second term for Biden, according to CNN.

   end quotes

   The undertaking may have to wait until a prospective second term for Biden?

   HUH?

   WOT?

   That, people, is downright irresponsible, but what can we expect from TEAM BIDEN when the only thing that qualifies Jennifer Granholm a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1987 to be Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary is the fact that she was a member of the presidential transition team for Hussein Obama before he assumed office in 2009 and then she became host of “The War Room” with Jennifer Granholm, and in 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor, and to her credit, and this is a top qualification for Joe, she won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant, while as a young adult, she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but abandoned her efforts at age 21, and in 1978, appeared on The Dating Game, another top qualification to be a member of TEAM BIDEN (cue Bob Seger – Her Strut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51c0vuLEng ) and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.

   Which irresponsibility then takes us to a Washington Examiner story titled “Ex-top Biden official Jen Psaki ‘alarmed’ by poll on nation ‘failing’” by Jenny Goldsberry on 14 August 2023, where we have reality as the American peoplemsee it, to wit:

   MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki admitted she was “alarmed” to see the results of a poll that captured the pulse of patriotism in the nation.

   The former White House Press Secretary under President Joe Biden discussed a New York Times/Sienna poll during her show Inside with Jen Psaki Sunday, which found that 65% of registered voters thought the country was moving in the wrong direction.

   Out of those who answered that way, 37% reported that they believe “our problems are so bad that America is in danger of failing as a nation.”

   “Today we’re going to change things up a little bit,” Psaki began the show.

   “In part because I was pretty alarmed when I saw a recent poll that 37% of voters think we’re failing as a nation.”

   “Failing.”

   Yes, we do believe that, Jen, and there I will again pause for station identification and a commercial break, so don’t change that dial and we will be right back with Janet “TOODLES” Yellen on tour to tout BIDE-O-NOMICS and what an awesomely great deal it is in our lives.

   Reply

4. Paul Plante says

   August 17, 2023 at 10:19 am

   So, yes, people, enter stage right, Biden Treasury Secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, who is also on tour out there in America, touting BIDE-O-NOMICS and singing its praises to the heavens, even though she has not had a shred of credibility for years now since she was Fed chief, and it is that lack of credibility that actually was her major qualification to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary along with an ability to tell outrageous lies and be unfazed by them, just as being a beauty queen was Jennifer Granholm’s main qualification to be Joe Biden’s energy secretary, because Joe wants a cabinet that he says looks like America, as opposed to a cabinet that is competent.

   As to why “TOODLES” has no credibility today, we only need to drop back in time to January 14, 2016 and an article in the Salt Lake Tribune titled “Inflation? Yellen may let U.S. economy run hot” by Craig Torres, Victoria Stilwell and Michelle Jamrisko, where we have as follows, to wit:

   Washington • WIN: “Want Inflation Now.”

   During her almost two years as head of the world’s most influential central bank, Janet Yellen has had a difficult time driving up one thing she directly controls: inflation.

   end quotes

   And pay attention to that term “DRIVING UP,” because “TOODLES” was for, not against, the inflation we common Americans are beleaguered with today as she is out there touting BIDE-O-NOMICS and the mis-named Inflation Reduction Act, which according to Joe Biden himself, has really nothing to do with reducing inflation as we see in a Reuters article titled “Biden touts Inflation Reduction Act on first anniversary” by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw on August 16, 2023, where we have as follows:

   WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) – U.S President Joe Biden on Wednesday used the first anniversary of his signature Inflation Reduction Act to pitch the landmark clean-energy law as an economic powerhouse to a public that remains largely unaware of its contents.

   DEFICIT REDUCTION MISSES MARK

   Biden and Democrats promised the IRA bill would cut the U.S. budget deficit by $300 billion over 10 years by enforcing a 15% minimum corporate tax on wealthy companies, hiring more auditors to scrutinize the tax returns of rich Americans and allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

   But the tax credits have been massively popular with companies, boosting job growth, environmental benefits and the price tag.

   Meanwhile, Republicans used this year’s budget standoff to peel back some of Biden’s efforts to boost tax collections from wealthy Americans.

   And pharmaceutical companies have sued the administration over its drug negotiating plans.

   That has upended financial projections, with analysts predicting budget deficits in the range of $700 billion to $1.1 trillion over 10 years.

   end quotes

   So, the deficit is not going down, it is going up, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-10-yr yields highest since October after Fed meeting minutes” by Karen Brettell on August 16, 2023, to wit:

   In the longer-term, however, analysts also note that increasing Treasury supply due to a deteriorating U.S. deficit and the potential for lower demand from Japanese investors as the Bank of Japan shifts away from its ultra loose monetary policy could keep U.S. Treasury yields higher than they would otherwise be.

   end quote

   “Increasing Treasury supply” means that “TOODLES” is running a classic PONZI scheme (a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors), where because of high interest rates on previously-issued government debt, “TOODLES” has to issue more debt today to pay back those investors of bought the short-term debt “TOODLES” was issuing with interest rates around five percent.

   And all the debt goes against the deficit – it increases it!

   But let’s go back to January 14, 2016 and the Salt Lake Tribune article where we have the miserable record of “TOODLES” Yellen as a “champion” of the American people, and as you read this, keep in mind that INFLATION IS A TAX on the American people that hits the lowest economic bracket the hardest, which is what Joe Biden is referring to when he blathers on about building an economy FROM THE BOTTOM UP, to wit:

   Today’s lack of pricing power stands in stark contrast to the 1970s, when a soaring consumer prices prompted the Ford administration to launch a program known as WIN — “Whip Inflation Now.”

   During Yellen’s tenure, the annual rate of change on prices has averaged 0.8 percent — far short of the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.

   Oil has fallen 69 percent since the end of January 2014, wages have been slow to accelerate and the dollar’s 22 percent rise has made imports cheaper.

   Additionally, a host of technological disruptions — from Amazon to Uber — have helped curb pricing power.

   By giving consumers information on what they’ll have to pay for goods and services, these innovations are spurring competition to keep costs low.

   While these forces are beyond the Fed’s control, the risk of inflation taking too long to return to target is starting to worry central bankers.

   Some officials called the decision to raise rates last month “a close call,” particularly given the uncertainty about inflation dynamics, according to minutes released Jan. 6.

   Right now, the Fed’s strategy is to wait and hope the effects of cheap oil and import prices wash out.

   By the end of 2018, inflation will be back on target, their forecasts say.

   But the waiting game has risks.

   A new, lower level of inflation expectations could become entrenched in the economy.

   What’s a central banker to do?

   Fed officials could forgo another rate increase in March, a possibility reflected in futures markets where the probability of no change at that time is around 58 percent.

   A pause would fuel expectations of a much slower series of rate hikes than the four that policymakers projected for 2016.

   Short- and long-term interest rates would drop, resulting in cheaper financing costs that could further stimulate demand in an economy where the jobless rate is already at a seven-year low of 5 percent.

   Still, the strategy is riskier than it sounds.

   The Fed estimates the jobless rate that is consistent with steady price pressures is around 4.9 percent.

   Foot-dragging on interest rates while labor-market slack continues to diminish could mean Fed officials fall too far behind on their policy setting.

   If inflation climbs faster than expected due to the pickup in demand, central bankers will have to raise rates at a quicker pace, “and that increases the risk of a recession,” said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed governor and president of LH Meyer Inc. in Washington.

   Fed chairs typically steer clear of advising the legislative branch on spending.

   Yet if the monetary policy lever is less effective, fiscal expansion is an obvious choice, said Laurence Ball, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

   “In the short run, to boost output, we need more demand, which means we need somebody to be spending more money,” Ball said.

   “The surefire way to have somebody spend money is to have the government spend it.”

   For example, increased outlays on infrastructure projects could help put more Americans to work, giving them income to spend and boosting demand.

   end quotes

   And here we now are today, people, with the MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND program called BIDE-O-NOMICS that is driving up inflation, which Joe Biden. at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023 told us “’Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying ‘Restore the American Dream,’ that’s the American Dream, that’s Bidenomics.”

   Reply

5. Paul Plante says

   August 18, 2023 at 6:33 pm

   So, yes, people, before we go to Joe Biden ranting and yelling about how it is not at all true that America is failing under his rule, despite a majority of the American people saying Joe is taking us in a totally wrong direction, let’s bring Joe’s treasury secretary and former fed chief under Hussain Obama, who wanted a compliant fed chief that would do his bidding with no arguments and no questions asked, Janet “TOODLES” Yellen back on stage (cue Barry Manilow, “She’s a Star” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oye5i0oxWM ) to hear what she has to say about BIDE-O-NOMICS and how good for everybody it is going to be, but first, for background, let’s go back in time to November 24, 2020, and a Foreign Policy magazine article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy, where we have the following factual background to consider, given it is this factual background that has brought us to today, and the lowering of our credit rating by Fitch, to wit:

   “Out of the box” is one of Janet Yellen’s favorite phrases, her fellow economists say—as in, think outside of it.

   And now the Yale-educated economist who made history in 2014 by becoming the first female Federal Reserve chairman is expected to do so again — think outside the box as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury secretary (also as the first woman in that post).

   “She’s a great choice.”

   “She understands that the main challenge facing America is generating growth that includes everyone, and she has an evidence-based approach to making policy,” said economist Karen Dynan, a former Federal Reserve and Treasury official now at Harvard.

   “Pushing through more fiscal stimulus is going to be a high priority on her agenda.”

   end quotes

   And right there with that statement about “pushing through more fiscal stimulus” is when the economical system known as BIDE-O-NOMICS, a massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program the likes of which has never been before seen in our nation’s history, which takes us back to Foreign Policy, to wit:

   Yellen, 74, has primarily been a labor economist academically from the old progressive tradition of believers in Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus.

   end quotes

   However, as we learn “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner from The Library of Economics and Liberty, the concept of Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus as worshipped by “TOODLES” Yellen as a shibboleth has been discredited, although “TOODLES” is so conditioned to believe in outdated concepts that she is incapable of change, even when her own model of reality is so visibly and clearly flawed, which is why she was paying 5.120% interest on two-year notes on July 6, which were the highest since June 2007, which takes us back to Foreign Policy, to wit:

   And many economists say she’s the right fit for the job ahead because she understands as well as anyone—especially due to her recent stint at the Fed—that the economy needs massive deficit spending right now, and that the fiscal side must rescue the monetary side, which is running out of tools.

   She also understands that the national balance sheet can sustain such stimulus spending: Federal budget deficits no longer are as dangerous because low interest rates make them more manageable and private sector lending isn’t being crowded out.

   Inflation is not an immediate danger.

   end quotes

   And there, people, was the fatal flaw in “TOODLES” extremely shallow and exceptionally stupid thinking – of course inflation was a danger, and because it was an actual danger, not a theoretical danger, to fight the inflation caused by “TOODLES” Yellen’s massive stimulus on BORROWED MONEY, the fed has had to jack up interest rates, so it is no longer a low-rate environment, and so, all of “TOODLES” Yellen’s grandiose plans for OUR future went right out the window, which bring us back to “TOODLES,” as follows:

   Yellen herself has warned in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation.

   end quote

   Super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation, people?

   What a ridiculous statement!

   And as subsequent history has proven in spades, “TOODLES” Yellen obviously was not thinking clearly when she made it.

   And here I am going to pause once again for a commercial break and station identification, but don’t change that dial and we will be right back with “TOODLES” out in Las Vegas arguing that the Biden administration’s economic policies have been successful and are driving a boom in private-sector investment in the United States and powering historic job growth, underscoring in her mind the importance of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, which marked its anniversary on Wednesday, to wit:

   “It’s our nation’s boldest-ever climate action.”

   “And it is beginning to spark an economic renaissance in communities that had been left behind.”

   end quotes

   That as a Daily Caller article titled “NOAA Throws Cold Water On Media Hysteria Over Earth’s ‘Three Hottest Days On Record’” by Nick Pope on 7 July 2023 told us that “numerous corporate media outlets drove the narrative that July 3-5 was the hottest 72-hour stretch ever on record, citing a computer model from the University of Maine which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has warned is not as dependable as traditional observational data,” meaning the claim of “TOODLES” is hoo-hah, and in an America Insider titled “Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’” by David Rufful on 15 August 2023, we learned that American climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology says this so-called scientific consensus on global warming is “manufactured,” arguing that this false slogan about an “overwhelming consensus” has been fueled by scientists who pursue “fame and fortune” because scientists who study man-made global warming are more likely to be quoted in popular culture while receiving celebrity-like status and lucrative grants from the federal government, which has created the “climate hysteria” among the general public that resulted in the IRA, but isn’t believed by scientists like Curry, nor myself, for that matter.

   Reply

6. Paul Plante says

   August 19, 2023 at 5:49 pm

   So, yes, people, getting back to miserable record of dogmatic shallow-thinking and outright failure of Janet “TOODLES” Yellen that has mired us with inflation stoked by her misguided and ill-thought-out fiscal policies, which are increasing our national debt, like so many people in Washington. D.C., starting with Joe Biden himself, never in her life has Janet Louise Yellen, born August 13, 1946, the American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021, who previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, having also led the White House Council of Economic Advisers, worked a real job in the real world in her entire life, always having been either an academic, or a political hack, and as we listen to what “TOODLES” has to say about BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is based on the old and now discredited progressive tradition of Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus, we need to not only take, but keep that thought in consideration – that when it comes to what is going on in the real world where we common folks live and function, she is totally clueless, so that when she is quoted in a Reuters article titled “Yellen says US economy on ‘right track,’ Bidenomics is driving investment, job growth” by Andrea Shalal on August 14, 2023 as saying “I still believe that there is a path to continue reducing inflation while maintaining a healthy labor market,” she is spouting mindless gibberish because over and over, the federal reserve, which is trying to reduce the inflation caused by the policies of “TOODLES,” blames that same labor market for the inflation.

   Ans as to her shallow-thinking, and simply making things up out of whole cloth, as if we were all stupid and couldn’t possibly know better that she was feeding us bull****, going back to the Foreign Policy article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh, in November of 2020, how exactly was it that due to her recent stint at the Federal Reserve, “TOODLES” knew that the economy needed massive deficit spending right then, and that the fiscal side must rescue the monetary side, which was running out of tools?

   Based on exactly what, how did she come up with her theory, for theory it always was, based on nothing at all other than a whim or indigestion caused by stomach gas, that is some unexplained way, the “fiscal” side, which is to say, the federal government in our system, which has no money of its own, but which must always be borrowing by selling treasury debt, essentially I.O.U’s, or promises of payment at some future date, which it has no control over the interest rates of, was needed to and was able to “rescue” the “monetary” side, which in our system is the supposedly “politically independent” federal reserve?

   And the answer is that she didn’t know, and couldn’t know, because she was making that all up, knowing she could do so and never be held to account, because as a high-ranking political hack in Washington, D.C., “TOODLES” has a license to lie.

   And similarly, how was it in November of 2020 that “TOODLES” also understood that the national balance sheet could sustain such stimulus spending based on her seriously flawed and very misguided thinking that federal budget deficits were no longer as dangerous because low interest rates made them more manageable, when the BORROWING to fund the stimulus itself is what has caused bond yields to rise.

   And the answer is she made that all up, as well, and for proof of that assertion, consider the Reuters article “TREASURIES-Yields approach 2007 levels on bets of extended high rates” by Karen Brettell on August 17, 2023, where we have an assertion of the harm “TOODLES” has already done to our economy and our futures, which depend on a stable economy, to wit:

   Fiscal and supply concerns are also weighing on the bond market.

   The U.S. Treasury Department on July 31 increased its borrowing estimate for the third quarter and Fitch Ratings stripped the United States of its top credit rating, citing its deteriorating fiscal picture.

   end quotes

   And then there is the Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-10-year yields hold below Oct highs, Jackson Hole next Fed focus” by Karen Brettell on August 18, 2023, to wit:

   Expectations for ongoing increases in U.S. Treasury supply as the U.S. budget deficit widens is also weighing on the market.

   end quote

   “Weighing on the market” means selling bonds which is what raises the interest rates.

   And then with respect to short-sightedness, there was the bizarre statement of “TOODLES” in November of 2020 that inflation was not an immediate danger.

   And there, people, was the fatal flaw in “TOODLES” extremely shallow and exceptionally stupid thinking – of course inflation was a danger, and because it was an actual danger, not a theoretical danger, to fight the inflation caused by “TOODLES” Yellen’s massive stimulus on BORROWED MONEY, the fed has had to jack up interest rates, so it is no longer a low-rate environment, and so, all of “TOODLES” Yellen’s grandiose plans for OUR future went right out the window, which bring us back to “TOODLES” in November of 2020, as follows:

   Yellen herself has warned in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation.

   end quote

   As to those so-called “super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation,” which is a stupid statement by “TOODLES,” whose ignorance is on display here, they are detailed quite concisely by the authors of “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner in “Part I. What Happened? Chapter 1 What Hath Keynes Wrought?” as follows:

   In the year (1776) of the American Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith observed that “What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”

   Until the advent of the “Keynesian revolution” in the middle years of this century, the fiscal conduct of the American Republic was informed by this Smithian principle of fiscal responsibility: Government should not spend without imposing taxes; and government should not place future generations in bondage by deficit financing of public outlays designed to provide temporary and short-lived benefits.

   With the completion of the Keynesian revolution, these time-tested principles of fiscal responsibility were consigned to the heap of superstitious nostrums that once stifled enlightened political-fiscal activism.

   Keynesianism stood the Smithian analogy on its head.

   The stress was placed on the differences rather than the similarities between a family and the state, and notably with respect to principles of prudent fiscal conduct.

   The state was no longer to be conceived in the image of the family, and the rules of prudent fiscal conduct differed dramatically as between the two institutions.

   The message of Keynesianism might be summarized as: What is folly in the conduct of a private family may be prudence in the conduct of the affairs of a great nation.

   end quotes

   And hence the massive stimulus otherwise known in here as BIDE-O-NOMICS, so stay tuned, as there is more of this sad story yet to come!

   Reply

7. Paul Plante says

   August 19, 2023 at 10:45 pm

   So, people, when we read in the Foreign Policy magazine article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh on November 24, 2020 that Biden treasury secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen has primarily been a labor economist academically from the old progressive tradition of believers in Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus, what really are we even talking about?

   What on earth is Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus, for example?

   If we ask Google the question “what is Keynesian style stimulus,” the answer we get back is that a Keynesian–style stimulus happens when policy-makers deliberately seek to stimulate one or more of the components of aggregate demand to boost output, jobs and incomes during an economic recession, which means it is a form of government welfare that can be easily misused and abused.

   As to counter-cyclical fiscal measures, they are policy measures which supposedly counteract the effects of the economic cycle, so that according to the theory employed by “TOODLES” Yellen that underlies BIDE-O-NOMICS, which itself is nothing more than massive BORROW-AND-SPEND, counter-cyclical fiscal policy actions when the economy is slowing would include increasing government spending or cutting taxes to help stimulate economic recovery.

   Now, consider that John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, died on 21 April 1946, the same year “TOODLES” Yellen was born, and Keynes was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments.

   One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.

   His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics.

   Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions, and he detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” published in late 1936, so that by the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes’s policy recommendations, and almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes’s death in 1946.

   After that, Keynes’s influence started to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the stagflation that plagued the Anglo-American economies during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists, who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy, which is exactly what Joe Biden is attempting to do with his BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is Keynesian economics on steroids.

   Now, to bring this forward into our times, the advent of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, sixty-one (61) years after the death of Keynes, sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought so that Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by Hussein Obama in the United States, who then appointed “TOODLES” to the position of federal reserve chief in 2014!

   But, people, WHY was there a global financial crisis at all in 2007 and 2008?

   For that answer, let us go to the Investopedia article titled “The 2007–2008 Financial Crisis in Review” by Manoj Singh on March 19, 2023, where we have as follows:

   The financial crisis of 2007–2008 was years in the making.

   By the summer of 2007, financial markets around the world were showing signs that the reckoning was overdue for a years-long binge on cheap credit.

   Two Bear Stearns hedge funds had collapsed, BNP Paribas was warning investors that they might not be able to withdraw money from three of its funds, and the British bank Northern Rock was about to seek emergency funding from the Bank of England.

   Yet despite the warning signs, few investors suspected that the worst crisis in nearly eight decades was about to engulf the global financial system, bringing Wall Street’s giants to their knees and triggering the Great Recession.

   It was an epic financial and economic collapse that cost many ordinary people their jobs, their life savings, their homes, or all three.

   KEY TAKEAWAYS

   * The 2007–2008 financial crisis developed gradually. Home prices began to fall in early 2006.

   * In early 2007, subprime lenders began to file for bankruptcy.

   * In June 2007, two big hedge funds failed, weighed down by investments in subprime loans.

   * In August 2007, losses from subprime loan investments caused a panic that froze the global lending system.

   * In September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapsed in the biggest U.S. bankruptcy ever.

   * When the bubble burst, financial institutions were left holding trillions of dollars worth of near-worthless investments in subprime mortgages.

   What Caused the 2008 Financial Crisis?

   The 2008 financial crisis began with cheap credit and lax lending standards that fueled a housing bubble.

   When the bubble burst, the banks were left holding trillions of dollars of worthless investments in subprime mortgages.

   The Great Recession that followed cost many their jobs, their savings, and their homes.

   The 2007-08 Financial Crisis In Review – Sowing the Seeds of the Crisis

   The seeds of the financial crisis were planted during years of rock-bottom interest rates and loose lending standards that fueled a housing price bubble in the U.S. and elsewhere.

   It began, as usual, with good intentions.

   Faced with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, a series of corporate accounting scandals, and the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate from 6.5% in May 2000 to 1% in June 2003.

   The aim was to boost the economy by making money available to businesses and consumers at bargain rates.

   The result was an upward spiral in home prices as borrowers took advantage of the low mortgage rates.

   Even subprime borrowers, those with poor or no credit history, were able to realize the dream of buying a home.

   The banks then sold those loans on to Wall Street banks, which packaged them into what were billed as low-risk financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

   Soon a big secondary market for originating and distributing subprime loans developed.

   Fueling greater risk-taking among banks, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2004 relaxed the net capital requirements for five investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.

   That freed them to leverage their initial investments by up to 30 times or even 40 times.

   Signs of Trouble

   Eventually, interest rates started to rise and homeownership reached a saturation point.

   The Fed started raising rates in June 2004, and two years later the Federal funds rate had reached 5.25%, where it remained until August 2007.

   There were early signs of distress.

   By 2004, U.S. homeownership had peaked at 69.2%.

   Then, in early 2006, home prices started to fall.

   This caused real hardship to many Americans.

   Their homes were worth less than they paid for them.

   They couldn’t sell their houses without owing money to their lenders.

   If they had adjustable-rate mortgages, their costs were going up as their homes’ values were going down.

   The most vulnerable subprime borrowers were stuck with mortgages they couldn’t afford in the first place.

   Subprime mortgage company New Century Financial made nearly $60 billion in loans in 2006, according to the Reuters news service.

   In 2007, it filed for bankruptcy protection.

   As 2007 got underway, one subprime lender after another filed for bankruptcy.

   During February and March, more than 25 subprime lenders went under.

   In April, New Century Financial, which specialized in sub-prime lending, filed for bankruptcy and laid off half of its workforce.

   By June, Bear Stearns stopped redemptions in two of its hedge funds, prompting Merrill Lynch to seize $800 million in assets from the funds.

   Even these were small matters compared to what was to happen in the months ahead.

   August 2007: The Dominoes Start to Fall

   It became apparent by August 2007 that the financial markets could not solve the subprime crisis and that the problems were reverberating well beyond the U.S. borders.

   The interbank market that keeps money moving around the globe froze completely, largely due to fear of the unknown.

