RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/bidens-media-allies-cant-spin-away-our-economic-malaise/

The economy is in rough shape, voters know it firsthand, and they won’t be convinced otherwise.

 I n an excellent piece in today’s New York Times, David Leonhardt observes that “in recent weeks, economists and pundits have been asking why Americans feel grouchy about the economy when many indicators — like G.D.P. growth, stock prices and the unemployment rate — look strong,” before concluding that the “supposed paradox” to which they are pointing is “not really a paradox.” “Americans think the economy is in rough shape,” Leonhardt writes bluntly, “because the economy is in rough shape.”

Leonhardt is correct, and his explanations are solid. But he is remiss in one area: He doesn’t explain why “economists and pundits have been asking why Americans feel grouchy about the economy,” even though they’re evaluating the same set of economic facts as everyone else. So I will: Economists and pundits are talking up the economy because the White House has urged them to talk up the economy, and because unlike David Leonhardt, they have gladly acquiesced to the demand.

Don’t take my word for it. Earlier this week, CNN’s Oliver Darcy reported that the White House is “not happy with the news media’s coverage of the supply chain and economy,” and “has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor.” These “conversations,” Darcy confirmed, “have been productive, with anchors and reporters and producers getting to talk with the officials.” And, sure enough, in no time at all the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank had decided that the press treats Biden worse than Trump, the Times’s Paul Krugman had proposed that “the public’s highly negative assessment of the economy is at odds with every other indicator I can think of,” MSNBC’s Joy Reid had lamented that Republicans were being so negative when “the economy is booming,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer had submitted that the economy is better than it has ever been in his life, Don Lemon had begun cheering tiny-and-temporary reductions in the price of gas, and The Hill’s Max Burns had not only criticized Americans for being ungrateful for the “surging economic recovery” but slammed Republicans for suggesting that our inflation problem might just get worse if the federal government continues to pump trillions of dollars into the economy.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/building-back-bitter-11639171577?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Consumers and workers are taking a beating as Washington fails to maintain the value of our currency.

The Journal’s Gwynn Guilford reports:

U.S. inflation reached a nearly four-decade high in November, as strong consumer demand collided with pandemic-related supply constraints.
The Labor Department said the consumer-price index—which measures what consumers pay for goods and services—rose 6.8% in November from the same month a year ago. That was the fastest pace since 1982 and the sixth straight month in which inflation topped 5%.
The so-called core price index, which excludes the often-volatile categories of food and energy, climbed 4.9% in November from a year earlier. That was a sharper increase than October’s 4.6% rise, and the highest rate since 1991.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who seems to have abandoned the term “transitory” to describe this monetary destruction, has nevertheless succeeded in forging a Wall Street-Washington consensus that inflation will soon be heading smartly southward. Many institutional economists up and down the Acela corridor have very reasonable arguments for their case that inflation will be much lower a year from now than it is today. Let’s all hope they are right.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/norman-podhoretz-spiritual-war-for-america-conservatism-republican-trump-youngkin-carlson-11639

There was a time—roughly from the mid-1960s to the rise of Donald Trump in 2015—when the American right was more or less definable. No more. Major political parties are always riven by internal disputes, but even during George W. Bush’s second term, at the nadir of the Iraq war, the Republican coalition seemed to hang together better than it has these past six years. Mr. Trump’s candidacy was a sign of that fracturing rather than its cause, but his presidency wasn’t marked by unity in the GOP.

Quite the opposite. A significant faction of the party now advocates aggressive industrial policy as a means of alleviating social ills wrought by “unregulated” capitalism. Another demeans the party’s traditional predilection for hawkish foreign policy as an obsession with “forever wars.” The right’s leading media personalities, meanwhile, would rather talk about the latest cultural outrage—an androgynous Mr. Potato Head!—than explain the perils of turning social welfare into a middle-class entitlement.

Are the challenges facing conservatives really so different from what they were 50, 60 or 70 years ago? Most of the architects of postwar conservatism aren’t around to ask anymore, but Norman Podhoretz—editor of the Jewish intellectual magazine Commentary from 1960 to 1995 and one of the founders of neoconservatism—is 91 and as talkative as ever. I visited his book-laden Upper East Side apartment last month with the vague premonition that he might have something to say about the fractured state of American conservatism.

My timing was good. The day before, voters had elected a Republican governor in a state most observers considered blue, and indisputably blue New Jersey had come within a few percentage points of doing the same. “I wasn’t sure they were still out there,” Mr. Podhoretz says. Who? “The ‘deplorables,’ ” he says, gesturing quotation marks as he employs Hillary Clinton’s famous term from 2016. “I really didn’t know. If the results had gone the other way, I wouldn’t have been that surprised. Our troops were not as visible, at least to me, because the media and the culture are all on the other side . . . The other side has won the culture—that’s one battlefield—but they haven’t yet won the polity. That’s very encouraging.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/joe-biden-kamala-harris-tweets-backing-jussie-smollett-remain-up-after-guilty-verdict/ar-AARFrmC

Democratic President Joe Biden and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris have left up tweets expressing support for actor Jussie Smollett after he was allegedly a victim in a racist and anti-gay hate attack that occurred on January 29, 2019. However, on Thursday, a jury found that Smollett lied about the attack.

Biden’s tweet reads, “What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie. https://t.co/o8ilPu68CM

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 30, 2019

Harris’ tweet reads, “.@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”

This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2019

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/12/10/jussie-smollett-verdict-guilty-disorderly-conduct-fake-hate-crime-attack/

Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was convicted on five counts Thursday evening on charges he orchestrated a fake hate crime against himself nearly three years ago, while jurors acquitted him of one other count.

A jury of six men and six women deliberated more than nine hours over two days before finding Smollett guilty of five of six counts of disorderly conduct, accusing the actor of staging a fake racist and homophobic attack against himself in January 2019, and then lying to police about it, in a bid for publicity. Jurors found him not guilty of the sixth count of disorderly conduct.The charges for which Smollett was convicted dealt with his falsely telling several different police officers he was the victim of a hate crime and a battery.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-consumer-prices-increase-further-133924174.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

U.S. consumer prices rose solidly in November as Americans paid more for food and a range goods, leading to the largest annual gain since 1982, posing a political nightmare for President Joe Biden’s administration and cementing expectations for the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates next year.

The report from the Labor Department on Friday, which followed on the heels of a slew of data this month showing a rapidly tightening labor market, makes it likely the U.S. central bank will announce that it is speeding up the wind-down of its massive bond purchases at its policy meeting next week.

With supply bottlenecks showing little sign of easing and companies raising wages as they compete for scarce workers, high inflation could persist well into 2022. The increased cost of living, the result of shortages caused by the relentless COVID-19 pandemic, is hurting Biden’s approval rating. The White House and the Fed have characterized high inflation this year as transitory.

“There’s not much room to explain away this inflation from pandemic or reopening anomalies,” said Will Compernolle, a senior economist at FHN Financial in New York. “Inflation is a tax, gas and food are among the most regressive aspects of it. Lower-income Americans spend disproportionately on both.”