Another Republican President, Another Recession.

hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://www.rawstory.com/russian-oligarch-sanctions/
Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 7.29.05 AM.png
The powerful real estate lobby appears to be siding with oligarchs in opposing tougher new laws that would prevent them from hiding their assets in U.S. property purchases.

Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine Washington lawmakers were crafting legislation that would shred the secrecy veil that hides the identities of foreign nationals who purchase billions of dollars of U.S. real estate every year. Momentum for those reforms only has grown since Russia's invasion and the worldwide focus on seizing oligarchs' assets.

Politico reports that House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) soon plans to introduce legislation to strengthen anti-corruption laws related to the industry. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), is pressuring the Treasury unit known as FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), to craft strict rules to cut down on money laundering through property holdings.

“American real estate can’t be a dark repository for oligarch money,” Whitehouse told Politico.

But the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the industry’s biggest lobbying group, is resisting powerful reforms, instead calling for “tailored reforms that address specific issues,” according to spokesperson Patrick Newton.

“This approach focuses on illegal activity while minimizing any negative impact on the real estate economy, which makes up nearly one-fifth of the overall U.S. economy,” Newton said. “NAR has confidence that targeted and effective policy will prevail in the rule-making process.”

NAR has a huge stake in the issue. According to its own industry research, foreigners made up 8.6 percent of all commercial buyers in 2021 and 59 percent of commercial real estate transactions in the U.S. that included buyers from overseas involved all-cash purchases between 2016 and 2020.

Under today's laws, anyone, including a foreign national, can form an anonymous company and have that entity use cash to purchase residential or commercial real estate. That's one way oligarchs and others have been parking their money in the U.S. That’s a key reason that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in December, “There’s a good argument that, right now, the best place to hide and launder ill-gotten gains is actually the United States.”
Click to expand...
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://www.rawstory.com/greg-abbott-food-supply/Screen Shot 2022-04-13 at 5.57.51 PM.png
A long trail of delivery trucks are backed up at the U.S.-Mexico border because the Texas governor is refusing to allow them to come into the United States without additional inspections by the Texas state troopers. Typically it's the federal government that inspects trucks. The decision is creating a massive backup at the border.

The Texas Tribune reported this week that the busiest trade crossing, the bridge connecting Pharr and Reynosa is the choke point. On the border Monday, the trucks were backed up for miles. It was the fifth day in a row they were dealing with the blockage. As a result, producer importers canceled orders.

Avocados, broccoli, peppers, strawberries and tomatoes are among the things being brought into the United States. Berries like strawberries are the largest import into the US, with bananas not far behind.

“One of our customers canceled the order because we didn’t deliver on time,” said Sterling Fresh Inc. sales manager Modesto Guerra. “It’s something beyond our control.”

At a time when Americans are frustrated over inflation and additional costs, Abbott's backup is significantly slashing supply and access in the United States, the White House said in a statement Wednesday.

"Governor Abbott's unnecessary and redundant inspections of trucks transiting ports of entry between Texas and Mexico are causing significant disruptions to the food and automobile supply chains, delaying manufacturing, impacting jobs, and raising prices for families in Texas and across the country," said press secretary Jen Psaki. "Local businesses and trade associations are calling on Governor Abbott to reverse the decision because trucks are facing lengthy delays exceeding 5 hours at some border crossings and commercial traffic has dropped by as much as 60 percent. The continuous flow of legitimate trade and travel and CBP's ability to do its job should not be obstructed. Governor Abbott's actions are impacting people's jobs and the livelihoods of hardworking American families."
Click to expand...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/13/statement-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-on-the-impact-of-texas-border-delays/
Screen Shot 2022-04-13 at 6.34.00 PM.png
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
lol @ how hard this guy tries to find something wrong with the completely factual statement Biden made about Putin's invasion impacts on inflation, by pretending like the cherry picked edit quote twitter trolls posted has merit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/bidens-claim-70-inflation-jump-was-due-putins-price-hike/Screen Shot 2022-04-15 at 5.16.06 PM.png
“What people don’t know is that 70 percent of the increase in inflation was the consequence of Putin’s price hike because of the impact on oil prices. Seventy percent.”