   Northern Rock had to approach the Bank of England for emergency funding due to a liquidity problem.

   In October 2007, Swiss bank UBS became the first major bank to announce losses—$3.4 billion—from sub-prime-related investments.

   In the coming months, the Federal Reserve and other central banks would take coordinated action to provide billions of dollars in loans to the global credit markets, which were grinding to a halt as asset prices fell.

   Meanwhile, financial institutions struggled to assess the value of the trillions of dollars worth of now-toxic mortgage-backed securities that were sitting on their books.

   end quo0tes

   And with that history of reality graphically presented, because it is a precursor to where we are headed next, I will pause again for station identification and a commercial break, but don’t touch that dial, for I will be right back!

   Reply

8. Paul Plante says

   August 20, 2023 at 10:08 pm

   I call the Cape Charles Mirror a GRAND PALLADIUM (something that affords effectual protection or security) of our LIBERTY as a free people because the Cape Charles Mirror is the one place remaining in all of America where we common folks with no bankroll or political clout, but who are possessed of our minds and the ability to engage in critical thinking can engage in an analysis of these times we are living in, bringing in, as I am doing in here, relevant background facts, such as who was Lord Keynes and what on earth is Keynesian economics, and actual American history as it happened with respect to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 which sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought so that Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by Hussein Obama in the United States, who then appointed “TOODLES” Yellen to the position of federal reserve chief in 2014!

   And thus, people, were the stimulus floodgates opened, which leads us to today, and Joe Biden’s BIDE-O-NOMICS, and “TOODLES” Yellen’s famous warning in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation, which in the light of reality today with its persistent inflation, and increasing federal debt coupled with high bond interest rates, was a very stupid “warning” from “TOODLES,” which thought brings us back to “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner from The Library of Economics and Liberty in 1998, where we have as follows with respect to the Keynesian economics which form the basis of BIDE-O-NOMICS, to wit:

   “We are all Keynesians now.”

   This was a familiar statement in the 1960s, attributed even to the likes of Milton Friedman among the academicians and to Richard Nixon among the politicians.

   Yet it takes no scientific talent to observe that ours is not an economic paradise.

   During the post-Keynesian, post-1960 era, we have labored under continuing and increasing budget deficits, a rapidly growing governmental sector, high unemployment, apparently permanent and perhaps increasing inflation, and accompanying disenchantment with the American sociopolitical order.

   This is not as it was supposed to be.

   After Walter Heller’s (a leading American economist of the 1960s, and an influential adviser to President John F. Kennedy as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1961–64) finest hours in 1963, fiscal wisdom was to have finally triumphed over fiscal folly.

   The national economy was to have settled down on or near its steady growth potential, onward and upward toward better things, public and private.

   The spirit of optimism was indeed contagious, so much so that economic productivity and growth, the announced objectives for the post-Sputnik, post-Eisenhower years, were soon abandoned, to be replaced by the redistributionist zeal of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and by the no-growth implications of Ralph Nader, the Sierra Club, Common Cause, and Edmund Muskie’s Environmental Protection Agency.

   Having mastered the management of the national economy, the policy planners were to have moved on to quality-of-life issues.

   The “Great Society” was to become real.

   What happened?

   Why does Camelot lie in ruin?

   Viet Nam and Watergate cannot explain everything forever.

   Intellectual error of monumental proportion has been made, and not exclusively by the ordinary politicians.

   Error also lies squarely with the economists.

   The academic scribbler of the past who must bear substantial responsibility is Lord Keynes himself, whose ideas were uncritically accepted by American establishment economists.

   The mounting historical evidence of the effects of these ideas cannot continue to be ignored.

   Keynesian economics has turned the politicians loose; it has destroyed the effective constraint on politicians’ ordinary appetites.

   Armed with the Keynesian message, politicians can spend and spend without the apparent necessity to tax.

   end quotes

   And with that truth aptly stated, let me again pause for station identification and another commercial break, but as always, stay tuned, for there is more to this story yet to come!

   Reply

9. Paul Plante says

   August 21, 2023 at 8:38 pm

   So, people, getting back to essential history here, while the 2007-08 Financial Crisis was happening, and happen it most certainly did, where was “TOODLES” Yellen (cue Shakedown by Bob Seger, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MTFJz50qc ) and what was she doing at the time?

   According to her Wikipedia bio, on April 12, 2004, the Federal Reserve announced that “TOODLES” would replace Robert T. Parry as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, taking office on June 14, and while “TOODLES” was serving as Federal Reserve District president, she sat on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and was a voting member once every three years on a rotating basis, with her first being in 2006.

   And then we come to the damn poor judgment of “TOODLES” Yellen with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, because during her time at the San Francisco Fed, the largest of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks in terms of population and economic output, Yellen publicly downplayed concerns about the potential consequences of the boom in housing prices, and thus, we can see that “TOODLES” Yellen could be considered a mindless and thoughtless causative factor of the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, which raises the question of why on earth she is serving in a position public trust today in our federal government, when it is patently clear that her judgment on anything is suspect, which statement is backed up by the fact that she did not lead the San Francisco Fed to “move to check [the] increasingly indiscriminate lending” of Countrywide Financial, the United States’ largest lender,” where Countrywide is considered to be one of the central villains in the crisis, with allegations that Countrywide knowingly engaged in risky loans and offered subprime loans even to those who qualified for regular loans in order to profit from the higher rates.

   So much for “TOODLES” protecting the people from the predators!

   The, on April 28, 2010, to reward her for her gross incompetence with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, Hussein Obama nominated Yellen to succeed Donald Kohn as vice chair of the Federal Reserve, so that in July 2010, the Senate Banking Committee voted 17–6 to confirm her, though the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, voted no, saying “President Yellen presided over a regional housing bubble and failed to restrain the excesses,” which was what, in the mind of Hussein Obama, and by extension, his vice president, Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, qualified “TOODLES” for that high office in the first place, so9 Senator Shelby was simply ignored.

   The, once in, and in contrast to her predecessors, Yellen acted more independently within the institution in her role as vice chair, urging “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke and the other FOMC members to follow her preferred route for monetary policy, arguing for more forceful actions to inject money into the economy to reduce unemployment, and “TOODLES” also played a leading role in moving the Federal Reserve to announce its inflation target of two percent a year after her long campaign with Chairman Bernanke.

   Then, as a further reward for her gross incompetence with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, plus her willingness to hand out gobs of money in stimulus, which is a good source of “no questions asked” graft for the Democrats, in July 2013, “TOODLES” was pushed to be named the first chairwoman of the central bank in a letter that was circulated among the Senate Democrats and had been signed by almost a third of the 54 caucus senators, who primarily represent the liberal wing of the party, and in addition, more than 500 professional economists from around 200 colleges and universities across the United States signed an open letter in support of her candidacy for Fed chair and sent it to the White House, so that on October 9, 2013, “TOODLES” was officially nominated to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, the first vice chair ever to be elevated to that post.

   While announcing his decision, President Obama called her “one of the nation’s foremost economists and policymakers” and said that “America’s workers and their families will have a champion in Janet Yellen, which is an absurd statement given the role “TOODLES” played with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, but Hussein was a politician, so he had a license to lie to us, which license he used quite freely during his tenure in the white house.

   Of note to this discussion, and with respect to the inflation we are seeing today, during the nomination hearings held in November, Yellen defended the more than $3 trillion in stimulus funds that the central bank had been injecting into the U.S. economy.

   According to a Fed representative, on Yellen’s request, her title would be altered to “chair” rather than “chairman” or “chairwoman”, as she prefers a gender-neutral manner.

   end quotes

   So good for Chair “TOODLES,” then, people.

   But again, all of this background leads us to where we are today, so stay tuned, and the story will continue.

   Reply

10. Paul Plante says

    August 22, 2023 at 8:57 pm

    So, people, are the adverse consequences to WE, THE AMERICAN people as a result of the massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program known today as BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is CORPORATE WELFARE on steroids?

    Or is it really true that federal deficits no longer make any difference as Dick Cheney, father of Lizzie the Pelosi-ite WITCH HUNTER famously told Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill when he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits posed a threat to the economy, when Cheney cut him off, telling him, “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter?”

    Can we in fact, as a nation, continue to borrow and spend forever, continually increasing the federal deficit, and have endless government stimulus and CORPORATE WELFARE with absolutely no0 consequences whatsoever?

    And that brings us to an article in The Hill titled “Feehery: Balanced budgets and the debt ceiling” by John Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy who served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.), on 02/21/23, where we had as follows on that question, to wit:

    Dick Cheney once said, “Deficits don’t matter.”

    If the polls are any indication, the American people largely agree with the former vice president.

    If deficits don’t matter to the public or to the fiscal markets, why should House Republicans fight for a balanced budget that has little likelihood of being enacted into law and will set them up for a tough reelection campaign in 2024?

    Why should Republicans fight for fiscal responsibility as part of a debt-limit extension, if nobody else will?

    end quotes

    And given reality, that is a very important question, and while Dick Cheney was a hack politician who looked at life through that distorted lens and could say anything he chose to say, any of the American people out there who don’t believe deficits make a difference, and the federal government can borrow and spend forever with no consequences are fools, plain and simple, because of course there are consequences, despite what those like “TOODLES” Yellen and Joe Biden who believe in Keynesian economics think.

    And is the statement “deficits don’t matter to the public” an accurate statement in the first place?

    Not according to an article from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation on February 20, 2020 titled “Do Voters Care About the National Debt? The Polls Say They Do,” where we havfe as follows:

    Heading into the 2020 elections, the vast majority of Americans are urging leaders in Washington to address the unsustainable national debt and budget deficit.

    end quotes

    And quite obviously, neither Joe Biden nor “TOODLES” Yellen took any heed of that, and it made no difference, because Joe got elected, and that to him was all that mattered.

    Going back to that article, it continued thusly:

    Public concerns and calls for action on fiscal solutions have been measured in at least 11 different polls this year.

    Here is a listing with highlights.

    The Democracy Poll: 52% of voters think the national debt and deficit is the biggest economic problem, above inequality, wage stagnation and slow growth, and 82% said they even support the government reducing it in a recession.

    The Economist/YouGov: 83% of Americans say the budget deficit is an important issue.

    The latest Financial Times-Peterson US Economic Monitor Six in ten voters believe that management of the national debt is on the wrong track (38% right direction/62% wrong track).

    Voters are most concerned about the debt’s effect on Social Security and Medicare, as well as the impact of interest on the debt on other priorities, including climate change, education, infrastructure and national defense.

    The January Fiscal Confidence Index: 85% of voters say the president and Congress should spend more time focused on addressing the debt.

    Three in four voters (78%) want it to be a top-three priority for the president and Congress, including 75% of Democrats, 79% of independents and 82% of Republicans.

    Gallup: 95% of Americans worry about the budget deficit, including 50% a “great deal.”

    The Hill-HarrisX poll: 52% of Americans said the federal budget deficit needs to be addressed, and the other 48% weren’t necessarily against addressing but said other things should be done first.

    Morning Consult-POLITICO: More than four out of five voters consider reducing the federal budget deficit to be an important priority for Congress — more than any other issue asked about in the poll.

    Morning Consult-POLITICO: Found that 75% of registered voters think that reducing the federal budget deficit is a “top priority” or an important priority.

    Pew: 90% of Americans believe reducing the national debt should be a top or an important priority for the federal government to improve quality of life for future generations.

    Pew: 53% of Americans think the Federal Budget Deficit is a “very big problem,” and 38% said it was a “moderately big problem.”

    POLITICO-Harvard: Americans consider “substantially” reducing the federal budget deficit as a top-five domestic priority for President Trump and Congress.

    Six in 10 Americans agree it is an “extremely important” or “very important” priority, including 60% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans.

    With the national debt eclipsing $23 trillion, annual deficits above $1 trillion (and rising), and interest costs coming in at $1 billion every day, it’s no surprise that Americans feel strongly about the need to come together around solutions to put us on a more stable path.

    Doing so will help build a strong economic future for our nation, with widely shared economic opportunity and prosperity.

    end quotes

    So it does appear that the American people really do care about the federal deficit, but to no avail, because under BIDE-O-NOMICS, the federal deficit continues to climb, while on August 14, 2023, in a Reuters article titled “Yellen says US economy on ‘right track,’ Bidenomics is driving investment, job growth” by Andrea Shalal, “TOODLES” Yellen told us everything id just ducky and rosy and we are doing great, so nothing to worry about here, people, to wit:

    LAS VEGAS, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday argued that the Biden administration’s economic policies have been successful and are driving a boom in private-sector investment in the United States and powering historic job growth.

    Yellen underscored the importance of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, which marks its anniversary on Wednesday, especially in a summer that has made headlines with record heat and climate change-related disasters.

    end quote

    For the record with respect to this “record heat” BULL**** we keep hearing as a justification for BIDE-O-NOMICS, it was FIFTY-THREE (53) degrees here this morning where I am, which is hardly “record heat.”

    Going back to “TOODLES,” who can spew BULL**** with the best of them, having made her political career doing exactly that, we have more as follows, to wit:

    “It’s our nation’s boldest-ever climate action.”

    “And it is beginning to spark an economic renaissance in communities that had been left behind,” Yellen said at a union facility in Las Vegas, after touring a training center where workers are learning skills to work on clean-energy projects.

    Yellen’s visit to Nevada, likely to be a battleground state in the 2024 presidential election, is part of a blitz by President Joe Biden and his cabinet to sell the successes of the IRA, a bipartisan infrastructure law and the CHIPS and Science Act to voters.

    The U.S. economy has outrun recession warnings with record-low unemployment, strong wage gains and better-than-expected GDP growth, but many voters who backed Biden in 2020 think the economy has fared poorly, and may not vote for him in the 2024 election, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

    Yellen told members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) trade union that overall inflation and the unemployment rate had both dropped below 4%, and that the U.S. economy was continuing to expand.

    “Workers are better off than they were last year.”

    Yellen said the U.S. economy is on the “right track” as it continues to transition from rapid recovery to stable growth, although it was important to remain vigilant about potential challenges, particularly abroad.

    “I still believe that there is a path to continue reducing inflation while maintaining a healthy labor market,” she said, adding that consumer sentiment was now at its highest level in almost two years.

    “These are real Americans back at work – able to put food on the table, support their families, and save for retirement.”

    Yellen said the IRA was delivering on a key goal – to revitalize communities that suffered industrial decline or were left behind – through targeted bonuses.

    A Treasury analysis showed that investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and batteries under Biden’s watch had been concentrated in counties that had lagged the country in earnings, college graduation rates, and child poverty rates, she said.

    She also touched on the challenges of transitioning away from fossil fuels, one of the goals of the IRA, which includes $500 billion in new spending and tax breaks that aim to boost clean energy, reduce healthcare costs and increase tax revenue.

    Yellen emphasized the continuing resilience of the U.S. economy and the rebuilding of the U.S. manufacturing base, despite predictions by some that the economy would slip into recession.

    end quotes

    And with that statement about “TOODLES” Yellen emphasizing the “continuing resilience of the U.S. economy,” this is a good place to pause once again for station identification and a commercial break, and when we return, we’ll jump to a CNBC article titled “Mortgage rates hit their highest point since 2000” by Diana Olick on August 21, 2023, where we learn that mortgage rates jumped Monday, following a rise in bond yields driven by investors’ concerns that high interest rates and inflation will linger longer than expected.

    And a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-Yields hit decade highs as higher rate concerns take hold” by Herbert Lash on August 21, 2023, where we learn that the yield on 10-year Treasury notes hit highs last seen during the Great Financial Crisis in 2007 on Monday amid a growing view that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer amid a resilient U.S. economy, so that the sell-off in Treasuries pushed the 30-year bond’s yield up to a 12-year high as the 10-year note touched 4.354%, the highest since November 2007, almost a year before the collapse of Lehman Brothers fully ushered in the Great Financial Crisis, while to finance BIDE-O-NOMICS, “TOODLES” sold $69 billion of 13-week bills at a high yield of 5.3% and $62 billion of 26-week bills at a high yield of 5.295%, so how about that for economy, people?

    Reply

11. Paul Plante says

    August 23, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    So, yes, people – CONSEQUENCES!

    And it is WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE who suffer those consequences, never the political hacks like Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, who cause them to happen, but are NEVER held to account, nor do they ever take any responsibility for their actions.

    Which thought takes us to 19 August 2023, and a Daily Caller article titled “J.D. FOSTER: The Inflation Reduction Act Is More than A Farce, It’s A Call” by J.D. Foster, the Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy at The Heritage Foundation, coming to Heritage after a five-year stint as Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget during the George W. Bush Administration, where we have as follows concerning BIDE-O-NOMICS, to wit:

    One year ago this week, President Joe Biden signed the most laughingly labeled legislation in modern history, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

    The IRA is a big piece of Bidenomics, the new marketing ploy of Biden’s administration.

    The IRA, like Bidenomics is all hat and no cattle as they say in Texas.

    The IRA was a Christmas bill in August, doling out goodies to every feel-good scheme with a leftist lobbyist.

    Inflation was soaring after years of relative calm while Congress fashioned the IRA, so naturally it became the Inflation Reduction Act, never mind it had nothing to do with reducing inflation, not in 2022, not in 2023, or ever.

    View it as just one component of the Biden Spending Blowout trifecta which also includes the CHIPS and the mega infrastructure bills.

    Together they help explain why the Congressional Budget Office projects the 2023 budget deficit to soar above $1.5 trillion, an increase of nearly 11% compared to 2022.

    As important as are the soaring deficits, even more so is Bidenomics’ core tenet that government always knows best, and especially the federal government.

    The three big spending bills are laced with credits, grants and special funding large and small to nudge and induce favored behaviors.

    If you believe government really does know best and does best most of the time, then Joe Biden is your man.

    If you find the idea preposterous and its application frightening, then you might consider rising up in opposition however you think best.

    There is an election coming up.

    It’s a start.

    end quotes

    And from there, we go to a Fox News story titled “NBC panel hammers the president over ‘Bidenomics,’ dismal polling: More like ‘Clinton in ’16′” by Hanna Panreck on 21 August 2023 where we have a dose of reality concerning BIDE-O-NOMICS, keeping in mind that NBC is very pro-Joe Biden, which makes this surprising, to wit:

    NBC’s “Meet the Press” panel criticized President Biden on Sunday over his administration’s “Bidenomics” push, his refusal to comment on investigations into his son and his low poll numbers.

    Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution fellow, said he was “confused” about the “Bidenomics” push.

    “You’re trying to convince people of something, you’re trying to convince people their own impressions about the economy are wrong,” Chen said.

    “And so, if you look, for example, at how Hispanic and Black voters feel about the economy, they’ll tell you it stinks.”

    “Now they can keep saying, ‘but we have the CHIPS Act, but we have the IRA,’ at the end of the day, you can’t convince someone that they’re feeling, how they’re feeling about the economy is wrong,” he continued.

    “And that’s what this election is going to come down to.”

    “And I get they’re trying to present a proactive message but at the end of the day, it’s very difficult I think to do that when people feel, they simply feel differently.”

    end quotes

    CONSEQUENCES, people – and Joe Biden and his team don’t and can’t understand that, at all.

    They believe we should all be cheering the fact that Jo9e Biden is peppering America with CHIP FABS, as if that is going to do the average person any good when the inflation caused by BIDE-O-NOMICS makes it difficult to pay one’s bills, which takes us to CNBC and an article titled “Mortgage rates hit their highest point since 2000” by Diana Olick on August 21, 2023, where we have the CONSEQUENCES of BIDE-O-NOMICS laid out for us in plain language, to wit:

    Mortgage rates jumped Monday, following a rise in bond yields driven by investors’ concerns that high interest rates and inflation will linger longer than expected.

    end quote

    Ye, people, bond rates, those on the federal debt “TOODLES” is selling more and more of to keep her PONZI scheme afloat, where she needs to sell debt today to get money to pay back the people who bought debt yesterday, directly influence not only mortgage rates, but credit cards and auto loans, as well, and when the PROFLIGACY on the Biden regime drives up interest rates, as is happening right now, then up g0 mortgage rates, as well, which takes us back to that story, to wit:

    The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage hit 7.48%, the highest level since November 2000, according to Mortgage News Daily.

    It has risen 29 basis points in just the past week.

    “Investors just aren’t seeing the kind of deterioration in economic data that they expected,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily.

    He noted that the Federal Reserve wants to see the same deterioration before considering a policy shift, and that shift would likely favor short-term rates first.

    “The net effect is that longer-term rates like 10-year Treasury yields and mortgages are bearing the brunt of the market’s negative rate sentiment.”

    “This won’t change until the data forces the Fed to start talking about the first rate cut.”

    Higher rates are hitting potential homebuyers hard, adding insult to the injury of Covid pandemic-inflated home prices.

    Rates set more than a dozen record lows in 2020, setting off a homebuying spree that caused prices to rise over 40% from the start of the pandemic to the summer of 2022.

    Prices pulled back slightly at the end of last year but are now increasing again due to still-strong demand and very lean supply.

    Higher mortgage rates exacerbate the supply situation.

    Current homeowners are reluctant to list their homes for sale because the vast majority of them have rates around or below 3%.

    To move to another home would mean more than doubling that rate.

    It has created what is now being called “golden handcuffs” among potential sellers.

    For a buyer today, the difference in affordability from just a year ago is dramatic.

    The average on the 30-year fixed last year at this time was around 5.5%.

    For someone buying a $400,000 home, with 20% down on a 30-year fixed loan, the monthly payment today, with principal and interest, is roughly $420 more than it would have been a year ago.

    More borrowers are now opting for adjustable-rate loans, which offer lower interest rates for shorter fixed terms.

    The average rate on a 5-year ARM last week was 6.2%, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

    The ARM share of applications rose to 7%.

    In 2020, when the 30-year fixed was setting multiple record lows, that share was less than 2%.

    end quotes

    So, here we are once again, going back to the ARM’s that caused the 2007-2008 economic crisis, which has me wondering if everybody in our federal government is insane, because what else can we call it?

    And while people ponder the answer to that question, it is time to pause for station identification, and a word, or several, actually from all our corporate sponsors who have everything and then some to make your life totally complete, because by listening to them, and taking their advice, you’ll end up having better stuff than your neighbor does, and in America today, people, that is really what it is all about!

    Reply

12. Paul Plante says

    August 24, 2023 at 8:18 pm

    And here, by way of background, let us go back to August 14, 2023 and the Reuters article titled “Yellen says US economy on ‘right track,’ Bidenomics is driving investment, job growth” by Andrea Shalal, where we had “TOODLES” Yellen arguing that the Biden administration’s economic policies have been successful and are driving a boom in private-sector investment in the United States and powering historic job growth, while she emphasized the continuing resilience of the U.S. economy and the rebuilding of the U.S. manufacturing base, despite predictions by some that the economy would slip into recession, and from there, let us come forward in time, keeping in mind the effect high treasury yields have on our day-to-day lives, to a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-Yields hit decade highs as higher rate concerns take hold” by Herbert Lash on August 21, 2023, where we have reality as it is happening staring us right in the face, to wit:

    NEW YORK, Aug 21 (Reuters) – The yield on 10-year Treasury notes hit highs last seen during the Great Financial Crisis in 2007 on Monday amid a growing view that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer amid a resilient U.S. economy.

    end quote

    Note that the Federal Reserve, which “TOODLES” was recently the head of, so you would think she would be able to make these same connections I am making, given it takes no more than a high school education to make them, will keep interest rates higher for longer amid the “resilient” U.S. economy being fueled by MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND BIDE-O-NOMICS, so that the federal reserve is punishing us as it tries to dismantle what Joe Biden and “TOODLES” are trying to put together, which is insanity to me that we are paying the price for, which takes us back to that article, to wit:

    The downgrade of U.S. government debt on Aug. 1 by Fitch Ratings Inc also raised the outlook for higher yields, said David Petrosinelli, senior fixed-income trader at InspereX in New York.

