RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/on-the-banality-of-inflation?s=r

Just like Jimmy Carter did 45 years ago, Uncle Joe and his merry band of wokesters are learning the hard way that Americans hate inflation.

Even a recession isn’t as politically damaging.

And guess what? We’re right to hate it.

I’ve been writing a technical piece on the causes of inflation and what it means economically (before I covered Big Pharma, I wrote about Wall Street – never thought I’d miss bankers, but at least bankers are honestly greedy).

I’ll come back to that piece. But I’m putting it aside for now to focus on an aspect of rising prices that I’ve never seen properly discussed – how they make people feel. Even when jobs are plentiful, even when wages are rising, even when the economy is generally strong, people have a visceral reaction to price shocks.

Up up and away!

(Note that the chart below understates the real impact of what’s happened in the last year; annual inflation would be closer to 15 percent if we calculated it now as we did in the 1970s.)

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So why? Why do we hate inflation so much?

Because – and I will spare you the details of the reasons why, if you want them you can read the other piece – INFLATION IS AVOIDABLE. Inflation is a tax on the poor and a warning of potential supply shocks and economic imbalances that must be corrected. But most of all it is avoidable with proper government policy.

Almost always. Recessions are not avoidable (and efforts to avoid them too strenuously can lead to inflation), but inflation is. How do I know? In part because we avoided it for a very long time. Which is why I think the current shock is particularly frustrating to anyone over 40.

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/its-time-that-us-taxpayers-defund?s=w

Davos. It’s a “playground” for the world’s billionaire business elite. Every year, the uberrich and powerful people descend upon a picturesque ski town in Switzerland to mix with world leaders. They discuss shaping our future into a utopian global society.

For the first time since 2019, the 2022 Davos meeting will be in person beginning Sunday, May 22.

The host organization, World Economic Forum (WEF), founded by German economist Klaus Schwab, says it provides a platform for high-powered leaders to “shape global, regional and industry agendas.” In other words, they want to socialize the world order and much of this runs contrary to American values.  

Attendees cough up $28,000 just for a ticket, with a coveted all-access badge fetching more like $50,000 – and that’s before attendees spend tens or hundreds of thousands on private air travel, ski chalets, and entertainment.

You probably didn’t even realize it, but you – the American taxpayer – helped fund the sponsoring organization with tens of millions of dollars in federal grants.

Since 2013, WEF received nearly $60 million from U.S. taxpayers. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that under the Trump Administration, the WEF received $33 million, which outpaced the $26 million in second-term Obama-era funding.

Why are American taxpayers funding this organization?

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/hillary-factor-evidence-now-shows-russia-collusion-lie

In an era where the hunt for disinformation has become a political obsession, Hillary Clinton has mostly escaped having to answer what role she played in spreading the false Russia collusion narrative that gripped America for nearly three years.

On Friday, that dodge ended with a most unlikely witness: her former campaign manager Robby Mook, who was supposed to be a witness helping the defense of her former campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann on a charge of lying to the FBI.

Instead, under cross-examination by Special Counsel John Durham’s team, Mook was forced to concede two extraordinary facts.

First, the Clinton campaign wasn’t “totally confident” about the accuracy of computer data suggesting Donald Trump had a secret communications channel to the Kremlin via Russia’s Alfa Bank.

And second, Hillary Clinton herself personally approved spreading the story to the news media, despite the concerns about its accuracy.

“I discussed it with Hillary as well,” Mook testified. “I don’t remember the substance of the conversation, but notionally, the discussion was, hey, we have this and we want to share it with a reporter,” Mook said.

Prosecutors asked Mook if Clinton approved leaking the story to the media.

“She agreed,” Mook testified.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2022/05/20/blm-cofounder-doled-out-8m-of-groups-money-for-canadian-mansion-n2607606

Remember when every restaurant, store and anyone who catered to the woke mob had “BLM Matter” posters up in the windows asking for donations? Well, that money went to the purchase of million dollar house in Canada.

According to audited financial statements obtained by the Washington Examiner, the Black Lives Matter organization was granted $8 million to purchase a Toronto mansion in 2021, equivalent to a mere $6.3 million in U.S. dollars. 