— President Biden, remarks at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, N.C., April 14

Two days after the Labor Department reported that the consumer price index had risen to 8.5 percent, the fastest 12-month pace since 1981, the president made the remarks above, appearing to pin much of the blame for the dismal inflation report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Energy and food prices can be volatile, and so many economists focus on the “core” inflation rate that excludes those items. But even that showed a rate of 6.5 percent or about 25 percent lower than the overall rate.

So how can Biden make this claim? Many readers were eager for an answer — especially since some people on Twitter truncated his comment to leave off “because of the impact on oil prices,” making it seem especially absurd.

Let’s dig into the weeds. It turns out he’s not referring to the headline inflation number.

The Facts

The individual items in the CPI report make for grim reading. Meat, poultry, fish and eggs rose 13.7 percent from March 2021 to March 2022, used cars and trucks rose 35.3 percent, airline fares rose 23.6 percent, butter jumped 12.5 percent, coffee rose 11.2 percent rose and apparel rose 6.8 percent.

Gasoline prices rose 48 percent, while overall energy prices rose 32 percent.

Energy makes up only 7.547 percent of the basket of goods in the CPI, so even with that big jump, how does Biden get to 70 percent?

Without saying so directly, he’s referring to the monthly change in prices, not the annual change.

Let’s go through the math, using the monthly numbers.

Prices rose 1.2 percent from February to March. (That translates to a 15.9 percent annual rate.) Now let’s express this increase in basis points, which is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. So a 1.2 percent increase would be 120 basis points.

Energy prices rose 11 percent last month. Since energy is 7.547 percent of the basket, we multiple that figure by 11. That gives us 83 basis points. That is then divided by the overall number of 120 basis points (83/120), yielding 69.1 percent. In other words, that’s how much energy prices contributed to the monthly increase. Biden rounded that up to 70 percent.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers did a similar calculation in a tweet it posted April 12, after the report was issued.

How did Biden set up this line in his remarks? He said: “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up gas prices and food prices all over the world. Ukraine and Russia are the one and two largest wheat producers in the world. We’re three. They’re shut down. We saw that in yesterday’s inflation data.”

Many people might believe the president was referring to the headline annual number in the inflation report — 8.5 percent — and that Biden was saying 70 percent of that figure was attributable to an increase in energy costs. We certainly did when we first heard this line. But if energy prices had not risen at all in March, the 12-month increase in prices still would have been 7.6 percent.

A White House official pointed to the CEA tweet as an explanation for Biden’s comment, saying it should have been clear he was referring just to one month’s data as it would not be logical to claim a war that started less than two months ago was responsible for a year’s worth of inflation. He noted that White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier in the week referred to one-month data: “While energy accounted for 70 percent of the monthly inflation in March on CPI data, it counted for a substantial portion of PPI [Producer Price Index] inflation as well,” she told reporters Wednesday.

Another way to look at it: Excluding the increase in energy prices from last month’s 1.2 percent increase still translates into an annual rate of almost 5 percent per year.
(That’s 31 percent of a 15.9 percent annual rate.) That can’t be blamed on the Russian invasion — and we highly doubt Biden would have thought such a high inflation rate would have been acceptable a year ago.

The Pinocchio Test

This is one of those clever talking points that pose a conundrum when doing the Pinocchio Test. Biden’s math is defensible, especially because his full quote — not the truncated one circulating on Twitter — specifically refers to the impact of oil prices.

But at the same time, ordinary people might certainly have assumed he was referring to the 12-month inflation rate, not the one-month figure. Moreover, even not counting energy costs, the inflation number is relatively high. Most Americans care about the inflation rate over the past year, not the past month.

We went back and forth over whether some level of Pinocchios was warranted. We were tempted to award Two Pinocchios, essentially half true. We certainly would be more comfortable if Biden had referred specifically to monthly inflation figures. But he did refer to the invasion that began 50 days ago. So we will leave this unrated and let readers decide for themselves.
Click to expand...
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
Another example of state level Republican led states making the citizens of their states lives harder in the aftermath of the Trump/Republican led economic collapse that the Democrats are still working to clean up.

https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-nebraska-iowa-des-moines-4ff5e0d51f61e6704f44dfc31279376aScreen Shot 2022-04-16 at 2.07.07 PM.png
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades.

The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of an ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture began offering the increased benefit in April 2020 in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country.