    “Most of this, in terms of the big move (in yields) and the curve being less inverted and rates being higher led by the back end, is really part and parcel with the fiscal situation in the country,” he said.

    “There’s no fiscal restraint in sight.”

    end quotes

    No fiscal restraint, people, and we are the ones paying the price for that as Joe Biden hands out massive CORPORATE WELFARE, as we see in thyis Reuters story titled “Micron says federal support necessary for Idaho, New York projects” on August 21, 2023, to wit:

    Aug 21 (Reuters) – Micron Technology said on Monday federal funding and investment tax credits would be necessary to develop its memory chip manufacturing facilities in Boise, Idaho and Clay, New York.

    President Joe Biden last year August signed a landmark bill to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production and research.

    end quotes

    This is the same Micron that pays its CEO Sanjay Mehrotra a yearly compensation of $28.84M , comprised of 4.9% salary and 95.1% bonuses, including company stock and options, and on September 29, 2022, in its
    “Micron Technology, Inc. Reports Results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year of Fiscal 2022,” informed us as follows:

    “In fiscal 2022, Micron generated record revenue of $30.8 billion and delivered our sixth consecutive year of positive free cash flow, allowing us to return a record $2.9 billion to our shareholders,” said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.

    “Our technology and manufacturing leadership in both DRAM and NAND, deep customer relationships, diverse product portfolio, and strong balance sheet put Micron on solid footing to navigate the weakened near-term supply-demand environment.”

    “We are taking decisive steps to reduce our supply growth including a nearly 50% wafer fab equipment capex cut versus last year, and we expect to emerge from this downcycle well positioned to capitalize on the long-term demand for memory and storage.”

    end quotes

    So why, people, do they need us to help them build their CHIP FABS?

    Moving right along, we come to a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-US Treasury rout festers on deficit spending, higher for longer concerns” by Herbert Lash on August 22, 2023 for some more reality facing us, to wit:

    NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields eased on Tuesday after the benchmark hit almost 16-year highs overnight as a bond rout simmers on concerns the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer and the government fiscal deficit will widen.

    end quotes

    The government fiscal deficit is widening because of BORROW-AND-SPEND BIDE-O-NOMICS and Joe’s MASSIVE CORPORATE WELFARE to corporations like Micron and its stockholders, and let us not kid ourselves about that fact, which takes us back to that story, to wit:

    “With the Fed on the march, not necessarily to hike rates in September, but to keep rates higher, buyers haven’t been as willing to come in and pick up these yield levels,” said Kim Rupert, managing director of global fixed income at Action Economics in San Francisco.

    “There’s almost a perfect storm against Treasuries,” she said.

    “With the Treasury refunding, they put it in black and white, the borrowing needs, the market gulped and said ‘Well, maybe this is not a good thing’.”

    The Fed’s overnight lending rate is now seen above 5% into June.

    Washington also needs to borrow ever more to fund its $1.6 trillion budget deficit, and lenders are demanding higher returns over and above inflation.

    That has pushed real yields up.

    end quotes

    And as those real yields go up, it is we, the people, who take the screwing, which takes us next to another Reuters article titled “Strong US data makes ‘reacceleration scenario’ possible, Fed’s Barkin says” by Howard Schneider on August 22, 2023, where we see what the future might hold for us as a result of BIDE-O-NOMICS, to wit:

    DANVILLE, Virginia, Aug 22 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve must be open to the possibility that the economy will begin to reaccelerate rather than slow, with potential implications for the U.S. central bank’s inflation fight, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said on Tuesday.

    Since the last policy meeting in July, for example, the yields on long-term and 2-year U.S. Treasuries have risen sharply, raising borrowing costs for households and businesses.

    end quotes

    And does any0ne wonder why it is they seem to be getting more and more behind thanks to Joe Biden’s “resilient” economy?

    Go figure, which in turn takes us to more reality from Reuters in the story titled “From stocks to bitcoin, soaring US yields cast shadow over risk asset rally” by David Randall and Lewis Krauskopf on August 22, 2023, to wit:

    NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Surging U.S. Treasury yields are sending shudders through riskier areas of the market, leaving investors to wonder how badly it will dent a rally that has lifted everything from stocks to bitcoin this year.

    Higher Treasury yields – which move inversely to bond prices – can take the shine off speculative assets by offering investors attractive payouts on an investment seen as basically risk free because it is backed by the U.S. government.

    Rising rates also increase the cost of capital throughout the economy, making it more difficult for everyone from individuals to companies to service debt.

    end quotes

    And then we go to a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-Treasury yields slip on weak PMI data, economic outlook” by Herbert Lash on August 23, 2023, where we have as follows with regard to this supposedly “resilient” economy, as the chickens of inflation come home to roost, to wit:

    NEW YORK, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Treasury yields slid on Wednesday after weak U.S. and European business activity signaled global disinflation as markets await possible indications of where the Federal Reserve sees interest rates ahead of its annual summit at Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

    U.S. business activity approached the stagnation point in August, with growth at its weakest since February, as demand for new business in the vast service sector contracted, while the downturn in euro zone activity was far deeper than expected.

    “What the market is starting to confront in the last few days is maybe we got it all wrong,” Thierry Wizman, global FX and interest rates strategist at Macquarie in New York said of a narrative painting an exceptionally strong U.S. economy.

    “Maybe what’s happening here is that we’re going to get lower inflation, but we’re going to get it in the context of a soft economy in Europe, in China especially, and potentially also in the U.S. by extension.”

    end quotes

    And from there we go again to Reuters and a story titled “Indexes end sharply higher; AI chip maker Nvidia jumps again after the bell” by Caroline Valetkevitch on August 23, 2023 where we have as follows:

    Data showed U.S. business activity approached the stagnation point in August, with growth at its weakest since February, as demand for new business in the vast service sector contracted, while the downturn in euro zone activity was far deeper than expected.

    end quotes

    May we always live in interesting times, people!

    But stay tuned, because this is all live and late-breaking with more yet to come as Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin demonstrates for us just how ignorant someone can be and still be a high-ranking federal reserve official with tremendous power over our lives and our futures.

    Reply

13. Paul Plante says

    August 25, 2023 at 6:29 pm

    So, yes, people, next up is Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin demonstrating for us just how ignorant and totally clueless someone can be today, and for that very reason, still be a high-ranking federal reserve official with tremendous power over our lives and our futures, but befo0re we get there, I would like to quote from two separate newspaper articles on that subject of who can and who can’t be a public official in government in America today.

    The first is an editorial from the Troy Record in New York state on 4 April 1989 titled “Give Paul Plante a break” which accurately explains exactly why it is that I am not allowed to be a public official at any level of government in America today, to wit:

    Trying to form an opinion on the entire Paul Plante episode is an exercise in frustration.

    This much is pretty clear: He is headstrong, possesses a pretty good temper and is honest to a fault.

    The latter has not been challenged even by his attackers.

    As a matter of fact, that appears to be the bone they have to pick with him – that he is too honest and is unyielding in his honesty.

    What this has meant to Mr. Plante is that he is being attacked from all sides and, to defend himself against the attacks, he has expended all his financial resources.

    end quotes

    Yes, people, in America today, being unyielding in one’s honesty while a public official is a very serious crime, for which in my case, I was not only stripped of my means of earning a living, but was stripped of my accrued pension money, as well, to make me an object lesson to anyone else out there foolish and stupid enough to think or believe that honesty is the best policy in a public official, which then takes us to the other side of that equation, somebody who did do things the right way as a public official, the way things are supposed to be done, this in an Albany, New York Times Union article titled “Feeding off taxpayers no crime, lawyer says – Cronyism, big spending called usual government practice at Strevell trial” by James M. Odato on January 18, 2007, to wit:

    A defense lawyer for the Rensselaer County entrepreneur whose organization got more than $1 million in member item grants directed by Sen. Joseph L. Bruno is arguing in federal court that dishonesty isn’t necessarily a federal offense.

    William P. Fanciullo, lawyer for J. Felix Strevell, the former director of the now-defunct Institute for Entrepreneurship, also said that Strevell’s actions, including putting relatives on the state payroll, were normal practices in government.

    Fanciullo asserted that the U.S. attorney’s case against Strevell is full of allegations that should not be classified as federal crimes.

    Strevell is charged with nine counts of mail fraud and six counts of wire fraud.

    The case before U.S. District Court Justice Gary L. Sharpe centers on Strevell’s lavish spending on himself and on parties that honored lawmakers who helped him get public money.

    Among its funding sources, the institute received two $500,000 discretionary grants, known as member items, through Bruno in 1999 and 2001.

    Strevell allegedly misused some of the $8 million in mostly taxpayer funds raised by the institute during his reign from 1998 to 2001, when he and his brother, Chauncey, the former chief operating officer, abruptly quit.

    While at the institute, Strevell hired friends, relatives of powerful Republicans, his daughter and his daughter’s boyfriend.

    He also used institute funds to purchase clothing and trips for himself and family members.

    end quotes

    And that dude got a free ride for doing things the way they really are to be done in government in America today, which then takes us to a CNBC article titled “10-year Treasury yield eases Tuesday as investors consider interest rate outlook” by Pia Singh and Sophie Kiderlin on August 22, 2023 where we are treated to the following, to wit:

    Richmond Fed president Thomas Barkin said Tuesday that the Fed needs to defend the 2% inflation target to preserve its credibility with the public.

    “We have one big weapon and that is credibility,” Barkin said to the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce.

    “There is nothing magic about 2 except that when you set that as a target you probably want to achieve it.”

    end quotes

    Now, first of all, the clueless dude is joshing us when he tells us the federal reserve has credibility, when the reality is, it has none at all, and hasn’t for years now.

    The federal reserve lost whatever shreds of credibility it might have had when it was caught sleeping at the switch in 2007 during the housing market crash, which story is told in an article in The Economist titled “Desperate measures – A whiff of panic as the Fed cuts rates” on January 22nd, 2008.

    And it made a mockery of itself more recently when it wrongly stated that inflation was “transitory,” when in a Reuters article titled “Two Fed officials tentatively embrace bond yield jump” by Michael S. Derby on August 24, 2023, we were told that Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker sees inflation cooling to 4% this year, 3% next year and back to the central bank’s 2% goal in 2025.

    But where I want to go is to Barkin’s lunatic statement that “There is nothing magic about 2 except that when you set that as a target you probably want to achieve it.”

    Why is it a lunatic statement which shows the dude is out of touch with reality?

    For that answer, let’s go to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis article “The Fed’s Inflation Target: Why 2 Percent?” by Kristie M. Engemann on January 16, 2019, where we have what Barkin should not be ignorant of with his stupid statement about there being nothing magic about a 2 percent inflation rate, to wit:

    A recent Open Vault post explained that the Federal Reserve has a so-called dual mandate for monetary policy — maximum employment and price stability.

    The latter, price stability, is often interpreted to mean low and stable inflation.

    To meet the price stability objective, Federal Reserve policymakers target an inflation rate of 2 percent.

    This post discusses some basics on inflation, such as what inflation is and how it is measured.

    It also discusses the Fed’s inflation target, how it came to be, what it means and why the Fed targets a positive number instead of zero percent inflation.

    How the Fed’s 2 Percent Inflation Target Came to Be

    As mentioned earlier, the FOMC interprets an inflation rate of 2 percent as consistent with price stability.

    As such, the FOMC adopted an explicit inflation target of 2 percent in January 2012.

    In the 2016 version of the statement on longer-run goals (PDF), the FOMC clarified that its inflation target is symmetric (in other words, it isn’t a floor or a ceiling).

    The FOMC added: “The Committee would be concerned if inflation were running persistently above or below this objective.”

    Although the FOMC didn’t explicitly name an inflation target until 2012, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard has argued that the U.S. had “an implicit inflation target of 2 percent after 1995.” (See Bullard’s presentation from Sept. 12, 2018. In that presentation, he also noted that 2 percent became an international standard in the inflation targeting era that began in the 1990s.)

    end quotes

    So if the FOMC, of which Barkin is a member, interprets an inflation rate of 2 percent as consistent with price stability, why then other than the fact that he is a clueless idi0t who knows nothing about federal reserve policy, would he tell us there is nothing magic about 2 percent?

    And that takes us to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System article “Why does the Federal Reserve aim for inflation of 2 percent over the longer run?” where we have as follows:

    The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) judges that inflation of 2 percent over the longer run, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s mandate for maximum employment and price stability.

    When households and businesses can reasonably expect inflation to remain low and stable, they are able to make sound decisions regarding saving, borrowing, and investment, which contributes to a well-functioning economy.

    For many years, inflation in the United States has run below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent goal.

    It is understandable that higher prices for essential items, such as food, gasoline, and shelter, add to the burdens faced by many families, especially those struggling with lost jobs and incomes.

    At the same time, inflation that is too low can weaken the economy.

    When inflation runs well below its desired level, households and businesses will come to expect this over time, pushing expectations for inflation in the future below the Federal Reserve’s longer-run inflation goal.

    This can pull actual inflation even lower, resulting in a cycle of ever-lower inflation and inflation expectations.

    If inflation expectations fall, interest rates would decline too.

    In turn, there would be less room to cut interest rates to boost employment during an economic downturn.

    Evidence from around the world suggests that once this problem sets in, it can be very difficult to overcome.

    To address this challenge, following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation modestly above 2 percent for some time.

    By seeking inflation that averages 2 percent over time, the FOMC will help to ensure longer-run inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent.

    end quo9tes

    And there I will again pause for station identification.

    Reply

14. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    August 26, 2023 at 10:34 pm

    So think about it, people, if as was proved in federal court, the “law of the land,” public officials feeding off the taxpayers is no crime, and dishonesty isn’t a federal offense, while being unyielding in one’s honesty while a public official clearly is a very serious federal offense as I proved all the way to the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, while putting relatives on the state payroll is a normal practice in government, as is lavish spending on oneself and on parties that honor lawmakers who help one get public money, as is using public funds to purchase clothing and trips for oneself and family members, which means that we, the American people have NO RIGHT to an expectation of honest services from government officials, a supposed “intangible right of honest services,” why should we then believe a single word any and all public officials say, starting with Joe Biden himself, when clearly, they can lie through their teeth to us with impunity to secure gobs of federal funds, as is the case with Joe Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” which his treasury secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen touted as “our nation’s boldest-ever climate action?”

    Consider a POLITICO article titled “Biden says he has ‘practically’ declared a climate emergency” by Kelly Garrity on 08/09/2023, where we have as follows, to wit:

    President Joe Biden said he has already “practically” declared a climate emergency.

    But he has yet to actually make a declaration, which would give him a host of new powers to combat climate change as the country faces record-breaking heat and more frequent and intense floods, droughts and wildfires.

    “We’ve already done that,” Biden said Wednesday when asked whether he was prepared to declare a national climate emergency during an interview on The Weather Channel.

    end quotes

    As to this so-called “record-breaking heat,” it has been down in the 50’s in the morning up here where I am to the north of sultry Cape Charles, which is hardly “record-breaking” heat, and as I type these words, it is about 80 degrees outside, which is not hot for August.

    And here we have to consider that the MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND fiscal program now known as BIDE-O-NOMICS is based on there being a “climate emergency.”

    So when Joe Biden tells us we need BIDE-O-NOMICS because of a climate emergency that Joe, himself no scientist, tells us exists as the justification for him to be able to borrow and spend massive amounts of money to “combat” it, what exactly is he basing that declaration on?

    How about an “industry” created with government money which takes us to an article by OPlaneta titled “Manufactured Climate Consensus Deemed False By Climate Scientist – ‘The Time For Debate Has Ended'” by Olawale Ogunjimi on 26 August 2023, where we have the following to consider, to wit:

    Is there really a man-made global warming crisis?

    Although the urgency surrounding hundreds of international environment conferences could make such a question seem ridiculous, some leading scientists warn that the global warming panic is all a big scam.

    For many years, the world seemed to have reached a climate consensus about the growing threat to the environment.

    With the support of an overwhelming majority of world-renowned scientists, various treaties have been borne.

    The United Nations is leading the charge with this climate consensus, and its core message has been pretty clear.

    The environment is under human threat, and we have to “act now!”

    But is that really true?

    Some top-level scientists have come out to refute these claims.

    One of them is Dr. John Clauser, a renowned physicist and Nobel Prize winner.

    He vehemently opposes the notion of a man-made climate crisis.

    In fact, he believes it’s all a deliberate hoax.

    The Nobel Laureate is strongly joined by the founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman.

    The now-late veteran weatherman who has spent most of his life analyzing weather changes has something interesting to say.

    “Climate change is not happening; there is no significant man-made global warming now, there hasn’t been any in the past, and there is no reason to expect any in the future,” he declared.

    The flames of dissenting statements such as these have always been doused by online fact-checkers.

    But these online information moderators have been unable to hide the smoke.

    The chorus of heretical views has gotten even louder in the past few years.

    Just recently, another leading dissident voice joined the party.

    American climatologist Judith Curry is making her doubts known loud and clear.

    In over a hundred scientific papers, the Georgia Institute of Technology professor emerita has described the consensus as “manufactured.”

    According to her, “the time for debate has ended.”

    She also had scathing criticisms of her colleagues in the science world.

    She has accused other scientists of deceptively fuelling the man-made climate emergency for “fame and fortune.”

    Professor Curry has also bravely opened a can of worms concerning the science world.

    She has exposed what she described as a “climate change industry” where scientists have become puppets of politicians and moneybags.

    No doubt, these are grave allegations.

    But they are allegations she has backed up with her own experiences.

    Professor Curry, who also claims to have been part of the industry, went on to narrate her experience.

    She admitted to being recruited to fuel the climate hysteria.

    “I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists, and I was treated like a rock star.”

    “Flown all over the place to meet with politicians.”

    “Like a good scientist, I investigated,” she said.

    Professor Curry has been involved in years of research involving aspects such as atmospheric modeling, hurricanes, remote sensing, climate models, and lots more.

    She claims that her defection hasn’t come without a price.

    Scientists who will not play ball will lose out on millions of dollars in grants as well as recognition.

    According to her, the “industry” only rewards scientists who are ready to raise the false alarm.

    Every year, the UN, as well as other bodies, fork out billions of dollars to organize climate change conferences.

    Could these elaborate arrangements be built on lies and misconceptions being pushed by some secret puppeteers?

    It’s up to you to decide.

    end quotes

    And here, we again pause for station identification, but as always, stay tuned!

    Reply

15. Paul Plante says

    August 27, 2023 at 8:15 pm

    So, people, however you want to look at this, to use a metaphor, the train has now left the station, and the ball is in play, and NOBODY, starting with the Biden regime and the fools on the federal reserve, knows what is going on, they are knee-jerking, which means nobody is in charge of what will be our collective future in this country, which takes us to a Bloomberg article titled “US Budget Deficits Are Exploding Like Never Before” by Liz Capo McCormick, Erik Wasson, Christopher Condon and Alexandre Tanzi on 25 August 2023, where we have this look at the objective reality facing all of us today and more importantly, tomorrow, when the chickens of PROFLIGACY on the part of Washington hack politicians with no sense of responsibility come home to roost, as they always do, to wit:

    (Bloomberg Businessweek) — American politicians are keener than ever to juice the economy with government cash, a shift that’s already helping to drive up borrowing costs and looks likely to keep them high long after the inflation emergency is over.

    The outlook for the federal budget right now is essentially unprecedented — crisis-size deficits as far as the eye can see, even though the economy appears to be in good health.

    That prospect is making investors uneasy, as demonstrated by yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries climbing above 4.3% this week, their highest levels since 2007.

    Other borrowing costs are rising in tandem: The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has surged above 7% for the first time in more than two decades.

    end quotes

    And we are to consider that “good fiscal management?”

    If so, we are all insane, which may well be the real problem with this country today, which takes us back to Bloomberg, as follows:

    Investors worry that sustained fiscal shortfalls on the scale projected by the Congressional Budget Office could push rates higher still — which only puts more pressure on public finances by adding to the government’s ballooning interest bills.

    Concerns intensified this month after a one-two punch: The US Treasury ramped up debt issuance, heralding a supply deluge that’s likely to last several quarters, and Fitch Ratings unexpectedly downgraded America’s sovereign credit rating.

    “How much debt is too much” is an old debate, and Wall Street has been grousing about Washington’s spending habits forever.

    But there’s a new twist underlying the bond market angst.

    This year’s surge in the deficit — which more than doubled, to $1.6 trillion, in the 10 months through July — looks like what happens when the government goes into recession-fighting mode.

    end quotes

    Keep that figure in mind when Joe Biden and TEAM BIDEN try to tell us that through BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe has decreased the deficit, when in fact, he is causing it to skyrocket, to our detriment, which again takes us back to Bloomberg, to wit:

    In a strong economy with low unemployment, American politicians “really have no impetus to think they need to change anything,” says Oksana Aronov, head of market strategy for alternative fixed income at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

    “You have a tremendous amount of fiscal spending — an unprecedented amount in non-war times.”

    “There are a lot of factors coming together to push long-end rates higher.”

    The consequences stretch beyond the $25 trillion Treasury market.

    end quotes

    For the record, that $25 trillion Treasury market is the WALL OF DEBT confronting we, the American people, the 330 million of us, who are responsible for debt service on that debt, plus the debt, itself, which again takes us back to Bloomberg for the adverse consequences we are facing as a result, to wit:

    American housing is now less affordable than at any time since the 1980s, and it will become even less so if rising yields on US government debt pull mortgage rates north of 8%.

    Stocks may also suffer, since higher financing costs for corporations eat into profits.

    “History tells us that no asset class is really going to escape this entirely,” Aronov says.

    The main reason everyone’s paying more to borrow now is that the Fed has been ratcheting up interest rates for a year and a half to quell inflation.

    The conventional wisdom is that the most rapid cycle of monetary tightening in four decades is near an end, although Fed Chair Jerome Powell could upend that assumption when he addresses fellow central bankers at the annual Jackson Hole conference in Wyoming on Friday.

    Some economists and investors warn that the Biden administration’s fiscal spending — it’s pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into programs to bolster domestic manufacturing of electric cars and semiconductors, and to repair roads and bridges — could rekindle inflation and make it hard for the Fed to dial back its rate hikes.

    The upshot is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the deficit to expand to roughly 6% of gross domestic product this year — and to stay in that ballpark for the next 10 years.

    For context, in the six decades or so between the aftermath of World War II and the 2008 crash, the shortfall never reached that level.

    What’s changed is that fiscal policy is being used as a tool to prolong expansions and keep the economy humming, according to Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director who now heads the American Action Forum, a Republican-leaning think tank.

    “During the 1980s and 1990s there was more of a focus on the long-term picture and making sure our fiscal house is in order,” he says.

    “And they let the Fed take responsibility for the business cycle.”

    end quotes

    And in 2007, the federal reserve proved itself to be incompetent and untrustworthy with respect to responsibility for the business cycle, so that now, Joe Biden has assumed that responsibility for himself with his central planning through BIDE-O-NOMICS, which once more takes us to Bloomberg for information we should all be aware of, to wit:

    Monetary and fiscal policies are intertwined in another important way, too: The government’s debt service costs are soaring as a result of the Fed’s rate hikes.

    Net interest payments on federal debt have surged above $600 billion a year, from around $380 billion when the pandemic hit.

    They now gobble up about 14% of tax revenue, a level that in the past spurred investors and Congress itself to demand more fiscal discipline, says Brian Rehling, head of global fixed income strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

    “Having more and more of your revenue consumed simply to pay your debt servicing costs to bondholders is not a very productive use of capital,” he says.

    “Investors should take it seriously.”

