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Biden Blames Government’s Economic Failures on Big Business

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Biden is continuing to blame American business for the government-created problems. On Monday, President Joe Biden gave a public address during a meeting with his Competition CouncilDiscussing an executive order that he made last July. Why now? It’s because inflation continues to get worse. The Biden administration must take responsibility.

Inflation is at its lowest point in years. Late December saw gas prices rise by 51 percent and beef prices go up by 20 percent. Furniture prices rose 11 percent. The food prices have risen. The prices of clothing are on the rise. The energy prices have risen. Prices for used cars are rising. The prices of alcohol have risen. The list continues.

This can partly be attributed to the pandemic which caused a contraction in the labor force and increased demand for some goods. It also disrupted supply chains.

However, government policies are making things worse. There’s been absolutely massive amounts of new government spending—and printing more money to pay for it. The “supply” of dollars has almost doubled. 40 percent over the past 2 yearsThis is an off the charts record. ReasonNick Gillespie, a spokesman for the Democrats noted this in December. However, Democrats and Biden just continue spending more.

Eric Boehm says that raising interest rates can be a traditional way of trying to keep inflation under control. However, America’s debt levels make this maneuver even more difficult. Higher interest rates will have a reverberating effect on the government’s debt.

Biden’s energy policies, and Trump tariffs that he has continued could be increasing inflationary woes.

Democrats are looking for a way to blame Americans who feel the pain of rising costs. They’ve coalesced around blaming big businesses—a sort of “killing two birds with one stone” strategy.

Democrats have been focusing their recent efforts on passing antitrust laws, which give the government more control over U.S. market participants. This push is supported by the fact that big business can be blamed for inflation.

Instead of appearing control freaks, who would like to have a say over how U.S. businesses run, the Bidens pretend concern for consumers welfare and claim that rising prices are due to a lack of competition. “Lack of competition costs the median American family household… $5,000 a year,” claimed Biden on Monday.

Do not buy it.

These claims have a more political basis than they do economic reality.

His economic approval ratings began to fall, and his aides received increasingly alarming messages from Democratic operatives asking the White House for a different message about inflation. The Washington PostThis was reported earlier in the month:

Three people who were privy to the conversations say that at least four Democratic polling analysts told White House officials, November and December, they had to come up with a different approach to address public anger over price rises, which was highly detrimental to Biden’s popularity.

We said, “You need either a villain or an explanation. If you do not provide an explanation, the voters will find one. The right provides an explanation. This is why you spend too much,” one Democratic pollster, who spoke under anonymity in order to reveal private conversations, said to The Washington Post. The White House was finally convinced by this conclusion.

This villain is corporate consolidation and corporate glutt. However, economists of all stripes are skeptical. PostYou should also be aware of:

It is possible that this sudden surge of inflation is due to corporate consolidation, which is something they point out. …

Dean Baker (a liberal economist) said that he doesn’t believe corporate consolidation can explain the rise in prices. Baker was a supporter Warren’s presidential campaign in 2020. Baker claimed that he has relayed his skepticism about the White House. Baker said, “I don’t see the good story in blaming inflation for concentration.”

Claudia Sahm was a Liberal economist and worked for the Federal Reserve. She added that she didn’t fully understand the strategy. The strategy must be political, but it is unlikely that many economists will support its claim of addressing inflation.

Even less liberal economists face harsher criticisms. Jason Furman and Larry Summers both worked in the Obama administration. They have dismissed the suggestion that corporate consolidation is responsible for the rises in prices. They said that it is logical for the government to leverage price pressures in order to advance their antitrust agenda.

Yesterday’s remarks at the meeting made this clear. He blamed the businesses for increasing prices and praised his administration’s efforts in preventing business mergers.

Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. He said, “It’s exploitation.”

Biden and his aides would love us to believe only his economic policies and massive spending programs can stop Americans’ rising costs. Although it may make for good political messaging right now, this belief is too costly.

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Companies in the Netherlands can find ways to circumvent COVID-19 regulations. Dutch museums and theaters—which are ordered to remain closed—”are temporarily turning themselves into hair salons and gyms to protest against what they say are unfair coronavirus measures,” Bloomberg reports. The Van Gogh Museum is available for hair cuts, while the Frans Hals Museum is used to teach gym classes.

QUICK HITS

• The Supreme Court will take on race in college admissions in cases concerning Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Harvard was charged with discriminating against Asian American college students through the use of a subjective measure to determine traits such as kindness, courage, and likability. This effectively created a ceiling on their admissions.” The New York Times. “The plaintiffs in the North Carolina case were the defendants [say]The university denied Asian and white applicants preference by favoring Black, Hispanic, and Native American candidates.

• Prosecutors in Kansas are using a stand-your-ground law to shield juvenile detention center employees from prosecution in a case involving the death of a 17-year-old in their custody, Cedric Lofton. The self-defense argument is absurd, according to a lawyer representing the family of the boy. He was 135 lbs and unarmed.

• President Joe Biden’s competition remarks yesterday weren’t All bad. He cited regulatory changes to allow for hearing aids being sold over-the-counter, as an example.

• Biden was overheard on a hot mic calling a reporterA “stupid boy of a bitch”

• An interesting new study looks at how declining U.S. mobility affects American culture in other ways:

• Fight ClubGets a brand new ending

• In Baldwin County, Alabama, people “are routinely forced to wear ankle monitors while out on bail even though they haven’t been convicted of crimes,” and pay $10 per day for these monitors, AL.com reports.

• New York’s statewide mask mandate has been struck down.

• A new bill in California would require all schoolchildren to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

• “A Wisconsin appeals court has temporarily blocked a judge’s order that would have banned the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the swing state,” reports NPR.

• “We talk a lot in my business about how younger, more diverse generations are changing politics and culture. However, we forget about the corollary. Our workforce is disproportionately made up of older and whiter generations,” writes Alicia. The Washington PostMegan McArdle is the author. We are setting ourselves up to frustration or worse if we fail to account for these generational effects in designing diversity initiatives.