The October inflation report might spell doom for what's left of Biden's agenda

The October inflation report might spell doom for what's left of Biden's agenda
Joel Mathis, Contributing Writer, The Week
Wed, November 10, 2021, 11:07 AM

The latest news on inflation is bad: Consumer prices were up in October by 6.2 percent over a year ago, so high that American workers are losing ground despite recent wage gains. That's grim news for Democrats who have lately been feeling the wrath of voters — but also because it might stymie their efforts to pass the "Build Back Better" social welfare bill.

Passing that bill, of course, relies on the good graces of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). And while Manchin has been negotiating with his fellow Democrats to get that bill down to a size and shape that both sides find acceptable, he has long signaled his ambivalence about passing anything at all.

His stated reason: Inflation.

Manchin has been making the case for months that the government has already overheated the economy with its spending on pandemic-era safety net efforts like stimulus checks, unemployment, and other big-ticket items. In September, he called for a "strategic pause" on passing any more major spending bills instead of "rushing to spend trillions" and possibly making the problem worse.

After the latest inflation report was released Tuesday morning, Manchin was feeling some vindication. "By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not 'transitory' and is instead getting worse," the senator tweeted. "From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and D.C. can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day."

That's not a direct threat to kill the BBB bill, but it is a strong hint that Manchin isn't in any real hurry to get the job done.

The problem with Manchin's position, though, is that it's not clear that slowing government spending will put much of a dent in inflation, which is driven to some extent by the now-legendary supply chain snarls. One example: Vehicle prices have skyrocketed in the last year — nearly 10 percent for new cars and more than 25 percent for used autos. But those prices are driven by a shortage in computer chips. How will, say, killing the proposal for paid family leave help that situation?

Moreover, the rise in inflation doesn't suddenly mean Americans no longer need what's in the BBB bill — things like childcare assistance and an extension of child tax credit payments, climate change mitigation, Medicaid expansion, and affordable housing. For many families, inflation will make their needs for such help even more insistent. It shouldn't be an excuse to kill off what's left of President Biden's agend

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The October inflation report might spell doom for what's left of Biden's agenda 1Qk4U7p

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11-10-2021

Joe Biden has a lot to celebrate this week.

The economy created 531,000 jobs in October.
The Labor Department reported on Friday, considerably above estimates, while prior months were revised upward.

The stock market, often trumpeted as an economic achievement by his predecessor in the White House, opened at a new high Monday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 36,000.

Biden's signature legislative achievement,
the $1 trillion Build Back Better infrastructure proposal, passed Congress late last week as enough Democrats temporarily put aside their differences
and even a few Republicans voted to help it through.

But, rather than blow out the candles on a celebratory cake, Americans seem to be upset with the state of the economy. Various polls show them unhappy with Biden's economic programs and especially rising prices for a variety of common goods.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell and many economists that the current bout of inflation will subside in the coming months and into 2022.

The sour mood on the economy comes as Powell and his colleagues at the Fed are pulling back the reins on the extraordinarily accommodative monetary policy they have employed to fight the pandemic.
The central bank announced plans to begin reducing its $120-billion-per-month purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, which have helped keep interest rates at record low levels.

The Fed, and the economy in general, is engaged in
a massive "reflation" of a $20 trillion economy that has been living in an era of low inflation, or even a disinflationary environment that dates back at least
as far as the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
That has been the fuel behind the rise in housing prices and the stock market.

"We were for more than two decades in a disinflationary cycle," says Dan Wantrobski, technical analyst and associate director of research at Janney Montgomery Scott.

Even if the Fed is successful and officials are proven right about inflation coming down from its current levels, prices are not likely to revert back to the previous levels.
Most economists are predicting an uptick in the rate of economic growth in the fourth quarter and beyond.

And a weekly measure of consumer sentiment released Friday, the Ipsos-Forbes Advisor Consumer Confidence Tracker, rose 2 percentage points to 55.4%. "Additionally, more Americans (58%) expect the post-pandemic economic recovery will be quick, a 5 percentage point increase from two weeks ago," the report noted.

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11 million people still out of work. Jus' sayin'...

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on supply chains: 'There will be disruptions'
Brian Sozzi·Anchor, Editor-at-Large, Yahoo Finance
Mon, November 15, 2021, 10:18 AM·2 min read

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Yahoo Finance Live supply chain bottlenecks at the country's major ports will likely persist for the foreseeable future.

"We are definitely seeing some immediate impacts of the immediate steps that we have taken, but the honest answer I can give you, as long as the pandemic continues, there will be disruptions," Buttigieg explained.

The supply chain bottlenecks triggered by the pandemic continue to have multiple effects on the U.S. economy.

For one is the straight consumer angle, where shoppers may be unable to find what they want when headed to a retailer. That could become even more acute for the approaching holiday shopping season. But the other aspect is the inflationary aftermath on shoppers as companies raise prices to offset their higher costs — notably for shipping.

Consider this: More than 40% of CFOs in a recent Deloitte survey indicate supply chain shortages or delays have increased their companies’ costs by 5% or more. Meanwhile, 60% said their sales this year have either been reduced or will be by the end of the year due to supply chain problems.

Buttigieg said President Biden's new $1.2 trillion infrastructure package will help improve port congestion and lay the groundwork for better flows of goods coming out of the pandemic.