    Maturities on Treasuries have gotten shorter in recent years, so that almost one-third of the whole national debt needs to be rolled over within the next 12 months — likely at the new higher rates.

    And that doesn’t take into account additional issuance to finance larger deficits.

    In the current quarter, net borrowing is coming in at $1 trillion.

    After adding up the debt arithmetic and political deadlock, Fitch knocked the grade on US sovereign debt down one level from AAA to AA+ on Aug. 1, predicting the country’s finances will likely deteriorate over the next three years and citing an “erosion of governance.”

    end quotes

    An “erosion of governance?”

    HAH!

    How about a complete lack of governance, instead!

    And once again, time to take a pause for station identification and another commercial break where you will have ten uninterrupted hours of the best commercials the commercial-writing industry has ever come up withy to inform you of everything you need to be one-up on your neighbors, and then we will be back with more.

    Reply

16. Paul Plante says

    August 28, 2023 at 8:24 pm

    And going back to this Bloomberg article titled “US Budget Deficits Are Exploding Like Never Before” by Liz Capo McCormick, Erik Wasson, Christopher Condon and Alexandre Tanzi on 25 August 2023, we have as follows by way of essential background, to wit:

    The main reason everyone’s paying more to borrow now is that the Fed has been ratcheting up interest rates for a year and a half to quell inflation.

    The conventional wisdom is that the most rapid cycle of monetary tightening in four decades is near an end, although Fed Chair Jerome Powell could upend that assumption when he addresses fellow central bankers at the annual Jackson Hole conference in Wyoming on Friday.

    end quotes

    And Friday having come and gone, let’s first go to the Reuters article titled “Analysis: Powell’s ‘higher for longer’ mantra fans investor caution over economy” by Davide Barbuscia and David Randall on August 25, 2023, to see where we now are as a result of that meeting, to wit:

    NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday did little to dissuade markets from the “higher for longer” mantra for rates that has driven up Treasury yields in recent weeks, leaving some investors looking for more cautious bets in case the economy is unable to escape a downturn next year.

    Speaking at the Kansas City Fed’s annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell left open the possibility of further rate increases and stressed the U.S. economy’s surprising strength, though he acknowledged declines in the pace of inflation over the past year.

    While more balanced than the Fed chair’s ultra-hawkish address at last year’s symposium at Jackson Hole, the speech nevertheless offered little solace to those hoping the central bank would nod towards eventual rate cuts in 2024.

    Yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury, which move inversely to bond prices, were basically unchanged on the day at 4.233%, though they remained near 16-year highs hit earlier this month.

    Two-year yields – which are more closely linked to monetary policy expectations – added about four basis points.

    The surge in bond yields over the last few months – driven by bets that the Fed will need to keep rates around current levels for longer than expected to prevent inflation from reigniting – has rippled out into the economy, pushing 30-year mortgage rates to their highest level in over 20 years while credit spreads, a measure of risk, widened slightly this month.

    end quotes

    So that was Friday, and to see just how schizophrenic (when schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation) the Federal Reserve is, as well as clueless, because they are making things up as they go, which is known as knee-jerking, let’s drop back in time to August 27, 2020 and a CNBC article titled “Powell announces new Fed approach to inflation that could keep rates lower for longer,” the exact opposite of where we are today, two years later, by Jeff Cox, where we have federal reserve insanity before our eyes, as follows; to wit:

    The Federal Reserve announced a major policy shift Thursday, saying that it is willing to allow inflation to run hotter than normal in order to support the labor market and broader economy.

    end quote

    And now, the federal reserve is fighting to reduce inflation by raising rates, after letting inflation run hot by reducing rates, whi8ch the federal reserve laughingly calls maintaining price stability, which takes us back to CNBC as follows:

    In a move that Chairman Jerome Powell called a “robust updating” of Fed policy, the central bank formally agreed to a policy of “average inflation targeting.”

    That means it will allow inflation to run “moderately” above the Fed’s 2% goal “for some time” following periods when it has run below that objective.

    The changes were codified in a policy blueprint called the “Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy,” first adopted in 2012, that has informed the Fed’s approach to interest rates and general economic growth.

    As a practical matter, the move means the Fed will be less inclined to hike interest rates when the unemployment rate falls, so long as inflation does not creep up as well.

    end quotes

    Now, the federal reserve is trying to make the unemployment rate rise by raising rates in a bid to cool inflation, which brings us back to CNBC for more, as follows:

    Central bank officials traditionally have believed that low unemployment leads to dangerously higher levels of inflation, and they’ve moved preemptively to head it off.

    However, a speech Powell delivered to a virtual gathering of the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium, and accompanying documents that codified the new policy, signaled a shift away from the old thinking.

    The policymaking Federal Open Market Commitee approved the changes unanimously.

    “Many find it counterintuitive that the Fed would want to push up inflation,” Powell said in prepared remarks.

    “However, inflation that is persistently too low can pose serious risks to the economy.”

    Powell noted that the interest rate level that neither constrains nor pushes growth has fallen considerably over the years and is likely to stay there.

    He contrasted the current situation to what the Fed faced 40 years ago, when then-Chairman Paul Volcker ushered through a controversial series of rate hikes that sought to tamp down inflation.

    Over the years, fundamental changes in the economy, such as demographics and technology, have shifted the Fed’s focus to inflation that has run too low.

    The situation, Powell said, “can lead to an unwelcome fall in longer-term inflation expectations, which, in turn, can pull actual inflation even lower, resulting in an adverse cycle of ever-lower inflation and inflation expectations.”

    Policymakers, consequently, are left with little room to lower rates during times of economic stress.

    Since the end of the financial crisis, the Fed has struggled to hit its 2% inflation target.

    Officials hope that the new approach will change the landscape, raising expectations and allowing inflation to float higher as rates remain low.

    “Right now, to put it in context, we have an unemployment rate that’s well above 10%,” said Kathy Jones, head of fixed income at Charles Schwab.

    “The chances of seeing significant inflation anytime soon are quite slim.”

    “With or without this policy change, the Fed was going to be at zero for a couple of years.”

    end quotes

    That was on August 27, 2020 when she was saying the chances of seeing significant inflation anytime soon were quite slim and just a year later, a worldwide increase in inflation began in mid-2021, with many countries seeing their highest inflation rates in decades.

    And the federal reserve called it “transitory,” as did Joe Biden and Janet “TOODLES” Yellen.

    Going back to CNBC, we have more as follows, to wit:

    In addition to the shift on inflation, the Fed also announced a policy tweak that changes the approach to employment.

    The new language says the approach to the jobs situation will be informed by the Fed’s “assessments of the shortfalls of employment from its maximum level.”

    The prior language referred to “deviations” from the maximum level.

    While the shift appears to be a matter of verbiage, Powell said it is significant.

    “This change reflects our appreciation for the benefits of a strong labor market, particularly for many in low- and moderate-income communities,” he said.

    “This change may appear subtle, but it reflects our view that a robust job market can be sustained without causing an outbreak of inflation.”

    end quotes

    Which is exactly opposite to what he is saying today, and there, once again, I will pause for station identification and another commercial break where you will learn about all the things you absolutely have to have to make your life complete so you will feel good about yourself and all warm and squishy inside, and then, we will be right back, so stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!

    Reply

17. Paul Plante says

    August 29, 2023 at 8:52 pm

    So, yes, people, following up on this statement from the Bloomberg article titled “US Budget Deficits Are Exploding Like Never Before” by Liz Capo McCormick, Erik Wasson, Christopher Condon and Alexandre Tanzi on 25 August 2023, that the main reason everyone, which means each and every one of us, is paying more to borrow now, is that the Fed has been ratcheting up interest rates for a year and a half to quell inflation, are we to then believe that BIDE-O-NOMICS or MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND to fund CORPORATE WELFARE is the greatest thing to come along in our lives since the combination of pre-sliced white bread and Velveeta cheese made the job of an American housewife so much easier by eliminating the need to have to actually cook something, that burden having been relieved by corporate America that has only our well-being and happiness in mind?

    Is BIDE-O-NOMICS really good for America and what ails it?

    Or is it actually toxic, like a form of societal roach poison?

    And how on earth are we poor common folks who aren’t Ph.D.’s in the field of economical studies like Janet “TOODLES” Yellen and Jay Powell of the federal reserve to even know?

    To which I answer, gee, how about applying some old-fashioned common sense, which takes us to a Reuters article titled ‘TREASURIES-US yields drift lower ahead of key economic data” by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss on August 28, 2023, where we find as follows, to wit:

    Monday’s auctions by the U.S. Treasury were mixed, with the $45 billion two-year note sale garnering more demand than the $46 billion five-year offering.

    The two-year notes fetched a high yield of 5.024%, the highest in 17 years.

    end quotes

    Keep in mind, people, that it is we, the American people who are the ones paying those in America or the world rich enough to purchase that debt the 5.024% interest on a two-year treasury note, which is a form of taxation without any representation whatsoever.

    And by way of comparison, on Jan 1, 2008, the same two-year notes were paying 2.48%,

    On Jan 1, 2009, that had dropped to 0.81%.

    Thereafter, on Jan 1, 2010, it was at 0.93%.

    On Jan 1, 2011, it had fallen back to 0.61%, and from there, on Jan 1, 2012, it was at 0.24%.

    On Jan 1, 2013, it had risen slightly to 0.27%, followed by 0.39% on Jan 1, 2014, 0.55% on Jan 1, 2015, 0.90% on Jan 1, 2016, 1.21% on Jan 1, 2017, 2.03% on Jan 1, 2018, 2.54% on Jan 1, 2019, falling back to 1.52% on Jan 1, 2020, and then down to 0.13% on Jan 1, 2021, followed by 0.98% on Jan 1, 2022.

    So work that math out for yourselves and then ask yourself whether or not we as a people are better off with BIDE-O-NOMICS than without it, which takes us to another Reuters story titled “Post-pandemic, world facing gloomy stew of debt, trade wars and poor productivity” by Howard Schneider on August 28, 2023, where we have this glimpse of the future promised to us by BIDE-O-NOMICS, to wit:

    JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Record levels of government debt, geopolitical tensions that threaten to split the global trading system, and the likely persistence of weak productivity gains may saddle the world with a slow-growth future that stunts development in some countries even before it starts.

    That sobering view of a post-pandemic global economy emerged from research organized by the Kansas City Federal Reserve and debated here this past weekend.

    It explored issues like the outlook for technological innovation, public debt, and the state of international trade at a time when the Russian invasion of Ukraine and conflict between the U.S. and China have eroded a once-broad global agreement, at least in theory, to boost the free flow of goods and services.

    “Countries are now in a more fragile environment.”

    “They’ve used a lot of their fiscal resources to deal with a pandemic…”

    “Then you have policy-driven forces, geoeconomic fragmentation, trade tensions, the decoupling between the West and China,” International Monetary Fund chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said in an interview on the sidelines of an annual Fed conference here.

    Emerging industrial policies in the U.S. and elsewhere are reordering global production chains in ways that may be more durable or serve national security ends, but also be less efficient.

    end quotes

    For a view of the future promised by BIDE-O-NOMICS, focus on those words “emerging industrial policies in the U.S. are reordering global production chains in ways that also may be less efficient,” keeping in mind that less efficient means more expensive.

    And that brings us to this Reuters article titled “US business borrowing for equipment falls 2% in July – survey” on August 28, 2023 for a further look at how the higher borrowing costs associated with BIDE-O-NOMICS are affecting the economy here in the U.S., to wit:

    (Reuters) – U.S. companies borrowed nearly 2% less in July than last year to finance equipment investments, an Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) survey showed on Monday.

    The companies signed up for new loans, leases, and lines of credit worth $9.9 billion last month, compared with $10.1 billion a year earlier, the industry body’s survey said.

    “In the current relatively high-interest rate environment in which the industry finds itself this summer, survey respondents are reporting some softness, coinciding with expectations by economists that overall investment in equipment and software will slow down in the second half of 2023,” ELFA Chief Executive Ralph Petta said.

    ELFA, which reports economic activity for the nearly $1-trillion equipment finance sector, said credit approvals totaled 75.3%, down from 76.1% in June.

    Washington-based ELFA’s leasing and finance index measures the volume of commercial equipment financed in the United States.

    The index is based on a survey of 25 members, including Bank of America Corp and financing affiliates or units of Caterpillar Inc, Dell Technologies Inc, Siemens AG, Canon Inc and Volvo AB.

    “Rising interest rate environments will slow consumer spending.”

    “Cheap money notes that begin to expire will be replaced by more expensive money, and new investments will be reduced,” said Craig Ault, Honour Capital’s chief revenue officer.

    end quotes

    Rising interest rate environments will slow consumer spending while cheap money notes that begin to expire will be replaced by more expensive money, and new investments will be reduced!

    So is BIDE-O-NOMICS taking us forwards or backwards, people?

    And once again, time for a pause for station identification and a commercial break so you can get an idea what your neighbor might be planning to buy next, so you can get there before them and one-up them, even if you really didn’t need what you bought for yourself.

    Reply

18. Paul Plante says

    August 30, 2023 at 10:44 pm

    So yes, people, MASSIVE CORPORATE WELFARE on borrowed money!

    That is the central core tenet (a principle or belief) of BIDE-O-NOMICS, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Bosch CEO says US support needed for full expansion of California chip factory” by Sarah Wu and Stephen Nellis on August 30, 2023, where we have as follows, to wit:

    SAN FRANCISCO/TAIPEI, Aug 30 (Reuters) – The top executive at German technology group Robert Bosch said on Wednesday the company needs subsidies from the U.S. government to carry out the full expansion it has planned for a California chip plant it is acquiring.

    end quotes

    According to my research, Bosch USA’s annual revenue is $84.9 Billion, and Bosch USA makes $232.5M in a day, while in a single month, Bosch USA normally makes close to $7.1B in revenue, which, of course, makes them a prime candidate for CORPORATE WELFARE from Joe Biden, on our dime, because it is we, the American people who foot the bill for BIDEE-O-NOMICS, including the cost of the inflation caused by the massive spending related to all of the various components of BIDE-O-NOMICS, and with respect to inflation, don’t be fooled by this mantra of “oh, look, inflation is cooling.”

    Yes, the rate of inflation is slowing, but it is not the rate of inflation that is coming from our pockets each time we buy something, it is the ever-rising costs caused by inflation, so while the rate of inflation might be cooling, prices are still going up not down, as was reflected in the price of gas this last fill-up for me, which was up to $4.46 for gallon of 89-octane from $4.40 the week before.

    Going back to the Reuters story, it continues as follows:

    In April, Bosch said it planned to buy key assets of TSI Semiconductor’s chip production facilities in Roseville, California and invest $1.5 billion to retool the site to make silicon carbide chips, which can help boost the range of electric vehicles.

    Production at the new company, called Robert Bosch Semiconductor LLC, will start in 2026.

    On Wednesday, Bosch said the state of California has approved a $25 million tax credit for the factory.

    In an interview during a trip to San Francisco, Bosch Chief Executive Stefan Hartung told Reuters that expanding the facility to the intended full size “depends on the support of the U.S. government, or the regional government or the California government.”

    “And it is already supported by some, but obviously it needs more support.”

    The TSI facility would become the “third pillar” of in-house semiconductor production, along with two sites in Germany, Bosch said.

    Hartung said buying the California plant, which has been making chips since the 1980s and has produced automotive-grade chips for years, will speed Bosch’s entry into the race to make silicon carbide chips.

    Demand for the chips is growing by 30% a year, the company said.

    end quotes

    So obviously, Bosch plans on making a profit from this operation, or they wouldn’t be making the investment.

    So why do they then need we, the American people to “support” them?

    Because it is the right thing for us to do?

    As to the short-sighted nature of BIDE-O-NOMICS, and its author Joe Biden, known as a very shallow thinker, we have an America Insider article on the subject titled “Biden Releases Plan to Drive Economic Growth. There’s Just One Problem” by Claire O’Hare on 30 August 2023, where we have as follows:

    Joe Biden says “Bidenomics” will help improve America’s economy despite two years of rising inflation.

    In many cases, Democrats are focusing on combatting global warming.

    According to NBC, there is one major problem: Industries receiving taxpayer dollars say they are “having difficulty finding enough workers to actually do the work.”

    “While the administration expects the bill to drive the creation of millions of jobs in the coming decade, an apparent lack of blue-collar workers and rising supply costs could hamper projects that the administration has touted as signature achievements of its tenure,” the NBC report found.

    During a speech about the bill, Biden said, “I also want to be clear: We are in this to win.”

    end quotes

    In this to win?

    Win what?

    Is this some kind of game Joe is playing?

    And if so, how come he hasn’t told we, the American people about it, which takes us back to America Insider for this dose of reality and truth, to wit:

    Ben Brubeck, ABC’s vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs, said, “There’s a lot of concern that taxpayers aren’t really getting the best bargain for their investments.”

    And amen to that, say I!

    Reply

19. Paul Plante says

    September 1, 2023 at 10:15 am

    So, yes, people, BIDE-O-NOMICS is just another name for MASSIVE amounts of CORPORATE WELFARE on borrowed money, and as we see from a Reuters article titled “US offers $12 billion to auto makers, suppliers for advanced vehicles” by Timothy Gardner on August 31, 2023, who is handing out the CORPORATE WELFARE this time is Biden “energy secretary” Jennifer Granholm, a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1987 who knows absolutely nothing whatsoever about energy, but notwithstanding, became Joe’s “energy secretary” because she is a proven party loyalist who was a member of the presidential transition team for Hussein Obama before he assumed office in 2009 and then she became host of “The War Room” with Jennifer Granholm, and in 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor, and more importantly, at least as far as Joe is concerned, because Joe made a campaign promise to select a team that “looks like America” and modernizes the predominantly male, white institution, she won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant, and then as a young adult, she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but abandoned her efforts at age 21, and after that, in 1978, she appeared on The Dating Game, another top qualification to be a member of TEAM BIDEN (cue Bob Seger – Her Strut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51c0vuLEng ) and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.

    Going back to Reuters, we learn as follows, to wit:

    WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – The Biden administration is offering $12 billion in grants and loans for auto makers and suppliers to retrofit their plants to produce electric and other advanced vehicles, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Thursday.

    The administration will also offer $3.5 billion in funding to domestic battery manufacturers, Granholm said.

    For the advanced vehicles, $2 billion in grants will come from the Inflation Reduction Act which was passed by Democrats last year, and $10 billion in loans will derive from the Energy Department’s Loans Program Office.

    end quotes

    And that takes us to a Business Insider article titled “EVs are running out of customers — and some dealers don’t want them anymore” by Alexa St. John and Nora Naughton on 24 August 2023, where we find that by and large, the American people, for many good reasons, do not want these electric cars, to wit:

    More electric vehicles are being pumped out of car factories than ever before – but some dealers don’t want them.

    Electric car inventory has been piling up on dealership lots this year as companies up their EV production, leading some dealers to say enough is enough.

    Some are telling automakers they don’t want any more until they can sell what’s sitting, several dealers told Insider.

    “We have turned away EV inventory,” said Scott Kunes, COO of Kunes Auto and RV Group, which sells Detroit brands as well as Nissan and Mitsubishi in the Midwest.

    Automakers are “asking us to make a large investment,” Kunes added, “and we’re just wanting to see some return on that investment.”

    A switch from enthusiastic and wealthy early adopters to more apprehensive and budget-minded car shoppers is throwing the electric car transition for a loop, forcing car companies to change their outlooks and pull back on ambitious EV-production goals.

    EVs have gone from shortages to near over-supply

    Automakers are shoring up their factories to churn more of these cars out.

    But demand isn’t growing at the same pace.

    Even with record EV sales month after month, sales are plateauing as automakers try to target buyers beyond the early adopters: more mainstream consumers.

    As a result, one East Coast Ford dealer previously told Insider they were only declining allocation of electric cars from the automaker.

    One Hyundai dealer, on the West Coast, said they were also passing on EV-specific allocation, while another Hyundai dealer told Insider he anticipates having to turn away EVs soon.

    In this round of growing pains for the electric car market, dealers are set up for the most trouble.

    Car companies are likely to continue churning out the EVs they promised to investors, leaving dealers to figure out how to sell them to a new set of customers.

    But the most savvy executives will heed this first warning from dealers about where the demand pendulum is swinging, analysts say.

    “Dealers know in real time with real-time feedback what the market is doing,” Karl Brauer, an automotive analyst for iSeeCars, previously told Insider.

    “They have always acted as the first warning lights on the dash for the automotive industry.”

    end quotes

    But that is reality, people, and in America under Joe Biden and his “beauty queen” energy secretary Jennifer Granholm, does reality really matter anymore?

    And hey, how about inflation!

    Yes, people, it is going UP, not down, as we see in a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-US yields dip after inflation, jobless data; market awaits payrolls” by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss on August 31, 2023, to wit:

    In the 12 months through July, the PCE price index gained 3.3% after climbing 3.0% in June.

    The so-called core PCE price index increased 4.2% year-on-year in July after rising 4.1% in June.

    end quotes

    And according to a Reuters article titled “US consumer spending accelerates; declining savings a red flag” by Lucia Mutikani on August 31, 2023, we see as follows:

    Food prices climbed 0.2% and energy edged up 0.1%.

    end quote

    And in that same article, we also see as follows, to wit:

    With the saving rate dropping to 3.5% last month, the lowest since November 2022, the outlook for consumer spending is less robust.

    The saving rate was at 4.3% in June.

    Some of the drop in July was attributed to higher taxes, which left income at the disposal of households after accounting for inflation declining 0.2% last month.

    end quotes

    So while it is clear that CORPORATE AMERICA is finding itself doing quite well under BIDE-O-NOMICS, as are the rich in America, has BIDE-O-NOMICS made our lives better?

    And back to station identification, and twelve continuous hours of commercials showing you all the things you would like to have but can’t afford because BIDE-O-NOMICS inflation has made them into luxury items, and then, we will be right back!

    Reply

20. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 2, 2023 at 10:16 pm

    With respect to BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe Biden’s MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE PROGRAM intended to benefit those at the very top of the economic pyramid at the expense of those at the bottom, which is what “an economy from the bottom up and middle out” is really all about, if we ask GOOGLE the question “what does it mean to be predicated,” the answer we get back is as follows, to wit: If an idea or argument is predicated on something, it depends on the existence or truth of this thing.”

    So what then is BIDE-O-NOMICS predicated on, then?

    For that answer, we need to drop back in time to July 20, 2022, and “Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Tackle the Climate Crisis” from Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, Massachusetts, where we have as follows:

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

    I come here today with a message: As President, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger.

    And that’s what climate change is about.

    It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger.

    The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.

    The U.N.’s leading international climate scientists called the latest climate report nothing less than, quote, “code red for humanity.”

    Let me say it again: “Code red for humanity.”

    It’s not a group of political official — elected officials.

    These are the scientists.

    end quotes

    And as was the case with COVID, those are the “scientists,” which is a very empty word because anybody can call themselves a scientist, given there are no standards or qualifications, who will say exactly what those in positions of power want them to say.

    In other words, they are political opportunists, or more appropriately, science whores, and if they were professional engineers, what they are doing would be known as “selling the stamp” in reference to professional engineers affixing their stamp to garbage in an effort to legitimize it.

    So BIDE-O-NOMICS is predicated on so-called “climate change” being literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger, so that the health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.

    But is that true?

    For a glimpse at the answer to that question, let us go to a CNN article titled “Extreme heat has killed 147 people in 5 counties, coroners report” by Rachel Ramirez on August 7, 2023, keeping in mind that CNN is very pro-Joe Biden, where we learn as follows, to wit:

    CNN — Extreme heat in the US has killed at least 147 people in just five counties, medical examiners report — a mere snapshot of the fatal toll this searing summer is taking.

    end quote

    Consider that in January of 2023, the U.S. Population was estimated at 334,233,854, which figure represents an increase of 1,571,393, or 0.47%, from New Year’s Day 2022, and 2,784,573, or 0.84% since Census Day (April 1) 2020.