The result is that depending on the politics of a state, individuals and families in need find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food.

Nebraska took the most aggressive action anywhere in the country, ending the emergency benefits four months into the pandemic in July 2020 in a move Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts said was necessary to “show the rest of the country how to get back to normal.”

Since then, nearly a dozen states with Republican leadership have taken similar action, with Iowa this month being the most recent place to slash the benefits. Benefits also will be cut in Wyoming and Kentucky in the next month. Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Tennessee have also scaled back the benefits.

Republican leaders argue that the extra benefits were intended to only temporarily help people forced out of work by the pandemic. Now that the virus has eased, they maintain, there is no longer a need to offer the higher payments at a time when businesses in most states are struggling to find enough workers.

But the extra benefits also help out families in need at a time of skyrocketing prices for food. Recipients receive at least $95 per month under the program, but some individuals and families typically eligible for only small benefits can get hundreds of dollars in extra payments each month.

The entire program would come to a halt if the federal government decides to end its public health emergency, though the Biden administration so far hasn’t signaled an intention to do so.

For Tara Kramer, 45, of Des Moines, the decision by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds to end the emergency payments starting April 1 meant her monthly SNAP benefit plunged from $250 in March to $20 in April. Kramer, who has a genetic disorder that can cause intense pain, said the extra money enabled her to buy healthier food that made her feel better and help her to live a more active life.

“My heart sank,” Kramer said. “All the memories from before the emergency allotment came rushing back.”

Alex Murphy, a spokesman for Reynolds, noted the extra benefits were always intended to help people who lost jobs because of the pandemic and said, “we have to return to pre-pandemic life.” Murphy pointed out that Iowa has over 86,000 job openings listed on a state unemployment website.

But Kramer said she’s not able to work and that even getting out of her apartment can be a struggle at times.

Vince Hall, who oversees public policy for the nationwide food bank network Feeding America, said ending the extra benefits ignores the reality that even as the pandemic wanes there hasn’t been a decline in demand at food banks.

Wages have been increasing in the United States and the national unemployment rate in March dropped to 3.6%, but those gains have been offset by an 8.5% increase in inflation compared to a year ago. Food is among items rising the fastest, leaving many families unable to buy enough groceries.

“The COVID pandemic is giving way to a hunger pandemic,” Hall said. “We’re in a real, real struggle.”

Feeding America, which represents 200 food banks, reports that demand for food has increased just as these organizations are seeing individual donations dwindle and food costs rise. The organization estimates the nation’s food banks will spend 40% more to buy food in the fiscal year ending June 2022 as in the previous year.

For people like Annie Ballan, 51, of Omaha, Nebraska, the decision by Ricketts to stop participating in the program reduced the SNAP payments she and her son receive from nearly $500 a month to $41. Both have health problems and can’t work.

“From the middle of the month to the end of the month, people have no food,” Ballan said, her voice rising in anger. “This is all the governor’s fault. He says he loves Nebraskans, that Nebraskans are wonderful, but he’s cut off our food.”

The demand on food banks will only grow as more states reduce their SNAP payments, which typically provide nine meals for every one meal offered by food banks, Hall said.

Valerie Andrews, 59, of St. Charles, Missouri, said the SNAP benefits that she and her husband rely on fell from $430 a month to $219 when Missouri ended the extra payments in August 2021. Andrews, who is disabled, said she tries to budget carefully and gets food regularly from a food pantry but it’s difficult.

“We’re barely making it from paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “It gets pretty rough most of the time.”

Officials at food banks and pantries said they will do their best to meet increased demand but there is no way they can fully offset the drop in SNAP benefits.

Matt Unger, director of the Des Moines Area Religious Council network of food pantries in Iowa’s capital city, noted the pantry’s cost for a 5-ounce can of chicken as jumped from 54 cents in March 2019 to a current price of $1.05.

“Costs are just going through the roof,” he said.
Click to expand...
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
hanimmal said:
lol @ how hard this guy tries to find something wrong with the completely factual statement Biden made about Putin's invasion impacts on inflation, by pretending like the cherry picked edit quote twitter trolls posted has merit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/bidens-claim-70-inflation-jump-was-due-putins-price-hike/View attachment 5118942
“What people don’t know is that 70 percent of the increase in inflation was the consequence of Putin’s price hike because of the impact on oil prices. Seventy percent.”