The money was meant to be used for activities to educate and support black communities, and to purchase and renovate property for charitable use. 

Patrisse Cullors, BLM co-founder, was the only board member of the BLM Global Network Foundation when it gave the funds to the leftist organization or better known as Cullors’s organization. Additionally, Cullors’s spouse served on the board of BLM Canada at the time of the money transfer. Seems convenient. 

Earlier this week, the BLM Global Network Foundation released a 63-page covering the fiscal year from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021. In addition to the Toronto home, the documents show that $6 million went towards a Los Angeles mansion equipped with six bedrooms, a pool, a soundstage and an office, which was intended to be used as a campus for a black artists fellowship. 

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/washington/hillary-clinton-approved-trump-russia-leak-to-media-her-campaign-manager-says/article_dd742c3e-caf2-55f2-8ad0-f4af2d0b0574.html

Hillary Clinton personally signed off on a plan in 2016 to quietly pitch to the media the now-discredited theory that computer servers at former President Donald Trump’s company had a secret communications link with a Russian bank, her former campaign manager told a jury.

Robby Mook, a witness in the trial of a former Clinton campaign lawyer charged with lying to the FBI, on Friday testified that he and others at the campaign “weren’t totally confident” in the veracity of the server data, but they sent it to reporters anyway a few months before the election.

“All I remember is that she agreed with it,” Mook said of Clinton. “She thought we made the right decision.”

The purported server link between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank was ultimately debunked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Former campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann is now on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI when he said he wasn’t representing any client when he brought that claim to the agency’s attention in September 2016.

Mook testified that neither he nor anyone else at the campaign directed Sussmann to take the information to the FBI and that the main focus was tipping off the media.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/19/america-the-miserable/

My daughter’s college graduation last weekend was the first convocation held at the university since 2019. Although everyone was grateful for a return to normalcy, the pandemic still clouded the ceremonies; professors recounted the ways in which the students’ lives had been upended, commending them for soldiering on despite the unprecedented disruption. 

Their praise only acted as a cruel reminder of the time, friendships, and experiences needlessly and irretrievably lost.

Campus, of course, never really returned to anything close to normal. Remote classes stifled learning; mask mandates and social distancing rules stifled activity. Any mild bump in local cases prompted stern warnings from the dean that soul-crushing lockdowns could return. What should have been one of the most enjoyable periods in their lives will be remembered instead as a black hole of fear and isolation.

Visibly weary, her classmates gathered on Saturday afternoon to trudge across the finish line. But their torment was not yet over. The same adults who enforced Medieval disease policies under the guise of modernity and science and who stole a big chunk of their youth had to take one last swipe at their high-paying captives.

One speaker after another harangued the students about their duty to confront every societal ill, real or perceived. According to the Betters with Letters seated on the dais, life isn’t about pursuing individual passions or creating a vibrant social life, or—God forbid—raising a family. Personal fulfillment can only be attained by acting as one-man armies in the woke war against -isms and -phobes, the keynote speaker—a man who presumably hasn’t left a college campus in any professional capacity since his 18th birthday—admonished the crowd.

America quite literally took a back seat during the proceedings; one U.S. flag sat among an assortment of flags far behind the stage. When asked to rise for the national anthem, it took everyone a few moments to locate where Old Glory had been stashed. Few participated in singing along with the vocalist, and even fewer held their hands over their hearts.

After we exited the building, news spread of the horrific massacre that took place about 150 miles away. And several hours later, partygoers celebrating their last moments of college were fleeing for safety near the town’s two most popular bars as a gunman opened fire, shooting one employee in the stomach.

Make America Happy Again

Happiness is so central to the health of the nation that the founders wisely included a mention of it in the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. And the right to the pursuit of happiness, they noted, isn’t something conferred by the state but is God-given and a right the government cannot legitimately take away. Seeking happiness isn’t just a self-serving endeavor but the basis of a free, functioning society. “The necessity of pursuing happiness is the foundation of liberty,” John Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/pumping-prices-john-stossel/

The price of gas keeps rising.