    So where is the “clear and present danger,” people?

    If, as the U.N.’s leading international climate scientists are saying, the latest climate report nothing less than, quote, “code red for humanity,” shouldn’t our population be declining drastically, as opposed to increasing?

    Going back to Biden-enabler CNN, we have more as follows, to wit:

    The deaths reported here occurred in three states that have endured the worst of this summer’s vicious heat: As of early August, 64 had died in Pima County, Arizona; 39 in Maricopa County, Arizona; 26 in Clark County, Nevada; 11 in Webb County, Texas; and seven in Harris County, Texas.

    end quotes

    And this is the COVID playbook all over again with this “summer’s vicious heat” horsecrap and if we “follow the science,” what we find is that the hot season in Pima County, Arizona lasts for 3.8 months, from May 23 to September 15, with an average daily high temperature above 93°F., while the hottest month of the year in Pima is July, with an average high of 99°F and low of 73°F.

    If there is an “average high of 99°F,” then basic high school math tells us that there have to be temperatures above 99°F to have an average of 99°F, so where then is this “vicious heat” Biden-enabler CNN is going on about?

    Arizona is hot and has been hot for the last 70 years I have been alive, which is why houses down there are built from adobe to keep them cool.

    As to Maricopa County, following the science informs us that the hot season lasts for 3.7 months, from May 27 to September 19, with an average daily high temperature above 97°F., with the hottest month of the year in Maricopa being July, with an average high of 105°F and low of 81°F.

    Going to Clark County, Nevada, we find the daily high temperatures in summer increase by 5°F, from 94°F to 99°F, rarely falling below 84°F or exceeding 111°F., and the highest daily average high temperature is 105°F on July 15.

    As to Webb County, Texas, it has a hot, semi-arid climate where the summers are usually very hot and dry with temperatures regularly reaching over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the annual BestPlaces Comfort Index for Webb County is 6.5 (10=best), which means it is less comfortable than most places in Texas.

    And Harris County, Texas has a subtropical climate with hot summers where July is the hottest month of the year with average temperatures ranging from 89 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit, and the annual BestPlaces Comfort Index for Harris County is 6.6 (10=best), which means it is less comfortable than most places in Texas.

    And that dose of reality brings us back to July 20, 2022 and “Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Tackle the Climate Crisis” where we have this burst of Bidenesque BULL**** to consider, to wit:

    THE PRESIDENT: Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world.

    So my message today is this: Since Congress is not acting as it should — and these guys here are, but we’re not getting many Republican votes — this is an emergency.

    An emergency.

    And I will — I will look at it that way.

    I said last week and I’ll say it again loud and clear: As President, I’ll use my executive powers to combat climate — the climate crisis in the absence of congressional actions, notwithstanding their incredible action.

    (Applause.)

    In the coming days, my administration will announce the executive actions we have developed to combat this emergency.

    end quotes

    And there we have it, people, BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe’s MASSIVE CORPORATE WELFARE PROGRAM that is breaking the backs of common American citizens, like COVID, is based on fear-mongering and a SCAM.

    Reply

21. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 3, 2023 at 8:47 pm

    So, yes, people, as we can clearly see from the reality we are confronted with above here, BIDE-O-NOMICS is based on nothing more than intentional FALSEHOODS and blatant and naked FEAR-MONGERING by Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, aka THE BIG GUY, THE TEFLON DON, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, Celtic, or JRB Ware, so that Celtic, er, Joe Biden can LOOT our treasury to the tune of TRILLIONS of dollars to reward his political cronies, under the guise of combatting an imaginary emergency, an emergency that only exists in the warped and twisted recesses of what passes for the brain of Robert L. Peters, whoa, pardon me there, I mean Joe Biden, which takes us back to July 20, 2022 and “Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Tackle the Climate Crisis” where we have more Bidenesque BULL**** from Robin Ware to consider, to wit:

    Our national security is at stake as well.

    And our economy is at risk.

    So we have to act.

    end quotes

    Yes, people, FEAR-MONGERING, just like was the case with COVID – if we don’t do something right now, tomarrow will be too late and we will all be dead, which takes us back to July 20, 2022, to wit:

    I’m also proud to point out that my administration approved the first commercial project for offshore wind in America, which is being constructed by Vineyard Winds.

    end quotes

    Yes, people, he most certainly did, and according to a story in E&E News by Politico titled “4 lawsuits threaten Vineyard Wind” by Benjamin Storrow on 03/29/2023, we have as follows, to wit:

    The lawsuits against America’s first major offshore wind project are coming to a head.

    Four cases are challenging the federal environmental permit issued to Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine facility being planned for construction in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.

    A federal judge in Massachusetts heard arguments brought by landowners in two cases in recent weeks.

    The other two suits, brought by fishing groups, have been consolidated and will appear before the same judge for oral arguments in Boston on Monday.

    The cases against Vineyard Wind allege that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management conducted an inadequate environmental review when it approved the project by failing to account for its impact on everything from fishermen to the critically endangered North American right whale.

    end quotes

    And of course it failed to conduct an adequate environmental review when it approved the project by failing to account for its impact on everything from fishermen to the critically endangered North American right whale, because we have an EMERGENCY, and besides, Joe Biden has already determined that there will be no impacts, so an environmental review is not necessary, which takes us back to that story, to wit:

    The stakes are high.

    The Biden administration is betting that Vineyard Wind will begin an energy revolution in the United States by generating large amounts of carbon-free electricity needed to slash emissions and power the Northeast.

    end quotes

    And as we follow this story along, we are going to see that bet by the Biden administration which was based on exactly nothing but a dictatorial whim unraveling big time as we see in a New York Post story titled “Why wind and solar power are running out of juice” by Jonathan Lesser on 2 September 2023, to wit:

    Green energy and the push to electrify everything have been in the news recently but for all the wrong reasons.

    Instead of the green energy nirvana politicians and green energy advocates have promised, economic and physical reality has begun to set in.

    Start with the economic realities.

    Wind turbine manufacturers like Siemens and General Electric have reported huge losses for the first half of this year, almost $5 billion for the former and $1 billion for the latter.

    Among other problems, turbine quality control has suffered, forcing manufacturers such as Siemens and Vestas to incur costly warranty repairs.

    Offshore wind developers in Europe and the US are canceling projects because of higher materials and construction costs.

    In Massachusetts, Avangrid, the developer of the 1,200 MW Commonwealth Wind project paid $48 million to get out of its existing contract to sell power to ratepayers.

    Close by, the developers of the 1,200 MW SouthCoast Wind Project off Martha’s Vineyard will pay about $60 million to exit their existing contract.

    Rhode Island Energy, the state’s main electric utility, recently rejected the second Revolution Wind Project because the contract price was too high.

    And Ørsted, the Danish government-owned company that is developing the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects off Long Island — as well as the Ocean Wind project off the New Jersey coast — last week announced that, without additional subsidies and higher contract prices, it will have to write-off billions of dollars in potential losses.

    end quotes

    Yes, people, more subsidies, which is to say, even more CORPORATE WELFARE, but hey, it is an EMERGENCY after all, which takes us back once again to that story, as follows:

    “The administration has put all their political capital on offshore wind and is breaking all the rules in order to do it,” said Robert Henneke, executive director and general counsel for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is representing fishing interests in one case.

    Henneke claimed that the Biden administration is guilty of hypocrisy, saying the government is relaxing endangered species requirements for offshore wind even as it imposes stringent regulations on other industries.

    “The administration’s violation of the [Endangered Species Act] should be a complete bar to the whole project,” he said.

    A BOEM spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, and an official with Vineyard Wind declined to comment.

    end quotes

    And that takes us back to July 20, 2022, for more Joe Biden, to wit:

    Folks, when I think about climate change — and I’ve been saying this for three years — I think jobs.

    Climate change, I think jobs.

    (Applause.)

    Almost 100 wind turbines going up off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island with ground broken and work underway.

    end quotes

    And as we see above, those projects are facing serious financial problems, but Joe doesn’t ever talk about that, so back to 20 July 2022, for more, to wit:

    We’re going to make sure that the ocean is open for the clean energy of our future, and everything we can do — give a green light to wind power on the Atlantic coast, where my predecessor’s actions only created confusion.

    end quote

    Yes, people give a GREEN LIGHT, so everybody, birds, fish and whales and people, get the **** out of Joe’s way because he has an existential threat to deal with, and if some whales have to die as a result, well, progress means somebody or something has to be hurt, and besides, whales don’t vote Democrat, so they can go to hell, and back to 20 July 2022 again, to wit:

    And today we begin the process to develop wind power in the Gulf of Mexico as well for the first time.

    A real opportunity to power millions of additional homes from wind.

    end quotes

    Which takes us to a Reuters article titled “First US offshore wind auction in Gulf of Mexico attracts paltry interest” by Nichola Groom on August 29, 2023, to wit:

    Aug 29 (Reuters) – The Biden administration’s first ever auction of offshore wind development rights in the Gulf of Mexico ended with a single $5.6 million winning bid on Tuesday, reflecting meager demand for the clean energy source in a region known for oil and gas production.

    Germany’s RWE won rights to 102,480 acres (41,472 hectares) off Louisiana – the lowest winning bid for a federal offshore wind lease at auction since the Obama administration – while the other two lease areas on offer off Texas received no bids, according to results posted online by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

    The auction was by far the weakest of the four held since President Joe Biden took office in 2021 pledging to accelerate the industry as part of his climate change agenda.

    “It is striking just how bad the economics clearly must be in order for two of the three sites to remain unsold … and for the site that was sold to go for such a low price,” said Alon Carmel, a partner at PA Consulting who advises offshore wind companies.

    French energy giant TotalEnergies, which is developing offshore wind projects in other U.S. regions, is one of the companies that elected to sit out the sale, despite having qualified to bid.

    “Our assessment factoring in wind speeds, competition from other onshore renewables, and competitive power market conditions does not, at this time, justify submitting an offer,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

    The Gulf’s lower wind speeds, soft soils and hurricanes are considered challenges to the industry.

    The Southeast also has low power prices that could make it harder for higher-cost offshore wind generation to compete for electricity contracts.

    The sale also comes at a challenging time for offshore wind.

    In recent months, owners of several planned projects in the Northeast have sought to renegotiate or cancel power delivery contracts due to soaring cost inflation.

    The sale was cast by the Biden administration as a major milestone for the industry.

    end quotes

    And going back to 20 July 2022, we have:

    Let’s clear the way — let’s clear the way for clean energy and connect these projects to the grid.

    I’ve directed my administration to clear every federal hurdle and streamline federal permitting that brings these clean energy projects online right now and right away.

    And some of you have already come up and talked to me about that.
    (Applause.)

    We’re going to make sure that the ocean is open for the clean energy of our future, and everything we can do — give a green light to wind power on the Atlantic coast, where my predecessor’s actions only created confusion.

    You all have a duty right now to our economy, to our competitiveness in the world, to the young people in this nation, and to future generations — and that sounds like hyperbole but it’s not; it’s real — to act boldly on climate.

    And so does Congress, which — notwithstanding the leadership of the men and women that are here today — has failed in this duty.

    Not a single Republican in Congress stepped up to support my climate plan.

    Not one.

    So, let me be clear: Climate change is an emergency.

    And in the coming weeks, I’m going to use the power I have as President to turn these words into formal, official government actions through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders, and regulatory power that a President possesses.

    (Applause.)

    And when it comes to fighting the climate change — climate change, I will not take no for an answer.

    I will do everything in my power to clean our air and water, protect our people’s health, to win the clean energy future.

    This, again, sounds like hyperbole, but our children and grandchildren are counting on us.

    Not a joke.

    Not a joke.

    If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees Centigrade, we lose it all.

    We don’t get to turn it around.

    And the world is counting on us.

    And this is the United States of America.

    When we put our hearts and minds to it, there’s not a single thing beyond our capacity — I mean it — when we act together.

    end quotes

    And with all that hot air flying out of your computer screen and hitting you smack in the face like a No. 32 Louisville Slugger baseball bat, let’s pause once again for station identification.

    Reply

22. Paul Plante says

    September 4, 2023 at 9:47 pm

    Going back to July 20, 2022 and “Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” we have Joe Biden telling us as follows, to wit:

    And our economy is at risk.

    So we have to act.

    end quotes

    It is now a bit more than a year later, and we can see that yes, Joe Biden was very correct when he said a little a year ago that our economy was at risk – from BIDE-O-NOMICS – which takes us to a New York Post article titled “Inflation is rising again, and Bidenomics is still to blame” by the Post Editorial Board on 1 September 2023 for confirmation of that reality, to wit:

    Inflation accelerated in July: The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, rose 3.3% over one year earlier, up from June’s 3%.

    That’s still below the peak of 7% last summer — but heading back up in the wrong direction.

    Some claim it’s just a fluke.

    In fact, it’s most likely thanks to President Joe Biden’s new spending spree — care of the woefully misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” kicking in — and means a whole new round of rising prices.

    That law, as we noted at the time, actually increased federal spending, and the deficit, in the near-term.

    It’s now widely acknowledged that the ginormous spending in Biden’s first big Democrats-only law, the “American Recovery Act” (also ill-named), triggered the inflationary spiral that began in early 2021.

    So no surprise that another spending spree is again pushing inflation up.

    More: Since the IRA passed, we’ve learned that its supposed $271 billion in green subsidies (over a decade) actually will add up to three or four times as much, with Goldman Sachs estimating it over $1 trillion.

    All this, when average Americans are still slammed by Biden’s first inflation wave.

    As of July, 61% of US adults said they were living paycheck-to-paycheck, up from 59% last year, per a new report from LendingClub.

    That includes 78% of those earning under $50,000 a year and 65% of those earning $50,000 to $100,000.

    Credit-card, car-loan and consumer-loan delinquencies are all at their highest levels since the Great Recession of 2008-’09 — and top credit-card companies plan major hikes in fees.

    And mortgage rates are the highest since 2001.

    Some of that, of course, is the result of the Federal Reserve’s rapid interest-rate hikes.

    But the Fed’s moves have been necessary medicine — the only real anti-inflation move out of Washington, even as Biden and his party have kept on goosing spending.

    Yet, laughably, the president’s been taking credit for the Fed’s success as part of his “Bidenomics is working” tour, with his media echo chamber singing in chorus.

    Never mind that prices are up 16.9% since he took office and real wages down about 3%.

    Nor that gas prices are headed back up, and nearly three Americans in four say their financial situation is worsening.

    And now comes a sign that inflation isn’t even under control; Joe’s claims to have beaten it are as hollow as his months-long insistence back in 2021 that it was merely “transitory.”

    He doesn’t know what he’s talking about — and when he does, it’s a lie.

    end quotes

    So yes, people, our economy most definitely at risk – from Joe Biden, the Democrats and BIDE-O-NOMICS, which takes us a Business Insider titled “Huge government spending is undermining the Fed’s inflation battle, markets guru Larry McDonald warns” by George Glover on 1 September 2023 for further confirmation of the harm BIDE-O-NOMICS, or MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND, is doing to our economy to our detriment as a nation and as a people, to wit:

    Huge government spending is likely undermining the Federal Reserve’s ongoing fight against inflation, according to markets guru Larry McDonald.

    “Let’s ‘fight inflation’ with government spending up 10-15% year over year, a trending $1.7 trillion federal deficit for 2023,” the Bear Traps Report founder said on X Thursday.

    (The Congressional Budget Office expects the US’s debt pile to rise by around $1.4 trillion this year).

    “No one is calling them out… Washington is stepping on the gas (colossal deficit spending) and the brakes (epic rate hikes) at the same time,” McDonald added.

    end quotes

    So we have the INSANE SCENARIO before us of the federal reserve fighting to undo the harm being done by BIDE-O-NOMICS, which efforts themselves are doing further harm to our economy, and by extension, to we as a people, which is sheer stupidity on steroids, and that takes takes us back to July 20, 2022, for more Joe Biden, to wit:

    Folks, when I think about climate change — and I’ve been saying this for three years — I think jobs.

    Climate change, I think jobs.

    end quotes

    And that takes us forward in time to a CNBC article titled “Unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 3.8% in August as payrolls increased by 187,000” by Jeff Cox on September 1, 2023, to wit:

    The unemployment rate rose sharply in August, as the summer of 2023 neared a close with a job market in slowdown mode.

    While the nonfarm payrolls growth continued to defy expectations, previous months’ counts were revised considerably lower.

    The July estimate moved down by 30,000 to 157,000.

    June was revised lower by 80,000 to 105,000, making that the smallest monthly gain since December 2020.

    end quotes

    And there we see the game Joe Biden is playing with us as he goes out on the road to tout just how successful BIDE-O-NOMICS is, when he is presenting us with an ILLUSION – he gets a bogus number from HIS labor department headed up by one of his political lackeys, and then he and his team brag up that number, and then quietly, when no one is really looking, the numbers are moved down and Joe is never held to account for having deceived us months before.

    And there once again is a good place to pause for station identification and a word from our sponsors concerning everything you better buy right now, because you won’t be able to afford it tomarrow, and then, we will be right back!

    Reply

23. Paul Plante says

    September 5, 2023 at 7:46 pm

    It is not for nothing that I call the Cape Charles Mirror a GRAND PALLADIUM (something that affords effectual protection or security) of our LIBERTY as a free people, precisely because the Cape Charles Mirror is the one place remaining in all of America where we common folks with no bankroll or political clout, but who are possessed of our minds and the ability to engage in critical thinking, can engage in an analysis of these times we are living in, which brings us to a New York Post article titled “The media is finally waking up to the sham stats behind Biden’s economy boasts” by James Bovard on 5 September 2023, for a glimpse of why I think that is true about the Cape Charles Mirror, to wit:

    How could Washington’s “best and brightest” be so clueless for so long?

    end quotes

    They are clueless because Washington’s “best” are really not very bright, at all, and in fact, they really are quite stupid, but that is why they work in Washington, because that stupidity makes them politically dependable – people who will say what needs to be said when it needs to be said, no questions asked, which takes us back to the article, to wit:

    After perennially and uncritically repeating President Biden’s false claims about cutting the federal budget deficit, The Washington Post admitted Sunday that Biden will double the deficit this year to $2 trillion.

    The paper’s elite editors and reporters are mystified that “U.S. deficit explodes even as economy grows.”

    end quotes

    And while they are confused and mystified, we here at the Cape Charles Mirror have been all over that reality for some time now, because we here at the Cape Charles Mirror are what are known as CITIZENS who believe the government is answerable to us, not the converse.

    Going back to the article it continues, as follows, to wit:

    But did the Beltway get suckered on a Biden boom that exists largely due to sham statistics?

    end quotes

    How about rephrasing that as they colluded with the Biden regime to sucker us, because that is much closer to the truth and it is consistent with the role the Washington Post has been playing since at least the Viet Nam times, if not before, feeding us political BULL**** disguised as “news,” which again takes us back to the article, to wit:

    Americans have seen years of bait-and-switch statistics — glorious job-growth numbers followed by downward revisions long after the victory lap.

    end quotes

    And in the post above here, courtesy of the Cape Charles Mirror and its political independence, we have been talking about exactly that, which again takes us back to the New York Post, to wit:

    Almost all the “errors” in federal economic reports have been biased in Biden’s favor.

    How much of recent economic growth has been a statistical mirage or a political fraud?

    The Washington Post laments that “the surge in red ink has confounded many economists’ expectations.”

    Maybe DC needs economists who look at something aside from presidential press releases — such as the ledgers of federal outlays and revenue.

    Federal spending increased 16% in fiscal year 2023 — at the same time tax revenue plunged by 7%.

    Soaring budget deficits should be a surprise only to people who failed arithmetic in fifth grade.

    The Biden Deficit Explosion changes the storyline on the spring debt-ceiling showdown.

    At the time that compromise was brokered, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy boasted, “The systemic reforms we set in place mark the beginning of historic change in Washington.”

    But as former Republican Rep. Justin Amash observed, “Biden got the biggest win in the ‘deal’ with a debt limit suspension . . . until 2025.”

    “The rest is smoke and mirrors.”

    Naming that deal the Fiscal Responsibility Act was a legislative disgrace for a bill that authorized perpetual trillion-dollar deficits.

    Luckily for Congress, budget deals are not covered by federal regulations prohibiting financial fraud.

    Government spending equals power for politicians.

    Asking politicians to reduce spending is like asking a king to abdicate his throne.

    Biden said in May he wanted federal courts to rule the president is entitled to unlimited spending thanks to his perverse interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

    But the real problem there — and with Biden’s reckless spending — is with the 13th Amendment, which prohibited involuntary servitude.

    Americans are increasingly seeing their financial independence ravaged thanks to DC’s plundering and blundering.

    The dollar has lost 17% of its purchasing power since Biden became president.

    Home mortgage rates have nearly tripled to 7.5%, and consumer credit-card interest rates have almost doubled.

    Mr. ‘Middle-Class’

    Biden reminded listeners Monday his nickname was “Middle-Class Joe.”

    That honorific is proof of the craven press coverage he has almost always received.

    In 1974, he moved into one of the largest mansions in Delaware.

    NPR reported in 2019 that Biden had earned $17 million since leaving office.

    His connections to an endless array of shell companies and wire transfers from shady foreigners are also untypical for the middle class.

    Is the latest focus on Biden’s soaring deficits a sign the liberal elite is ready to toss him overboard ahead of the 2024 presidential election?

    Team Biden claims to have everything under control, but was shocked and outraged last month when US debt was officially downgraded by a top credit-rating firm.

    Perhaps The Washington Post’s readers are comforted by the assurance that the US budget crisis is not nearly as bad as Argentina.

    But that is the Scarlet A-word for any discussion of the specter of America plunging into downward financial and economic spirals.

    end quotes

    Could not have said it any better, myself!

    Reply

24. Paul Plante says

    September 6, 2023 at 5:44 pm

    So recapping here, people, what has BIDE-O-NOMICS brought us as a people and as a nation?

    How about CHAOS?

    As Joe Biden himself would say, and does over and over, you think I’m kidding?

    Not a joke!

    And to see what I am referring to, let’s go to a Rigzone article titled “Oil Soars to $90 as Supply Cuts Extend to Year End” by Bloomberg, Alex Longley, Grant Smith and Julia Fanzeres on September 05, 2023, where we have this dose of reality to consider, to wit:

    Brent oil rose above $90 a barrel for the first time since November as the largest OPEC+ producers extended their supply cuts to year-end.

    In a move that risks a fresh inflationary impetus for the global economy, Saudi Arabia will continue its unilateral production cutback of 1 million barrels a day until December, according to a statement on the state-run press agency.

    The price increase will likely spur displeasure in the US, where the Biden administration seeks to stave off the threat of $4-a-gallon gasoline.

    Prices are currently the highest seasonal level in more than a decade even as the Labor Day holiday marked the end of the US summer driving season.

    A renewed inflationary spike would squeeze consumers and risks derailing efforts by central bankers across the globe to quell inflation.

    The United States has “regular engagement with the Saudis at multiple levels — with their energy minister, with their leadership,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at a briefing Tuesday, after the OPEC+ decision.

    “And that will continue and we will make sure that they understand where we stand, and we will come to understand where they stand as well.”

    end quotes

    For the record, gas here in New York state has been above $4.00 per gallon for some time now, and once again will be jumping up once again, as Joe Biden tries to convince us that BIDE-O-NOMICS is bringing inflation down, and if anyone thinks inflation is going back to 2%, they are delusional, as we see in a Reuters article titled “Full impact of Fed hikes still to be seen in real economy, ex-vice chair Blinder says” by Lisa Pauline Mattackal on September 1, 2023, to wit:

    The ‘last mile’ of bringing inflation down may prove difficult for the Fed, Blinder said, adding that the central bank won’t be “stubborn” if inflation settles somewhat above its stated 2% goal.

