Imagine a world in which I was legally allowed to steal 13–30% of your wealth every single year, and lie to you about how much I’m stealing. Welcome to Planet Earth, 2021. Strange Sounds
The U.S. has fallen to 20th place in the world in economic freedom, out of 178 countries rated. We are now in the middle rankings of the “mostly free,” our lowest ranking ever, and that’s almost entirely due to the decline in fiscal health, which is calculated based on government debt and deficits.
The 2020 fiscal year deficit was a record $3.13 trillion or 122% higher than the previous record of $1.41 trillion in 2009. To make matters even worse, spending in the first nine months of fiscal year 2021 was 5.8% more than the first nine months of fiscal 2020. And still, Biden and his band of goonies are demanding trillions more in deficit spending on nonessential items such as the newly coined “human infrastructure,” an abomination that treats humans as nothing more than a cog in a societal machine.
It’s time the Biden administration stops pretending that inflation is not happening. Economic freedom is not automatic, nor a given, and government must limit its debt and deficits if we are to preserve our fundamental liberties.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that consumer prices, on an annualized basis, have increased 5.4%. Here’s a shocker: If we compared today’s prices to the same basket of goods that we used back in 1980, real inflation is actually pushing 13%.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is also reporting that producer prices have increased annually at a rate of 8.6%. But don’t worry because Janet Yellen says it’s only temporary and will recede to normal levels in the “not-too-distant future.” Not-too-distant is political speak closely aligned with down-the-road, meaning anywhere from 20 feet to 5,000 miles.
The cost of producing plastics and resins, core materials used in many manufactured products, has increased 44.6% over the last year. Automakers may be having a tough time finding chips but that is the least of their problems because iron and steel prices, have increased a whopping 96.3% in the same period. The price of chemicals, which are used in just about everything, have increased 15.6%. And there is no relief in sight.
The cost of gypsum, a core material for cement and drywall, as well as for building roads and highways, has increased 25.3% and the price of construction materials are up 28.8%. Shipping costs are up 17.3% by sea and 20.2% by land. Corrugated paperboard and un-laminated polyethylene film costs, major components in packaging materials, are up 18.2% and 28.2% respectively over the last year.
Hourly wages are up almost 5% since last year. Service industries are reporting as much as 10% increases in compensation. Many other companies are now bumping up salaries anywhere from 4% to 6%. Hiring bonuses are now becoming common to attract workers. None of this includes the unreported compensation increases related to the costs of vacation, sick-leave, health insurance, retirement plans and other perks and benefits that are needed to maintain our current workforce and attract new workers.
These are not predictions. These numbers represent actual money being paid by actual businesses this year. These are the core expenditures – materials and labor – that make up the gross margins of products. And, as you can see, these expenditures are significantly higher than the 8.6% producer price index that’s being reported by the government. And once they go up, they’re not ever going to go down.
The government is controlled by textbook-definition sociopaths. Those same people are in charge of printing money – 30% of all US dollars in existence were printed in the past year. Those same people are in charge of manipulating inflation numbers to make it seem like printing money isn’t having disastrous long-term consequences for your purchasing power. Strange Sounds
Source: What the government isn’t telling you about inflation by Gene Marks, CPA, Washington Times; Inflation Something to Be Concerned About Now by Patrick Tyrrell and Anthony B. Kim, Heritage Foundation; Feds say US inflation is 2-4%. It’s at least 10% and rising fast enough to wipe out most people within a decade, Strange Sounds