— President Biden, remarks at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, N.C., April 14
Click to expand...
@nuskool89 you really should stop with the propaganda and start to understand you are pushing it when you lie in your posts like you did in this one:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/is-biden-really-that-bad.1063879/post-16902817

Unless that is your point?
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
eddy600 said:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-top-10-Democratic-presidential-candidates-for-17085176.php Interesting article
Click to expand...
Pretty solid list. It is a nice reminder of how deep the Democrats are with possible presidential candidates (that are not just twitter troll politicians). I am not sold on AOC at 10, but do understand she would bring interest to a primary debate, I think she could easily be swapped out for someone like Katey Porter or several of the house members that got voted into office in 2018.
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://apnews.com/article/climate-2022-midterm-elections-biden-technology-business-7aa66d84e150a4c1d54831677075cee9Screen Shot 2022-04-18 at 6.51.46 AM.png
WASHINGTON (AP) — A global computer chip shortage has made it harder for consumers to get their hands on cars, computers and other modern-day necessities, so Congress is looking to boost chip manufacturing and research in the United States with billions of dollars from the federal government.

Both the House and Senate have passed major legislation on the matter and the effort is one of lawmakers’ final opportunities before the November election to show voters they are addressing the nation’s strained supply chains.

Now they have to work out considerable differences in the two bills. And Senate Republicans are already digging in before the negotiations formally begin.

President Joe Biden has made the semiconductor legislation a top priority, but he’ll need the support of 10 Senate Republicans, and perhaps more, to get a bill to his desk. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell emphasized that point when congressional leaders recently announced which lawmakers will serve on the committee that works to reconcile the two bills.

“Without major concessions and changes from House Democrats, this legislation has no chance of becoming law,” McConnell said.

House Democrats say their voices need to be heard during negotiations.

“We need to make sure that everyone has input,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the New Democratic Coalition, a group that has 19 members participating in negotiations. “We have a strong bill in the House, and I think there’s important components there that the Senate should also consider.”

WHERE THINGS STAND

House and Senate leaders have selected lawmakers to join a committee tasked with merging the two bills into one.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose 49 Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the only GOP member to vote for the House bill. Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy selected 31 Republicans for the committee.

McConnell and Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer each picked 13 senators.

The House has approved its participants, while the Senate still has some procedural work to do before it can do that.

The Senate bill is projected to increase spending by about $250 billion over 10 years. The House bill would boost spending by more than $400 billion over the period.

WHERE THERE IS MUCH AGREEMENT

The Senate and House bills allot more than $52 billion for semiconductor production and research. Grants and loans from the federal government would subsidize some of the cost of building or renovating semiconductor plants.

“The chips funding is absolutely the foundation of this bill — it’s a bipartisan foundation,” said Josh Teitelbaum, senior counsel at Akin Gump, a law and lobbying firm. “I think it is what is driving this toward the finish line.”

SOME OVERLAP, BUT KEY DIFFERENCES

Both bills authorize a big boost in spending for the National Science Foundation, but they have different priorities for the research receiving funding.

The Senate bill provides $29 billion over five years to a new directorate focused on strengthening U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics and other cutting-edge technologies.

The House bill provides $13.3 billion over five years to a new directorate for science and engineering solutions. It lists climate change, environmental sustainability and social and economic inequality as part of the directorate’s focus.

The two sides will have to hammer out their competing visions for the National Science Foundation and the new tech directorate.

The two bills also establish regional technology hubs — with the Senate dedicating $10 billion to the program and the House dedicating $7 billion. The Senate bill calls for 20 such hubs, while the House bill authorizes at least 10.

The seed money would go to regional organizations seeking to advance a variety of economic and national security priorities.

The approach has bipartisan support from lawmakers with big rural and minority constituencies who want to ensure the money is not concentrated in universities or communities where a lot of tech research is already done.

WHERE THERE ARE MAJOR DIFFERENCES

The bills diverge on supply chain issues, trade, immigration and climate change, to name a few areas of disagreement.

One of the big-ticket items is a $45 billion program in the House bill to enhance supply chains in the U.S. There was no such provision in the Senate bill. The money would provide grants, loans or loan guarantees to companies, local governments and tribes trying to build or relocate manufacturing plants producing critical goods.