    “Once that first digit of core PCE gets to be 2%, while maybe the second digit is 2.8%, I think the Fed is going to start getting relaxed about inflation,” he said.

    “They may conclude that the output and employment cost of getting from 2.8% to 2% is just very high,” Blinder said, adding, however, that they “won’t come anywhere close” to publicly indicating a shift in the inflation goal.

    end quotes

    Yes, people, they will just keep lying to us, telling us that they are fixin’ to get with it with respect to reducing inflation, when they have no real intent to do so, and meanwhile, according to a Reuters article titled “US unemployment rate spikes to 3.8%; labor market still has momentum” by Lucia Mutikani on September 1, 2023, we have another dose of the reality BIDE-O-NOMICS has created in our lives, to wit:

    WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) – U.S. job growth picked up in August, but the unemployment rate jumped to 3.8% and wage gains moderated, suggesting that labor market conditions were easing and cementing expectations that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates this month.

    end quote

    So much for Joe Biden’s specious claims about all the jobs his administration has supposedly created as compared with any other administration in the history of this nation, and while we are on the subject of the CHAOS caused by BIDE-O-NOMICS, not a joke, let us go to a Fox Business News article titled, quite appropriately, “Latest economic data shows Fed ‘not making any progress’ on inflation: ‘It’s a real mess,’ expert warns” by Madeline Coggins on 2 September 2023, to wit:

    Despite the Federal Reserve’s attempt to combat crippling inflation, one expert argued the latest jobs report and inflation data indicate the central bank is “not making any progress” in achieving its target of 2% inflation.

    “It shows that the Fed is not making any progress in its inflation fight because consumers keep spending and reducing their savings in spite of the rate hikes,” Euro Pacific Asset Management chief economist Peter Schiff told Fox News Digital.

    “The rate hikes are supposed to reduce spending and increase savings.”

    “That’s how they bring down inflation.”

    “But nothing has worked, and so inflation is going to get worse.”

    end quo9tes

    And inflation getting worse is what is causing the CHAOS, people, which is the opposite of STABILITY, which takes us back to that article for more, to wit:

    Among numerous sets of soft economic data, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index showed that consumer prices rose 0.2% from the previous month, according to the Labor Department.

    On an annual basis, prices climbed 3.3% — up from 3% the previous month, underscoring the challenge of taming high inflation.

    Core prices, which strip out the more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 0.2% from the previous month and 4.2% from the previous year.

    Schiff noted the PCE data was “significant” because of the “big spike in spending, but a very small gain in incomes.”

    “The way consumers handled that was raiding their savings.”

    “The savings rate plunged down to 3.5%.”

    “That’s a sign that the economy is weak because consumers need that rainy day fund because it’s raining.”

    “They’re having a hard time.”

    The report also contained sharp downward revisions to job growth earlier this summer.

    Gains for June and July were revised down by a total of 110,000 jobs to a respective 105,000 and 157,000, the government said, suggesting that the labor market is weaker than it previously appeared.

    Schiff pointed out the jobs report is “a continuation of what’s been going on all year.”

    “This is the seventh consecutive downward revision to the prior month.”

    “And they’re not small revisions.”

    “They’re significant,” he stressed.

    “If we’ve done something seven times in a row, it doesn’t seem very random because if these were random numbers, sometimes they’d be too high, sometimes they’d be too low.”

    “This is stagflation,” he said.

    “The economy is weakening, the labor market is weakening, but consumer prices are strengthening.”

    “The Fed’s at 5.5%.”

    “They’re no closer to getting 2% inflation than when they had rates at zero.”

    “Meanwhile, the budget deficits are higher now than they were when rates were at zero.”

    “So the government is spending more instead of less.”

    “So nothing has worked, and the markets are completely wrong on their benign outlook for future inflation.”

    Ultimately, Schiff says the Fed will likely announce another quarter or half point hike, but again emphasized the move will not “make a difference.”

    “They already went from zero to 5.5%, and it hasn’t done anything.”

    “So what’s an extra quarter point or a half point?”

    “It’s nothing,” he said.

    “We actually need much higher interest rates.”

    “The problem is we can’t afford them.”

    “So any interest rate high enough to fight inflation is too high for the markets.”

    “And in fact, not only does the Fed create a recession.”

    “But it creates a financial crisis, and that financial crisis will be considerably worse than the one we had in 2008,” he concluded.

    end quotes

    CHAOS, people!

    Beware, train wreck ahead!

    And with that said, let us once again cut to station identification.

    Reply

25. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 7, 2023 at 10:30 am

    CLIMATE GRIFT, people!

    That is a term unique to the Cape Charles Mirror, the GRAND PALLADIUM of our LIBERTY, that you do not come across in the gelded main-stream and legacy media, especially the media that acts as protectors and enablers of American dictator Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, aka THE BIG GUY, THE TEFLON DON, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, Celtic, or JRB Ware, the FATHER of BIDE-O-NOMICS, the massive BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE programs that is transforming our economy from a free-market system to one based on Marxist CENTRAL PLANNING, all based on a GREAT BIG LIE that is known as a CLIMATE CRISIS, which “crisis” is a manufactured one.

    GRIFT, of course, is defined as a SWINDLE, which is the use of deception to deprive someone of money, or a fraudulent scheme or action, and just yesterday, in a New York Post article titled “As a scientist, I’m not allowed to tell the full truth about climate change” by Patrick T. Brown on 6 September 2023, we had a member of the “CLIMATE GRIFT SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY,” the FRAUDSTERS or SCIENCE WHORES who support Joe Biden’s CLIMJATE CRSIS SCAM, one with a guilty conscience, come forth to reveal the inner workings of how the GRIFT or SCAM actually works, which expose not surprisingly drew a swift retort from Dr Magdalena Skipper, the editor-in-chief of one of the world’s leading academic journals who rebuked this “scientist” who claimed that research about climate change is rejected if it does not “support certain narratives,” which of course is how that game is played.

    As to how the game is played, and believe me, people, speaking as a professional engineer who began his career back in the 1960s, and who has seen a lot of water go over the dam since then, this is nothing new, just more pervasive now, given the HUGE amounts of money at play for those with no consciences who are in the game for “their pocket,” we have as follows from that public confession, to wit:

    I am a climate scientist.

    And while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires over many parts of the world, it isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus.

    So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause?

    Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.

    The paper I just published — “Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California” — focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior.

    I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.

    This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia.

    And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives — even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.

    To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change.

    However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.

    Why is this happening?

    It starts with the fact that a researcher’s career depends on his or her work being cited widely and perceived as important.

    This triggers the self-reinforcing feedback loops of name recognition, funding, quality applications from aspiring PhD students and postdocs, and of course, accolades.

    But as the number of researchers has skyrocketed in recent years — there are close to six times more PhDs earned in the U.S. each year than there were in the early 1960s — it has become more difficult than ever to stand out from the crowd.

    So while there has always been a tremendous premium placed on publishing in journals like Nature and Science, it’s also become extraordinarily more competitive.

    In theory, scientific research should prize curiosity, dispassionate objectivity, and a commitment to uncovering the truth.

    Surely those are the qualities that editors of scientific journals should value.

    In reality, though, the biases of the editors (and the reviewers they call upon to evaluate submissions) exert a major influence on the collective output of entire fields.

    They select what gets published from a large pool of entries, and in doing so, they also shape how research is conducted more broadly.

    Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted.

    I know this because I am one of them.

    Here’s how it works.

    The first thing the astute climate researcher knows is that his or her work should support the mainstream narrative — namely, that the effects of climate change are both pervasive and catastrophic and that the primary way to deal with them is not by employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning — or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines — but through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    This type of framing, with the influence of climate change unrealistically considered in isolation, is the norm for high-profile research papers.

    This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate paper.

    The authors should ignore — or at least downplay — practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change.

    Here’s a third trick: be sure to focus on metrics that will generate the most eye-popping numbers.

    Similarly, it is standard practice to calculate impacts for scary hypothetical future warming scenarios that strain credibility while ignoring potential changes in technology and resilience that would lessen the impact.

    Those scenarios always make for good headlines.

    As to why I followed the formula despite my criticisms, the answer is simple: I wanted the research to be published in the highest profile venue possible.

    When I began the research for this paper in 2020, I was a new assistant professor needing to maximize my prospects for a successful career.

    When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula, my papers were rejected out of hand by the editors of distinguished journals, and I had to settle for less prestigious outlets.

    To put it another way, I sacrificed contributing the most valuable knowledge for society in order for the research to be compatible with the confirmation bias of the editors and reviewers of the journals I was targeting.

    I left academia over a year ago, partially because I felt the pressures put on academic scientists caused too much of the research to be distorted.

    But climate scientists shouldn’t have to exile themselves from academia to publish the most useful versions of their research.

    We need a culture change across academia and elite media that allows for a much broader conversation on societal resilience to climate.

    The media, for instance, should stop accepting these papers at face value and do some digging on what’s been left out.

    The editors of the prominent journals need to expand beyond a narrow focus that pushes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

    And the researchers themselves need to start standing up to editors, or find other places to publish.

    What really should matter isn’t citations for the journals, clicks for the media, or career status for the academics — but research that actually helps society.

    end quotes

    And after a pause for station identification, we will be back with more on Joe Biden’s CLIMATE CRISIS GRIFT, so stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!

    Reply

26. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 8, 2023 at 7:01 pm

    So here we are, back to the question of exactly what is BIDE-O-NOMICS, and by the way, Dr Magdalena Skipper, the editor-in-chief of Nature, purported to be one of the world’s leading academic journals, who was literally puce with rage and quite incensed by having her publication “outed” by Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, has a net worth is $3.59 MILLION, which proves telling lies and misleading people about “science” and the (SHUDDER SHUDDER BE VERY SCARED) “CLIMATE CRISIS” is damn good bidness, and with all the lies we hear every day from the Biden regime, who can possibly be surprised by that.

    The money is in the RIGHT LIES at the right time, not in the truth, which
    is politically inexpedient, especially with respect to this CLIMATE CRISIS, the shifting sand foundatio0n for the house of cards known as BIDE-O-NOMICS.

    And going back to what BIDE-O-NOMICS is supposed to be, and this is relevant because according to an article by Next Impulse Sports titled “World reacts to Joe Biden announcement” by Kevin Harrish on 7 September 2023, the Biden campaign recently announced they’ll be bombarding the 2023 NFL season-opening weekend with a new ad highlighting President Biden’s historic economic agenda that is “delivering results for the American people,” which ought to go over real well with the millions of Americans getting further and further behind economically thanks to BIDE-O-NOMICS who watch NFL games, according to a Biden TWEET on mindless TWITTER in June of this year, BIDE-O-NOMICS is about growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, which on its surface is a really stupid saying that means literally nothing, but in substance defines the very essence of BIDE-O-NOMICS, which can be equated to a giant Hoover vacuum cleaner sucking clean the pockets, wallets and bank accounts of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid and transferring that wealth up though those in the middle, who get to skim some for themselves, while the bulk ends up in the pockets of those at the top, as it is supposed to be in the world of American dictator Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, aka THE BIG GUY, THE TEFLON DON, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, Celtic, or JRB Ware, the FATHER of BIDE-O-NOMICS, the massive BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE program that is transforming our economy from a free-market system to one based on Marxist CENTRAL PLANNING, all based on a GREAT BIG LIE that is known as a CLIMATE CRISIS.

    Think I’m kidding?

    Not a joke!

    And here, let us go back to June 28, 2023, where we have “Bidenomics Is Working: The President’s Plan Grows the Economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down,” wherein we are informed thusly, to wit:

    President Biden and Vice President Harris came into office determined to rebuild our economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down—and that strategy is working.

    end quote

    We at the bottom who are getting further and further behind, along with those in the middle in similar circumstances can attest to the fact that yes, BIDE=O=NOMICS is indeed working, as it drains our savings and transfers our wealth to those at the top, as opposed to those at the top having to send their wealth downwards.

    Going back to the Biden propaganda, it continues as follows, to wit:

    Even as they faced an immediate economic and public health crisis—with a raging pandemic, elevated unemployment, snarled supply chains, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses at risk of shuttering—the President and Vice President understood that it wouldn’t be enough to simply go back to the economy we had before the pandemic.

    That economy was saddled with longstanding challenges that held America back — including rising inequality and disinvestment from communities across the country.

    President Biden recognized that some of those challenges were rooted in a failed trickle-down theory that supported slashing taxes for the wealthy and big corporations, shrinking public investment in critical priorities like infrastructure and education, and failing to safeguard market competition.

    end quotes

    And what do we have now?

    Thanks to BIDE-O-NOMICS, taxes for the big corporations, especially those in foreign countries, have been slashed due to generous tax breaks.

    Going back to BIDE-P-NOMICS, we have more, to wit:

    The President took office determined to move beyond these failed trickle-down policies and fundamentally change the economic direction of our country.

    end quote

    By transforming our economy from a free market system to Marxist central planning such as Joe Stalin had back in the Soviet Union days, and Mao Tse Tung had in China with his GREAT LEAP FORWARD, which takes us back for more, keeping in mind that this is all empty PROPAGANDA as we shall see as we go along with facts, to wit:

    While our work isn’t finished, Bidenomics is already delivering for the American people.

    Our economy has added more than 13 million jobs — including nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs — and we’ve unleashed a manufacturing and clean energy boom.

    America has seen the strongest growth since the pandemic of any leading economy in the world.

    Inflation has fallen for 11 straight months and has come down by more than half.

    And we have done it all while responsibly reducing the deficit.

    None of this progress was an accident or inevitable — it has been a direct result of Bidenomics.

    And rather than taking us back to the failed trickle-down policies of the past, President Biden is committed to finishing the job and continuing to build an economy that finally works for working families — with better jobs, lower costs, and more opportunity.

    end quotes

    Reducing the deficit?

    That’s a load of horse****!

    The deficit isn’t being reduced by BIDE-O-NOMICS – to the contrary it is increasing thanks to BIDE-O-NOMICS, so that claim is a blatant lie, but since we are talking POLITICAL PROPAGANDA here, lies are what we have to expect, especially from this regime.

    And lower costs?

    Who is he kidding?

    That’s more bull**** which takes us to July 20, 2023 and the “FACT SHEET: Bidenomics is Boosting Clean Energy Manufacturing for Offshore Wind and Creating Good-Paying American Union Jobs,” where we have as follows:

    As part of President Biden’s historic actions to build a clean energy economy, the Biden-Harris Administration has jumpstarted an American offshore wind industry that will strengthen the nation’s energy security, make the power grid more reliable while lowering energy costs, and reduce dangerous climate pollution.

    end quote

    Make the power grid more reliable while lowering energy costs?

    NOT HARDLY, people!

    As we shall see, we the American people are about to get hosed and shafted BIG TIME, because energy costs, and here I mean electricity, are going UP, not down,

    So stay tuned and the facts will soon follow after a break for station identification and several hours of words from our sponsors about why what were commodity items yesterday are now luxury items today!

    Reply

27. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 9, 2023 at 10:10 pm

    So, people, let us cut to the chase here and go back to July 20, 2023, and Joe Biden’s claim in his “FACT SHEET: Bidenomics is Boosting Clean Energy Manufacturing for Offshore Wind and Creating Good-Paying American Union Jobs,” that the Biden-Harris Administration has jumpstarted an American offshore wind industry that will make the power grid more reliable and lower energy costs, and do some fact-checking to see if any of that BLATANT POLITICAL PROPAGANDA is in any way true.

    First of all, what about the claim that the Biden-Harris Administration has jumpstarted an American offshore wind industry that will make the power grid more reliable?

    HOW?

    How is the Biden-Harris Administration going to make the power grid more reliable with a bunch of off-shore windmills, when there is NOTHING now wrong with our existing power grid, which already is quite reliable?

    But we are talking BLATANT POLITICAL PROPAGANDA here, which is to say, a LITANY OF LIES, so this is what we have to expect coming to us from the Biden-Harris Administration, which thinks we are all stupid and as dumb as a box of rocks, which is a gross insult to the intelligence of the American people, or those of us who read the Cape Charles Mirror, anyway.

    And while we are on that subject of the specious claim of the Biden-Harris Administration making the power grid more reliable with a bunch of windmills, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, take a moment and watch these videos of windmills either falling over, or catching fire, or smacking eagles out of the sky or flinging their blades, and then ask yourself this important question: HOW DOES ANY OF THAT SERVE TO MAKE OUR POWER GRID RELIABLE:

    Wind Turbine in Germany Snaps and Collapses

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdlTV-SLjRc

    Crowell, Texas, July 22, 2022: Wind turbine catches fire after being struck by lightning

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubdMNNbnivA

    Dramatic footage shows Hull wind turbine on fire

    The Independent

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSAFoN8UyF4

    Wind turbine catches fire off British coast prompting evacuations | USA TODAY

    16 AUGUST 2023

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SADmTsILmQ

    This has some spectacular footage of a windmill literally disintegrating and spewing shrapnel, as well as an eagle strike and a windmill falling over: 5 Wind Turbines Which Failed (Environmentally Friendly?) – Engineering World

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVHzfUWul2Y

    Piece of wind turbine flies off at Boston’s Deer Island – WWLP-22News

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKnatQqk9ec

    And as you watch that black smoke pouring off those burning windmills, keeping in mind that train wreck out in East Palestine, Ohio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsw4ZKkLQp8 and the total lack of concern of the Biden-Harris Administration over those toxic fumes going into the environment, ask yourself how those burning windmills spewing black smoke comports with the claim of the Biden-Harris Administration that their offshore wind industry will reduce dangerous climate pollution.

    And before getting into the rising cost of power generated by Joe Biden’s windmills, let’s pause here for station identification, and then we will be right back with a Washington Examiner titled “The latest Biden energy crisis” by Matthew Kandrach on 3 July 2023, which article sets the stage for what is to follow on soaring electricity costs to we, the American people who are about to get hosed real good as a result of Joe Biden’s INSANE GREEN DREAM, to wit:

    When it comes to the nation’s supply of energy, the United States has an unfortunate tendency of stumbling from one crisis to another.

    Just as we turn the corner on energy-driven inflation and the shock of a global energy crisis, there is a new crisis now on the horizon: the rapidly eroding reliability of the nation’s supply of electricity.

    The situation is increasingly dire and made so by a spectacular failure of policy.

    Reply

28. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 10, 2023 at 9:16 pm

    So, yes, people, we are back to 3 July 2023, this being seventeen (17) days before Joe Biden’s specious claims in his “FACT SHEET: Bidenomics is Boosting Clean Energy Manufacturing for Offshore Wind and Creating Good-Paying American Union Jobs” on July 20, 2023 that the Biden-Harris Administration has jumpstarted an American offshore wind industry that will make the power grid more reliable and lower energy costs, and the Washington Examiner “The latest Biden energy crisis” by Matthew Kandrach where were told that when it comes to the nation’s supply of energy, the United States, i.e. Joe Biden and his pack of Democrats, has an unfortunate tendency of stumbling from one crisis to another, so that as we turn the corner on energy-driven inflation and the shock of a global energy crisis, there is a new crisis now on the horizon, namely, the rapidly eroding reliability of the nation’s supply of electricity, a situation that is increasingly dire and made so by a spectacular failure of policy by Joe Biden himself, who has deluded himself with his INSANE GREEN DREAM, which takes us back to that article for some essential background on this issue that is going to affect each and every one of us in myriad ways, to wit:

    In one congressional hearing after another, the nation’s energy regulators, grid operators, and utilities have warned that we’re bungling the energy transition.

    end quotes

    But it is not we, the American people who are bungling anything, because we have absolutely no part in the bungling, nor any say, either.

    To the contrary, that should read the Biden-Harris Administration is bungling the energy transition, because they are incompetent and haven’t a clue as to what they are doing, other than knee-jerking, which takes us back for more essential background, to wit:

    U.S. electricity demand is on the verge of skyrocketing, driven by electrification, as in the rapid uptake of electric vehicles and the stunning growth of data centers and artificial intelligence.

    Just as demand is beginning to soar, the Environmental Protection Agency and a host of state clean energy mandates are forcing traditional sources of power — namely coal and natural gas plants — off the grid.

    end quotes

    For the record, those plants being forced off the grid by the bungling Biden-Harris Administration have been a reliable source of electricity for decades, which takes us back to the article, to wit:

    Unfortunately, replacement renewable energy capacity and its enabling infrastructure, such as high-voltage interstate transmission lines — aren’t materializing nearly fast enough to bridge the gap between what’s needed and what’s currently available.

    A theoretical mismatch between supply and demand is now turning into an on-the-ground crisis from one coast to the other.

    Potential supply shortfalls during periods of peak demand — think scorching heat or bitter cold — is a new reality for most of the country.

    This summer, for example, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the regulator overseeing the reliability of the nation’s power supply, has warned that two-thirds of the nation is at high risk of outages should we see extended heat waves stretching across multiple states.

    So singularly focused on meeting carbon reduction goals, the Biden administration is pretending the grid crisis all but doesn’t exist.

    While EPA is pushing through a blitz of rules targeting fossil fuel plants that will only accelerate the loss of essential capacity, the folks tasked with keeping the lights on are begging for a rethink.

    Jim Robb, president and CEO of NERC, told Congress, “We must manage the pace of the transformation [of the grid] in an orderly way, which is currently not happening.”

    When asked if the generating capacity EPA’s power plant regulations are forcing into retirement can be replaced with renewables without affecting reliability, he said, “Not in the time frame we’re looking at.”

    “No.”

    Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Mark Christie testified that “the United States is heading for a reliability crisis.”

    He added, “I do not use the term ‘crisis’ for melodrama …”

    “The core problem is this: dispatchable generating resources are retiring far too quickly and in quantities that threaten our ability to keep the lights on.”

    Even FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, hand-picked by President Joe Biden, testified, “I am extremely concerned about the pace of retirements we are seeing of generators which are needed for reliability on our system.”

    What’s particularly appalling is how unnecessary this crisis is.

    At Biden’s direction, the EPA has hijacked the nation’s energy policy.

    Congress must now step in to right the ship.

    There’s an obvious off-ramp.

    Instead of tearing down the generating capacity we have, which currently underpins the system, we should be adding to it.

    New additions of wind and solar power should come on the shoulders of existing plants, increasing available capacity and providing an expanded reliability backstop.

    Despite claims to the contrary, there is nothing easy or simple about reshaping the nation’s supply of power.

    Trying to do so as electricity demand soars is a doubly difficult task.

    It’s past time we stop demonizing the coal and natural gas plants that are the very backbone of reliable, affordable power and instead pump the brakes on EPA’s regulatory march.

    The warnings couldn’t be clearer about the grid crisis we now face.

    When — not if — the blackouts come, the culprit won’t be a heat wave, bitter cold, or a technological glitch.

    It will be the Biden administration’s unwillingness to pivot from a grossly irresponsible and dangerous agenda.

    end quotes

    Something to think about, anyway, and when we return after a break for station identification, it will be with a Daily Caller article titled “Companies Are Abandoning Massive Offshore Wind Projects As Prices Skyrocket” by Nick Pope on 24 July 2023, where we will encounter Joe Buden’s MYTH of reliability, to wit:

    Billions of dollars in scheduled offshore wind developments in waters of the U.K. and U.S. have been paused or canceled in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg News.

    Three major offshore wind-related contracts have fallen through as rising costs and economic concerns have saddled developments off the American and British coasts, according to Bloomberg.

    While offshore wind proponents remain confident in the long term viability of offshore wind, the recent cancellations may be a sign of more substantial troubles for offshore wind despite strong support from the Biden administration, according to Bloomberg.