"In the long-term we will have better ports, better rails and better roads so the core infrastructure — all of those private sector processes — is more resilient for whatever challenge in the future could come, whether it's another pandemic, whether it is the extreme weather we are seeing more and more of in this era of climate change, or something we haven't even thought of," Buttigieg added.

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11-14-2021

Inflation Surges Worldwide as Covid-19 Lockdowns End and Supply Chains Can’t Cope.

Rising inflation is triggering anxiety around the world as a surge in demand following the easing of Covid-19 lockdowns has been confronted by supply bottlenecks and rising prices of energy and raw materials.

The sharpest consumer-price increases in years in many countries have evoked different responses from central banks.

More than a dozen have raised interest rates but
two that haven’t are those that loom largest over the global economy:
the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

(((the world is struggling, America will pull out of it..
covid has been extremely destructive)))

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11-6-2021

Remarks by President Biden on the October Jobs Report.

THE PRESIDENT:
Good morning. Today is another great day for our economic recovery. America is getting back to work. Our economy is starting to work for more Americans.

Thanks to the economic plan we’ve put through in Congress earlier this year and a successful vaccine deployment, America continues to add jobs at a record pace.

In this historically strong recovery, unemployment rate has fallen again today down to 4.6 percent.
This included a substantial drop in unemployment
for Hispanics, which was much needed.

Our economy is on the move. This morning, we learned that in October, our economy created 531,000 jobs — well above expectations.

We also learned that job growth over the prior two months, August and September, was nearly 250,000 more jobs than previously thought.

In total, the job creation in the first full nine months
of my administration is about 5.6 million new jobs a record for any new President.

That’s a monthly average of over 60,000 [600,000] new jobs each month — 10 times more than the job creation at three months before I took office.

New unemployment claims have fallen every week for the past five weeks, are down by more than 60 percent since I took office, and are now at the lowest level since the pandemic started.

And people continue to move from unemployment rolls to work. Unemployment has decreased this year by more — more than any other year since 1950.

So any year since 1950, unemployment has decreased more in this year than since 1950.

Over five and a half million jobs. Unemployment down at record pace to 4.6 percent. And before we passed the Rescue Plan, forecasters said it would take until the end of 2023 — to the end of 2023 to get to 4.6 unemployment rate.

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Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (4.3 percent) declined in
October. The jobless rates for adult women (4.4 percent), teenagers (11.9 percent), Whites (4.0 percent),
Blacks (7.9 percent), Asians (4.2 percent), and Hispanics (5.9 percent) showed little or no change over
the month. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

Among the unemployed, the number of permanent job losers, at 2.1 million, changed little in October
but is 828,000 higher than in February 2020. The number of persons on temporary layoff, at 1.1
million, was little changed over the month. This measure is down considerably from the high of 18.0
million in April 2020 but is 306,000 above the February 2020 level. (See table A-11.)

In October, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) decreased by
357,000 to 2.3 million but is 1.2 million higher than in February 2020. The long-term unemployed
accounted for 31.6 percent of the total unemployed in October. (See table A-12.)

The labor force participation rate was unchanged at 61.6 percent in October and has remained within
a narrow range of 61.4 percent to 61.7 percent since June 2020. The participation rate is 1.7 percentage
points lower than in February 2020. The employment-population ratio, at 58.8 percent, was little
changed over the month. This measure is up from its low of 51.3 percent in April 2020 but remains
below the figure of 61.1 percent in February 2020. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.4 million, was little changed in
October. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time
because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. This measure has
essentially returned to its February 2020 level. (See table A-8.)

The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job was 6.0 million in October,
essentially unchanged over the month but up by 968,000 since February 2020. These individuals were
not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks
preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job. (See table A-1.)

Among those not in the labor force who wanted a job, the number of persons marginally attached to
the labor force was little changed at 1.7 million in October. These individuals wanted and were
available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but had not looked for
work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the
marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, was essentially unchanged over
the month at 455,000. (See Summary table A.)

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

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11-17-2021

Jobs Reports Missed, Big-Time, For Four Months In a Row.

There were an estimated 850,000 new jobs in June—a massive number.
It was later revised upward by 112,000.
July was even bigger, at 943,000.
But it was later bumped up by even more: 148,000.

August came as a huge disappointment, with just 235,000 new jobs.
But it has since been revised upward by 248,000. September was an even bigger disappointment, at 194,000.
Since then, another 118,000 have been added. August and September were weaker months than the boom of June and July.
But August, at least, wasn’t the enormous slump it initially seemed to be. And with October’s job growth coming in at 531,000, September would have looked like a blip if August hadn’t also looked so bad.

During the period of time for which jobs numbers were underestimating growth, polls found approval
of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy dropping from 51% to 39%.

The coronavirus pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the economy, and with them, unprecedented challenges to the people who track how the economy is doing.

In March and April 2020, the BLS had to dramatically revise jobs numbers down, and the agency also found a misclassification error early in the pandemic that was causing it to understate the unemployment rate.

The integrity of the Bureau of Labor Statistics has always been seen as unimpeachable, and there is no doubt that it’s been faced with unpredictable waves of economic crash and resurgence even as the bureau’s statisticians cope with the same pandemic-induced alterations to their lives that everyone else in the country has had to handle.
That’s a big and politically consequential mistake to have made four months in a row.

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