Biden Leaves Out Facts When Mentioning the 0% Inflation in the Past Month
0% from June 2022 to July 2022 literally means no economic growth and we still saw increases in necessities during that time period.
I wrote that there is literally nothing to celebrate in the inflation report.
We need to remember there are two parts to the Consumer Price Index numbers: Month-to-month and 12-months.
Experts and citizens usually concentrate on the 12-month numbers. I’m a nerd, so I also look at month-to-month.
(I’m writing out the month and years to keep things in perspective. Every detail is important.)
I knew Biden would grasp that America had 0% inflation from June 2022 to July 2022.
Biden didn’t lie in the video in the below tweet. He didn’t falsely claim anything.
Instead of hammering him for what he said, the right should hammer Biden for what he did NOT say. Biden left out facts and other parts of the CPI report that prove inflation is still very much alive.
The math came out to 0% during that time period:
BIDEN: “Please — please have a seat. Danielle, thank you. Before I begin today, I want to say a word about the news that came out today relative to the economy. Actually I just want to say a number, zero. Today, we received news that our economy had 0 percent inflation in the month of July, 0 percent. Here‘s what that means. While the price of some things go up — went up last month, the price of other things went down by the same amount. The result, zero inflation last month. But people are still hurting. But it’s zero inflation last month.”
Biden: "Before I begin today, I want to say a word about the news that came out relative to the economy. I want to say a number. Zero. Today, we received news our economy had 0% inflation in the month of July. 0%." pic.twitter.com/wNfR8jRIQj
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 10, 2022
Biden forgot to mention another result: ZERO economic growth. The 0% from June 2022 to July 2022 means nothing because the economy didn’t grow at all.
I am shocked Biden didn’t mention that inflation only grew 8.5% from July 2021 to July 2022, a decrease from 9.1% from June 2021 to June 2022.
Then again, maybe someone in the White House knew Biden would get blasted because the 0.6% decrease is nothing when you remember that wages only grow at a 5.2% rate while real wages decline.
Also, the basics most people buy at the grocery store every week have gone through the roof in the past 12 months:
- Eggs: +38%
- Flour and prepared flour mixes: +22.7%
- Uncooked ground beef: +9.7%
- Fresh and frozen chicken parts: +18.6%
- Milk: +15.6%
- Fruits and vegetables overall: +9.3%
- Oranges: +14%
- Bananas: 7.4%
- Potatoes: +13.3%
- Coffee: +20.3%
- Sugar and sugar substitutes: +13.3%
- Butter: +22.2%
- Peanut butter: +13.1%
- Pet food: 10.9%
This is why I try to include everything in the CPI reports. Both sides will cherry-pick and spin the details to fit their agenda.
No, Biden did not lie in the video. He did not falsely claim about 0% inflation in July. He didn’t tell the whole truth or expand on the whole CPI report.
Zero economic growth whether it’s month-to-month or yearly is not something anyone should celebrate.
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I would not complain quite so much about the price of groceries if the increases were as listed above. A cursory review of our costs out the door shows groceries in toto have doubled.
But not everything has gone up. For a treat, I grabbed a bag of tortilla chips for $1.99 (same as always) and then went to pick up a 12 oz container of fresh made salsa – what I usually paid $3.99 for the medium hot, was $9.99. So we bought a jar brand instead. Our mindset is that we refuse to be gouged and therefore boycott on a per product basis. My Silk milk has gone up a lot and is becoming scarce, so I tried and like generic Lactaid at half the price.
On being gouged, I remember the evening of 9/11 – we were living in rural central IL. There were 2 gas stations in the middle of town – and after hearing from mom-in-law who called to say “gas has jumped to $4/gallon in Chicago” – I took the car out to gas it up. There was a line – and the station owner was changing prices at the pump between cars. He was also running out to the corner, looking up the street to the reader board at the other gas station to match prices! That I’m aware, the owner wasn’t setting his prices from corporate or wholesaler direction – he was panicking and price gouging.
Shortly thereafter, the IL AG got involved and Casey’s among other AM/PM and 7-11 type stations were ordered to refund customers the amount they had gouged. As for the station owner in our little town, he was eventually forced to shut down by the townsfolk boycotting him. It didn’t help that he was middle-eastern in the aftermath of 9-11.
I wish there were a way to know what is actual inflation, and what is opportunistic greed. The former I will deal with, the latter, I’ll boycott.
PS: LGB / FJB. 😉
Listen to Mike Munger’s classic and entertaining podcast on the virtue of price gouging, and the misery brought on by making it illegal. The gas stations did the right thing.
https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-price-gouging/
No such thing as price gouging, unless you’re a whiny little commie. The price is right if the buyer accepts it and pays it. The seller doesn’t make the buyer pay. Only government does that, the effing hypocrites! In the free market, though, the buyer can walk away, haha, literally if they can’t afford gas!
It’s not inflation so both sides are wrong. It’s prices allocating shortage goods to the most efficient use. So long as the Fed doesn’t “accommodate” it by permitting wage increases, the prices will fall when the shortage works itself out. High prices in shortage goods is a key help in this.
If the Fed accommodates wage increases to cover the price increases, then the prices can no longer allocate shortage goods and have to rise to a higher level yet. That would be real inflation as Milton Friedman described it.
So tightening up by withdrawing dollars from the economy is the right course.
Who ya gonna believe – me or yer lyin’ grocery bill?
It means inflation is just as bad, but we have no growth. Remember, though, they don’t include quite a few essentials in that inflation number.
Right. The official inflation number just HAPPENED to suddenly hit 0%.
Literally nobody actually believes this.
Of course, when you can simply redefine “inflation” as “an increase in the number of national triceratops sightings” one month, and “an increase in the physical size of coins and notes” another month, there’s no limit as to what you can claim.
Can you list the author name for the series you mentioned; Merchant Prince?
I didn’t see the original thread, but could you be talking about the Merchant Princes series, by Charlie Stross?
Yes, that’s him. He writes a number of entertaining series, my favorite being about a British government black bureau where mathematicians are tasked with containing the consequences of the secret fact that what we think of as “dabbling in black magic” is nothing more than discoveries in advanced mathematics. Their job is to clandestinely prevent intelligent, talented, and innocent scholars from accidentally giving things like Cthulhu a foothold in our world.
The price of eggs where I usually shop has tripled in just the last 6 months.
0% inflation is a bald-faced lie.
MInk coats are probably only up 10%, but Progresso brand soup is up over 100%. How many mink coats are you buying???
Jump out of an airplane and you eventually reach a steady state of “terminal velocity”. No increase in speed….until you hit the ground. There is no past… just NOW and The Party (Orwell).
Biden is economically illiterate. First he claimed his $3 trillion BBB bill “would cost zero” and now this!
Any CEO saying something so foolish in an earnings call with analysts would be laughed at then fired by the BoD.
I realize dimmotards live month-to-month–what with fear of dying from whatever their cranky god, Tony Fauci, might add to their antidepressant meds– so average prices staying essentially the same since last month instead of continuing to climb probably seems like a reason to say, “Thanks Joe Biden!” I wonder if they’d offer the same gratitude if year-to-year inflation in our Banana Republic were to reach, say, 100%. Sigh, probably.
Wife just showed me an ad where the shoes she likes, and bought for $25, are on sale for $75. “O%” – Come On Man.