    Offshore wind energy is a key pillar of the Biden administration’s massive green energy agenda, as the administration wants offshore wind to produce enough energy to power 10 million American homes by 2030.

    The cancellations and turbulence are partially attributable to increasing costs for steel needed to build the giant turbines and the special ships needed for installation, according to Bloomberg.

    Reply

29. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 11, 2023 at 8:46 pm

    Before we go back to that Daily Caller article titled “Companies Are Abandoning Massive Offshore Wind Projects As Prices Skyrocket” by Nick Pope on 24 July 2023, where we were informed that Joe Biden’s prized windmill farms were being cancelled due to increasing costs for steel needed to build the giant turbines and the special ships needed for installation, which is an indication of GROSS CORPORATE NEGLIGENCE and STUPIDITY coupled with GOVERNMENTAL STUPIDITY on the part of the Biden regime, I would like to take a moment to explain the significance of that NYSPE I include with my name.

    NYSPE means that I am an engineer licensed by the state of New York to perform professional service such as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, design or supervision of construction or operation in connection with any utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, works, or projects wherein the safeguarding of life, health and property is concerned, when such service or work requires the application of engineering principles and data.

    To become licensed as a professional engineer, among other requirements, it is necessary to take and pass two eight-hour exams, and a mandatory question on the second exam that must be passed has to do with what is known as ENGINEERING ECONOMICS, which is to say, COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS regarding public projects such as Joe Biden’s windmill farms, and the reason I bring that up is because it is patently obvious that NO ATTEMPT was made by anyone to perform a cost-benefit analysis of these windmill farms, which is GROSS NEGLIGENCE by the Biden regime on steroids, given the amount of public monies being SQUANDERED here on Joe Biden’s INSANE GREEN DREAM.

    For those unfamiliar with the term “cost-benefit analysis,” which list would start with Joe Biden and the corporate executives of these windmill companies, the Harvard Business School has an article on the subject titled “How to do a Cost-Benefit Analysis & why it’s important” by Tim Stobierski on 5 September 2019, where we learn as follows, to wit:

    Are you unsure whether a particular decision is the best one for your business?

    Are you questioning whether a proposed project will be worth the effort and resources that will go into making it a success?

    The way that many businesses, organizations, and entrepreneurs answer these, and other, questions is through business analytics — specifically, by conducting a cost-benefit analysis.

    A cost-benefit analysis is the process of comparing the projected or estimated costs and benefits (or opportunities) associated with a project decision to determine whether it makes sense from a business perspective.

    Generally speaking, cost-benefit analysis involves tallying up all costs of a project or decision and subtracting that amount from the total projected benefits of the project or decision.

    If the projected benefits outweigh the costs, you could argue that the decision is a good one to make.

    If, on the other hand, the costs outweigh the benefits, then a company may want to rethink the decision or project.

    There are enormous economic benefits to running these kinds of analyses before making significant organizational decisions.

    By doing analyses, you can parse out critical information, such as your organization’s value chain or a project’s ROI (return on investment).

    end quotes

    As we are going to see, and I have been making this argument for months in here elsewhere, NO THOUGHT whatsoever was given to the costs associated with these PIE-IN-THE-SKY INSANE GREEN DREAMS of Joe Biden starting with these offshore wind farms.

    So what is involved in a cost-benefit analysis, which should have been performed before this BIDEN BOONDOGGLE involving the expenditure of massive sums of public money?

    For that answer, let us go back to the Harvard article and see, to wit:

    STEPS OF A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS

    1. Establish a Framework for Your Analysis

    For your analysis to be as accurate as possible, you must first establish the framework within which you’re conducting it.

    Identify the goals and objectives you’re trying to address with the proposal.

    What do you need to accomplish to consider the endeavor a success?

    This can help you identify and understand your costs and benefits, and will be critical in interpreting the results of your analysis.

    2. Identify Your Costs and Benefits

    Your next step is to sit down and compile two separate lists: One of all of the projected costs, and the other of the expected benefits of the proposed project or action.

    When tallying costs, you’ll likely begin with direct costs, which include expenses directly related to the production or development of a product or service (or the implementation of a project or business decision).

    Labor costs, manufacturing costs, materials costs, and inventory costs are all examples of direct costs.

    But it’s also important to go beyond the obvious.

    There are a few additional costs you must account for:

    Indirect costs: These are typically fixed expenses, such as utilities and rent, that contribute to the overhead of conducting business.

    Intangible costs: These are any current and future costs that are difficult to measure and quantify.

    Opportunity costs: This refers to lost benefits, or opportunities, that arise when a business pursues one product or strategy over another.

    Once those individual costs are identified, it’s equally important to understand the possible benefits of the proposed decision or project.

    Some of those benefits include:

    Direct: Increased revenue and sales generated from a new product

    Indirect: Increased customer interest in your business or brand

    Intangible: Improved employee morale

    Competitive: Being a first-mover within an industry or vertical

    3. Assign a Dollar Amount or Value to Each Cost and Benefit

    Once you’ve compiled exhaustive lists of all costs and benefits, you must establish the appropriate monetary units by assigning a dollar amount to each one.

    If you don’t give all the costs and benefits a value, then it will be difficult to compare them accurately.

    4. Tally the Total Value of Benefits and Costs and Compare

    Once every cost and benefit has a dollar amount next to it, you can tally up each list and compare the two.

    If total benefits outnumber total costs, then there is a business case for you to proceed with the project or decision.

    If total costs outnumber total benefits, then you may want to reconsider the proposal.

    end quotes

    And that takes us back to the Daily Caller article titled “Companies Are Abandoning Massive Offshore Wind Projects As Prices Skyrocket” by Nick Pope on 24 July 2023, where we will see that after the fact, after leaping without looking, these NEGLIGENT windmill companies are doing exactly that, reconsidering their proposals. because as a result of their gross negligence and a failure to conduct due diligence (a comprehensive appraisal of a business undertaken by a prospective buyer, especially to establish its assets and liabilities and evaluate its commercial potential) they are taking a financial bath, to wit:

    Offshore wind energy is a key pillar of the Biden administration’s massive green energy agenda, as the administration wants offshore wind to produce enough energy to power 10 million American homes by 2030.

    end quotes

    For the record, according to the facts, there were are 141.58 million houses in the US as of last year, and on the east coast, where these wind farms are to be located, if ever built, and based on estimates taken in 2017, the East Coast states have a total population of over 118 million inhabitants, so that this region is home to more than one-third of the nation’s total population, and is also the most populated coastal region in the country.

    So right there we are getting an idea of just how ill-thought out this whole BIDEN BOONDOGGLE has been from the start, because where are all those other people going to get their power from?

    Going back to the article, it continues as follows:

    The cancellations and turbulence are partially attributable to increasing costs for steel needed to build the giant turbines and the special ships needed for installation, according to Bloomberg.

    Steadily increasing interest rates make the price of debt even riskier for companies to take out to finance their offshore wind projects, according to Bloomberg.

    A subsidiary of Iberdrola SA, a Spanish renewables firm, canceled a contract that would have enabled the firm to sell energy produced by an offshore wind farm located off the Massachusetts coast, according to Bloomberg.

    The firm agreed to pay nearly $50 million in fines to get out of the contract to sell offshore wind energy, asserting that inflation and rising interest rates no longer make the deal financially sensible, according to Recharge News.

    Other companies involved in that particular project, Shell and OceanWind, are reportedly looking to change terms of their respective stakes in the development due to the turbulence, according to Recharge News.

    Orsted, a Danish green energy company, lost its bid to generate offshore wind energy off the Rhode Island coast because costs had risen so sharply that the state’s leading utility provider determined the project to be too pricey, according to Bloomberg.

    “Price inflation on turbines, cables etc (sic) have gone up sharply,” Mads Nipper, the company’s CEO, wrote in a LinkedIn post regarding the lost bid, adding that “this means that price of renewable energy regrettably must come up temporarily.”

    end quotes

    HUH?

    WOT?

    The price of renewable energy regrettably must come up?

    But that can’t be, people, because on 20 July 2023, just four days earlier. Joe Biden promised us in his “FACT SHEET: Bidenomics is Boosting Clean Energy Manufacturing for Offshore Wind and Creating Good-Paying American Union Jobs” that the Biden-Harris Administration has jumpstarted an American offshore wind industry that will make the power grid more reliable and lower energy costs!

    Did Joe lie to us?

    Of course he did, because he never does anything else, which takes us back to the Daily Caller, to wit:

    More than two times that much offshore wind power generation may also be at risk as developers seek to rework or get out of other deals that no longer make as much sense due to cost increases and other market forces, according to Bloomberg.

    end quote

    So what on earth is up with that, people?

    Think about it while we pause for station identification and when we return, we’ll go to a Motley Fool article titled “Wind Energy Faces its First Crisis as Costs Mount” by The Daily Upside on 10 August 2023, where we will see the following and in the meantime, stay tuned:

    It’s been anything but a breeze for wind.

    Siemens Energy, a major German player in the wind energy industry, told investors on Monday the losses at its wind turbine division will likely climb higher than previously thought.

    This comes amid broader financing turbulence in the wind industry, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

    One executive at energy company Equinor didn’t mince words talking to the WSJ: “At the moment, we are seeing the industry’s first crisis.”

    Reply

30. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 12, 2023 at 10:11 am

    And let us be very clear on one thing here, people – this so-called crisis of these windmill companies is SELF-INFLICTED as a result of their CORPORATE STUPIDITY, CORPORATE NEGLIGENCE and CORPORATE GREED, so why should we, the American people have to bear the financial burden for their failure to conduct due diligence?

    And make no mistake, that is what is about to happen!

    We as a people are going to be punished for CORPORATE STUPIDITY we had no control over and no say in.

    And on that note, before we go back to the Motley Fool article titled “Wind Energy Faces its First Crisis as Costs Mount” by The Daily Upside on 10 August 2023, according to a Fox News article titled “Biden staff abruptly end press conference while Biden is answering questions” by Hanna Panreck on 11 September 2023, the American DICTATOR Joe Biden is calling people like me who don’t buy into his CLIMATE CRISIS BULL**** a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier,” to wit:

    “Well, there’s a lot of lying, dog-faced pony soldiers out there about — about global warming, but not anymore.”

    “All of a sudden, they’re all realizing it’s a problem.”

    “And there’s nothing like seeing the light.”

    end quotes

    We’re seeing the light, alright, and it has absolutely nothing to do with global warming.

    The problem we are realizing is that we have a lying, dog-faced pony soldier in the Washington white house named Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior with an INSANE GREEN DREAM that is going to destroy our economy, which takes us back to the Motley Fool article titled “Wind Energy Faces its First Crisis as Costs Mount” by The Daily Upside on 10 August 2023, to wit:

    According to the WSJ, at least 10 major offshore wind farm projects in the US and Europe worth a collective $33 billion have run into some kind of difficulty over the past few weeks.

    end quote

    Talk about seeing the light, alright, there it is shining very light and very clear which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Wood Mackenzie: govts’ ‘unrealistic’ offshore wind expansion target would require $100 billion by 2026” on 18 August 2023, where we are informed as follows about the problems for us as a people being created by the lying, dog-faced pony soldier in the Washington white house named Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior with his INSANE GREEN DREAM that is going to destroy our economy, to wit:

    (Reuters) – Government targets to increase wind power installations would see annual capacity additions reach 80 gigawatts (GW) per year by 2030, requiring $100 billion in secured investment in the supply chain by 2026, Wood Mackenzie said in a report.

    “The supply chain is struggling to scale up and will be an impediment to achieving decarbonisation targets if change does not happen,” said Chris Seiple, vice chair, power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie.

    “Nearly 80 GW of annual installations to meet all government targets is not realistic, even achieving our forecasted 30 GW in additions will prove unrealistic if there isn’t immediate investment in the supply chain,” Seiple said.

    Wood Mackenzie noted that the low profit margins on offshore wind production and uncertainty about project timings resulting in very different supply-chain needs are making it hard to drum up investment in the sector.

    end quotes

    And of course, that takes us back to GOVERNMENT NEGLIGENCE and GOVERNMENT STUPIDITY because the supply chain issues should have been foreseen IF the Biden regime had performed a COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS of this BIDEN BOONDOGGLE, which of course they didn’t, and it is we, the American people who are going to pay that price, as well, which moves us along to a very informative article in The Telegraph on that subject titled “Anyone who thinks renewable wind and solar energy will be cheap is dreaming” by Kathryn Porter on 25 August 2023, where we have as follows, to wit:

    Politicians everywhere are repeating the mantra that renewable energy is cheap, and we need to use it instead of gas (currently expensive in and near Europe) to bring down energy costs for households.

    As US President Joe Biden said of clean energy before signing the poetically named Executive Actions on Tackling Climate Change, Creating Jobs, and Restoring Scientific Integrity “it’s affordable; because it’s clean; because, in many cases, it’s cheaper… [clean technologies] will ultimately become cheaper than any other kind of energy, helping us dramatically expand our economy and create more jobs with a cleaner, cleaner environment”.

    end quote

    And as you read that, keep in mind the fact that Joe Biden has never worked a real job in his life where he has been responsible for anything, or was ever held to account for anything; to the contrary, for his whole life long, he has been a hack politician feeding off the taxpayers, and when it comes to engineering and technologies, Joe Biden hasn’t a clue as to what he is talking about, which takes us back to that article, to wit:

    The Inflation Reduction Act has been designed to make this a reality.

    Lots of investment in lovely green energy and green jobs.

    This sounds wonderful.

    Unfortunately, renewables are not cheap.

    In the electricity market, we get round that problem with subsidies.

    Originally, subsidies were paid because the technology for producing renewable electricity was immature meaning upfront costs were exceptionally high, but after more than 20 years of subsidies, this is no longer the case.

    Today, electricity prices are still determined for the most part by the cost of fossil fuels, so renewable electricity can be sold at much higher prices than the short term cost of production (which is next to nothing).

    But even then, renewables still require subsidies.

    In fact, subsidies are growing.

    According to the Energy Information Administration, renewable subsidies in the US jumped to $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 from $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2016.

    end quotes

    And ask yourselves, people this important question, to wit:

    WHO IS IT THAT IS REALLY PAYING THOSE SUBSIDIES AS A FORM OF CORPORATE WELFARE?

    And here once again, we will pause for station identification!

    Reply

31. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 13, 2023 at 5:58 pm

    And before we go back to the Telegraph article titled “Anyone who thinks renewable wind and solar energy will be cheap is dreaming” by Kathryn Porter on 25 August 2023, where we had the statement therein that “according to the Energy Information Administration, renewable subsidies in the US jumped to $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 from $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2016,” and Joe Biden’s specious claim on January 27, 2021 before signing the poetically named Executive Actions on Tackling Climate Change, Creating Jobs, and Restoring Scientific Integrity that “clean energy is affordable; because it’s clean; because, in many cases, it’s cheaper,” which is ridiculous gibberish and Karmela Harris-type word salad, and “clean technologies will ultimately become cheaper than any other kind of energy, helping us dramatically expand our economy and create more jobs with a cleaner, cleaner environment,” let’s come forward to today on the subject of those subsidies which are coming out of the pockets of we, the American people, by going to a Reuters article titled “Treasury’s Adeyemo calls for eliminating subsidies, including to energy companies” on September 11, 2023, where we have Joe’s slow thinking, pipe smoking U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo spouting nonsense, as follows, to wit:

    Sept 11 (Reuters) – The United States should think about eliminating corporate subsidies, including to energy companies, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in New York on Monday.

    end quotes

    All well and good say I, cut them all out, but as we shall see, the slow-thinking Wally (slow thinking is a requirement to be a member of the Biden administration, so that NO ONE will outshine Joe) is being selective here, to wit:

    Adeyemo defended President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2024, noting that achieving fiscal sustainability would include modest tax increases, boosting tax revenue collections and finding other ways to cut costs.

    end quote

    HUH?

    Modest tax increases?

    Pardon me, but I thought I remembered Joe Biden saying that he was not going to tax us to pay for his INSANE GREEN DREAM and all his windmills, which was always a lie, because we are footing the bill which is growing all the time, which takes us back to Wally, to wit:

    “We want to be sure we have the money to pay for our priorities,” he told the Economic Club of New York.

    Biden’s budget calls for boosting revenues by eliminating $31 billion in tax preferences and subsidies for oil and gas companies, who he says have failed to invest in boosting energy production, while continuing to offer targeted tax credits for clean-energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act.

    end quotes

    Tax credits for clean-energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act means those LARGE CORPORATIONS do not pay their fair share, which takes us back to Wally. to wit:

    “We can also think about what we can do to eliminate subsidies,” he said.

    “None of us thinks it makes sense to subsidize energy companies in light of how they’re doing in this country.”

    “But there are probably other subsidies and other things we can do to make the budget more efficient.”

    end quotes

    What hogwash!

    So let’s go back to the Telegraph, where we have as follows concerning the reality facing us as a people and as a nation, despite Joe Biden’s bull**** to the contrary, keeping in mind that Joe Biden is the quintessential (representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class) lying, dog-faced pony soldier, to wit:

    If projects are not economic when electricity prices are at record highs, how will they work if a time comes when electricity prices are very low?

    That’s the dirty little secret of the renewables game.

    The very high upfront costs mean developers have to be paid lots of money, and if the money from selling electricity isn’t enough then it has to come from elsewhere.

    But ultimately it comes out of consumers’ pockets, whether directly through higher bills, or indirectly through higher taxes.

    That’s not all.

    Developed countries built their electricity grids decades ago when electricity came from a few large power stations.

    Renewable generation is built where it’s windy/sunny or has good access to water at height or moving fast (for hydro).

    These places tend to be not where old power stations used to be or where consumers are.

    This means lots of new infrastructure is needed to connect it all up.

    Guess who has to pay for that?

    Next is the issue of intermittency: wind and sun vary from moment to moment.

    Individual clouds make a measurable difference to generation, as do gusts of wind.

    This creates two additional challenges – one is that if there’s no wind or sun, renewable output falls – the famous California “duck curve” measures the way solar output changes through the day with a major drop at sunset, when gas power stations need to take over.

    Other sources of generation (there is no at-scale energy storage solution) have to be on standby to run when renewable output falls.

    But no-one builds standby anything unless it’s worth their while – and that’s another big chunk of change consumers have to cough up.

    The other problem with intermittency is that electricity grids need supply and demand to be finely balanced in real time.

    Grid equipment can be damaged if this balance is not maintained within narrow tolerances.

    If clouds and gusts of wind change supply from moment to moment, grid operators have to use a range of techniques such as discharging batteries, getting conventional power stations to vary output, or large users to vary consumption, over short timeframes.

    Unsurprisingly, nobody does any of this for free.

    Another cost to consumers.

    The final sting in the tail is that the grid infrastructure, despite expansion to cope with renewables, often can’t use all the renewable electricity generated.

    This electricity is wasted, and the renewable generators have to be compensated through “curtailment” or “congestion” fees, again paid for by consumers.

    According to consulting firm Grid Strategies, costs to consumers from congestion on the US power grid jumped 56 per cent in 2022 to an estimated $20.8 billion from $13.3 billion the year before.

    Even if the wholesale price of electricity fell to zero to reflect the short-run marginal cost of producing renewable electricity, the price paid by consumers would simply be more disconnected from the wholesale price than it is today.

    Consumers pay the wholesale price, plus a network cost (including congestion costs), plus a balancing cost, plus a subsidy cost, plus the retailer/supplier operating costs, plus some profits for everyone in the chain from the generator to the network owner to the network operator to the retailer.

    And then some taxes on top.

    And to hit net zero the whole electrical system – expanded renewables, expanded grid, backup fossil, balancing, subsidies, curtailment payments and all – will have to be expanded to multiple times its current size, as fossil fuels used directly in such things as heating and transport are replaced with electricity.

    Anyone who thinks all this is going to mean cheaper energy is dreaming.

    With respect, Mr President.

    end quotes

    Yes, indeed, dreaming the INSANE GREEN DREAM of American DICTATOR Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, the Joe Stalin of our times in America today!

    Reply

32. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 14, 2023 at 10:20 am

    June 28, 2023, people, and a huge announcement from TEAM BIDEN titled “Bidenomics Is Working: The President’s Plan Grows the Economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down,” where we were told by Joe that that under BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe has proven that we can make smart investments in the American people while reducing the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes, closing wasteful tax loopholes, and slashing wasteful spending on special interests.

    Sounds rosy, does it not?

    And we were further told that during Joe’s first two years as president, he presided over $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction — a larger reduction than under any other President in American history and he has signed legislation into law to reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, including by ensuring the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations pay their fair share, cracking down on wealthy tax cheats, and lowering prescription drug costs for the American people by cutting wasteful giveaways to Big Pharma.

    And his Budget would reduce the deficit by another more than $2.5 trillion over the next decade with additional reforms, including requiring the wealthiest Americans and the largest multinational corporations to pay at least the tax rates that many middle-class families do.

    Well, the news is now out on what BIDE-O-NOMICS is really delivering for the American people, so let’s take a look by going to a Reuters article titled “US posts August budget surplus after student loan cost reversal” by David Lawder on September 13, 2023 where we have as follows:

    Receipts last month totaled $283 billion, down 7% or $21 billion from a year earlier, while outlays came to $194 billion after the student loan reversal, down 63% or $329 billion.

    end quote

    Focus on “receipts down $21 billion from a year earlier.”

    Then we have this:

    With one month to go before the fiscal 2023 year ends on Sept. 30, the government’s year-to-date deficit totaled $1.524 trillion, a 61% increase over a $946 billion budget gap for the same period of fiscal 2022.

    The 11-month deficit was almost as much as the White House’s latest forecast of a $1.543 trillion deficit for the full fiscal year, marking the return of rising U.S. deficits after declines during Biden’s first two years as president.

    end quotes

    So BIDE-O-NOMICS IS NOT reducing the deficit, at all – it is contributing to the deficit, as we see in the following, to wit:

    Fiscal year-to-date receipts totaled $3.972 trillion, down 10% or $434 billion from a year earlier, primarily due to lower non-withheld individual income tax receipts, higher tax refunds as the Internal Revenue Service churned through a huge backlog of unprocessed paper tax returns, and far lower Federal Reserve earnings due to higher interest rates.

    Year-to-date outlays totaled $5.496 trillion, up 3% or $142 billion, partly reflecting the student loan reversal.

    The Treasury’s net interest cost for the period hit a record $808 billion, up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier.

    The weighted average interest rate on U.S. Treasury debt was 2.92% in August, up from 1.97% in August 2022.

    end quotes

    When that says the Treasury’s net interest cost for the period hit a record $808 billion, up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier, what that really means is that OUR cost for interest on the DEFICITS caused Joe’s RECKLESS FISCAL PROFLIGACY, which is MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE has up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier, because it is WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE who are paying for the debt, and that interest is a TAX on us.

    And that TAX is going up because bond yields are going up, and bond yields, which is the interest paid on U.S. debt, have gone up because investors are demanding a premium to hold the debt, as the supply keeps increasing, and the supply is increasing because “TOODLES” Yellen is running a classic Ponzi scheme, where she has to sell debt today to pay for debt sold yesterday as bonds come to maturity.

    And how about inflation, people?

    According to another Reuters article titled “Gasoline lights up US consumer inflation; underlying trend steadily improving” by Lucia Mutikani on September 13, 2023, we have as follows, to wit:

    The consumer price index increased by 0.6% last month, the largest gain since June 2022, after rising 0.2% for two straight months.

    Food prices gained 0.2% for the second straight month.

    A 1.2% drop in prices of used cars and trucks was offset by higher costs for motor vehicle insurance, hospital services, prescription medication as well as household furnishings and operations.

