Inflation Cools Off: Media Hardest Hit They are losing the voters, who have finally decided to end an abusive relationship. David Catron
https://spectator.org/inflation-cools-off-media-hardest-hit/
The general consensus among informed political analysts is that the Republicans emerged from last November’s election in control of the White House and Congress due to the border crisis and persistent inflation. The Trump administration curtailed the influx of illegal immigrants with remarkable speed and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March suggests that inflation is also returning to the modest levels that prevailed throughout President Trump’s first term. The CPI declined by .01 percent last month, a year-over-year rate of 2.4 percent, while core inflation sank to a four-year low.
The cure for inflation required no legislative crackdown on price-gouging. All we really needed was a new president.
Moreover, wholesale prices also decreased in March. According to the Producer Price Index (PPI) report, an important indicator of future inflation pressure, “Prices for final demand goods moved down 0.9 percent in March, the largest decrease since falling 1.4 percent in October 2023.” These PPI statistics, combined with the CPI numbers, clearly portend a brighter future for long suffering consumers and the nation’s economy in general. But the legacy media are loathe to report good news if it reflects well on the new Trump administration. Instead, they search for some black cloud to tarnish every silver lining, and subject the electorate to the kind of fear mongering that pervades the following passage from a story published by the Washington Post:
As consumers and businesses face widespread uncertainty around the Trump administration’s whipsawing trade policies, a widely followed survey from the University of Michigan found that consumers’ expectations for the next year’s inflation jumped to 6.7 percent, the highest reading since 1981. It’s the fourth consecutive month that consumer sentiment has worsened, as people across demographics say they believe unemployment and inflation will get substantially worse.
The corporate media have struggled since the election to find some issue that would reduce President Trump’s job approval rating. They clearly believe they have finally found the silver bullet in the “global trade war” he has supposedly precipitated. Thus, it was inevitable that surveys would begin to appear purporting to show public concern about tariffs. Likewise, it was only a matter of time before they exhumed former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to denounce tariffs: “This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy. The Trump tariff plans are doing immense damage to our economy.”
Yellen has predictably reversed her position on tariffs, which she defended when former President Biden imposed them on Chinese steel, aluminum, and other products. She also joined the chorus of doomsayers who pointed to last week’s volatile stock market as proof that Trump’s trade policy is disastrous. Yet, as Investopedia reports, the market wrapped up the week with an exceptionally strong surge: “The Dow and S&P 500 gained 5% and 5.7%, respectively, this week, their best performances since October 2023. The Nasdaq rose 7.3%, its biggest weekly increase since November 2022.” Meanwhile, back at the CPI, energy prices drove the decrease.
Energy-Driven Inflation Decline
The corporate media are downplaying last month’s decrease in energy prices by insisting it was caused by a serendipitous decrease in gasoline prices. They have evidently forgotten that Trump pledged during last year’s presidential campaign to attack inflation by reversing Biden’s shortsighted energy policies. As the New York Times put it, “President Trump has put unleashing American energy production at the center of his economic agenda, saying that ramping up fossil fuel production will lower inflation and end a cost of living crisis that has seen prices rise for staples.” To that end, he declared a National Energy Emergency on Jan. 20, 2025.
We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation’s manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness. Caused by the harmful and shortsighted policies of the previous administration, our Nation’s inadequate energy supply and infrastructure causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed-incomes.
As recently as April 3, Politico ridiculed Trump’s pledge to reduce energy prices in a snide article titled, “Trump promised to slash energy prices. How’s that going?” The editors of that once-respected publication received their answer in the March CPI report. As Barron’s put it, “The index for gasoline fell by a dramatic 6.3% month-over-month.” It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that exorbitant energy prices drive up the cost of doing business in every industry, yet the corporate press continues to peddle the myth that four years of high inflation rates are unrelated to government-mandated restrictions on energy production.
This is nonsense, of course. It is not a coincidence that the Trump administration’s embrace of an “all-of-the-above” approach to to energy policy resulted in a major decrease in gasoline prices so early in the President’s second term in office. To paraphrase Trump’s remarks about the border crisis in his March 6 address to the joint session of Congress: The cure for inflation required no legislative crackdown on price-gouging. All we really needed was a new president. The voters understood this, despite the propaganda, and they voted accordingly. They are now in the midst of a divorce from the corporate media, finally putting an end to an abusive relationship.
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