jimihendrix1
Well-Known Member
I have to inform you that inflation is a world wide problem, and inflation in the USA STARTED UNDER tRUMP.
2021 has marked a sharp break from what had been an unusually long period of low-to-moderate inflation. In fact, during the decade leading up to the pandemic, 34 of the 46 countries in the analysis averaged changes in inflation rates of 2.6% or lower. In 27 of these countries, inflation rates averaged less than 2%. The biggest exception was Argentina, whose economy has been plagued by high inflation and other ills for decades. The OECD has no data on Argentine inflation rates before 2018, but in the 2018-19 period it averaged 44.4%.
At the other end of the spectrum is Japan, which has struggled against persistently low inflation and periodic deflation, or falling prices, for more than two decades, mostly without success. In the first quarter of 2020, Japan’s inflation rate was running at an anemic 0.7%. It slid into deflationary territory in the last quarter of 2020 and has remained there since: Consumer prices in the third quarter of this year were 0.2% below their level in the third quarter of 2020.
A few other countries have departed from the general dip-and-surge pattern. In Iceland and Russia, for instance, inflation has risen steadily throughout the pandemic, not just in more recent months. In Indonesia, inflation fell early on and has remained at low levels. In Mexico, the inflation rate fell slightly during the 2020 lockdown period but returned quickly, hitting 5.8% in the third quarter of 2021, the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2017. And in Saudi Arabia, the pattern was reversed: The inflation rate surged during the height of the pandemic but fell sharply in the most recent quarter, to just 0.4%.
Inflation didn't matter when Trump cut millionaires' taxes, but now that a Democrat's president…
Republicans, however, are using the fear of inflation in an unserious, yet dangerous way. They are lying by brandishing it as a weapon against the Biden-Harris administration’s plans to invest in American jobs and American families.
To say that Republicans have had a hard time making a coherent case against Biden’s progressive economic proposals is an understatement the size of the twice impeached former president’s upcoming debt obligations.
Earlier this year, when Republicans attacked the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) that passed Congress without a single vote from their caucus, they said it would push the economy into overdrive and cause significant inflation. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, for example, criticized the COVID-19 relief package in late February on these grounds: “There are a lot of warning signs that have not been worrisome in the past but now are certainly blinking yellow. At some point, we’ve got too much liquidity going into the system. The economy is recovering very, very well.” Not one very, but two, mind you. Likewise, in March South Dakota Sen. John Thune intoned that Biden’s spending plans would “unleash inflation,” while Florida Sen. Rick Scott thundered about an inflation-induced “day of reckoning.” Frightening indeed.
Yet, on the other hand, the recently proposed American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan—which would spend $4 trillion over ten years, and pay for it by making the wealthiest individuals and corporations pay their fair share of taxes—are bad ideas according to Republicans because, wait for it, the economy is too weak, even after the ARP’s passage. Here’s Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner: “Why, as this country begins to reopen and recover economically, would the Biden administration be proposing tax policy which would in the end hurt the American family and millions of struggling small businesses?”
When an article in The Hill, about as straightforward a source on national politics as there is, makes fun of your head-spinning political spin, that’s not a good sign. Even if we were to take this ridiculousness seriously, the notion that a plan that’s revenue neutral over the long term, and actually spends more than it takes in right now would harm rather than stimulate the economy in the short term is dumb—even for the Party of Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert.
In recent days the Republicans have gone back to bleating about the dangers of inflation if Biden’s plans become law. After the 46th president laid them out in detail in his address to Congress last Wednesday, Maine Sen. Susan Collins—whose reactions are in no way predictable—expressed grave concern: “I worry that it would ignite inflation, which is very harmful to our economy.” Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn made a similar prediction, and added: “the wallets of Americans from every walk of life are hurt by Biden’s tax plan.” That’s simply incorrect, as Daily Kos’s Dartagnan laid out in a recent post contrasting who will benefit from the Biden plan (the 99%) as compared to Trump’s policies (the Trump family and assorted other richies).
On a related note, when not fearmongering about Biden’s proposals and inflation specifically, Republicans just resort to lying about the plan itself, as Louisiana Sen. John Cassidy did on Meet the Press this past Sunday. The president’s plans total $6 trillion—not $7 trillion, as Cassidy said, but that’s only the smaller of the lies he told. The senator also condemned “the $7 trillion in spending the administration has proposed for this year alone,” expressing concern about the deficit. The American Rescue Plan spends most of its money this year (it is a COVID relief package, after all), but the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan spread out their spending over a decade. Cassidy said all the money (plus the nonexistent trillion he tacked on) would be spent in one year, and liked the lie so much he repeated it twice in 30 seconds. For those optimists hoping that host Chuck Todd caught the lie and questioned Cassidy, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
Here’s the thing: this whole Republican “concern” about inflation—or budget deficits, for that matter—is, as defined by professional economists, little more than bullshit. For example, Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He’s been calling out the right-wing’s faux hand-wringing about inflation for a dozen years. Do you remember when conservatives slammed President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, and the subsequent proposals he made for additional investments because they would cause inflation? Here’s Krugman writing in December 2010: “For two years we’ve been warned that inflation, even hyperinflation, was just around the corner; instead, disinflation has continued, with core inflation—which excludes volatile food and energy prices—now at a half-century low.” Inflation has remained low in the years since—sitting for a decade right around or under the Federal Reserve’s 2% annual target.