    Airline fares rebounded 4.9%, reflecting higher jet fuel prices.

    end quotes

    That is reality, people, which takes us to a CNBC article on the same subject titled “August core inflation, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3%, hotter than expected” by Jeff Cox on September 13, 2023 where we have this, to wit:

    Inflation posted its biggest monthly increase this year in August as consumers faced higher prices on energy and a variety of other items.

    The jump in headline inflation hit worker paychecks.

    Real average hourly earnings declined 0.5% for the month, though they were still up 0.5% from a year ago, the Labor Department said in a separate release.

    end quotes

    So under BIDE-O-NOMICS, while CORPORATE AMERICA is actually doing quite well for itself thanks to the FISCAL PROFLIGACY of Joe Biden and all his CORPORATE SUBSIDIES, WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE are taking it on the chin!

    So BIDE-O-NOMICS is putting us as a nation and as a people further behind, because we clearly are not getting ahead!

    So much for Joe’s plan to grow the economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down!

    It’s a load of CRAP!

    Reply

33. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 16, 2023 at 11:25 am

    CHAOS, people!

    Yes, chaos, that is what BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe Biden’s MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE PROGRAM that enrichens those at the top by sucking the lifeblood out of those at the bottom, and passing it up to those in the middle, who get to take a cut before passing the bulk up to those at the top is delivering for the American people, as inflation continues to go up, not down, as we see in a CNBC article titled “August wholesale inflation rises 0.7%, hotter than expected, but core prices in check” by Jeff Cox on September 14, 2023, to wit:

    Inflation at the wholesale level rose more than expected in August, countering recent data showing that price increases have tempered lately.

    Final demand goods prices rose 2% in August, the biggest one-month gain since June 2022.

    end quotes

    Contrast that reality with this burst of blather and hoo-hah from Biden clean energy czar Podesta on August 16, 2023 in the Fox Business News article titled “Biden’s clean energy czar Podesta says Inflation Reduction Act is ‘all about’ cutting carbon pollution – WH senior adviser John Podesta said the IRA is working to eliminate ‘carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis'” by Kyle Morris, to wit:

    Senior White House adviser John Podesta said Wednesday that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), despite its name, is “all about” rolling back the carbon pollution that has been “driving the climate crisis.”

    end quote

    Is that a version of “BAIT-AND-SWITCH,” people?

    Seems it to me, especially since it is not reducing inflation, nor according to John Podesta, was it ever supposed to.

    So calling it the Inflation Reduction Act was a falsehood, plain and simple, just another blatant lie from an administration that does nothing but lie, day after day after day.

    And other than being nothing more than just another politically-reliable Democrat party hack, who exactly is John Podesta, that he is in any way “qualified” to be Joe Biden’s “clean energy czar?”

    Let’s take a look:

    John David Podesta Jr., born January 8, 1949, is an American political consultant who has served as senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation since September 2022.

    Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015.

    Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.

    He is the former president, and now chair and counselor, of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank in Washington, D.C., as well as a visiting professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

    Additionally, he was a co-chairman of the Obama-Biden transition team.

    In his current role as senior advisor to President Biden, Podesta oversees the disbursement of $370–783 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

    end quotes

    Ahhhh, yes, as Joe’s “clean energy czar,” a position he really has no qualifications for other than being a trusted party hack who will go along to get along, John Podesta is the one who hands out the CORPORATE WELFARE for Joe Biden, with no questions asked, while handing us the bill for his largesse!

    Going back to that Fox article, it continues, thusly:

    Speaking from the briefing room at the White House, Podesta, who was selected by President Biden to serve as senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation in September 2022, discussed the Biden administration’s green energy efforts related to climate change.

    Speaking on the subject of climate disasters on the measure’s one-year anniversary, Podesta insisted that the IRA is working to eliminate carbon pollution.

    “To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis,” he said.

    “And that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about.”

    Podesta’s comments came nearly a week after Biden admitted that the Democrats’ signature piece of legislation – the IRA – wasn’t as much about actually reducing the then-record-high inflation facing the nation as he originally touted to the American people.

    “I wish I hadn’t called it that.”

    “It has less to do with reducing inflation than it does providing for alternatives that generate economic growth,” Biden said during an appearance at a campaign fundraiser in Park City, Utah according to the press pool report.

    end quotes

    Generate Economic growth?

    For whom?

    Let’s go to a Reuters article titled “US retail sales beat expectations as Americans pay more for gasoline” by Lucia Mutikani on September 14, 2023, where we have this answer, to wit:

    WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in August as a surge in gasoline prices boosted receipts at service stations, but the trend in underlying spending on goods slowed as Americans grappled with higher inflation and borrowing costs.

    Though spending remains supported by higher wages from the tight labor market, the outlook is darkening.

    Excess savings accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be run down.

    Credit card balances have risen sharply, with delinquencies at an 11-year high in the second quarter, according to recent data from the New York Federal Reserve.

    “We estimate that the stock of excess savings that has kept the consumers afloat has declined about 70% to $600 billion on aggregate and that excess savings for lower-income families have largely been depleted,” said Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon in New York.

    end quotes

    From the bottom up and middle out, people, as opposed to from the top down – that is the heart and soul of BIDE-O-NOMICS – HOOVER out the money from the pockets of those at the bottom so that those at the top can continue to live in the luxurious style they are not only accustomed to, but entitled, to, as well, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:

    “And so, we’re now in a situation where if you take a look at what we’re doing in the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to make their — meet their basic needs,” Biden said.

    end quote

    Which is pure political BULL**** from the man who is America’s quintessential lying, dog-faced pony soldier!

    Going back to the Fox article, we have more, to wit:

    “Even when there is inflation there is a way to provide breathing room,” he added, citing negotiating medical prices as one example.

    end quote

    Which takes us to a Reuters article titled “US consumer spending accelerates; declining savings a red flag” by Lucia Mutikani on August 31, 2023, to wit:

    Services spending increased 0.8%, driven by portfolio management and investment advice services, housing and utilities, restaurants and healthcare.

    end quote

    Healthcare is going up, not down, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:

    Biden’s comments are a sharp turn from what he said in July 2022 ahead of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage through Congress on a party line vote.

    “The Inflation Reduction Act is the strongest bill you can pass.”

    “It will lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis, and promote energy security,” he said.

    end quotes

    ALL of which, as we shall see in the next installment of this series, is pure Biden BULL**** as only Joe can throw it, and now once again, time for station identification, and when we return it will be with the Reuters article titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, and the Reuters article titled “Biden’s offshore wind target slipping out of reach as projects struggle” by Nichola Groom on September 15, 2023, where we were informed that President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, according to forecasters and industry insiders, so please stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!

    Reply

34. Paul Plante says

    September 17, 2023 at 7:57 pm

    As to BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is takes money from the pockets of those at the bottom and passes it up through the hands of those in the middle so they can take a cut a cut, before passing the bulk up to those on the top, what Joe Biden calls wealth distribution “flowing upward,” as opposed to “trickling down,” according to an America Insider article titled “Poll Shows How Americans Really Feel About ‘Bidenomics’” by Carver Malone on 16 September 2023, we have as follows, to wit:

    It’s becoming unmistakably clear that Joe Biden is completely inept at handling the economic problems that face America.

    A poll from the Wall Street Journal shows that roughly 3 out of 5 voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy.

    63% say they do not approve of Biden’s handling of runaway inflation.

    end quotes

    I don’t at all dispute the statistics, but I would correct that lead sentence to read that Joe Biden’s completely inept handling of our economy is what has led to the serious economic problems that face America, and its people, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, where we have this outcome of BIDE-O-NOMICS to consider, to wit:

    NEW YORK, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve losses breached the $100 billion mark, central bank data released on Thursday showed, and they’re likely to go a lot higher before the red ink stops.

    The U.S. central bank is continuing to pay out more in interest costs than it takes in from the interest it earns on bonds it owns and from the services it provides to the financial sector.

    While there’s considerable uncertainty around how it will all play out, some observers believe Fed losses, which began a year ago, could eventually as much as double before abating.

    end quotes

    Talk about gross mismanagement of our nation’s monetary system, there we have it before us, in graphic black and white, and that takes us to an Associated Press article from May 31, 2022 titled “Biden plots inflation fight with Fed chair as nation worries” by Josh Boak, Christopher Rugaber and Zeke Miller, where we have this following about the blind and witless leading the blind and just plain dumb as a box 0f rocks, to wit:

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Focused on relentlessly rising prices, President Joe Biden plotted inflation-fighting strategy Tuesday with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, with the fate of the economy and his own political prospects increasingly dependent on the actions of the government’s central bank.

    end quotes

    And as we can clearly see from this Reuters article above here titled titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, Joe Biden put our future and our fate into the hands of a bunch of politically-appointed mor0ns who in the meantime since have run the central bank into the ground, which takes us back to the AP article, as follows:

    Biden hoped to demonstrate to voters that he was attuned to their worries about higher gasoline, grocery and other prices whiles still insisting an independent Fed will act free from political pressure.

    end quote

    Independent Fed?

    Act free from political pressure?

    Not hardly, people!

    Going back to that story, we have more as follows:

    Like Biden, the Fed wants to slow inflation without knocking the U.S. economy into recession, a highly sensitive mission that is to include increasing benchmark interest rates this summer.

    end quote

    And it is the increasing of those benchmark interest rates that has caused the fed to lose so much money, and that increasing was as a result of the inflation caused by Joe Biden’s reckless economic policies which have greatly increased out natio0n debt load and deficit, so we have the spectacle of the federal reserve trying to undo the harm to our economy being done to it by BIDE-O-NOMICS.

    Going back to the AP article, it continues as follows:

    The president said he would not attempt to direct that course as some previous presidents have tried.

    “My plan to address inflation starts with simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed’s independence,” Biden said.

    The sit-down on a heat-drenched late-spring day was Biden’s latest effort to show his dedication to containing the 8.3% leap in consumer prices over the past year.

    Rising gas and food costs have angered many Americans heading into the midterm elections, putting Democrats’ control of the House and Senate at risk.

    Biden is running out of options on his own.

    His past attempts — oil releases from the strategic reserve, improving port operations and calls to investigate price gouging — have fallen short of satisfactory results.

    High prices have undermined his efforts to highlight the low 3.6% unemployment rate, leaving a growing sense of pessimism among Americans.

    Tuesday’s meeting was the first since Powell was renominated in November by Biden to lead the central bank and came two weeks after his confirmation for a second term by the Senate.

    It also represented something of a reversal by Biden as inflation weighs heavily on voters’ minds.

    The president asserted in April 2021 that he was “very fastidious about not talking” with the independent Fed and wanted to avoid being seen as “telling them what they should and shouldn’t do.”

    The White House, along with the Fed, initially portrayed the inflation surge as a temporary side effect caused by supply chain issues as the U.S. emerged from the pandemic.

    Republican lawmakers were fast to criticize Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package from last year as pumping too much money into the economy and causing more inflation.

    That narrative also has held some sway with leading economists who say the financial support was excessive even though it helped the job market roar back.

    The administration has walked back its previous statements.

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN on Tuesday evening that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy.

    “Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” she said.

    “But we recognize that now the Federal Reserve is taking the steps that it needs to take.”

    “It’s up to them to decide what to do.”

    This was only the fourth meeting between the president and the Federal Reserve chair, though Powell breakfasts as often as once a week with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who also attended Tuesday’s meeting along with Brian Deese, the White House National Economic Council director.

    Ahead of the meeting, Biden suggested that he and Powell were aligned on addressing inflation.

    “My predecessor demeaned the Fed, and past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately during periods of elevated inflation,” Biden said in an op-ed posted Monday by The Wall Street Journal.

    “I won’t do this.”

    “I have appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution.”

    “I agree with their assessment that fighting inflation is our top economic challenge right now.”

    Biden’s endorsement of the Fed’s policies — a stance echoed by congressional GOP leaders — gives Powell important political cover for a series of sharp interest rate hikes intended to rein in higher prices.

    Yet the higher rates could cause layoffs, raise the unemployment rate and even tip the economy into recession.

    Amid worries that the U.S. economy may repeat the high, persistent inflation of the 1970s, the cooperation between Biden and Powell represents a crucial difference from that time and could make it easier for the Fed to restrain higher prices.

    In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon pressured Fed chair Arthur Burns to lower interest rates to spur the economy before Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign.

    Nixon’s interference is now widely seen as a key contributor to runaway inflation, which remained high until the early 1980s.

    “That’s why comparisons to the 1970s are wrong,” said Sebastian Mallaby, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a biography on former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, “The Man Who Knew.”

    “The president’s essay was striking because he explicitly backed the Fed.”

    Powell has pledged to keep ratcheting up the Fed’s key short-term interest rate to cool the economy until inflation is “coming down in a clear and convincing way.”

    Biden, in his op-ed, indicated that the record-setting pace of job creation in the aftermath of the pandemic would slow dramatically, suggesting more moderate levels of 150,000 jobs per month from 500,000.

    That, he said, would be no warning of weakness but “a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery—as this kind of job growth is consistent with a low unemployment rate and a healthy economy.”

    end quotes

    So there we have Joe Biden taking full responsibility for the total mess that is the federal reserve today with his statement that he appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution, which in turn gives him responsibility for this following from the Reuters article, to wit:

    William English, a former top central bank staffer now at Yale University, said he sees a “peak” loss of around $200 billion by 2025.

    Meanwhile, Derek Tang of forecasting firm LH Meyer said the loss is likely to be between $150 billion and $200 billion by next year.

    The Fed captures its losses in what it calls a deferred asset, an accounting measure that tallies what it will eventually have to cover in the future before it can return to its normal practice of returning its profits to the Treasury.

    A money-losing Fed has not been a surprise given its aggressive campaign to raise interest rates, which has taken the benchmark overnight interest rate from the near-zero level in March 2022 to its current 5.25%-5.50% range.

    The Fed bought bonds aggressively during the coronavirus pandemic and its immediate aftermath, and in just over the last year it has shed about $1 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds.

    For some time the Fed has returned substantial amounts of money back to the Treasury, and this money has been used to lower government deficits.

    James Bullard, the former head of the St. Louis Fed, said in an interview on Wednesday that he’s “worried” about the central bank’s losses and “it would be better not to do this.”

    He said it likely would have been better for the Fed to have kept some of the $1 trillion it has given the Treasury over the last decade to cover the sort of losses it is now navigating, but he noted that’s not the system Congress has set up.

    Whenever the Fed does stop losing money, it will take years before it is able to take the deferred asset off its books and start returning cash to the Treasury.

    In 2022, the Fed handed back $76 billion, after returning $109 billion in 2021.

    What’s more, those high levels of earnings were tied to the very low rates then in place.

    It remains an open question whether the Fed will be able to get back to that landscape, although some in the central bank, notably New York Fed President John Williams, are optimistic that can happen.

    end quotes

    And there is reality, people.

    Think I’m kidding?

    Not a joke!

    Reply

35. Paul R Plante, NYSPE says

    September 18, 2023 at 8:57 pm

    Before we go further here into the adverse consequences of the FROM BOTTOM UP AND MIDDLE OUT TO TRANSFER THE WEALTH TO THOSE AT THE TOP policies of BIDE-O-NOMICS, we are right now presented with the serious question as to whether those who comprise the politically-appointed federal reserve board have any kind of clue as to what they are doing, now that they have run the federal reserve literally into the ground so that it is losing money big time, and therefore is unable to contribute to the treasury, which causes “TOODLES” Yellen to have to issue additional debt to make up for the shortfall caused by the policies of the inept and incompetent federal reserve, itself, and that question takes us back in time to the Minutes of the Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on July 2-3, 1996, where we had Thomas C. Melzer, the 10th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from June 1, 1985, to January 30, 1998, who was an outspoken proponent of the idea that the Fed should focus on price stability (low or no inflation) as its sole monetary policy objective, speaking on the record as to federal reserve policy, to wit:

    One final comment with respect to the forecast: I am concerned about how these forecasts may be interpreted.

    We are asked to prepare forecasts based on what we think an appropriate policy stance would be, although the policy assumptions themselves are not published with the forecast or for that matter even requested.

    If the FOMC consensus happened to be identical to the St. Louis forecast of lower inflation in 1997, would the interpretation by the public be that nothing more needs to be done to contain inflation?

    There is the dilemma.

    On the one hand, if we forecast accelerating inflation assuming no change in the stance of policy, we may make it easier to take appropriate actions to contain it.

    On the other hand, if we forecast decelerating inflation predicated on a tightening of policy, we may make it more difficult in fact to take the necessary actions.

    Either way our credibility could be damaged.

    I think we should make it clear in publishing our forecasts that the outcomes are not independent of policy actions and may in fact presume some tightening actions.

    Having said that, our forecasts of variables that we can influence, namely inflation in future years, are important to markets.

    We ought to use every opportunity to forecast lower inflation in the years ahead and do our best to make such an outcome a reality.

    end quotes

    In other words, people, wing it and fudge the numbers, because it is about creating expectations, and that is it.

    The federal reserve, which has not had any credibility for some long time now, uses models of what they think reality is, and models of reality are not in fact reality, and may not even be close, which thought takes us to these words from William J. McDonough, the eighth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on that subject of models, at that same meeting, to wit:

    Our views are based on models that all of us have to use and that have the quality of thinking that past events are likely to be repeated in the future.

    Intellectually, I think that is probably very sound.

    However, I am having great difficulty trying to reconcile my intuition and my mind.

    That may be because of my strong reaction to what I think is a very unfortunate debate going on in the country with those who consider price stability as somehow antagonistic to growth.

    The higher the growth, the more we have to worry about price stability in that view.

    Some of us unfortunately have contributed to that debate.

    At the same time, what my intuition is telling me is that, rather like the comments the Chairman made in response to a question by President Minehan, there may in fact be developments on the cost side, on the wage side, and therefore in the future on the price side that we do not fully understand.

    I think it probably would not be a very good idea for us to move policy at a time when the outlook for what we are uniquely responsible for, which is price stability, is questionable both intellectually and practically.

    So, I think we must busy ourselves between now and the next meeting with trying to understand as best we can what if anything new is happening, as you suggested in your remarks, Mr. Chairman.

    end quotes

    And right now, the vaunted federal reserve is lost in the woods and wandering in circles, because its models, which were based on yesterday, are no longer valid today, which takes us back to Joe Biden’s claim that he is the one who appointed what he in his warped and twisted value system thought were highly qualified people from both parties to lead the federal reserve, and the question of federal reserve independence from the same Biden regime that appointed its members, which takes us to a CNN article from March 22, 2023 titled “Biden White House closely watching Federal Reserve following bank failures” by MJ Lee and Phil Mattingly, where we have the Biden regime attempting to micromanage the federal reserve, to wit:

    CNN — All eyes are trained on the Federal Reserve as it prepares to announce another potential interest rate hike Wednesday afternoon – exactly 10 days after the Biden administration stepped in with dramatic emergency actions to contain the fallout from two bank failures.

    Biden White House officials will be closely watching the highly anticipated rate decision – and monitoring every word of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s public comments – for any telling clues on how the central bank is processing what has emerged one of the most urgent economic crises of Joe Biden’s presidency.

    The moment creates a complex, if carefully observed, dynamic for the administration’s top economic officials who have spent much of the last two weeks engaged in regular discussions and consultations with Powell and Fed officials as they’ve navigated rapid and acute risks to the banking system.

    But Biden has made the central bank’s independence on monetary policy an unequivocal commitment – and has repeatedly underscored that he has confidence in the Fed’s central role in navigating inflation that has weighed on the US economy for more than a year and remained stubbornly persistent.

    Even as some congressional Democrats have directed fire at Powell for the rapid increase in interest rates and the risks the effort poses to a robust post-pandemic economic recovery, White House officials have taken pains not to shed light on their views publicly.

    Officials stress nothing in the last week has changed that mandate from Biden – and note that the widespread uncertainty about what action the Fed will take on rates only serves to underscore that reality.

    It’s a reality that comes at a uniquely inopportune time for a banking system that has shown clear signs of stabilizing in the last several days, but is still facing a level of anxiety among market participants and depositors about the durability of that shift.

    “I do believe we have a very strong and resilient banking system and all of us need to shore up the confidence of depositors that that’s the case,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during remarks Tuesday in Washington.

    Yellen said a new emergency lending facility launched by the Fed, along with its existing discount window, are “working as intended to provide liquidity to the banking system.”

    For officials inside the Biden White House, Wednesday is poised to offer critical insight into how the central bank is grappling with its urgent priority of bringing down inflation, while at the same time, minimizing the risk of additional dominoes falling in the US banking sector.

    Those two imperatives – bringing prices down and maintaining stability across the US financial sector – are urgent priorities for the Biden White House, particularly as the president moves closer to a widely expected reelection announcement and the health of the economy remains the top issue for voters.

    Yet the Fed’s decision will come at a moment of accelerating political pressure on the Fed itself – and Powell specifically.

    White House officials have made clear – with no hesitation – that Biden’s long-stated confidence in Powell is unchanged.

    In recent days, White House officials have begun to cautiously suggest that they see signs of the US banking sector stabilizing, following the turbulent aftermath of the closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

    Biden, for his part, has credited the sweeping steps his administration announced – namely, the backstopping of all depositors’ funds held at the two institutions and the creation of an emergency lending program by the Federal Reserve – as having prevented a broader financial meltdown.

    Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment Tuesday afternoon at the White House press briefing on how she and other officials were watching the Fed’s upcoming decision.

    “The Fed is indeed independent.”

    “We want to give them the space to make those monetary decisions and I don’t want to get ahead of that,” Jean-Pierre said.

    “I don’t even want to give any thoughts to what Jerome Powell might say tomorrow.”

    end quotes

    So, if the administration’s top economic officials spent much of those last two weeks engaged in regular discussions and consultations with Powell and Fed officials as they’ve navigated rapid and acute risks to the banking system, and if Joe Biden was taking credit, as the article says, for the creation of an emergency lending program by the Federal Reserve as having prevented a broader financial meltdown, is the federal reserve really independent of the Biden regime?

    And that answer is no way in hell are they, and what is the significance of the July 2-3, 1996 Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee?

    That happens to be the federal reserve meeting where Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, then a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, having been nominated to the position by President Bill Clinton, proposed and defended the 2 percent inflation target in use by the federal reserve since that time, which target has been exceeded today because of the inflation caused by Joe Biden’s fiscal profligacy, which fiscal profligacy caused Biden Treasury Secretary “TOODLES” Yellen to tell CNN on 31 May 2022 that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy, telling them, “Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.”

    She was wrong big time because despite her Ph.D., she really is not very bright, which is what qualified her to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary, that and her political reliability, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Wall Street ends sharply lower as chipmakers and megacaps slide” by Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas on September 15, 2023, where we had as follows on the CHAOS that is happening today as a result of Joe Biden’s ill-thought-out BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is Stalin-era CENTRAL PLANNING at its very worst, to wit:

    Sept 15 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended sharply lower on Friday as chipmakers dropped on concerns about weak consumer demand, while rising Treasury yields pressured Amazon and other megacap growth companies.

    Chip equipment makers Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA Corp all dropped more than 4% after Reuters reported TSMC had asked its major vendors to delay deliveries.

    Nvidia dropped 3.7%, Advanced Micro Devices lost 4.8% and Broadcom and Micron Technology each fell over 2%, pulling down the Philadelphia Semiconductor index down about 3% for the session.

    end quotes

    Yes, people, we need more CHIP FABS in America at public expense with more huge subsidies to CORPORATE AMERICA to build them, and when we return from station identification, it will be with the Reuters article titled “Biden’s offshore wind target slipping out of reach as projects struggle” by Nichola Groom on September 15, 2023, where we are informed that President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, according to forecasters and industry insiders, so please stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!

    Reply