“This is a real area of focus for companies and for communities who want to try to bring back manufacturing,” Teitelbaum said. “There’s a lot of interest in including this funding in the final package.”

Another stark difference is on trade. The House reauthorizes a program that provides training and financial assistance for those who lose their jobs or have their hours cut because of increased imports. The Senate has no such provision.

“It’s not going to move without trade adjustment assistance,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said of the bill.

Meanwhile, the Senate bill includes a trade provision that would exclude more products from tariffs the Trump administration put in place on goods imported from China. Those exclusions have almost all expired. The Senate bill reinstates them, a priority of business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The House bill addresses immigration, while the Senate bill does not. It would create a new visa category for entrepreneurs and would allow those with an ownership interest in successful ventures to apply to become lawful permanent residents.

The House bill, unlike the Senate bill, also touches on climate change. It dedicates $8 billion to a fund that helps developing countries adjust to climate change. That could be a nonstarter for Republicans, who object to using U.S. taxpayer money for that purpose.

No one expects the negotiations to be easy.

“I have a hard time explaining to my friends and constituents,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, “that when the White House is in favor of something, when Democrats are in favor of something, Republicans are in favor of something, the House is in favor of it, and the Senate is in favor of it, we still can’t seem to get it done. But I hope that we will take advantage of this opportunity.”
Click to expand...
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://www.rawstory.com/gas-prices-oil-republican-crisis/
Screen Shot 2022-04-20 at 12.47.51 PM.png
Energy and commodities writer Javier Blas at Bloomberg News revealed that, this week, the United States hit an all-time record of crude and refined oil products it is exporting.

Only twice in history has the number jumped above 10 million barrels per day and this week captured one of those days, setting the record.

CHART OF THE DAY: The U.S. exported a RECORD amount of crude and refined oil products last week, surging above 10 million b/d for the only 2nd time ever. \n\nThe U.S. is acting as the barrel of last resort to a global energy market hungry for oil | #OOTTpic.twitter.com/HvrrL7pVRW
— Javier Blas (@Javier Blas) 1650465732
Click to expand...
This happens at a time that Republicans have complained that there is an energy crisis. According to the GOP leaders, there is an oil shortage that is causing the increase in gas prices while blaming President Joe Biden for restricting drilling.

"President Biden is covering for his own self-made energy crisis," whined Sen. Ted Cruz at the end of March. "This is the third release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in under a year. Since day one, Biden has waged war on American energy by killing the Keystone pipeline, halting oil and gas leases, and increasing burdensome regulations on fossil fuels."

IN OTHER NEWS: 'Libs of TikTok' deletes thousands of tweets after owner's identity is exposed

Biden responded by saying that there are thousands of leases that oil companies were granted but that they aren't using now. In fact, Biden released 34 percent more drilling leases than former President Donald Trump did in his first year. Now, Biden is coming under fire from climate activists because he agreed to open up federal lands for drilling. It was a campaign promise he is breaking.

As White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained in a briefing, the Keystone pipeline doesn't actually create oil, it just delivers it. At the same time, the pipeline hasn't even been built yet, so it would have no help in solving a problem happening today.

The existing Keystone Pipeline already delivers oil from the Alberta Tar Flats all the way through refineries in Cushing, Oklahoma, Port Arthur and Houston. Texas. It also delivers oil to Steel City, Nebraska, pictured in this story about a leak that led to 17,000 gallons of oil being dumped on South Dakota. The Texas Tribune posted photos in 2013 of the pieces of the pipeline being built in Ted Cruz's own state.

"If Americans entrust House Republicans with the majority, we will focus on real solutions to lower gas prices, not ridiculous political spin that won’t solve our energy crisis," claimed House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA). He didn't explain what that plan was, however. It's unknown if the GOP would return to purchasing Russian oil if they take over the House and Senate in November.
Click to expand...
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
i'm curious how much of this is because of a strong job market, and how much is because a lot of people exhausted their benefits?
Click to expand...
14/15 months with +400,000 jobs added to the economy. When was it that job benefits ended last September? I doubt there is any actual information on this, but I would think that the trend is not far off from what it was prior to them ending.


 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top