RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inflation-cpi-consumer-price-index-march-2024/

Inflation remains the stickiest of problems for the U.S. economy, with the March consumer price index coming in hotter than expected — the third straight month that prices have accelerated. Gasoline prices and rent contributed over half the monthly increase, the government said on Wednesday.

Prices in March rose 3.5% on an annual basis, higher than the 3.4% expected by economists polled by financial data services company FactSet. It also represents a jump from February’s increase of 3.2% and January’s bump of 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. 

The latest acceleration in prices complicates the picture for the Federal Reserve, which has been monitoring economic data to determine whether inflation is cool enough to allow it to cut interest rates. But inflation, which measures the rate of price changes in goods and services bought by consumers, has remained stubborn in 2024, stalling the progress made last year to bring down the annual growth rate to the Fed’s goal of 2%.

“This marks the third consecutive strong reading and means that the stalled disinflationary narrative can no longer be called a blip,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, in an email.  

Shah added, “In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch, by which point the U.S. election will begin to intrude with Fed decision making.”

Stocks fell on the report, with S&P 500 down 45 points, or 0.9%, to 5,164.96. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 1% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.9%.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-absolutely-inane-case-in-manhattan/

On Monday, April 15, President Donald Trump will become the first former president and the first major presidential candidate in American history to face a criminal trial. Not only is this unprecedented, it’s happening with one of the weakest criminal cases in recent memory.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office searched for any way to charge the former president since 2017. The investigation poured over President Trump’s personal and business life, and they settled on charging the former president with 34 felonies for the non-felony of his attorney Michael Cohen settling a nuisance claim.

The case is so weak that The New York Times and The Washington Post both acknowledged that it’s a stretch. The New York Times reported: “The case against the former president hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post wrote that the prosecution left some “legal experts . . . scratching their heads” as “they describe it as an unusual case.”

Indeed, it is unusual.

Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says that President Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”

Bragg’s indictment, however, shows that this is a false accusation from the DA.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/04/12/biden-bombs-his-own-country/

Do we have to bring up late Swedish socialist economist Assar Lindbeck, who said “in many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing”? Yes, we do. Joe Biden made us.

The White House is not proposing a federal rent control law. Even that would likely be too much for this runaway administration that has twice defied the U.S. Supreme Court and forgiven student loans. What it has done is place a 10% cap on rent increases on government-subsidized properties with low-income tenants

It’s a change in how the cap is calculated, so it’s not entirely new ground. But it’s nevertheless a form of rent control, meaning the bombs are still dropping.

Yes, we’re back to the air raid comparison. And Lindbeck was not alone in making the point with an analogy that is easily understood. After the war, as the communist country struggled economically, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach pointed out that policies that “artificially encouraged demand and discouraged supply” had in effect blown up the capital city, leaving “all the houses” in a state of “disrepair.”

​​“The Americans couldn’t destroy Hanoi, but we have destroyed our city by very low rents. We realized it was stupid and that we must change policy,” he said.

https://tomklingenstein.com/republicans-must-wake-up/

Iregularly give politicians advice. They don’t ask for it, but it is the price they pay for the chance to dislodge me from a few shekels. When a politician comes hat in hand, there is one thing of which you can be quite sure: He will agree with your advice. He will invariably go one step further and claim that he practices it. In ornery moods, I tell them, “Well, you’ve been keeping it a secret from me.”  

Now, I have some very particular advice which I have been urging on visiting politicians for the past 8 years or so. As far as I can tell, none of them have listened to a word of it. Actually, that is not quite true. A few of them (or their staff) remember what I urged upon them at a prior meeting, and do me the honor of repeating it. Of course, remembering advice is a long way from taking it seriously.

The particular advice I have been giving is this: America is under attack from an enemy that wants to destroy the American way of life. This internal enemy—not China, the border, the economy, or anything else—is the danger of our time. Nothing else comes close. I call this enemy the “group quota regime.” The group quota regime currently exercises control of every major institution in America—from government bureaucracies, to the military, business, education, the media (social and mainstream), culture, entertainment, sports, and even religion. The woke radicals who exercise the increasingly totalitarian power of this regime believe that a just society is one where all identity groups have equal outcomes. To achieve these outcomes, group quotas must be imposed. Accordingly, American justice, which is based on merit, and the American way of life must be destroyed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20563/who-will-help-the-new-forgotten-man

The Great Depression swept across the nation some 90 years ago, creating a level of despair that nearly crushed America.

Standing mute and dumbfounded on a breadline, tens of thousands became “forgotten men”; stripped of their jobs, their dignity, and their future. Washington was either indifferent or inept in responding to a calamity that threatened the very foundation of the republic.

Some of these forgotten men sought refuge in God, solace in the Bible, and prayed for salvation or, at the very least, a pathway that would lead them to a better life.

Others looked to a vibrant, dynamic president, who would inspire those victims of a national calamity that we are still a nation capable of greatness with the ability to rescue those forgotten men from devastating unemployment.

They found that “savior” in the form of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose confidence in America resonated with his fellow citizens of every background in every community. He lifted up the forgotten men and reminded them that, as Americans, there was a resolute nation to build and they were the people to do it.