“The reason for that is because of Putin’s war,” said President Joe Biden.

But that’s impossible. Most of the price rise came before Putin attacked Ukraine.

So some politicians simply blame “corporate greed.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse accuses the oil industry of collecting “excess profit.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren even introduced a bill to ban “price gouging.”

This is just economic ignorance, as my new video explains.

“If big oil could raise prices anytime they wanted and get away with it, then why were they so cheap in 2020, 2019, 2018?” asks the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ben Lieberman.

Lieberman points out that companies are always greedy. Greed didn’t just start now. They were just as greedy when gas prices fell in 2019 and early 2020.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/05/19/nina-jakowicz-jamie-gorelick-michael-chertoff-disinformation-governance-board-dhs-patriot-act/

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hired the co-author of the PATRIOT Act, arguably the harshest crackdown on civil liberties in modern American history, and an official under former President Bill Clinton to head the Disinformation Governance Board during its “pause.”

The DHS shut the board down Monday after just several weeks and its head, Nina Jankowicz, wrote a resignation letter Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. Jankowicz was scrutinized for pushing disinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the now-discredited Steele Dossier, which Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA officer, said was possibly “part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot.” She also called Republicans who criticize critical race theory (CRT) “disinformers.” Videos of her singing as the “Mary Poppins of disinformation,” “fucking her way to the top” and satirical, sexualized renditions of Harry Potter themes have also raised eyebrows.

The department announced Wednesday former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. Deputy Secretary General Jamie Gorelick under Clinton “will lead a thorough review and assessment” of the board that was “grossly and intentionally mischaracterized.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/05/20/why-is-joe-biden-still-president/

The U.S. recently passed the 1 million mark for COVID-19 deaths, a grim milestone recognized with the lowering of flags to half staff around the country. More than 60% of those deaths have come during the bungling tenure of President Joe Biden, who said in a late-October 2020 debate with Donald Trump that the president should be kicked out of the White House because of how many had died from the virus on his watch. Based on his own standard, Biden should be back in his Delaware basement.

When asked at that debate how he’d “lead this country out of this crisis,” Biden responded with his usual “Big Guy” pomposity:

“220,000 Americans dead. You hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. Anyone who … is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”

About three months later, Biden was inaugurated president. By early November 2021, Biden’s death toll had exceeded 332,000. The total for his 16 months in office is now about 600,000, even though vaccines have been available throughout his term and effective treatments arrived late last year.

Compare these numbers to the Trump presidency, during which 400,000 were killed by COVID in about a year, the majority before vaccines had been rolled out.

Though the Democrats and the press ghoulishly held Trump directly responsible for COVID deaths during his last year in office, we think it’s distasteful, and careless, to blame Biden for lives lost to the virus while he’s been president. There’s only so much a White House can do during a pandemic.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/governments-baby-formula-shortage-abbott-mead-johnson-tariffs-wic-fda-perrigo-democrats-11652996346?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

““I think there might be a need for indictment,” Nancy Pelosi said this week. She means business executives, not Members of Congress, alas.”

Politicians are scrambling to pacify mothers angry about the baby formula shortage, but the one thing they won’t do is look in the mirror. Fixing the shortage requires fixing the government policies that helped to create it.

The shortage began after Abbott Laboratories shut down a plant in Michigan after four infants who consumed formula made at the facility fell seriously ill. Abbott controls about 42% of the U.S. market, and the other three large manufacturers (Perrigo, Nestle and Mead Johnson) haven’t been able to increase production fast enough to compensate. Ergo, empty shelves.

Enter President Biden, who on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act. The Cold War-era law lets the federal government conscript private businesses to produce goods for national defense and to reorder supply chains, putting some customers ahead of others. Progressives think government is the solution to every problem, which is why the law has become their household remedy to every product shortage.

Mr. Biden says the law will let his Administration prioritize raw ingredients for baby formula. He also plans to send government planes to fly in supply from overseas. But there doesn’t appear to be a shortage of formula ingredients. Nor is there a problem transporting it. The main barriers to increasing supply are regulatory.