Biden Admin Says If You Exclude Beef, Pork, & Poultry, Inflation Is Actually Not That Bad

Via ZeroHedge

Update (0915ET): Bond King Jeffrey Gundlach summed up the idiocy of The White House’s spokesperson perfectly: “…if you take out the items that are up a lot, troubling grocery inflation would be lower.”

Brilliant!

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Soaring supermarket prices are eating away at wage gains and have stressed out working-poor families who allocate a high percentage of their incomes to basic and essential items. The Biden administration finally acknowledged inflation as a real concern but didn’t blame the trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary policies and labor shortages on increased food inflation but instead placed responsibility on meatpackers.

White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese took the podium on Wednesday and told reporters that “half of the overall increase is in grocery prices can be attributed to a significant increase in prices in three products: beef, pork, and poultry.” 

“It raises a concern about pandemic profiteering, about companies that are driving price increases in a way that hurts consumers who are going to the grocery store,” Deese said, adding that this “isn’t benefiting the actual producers, the farmers and the ranchers that are growing the product.”

“The real drivers in these three areas, these three proteins,” he said, “if you look at the thing that is striking across beef and poultry and pork, significant consolidation in those industries.”

Deese said, “the market is controlled by the top four producers in those industries.”

The White House also released a report titled “Addressing Concentration in the Meat-Processing Industry to Lower Food Prices for American Families,” highlighting beef prices have jumped 14%, pork by 12.1%, and poultry by 6.6% since last December.

It also said: “Just four firms control approximately 55-85% of the meat market,” which has sparked a processing bottleneck in the supply chain. 

Deese nor anyone in the Biden administration has publicly pointed out the real drivers of inflation, or as some have termed “Bideninflation,” comes from the Federal Reserve’s $120 billion bond-buying every month and the federal government’s trillions in fiscal spending, mainly in the form of free handouts that have disincentivized millions of people to remain unemployed and collect free money from the government. This has caused labor shortages across various industries and disrupted supply chains at food processing plants. The result: Lower food processing capacity has boosted prices at supermarkets as demand remains elevated. And it’s not just labor that is an issue. The cost of everything is skyrocketing, such as commodities.

Last week, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said world food prices are rising again and back to near-decade highs. Food prices have been rising for more than a year, affecting emerging market economies the worst but now are beginning to impact consumers in developed countries.

A key indication that Biden’s economic team understands food inflation is a serious problem was the move last month to boost the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by 25%. This comes ahead of the midterms and will appease the working poor, who can afford more food.

Consumers learned in July that inflation increased the most in 13 years in June amid supply constraints, which has crushed sentiment. And there are concerns from billionaire and grocery chain CEO John Catsimatidis that food price increases may continue through the end of the year.

The Biden administration blaming meatpackers for soaring food inflation is an easy excuse to shift blame for the unintended consequences of the federal government trying to inflate away the enormous debts of the US.

The one word to summarize Biden’s socialist paradise of widespread shortages of everything, the slowdown in growth, and elevated inflation is stagflation.

If the working poor decides to vote with their wallets in the upcoming midterms, the Dems might be in trouble.

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