Guest Posts by Martin Armstrong
Once “we get the pandemic under control, the global economy comes back, these pressures will mitigate and I believe will go back to normal levels,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, echoing “transitory” sentiments by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Powell believes supply chain bottlenecks are the main culprit for inflation. Well, the Biden Administration appointed the secretaries of Commerce, Agriculture and Transportation to create a supply chain task force to fix the influx issues.
Sameera Fazili, a deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, stated, “Our approach to supply chain resilience needs to look forward to emerging threats from cybersecurity to climate issues.” Is climate change the issue here? Is this an indication of where the government will misdirect resources once again? Fazili further displayed how out of touch the government is with the current crisis by saying inflation due to supply shortages is “kind of [a] good problem to be having,” as it indicates demand. The countless number of businesses and consumers currently paying for basic living expenses at up to 30-year highs may not see the glass half full at the moment.
Then, the Biden Administration met with the workers at the Port of Los Angeles this week, where it was agreed upon that the port would operate 24/7 to address issues. Ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, account for 40% of all shipments into the US, which seems to be a good start. Even Walmart, FedEx, and UPS have agreed to unload their shipments at non-peak hours to help the process. Oh, wait, the ongoing worker shortage.
Companies are begging people to apply, and it remains to be seen whether the ports will be able to maintain proper staffing to run at full capacity around the clock. Then the need for a sufficient number of truck drivers becomes an issue as well. Even if the ports do reach full capacity, what about the spike in fuel prices? Energy prices have caused the price of transportation to skyrocket, which is then passed on to the consumer. The US government is approaching this issue from a domestic standpoint as well and not factoring in the reason why inflation and supply shortages are not limited to the US.
Socrates indicated that inflation could rally into 2034, and based on the current solutions, the computer will likely be correct once again. Perhaps we should all view inflation through rose-colored glasses and view the 5.4% YoY spike in September as “kind of a good problem to be having.”
Stagflation is Here
Normally, the standard definition of “stagflation” has been explained as slow economic growth with relatively high unemployment/or economic stagnation that takes place with rising prices. Some have also defined it as a period of inflation combined with a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP).
Stagflation became a term that defined the 1970s because economic growth was still positive, but the rate of inflation was far greater due to the price shock of the OPEC embargo. Because of the Democrats constantly pushing to raise taxes, they sent corporations fleeing offshore, and it was NOT merely because of the tax rate. I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on taxation and they wanted to know why NO American company got a contract from China like constructing the Yellow River Dam.
I explained that German companies were NOT taxed on worldwide income, and as such, they were already 40% less than an American company because Americans pay taxes on worldwide income, and the ONLY other country to that was Japan. Thus, American companies moved offshore, NOT because labor was cheaper, but so they could complete.
As a result, I provided our analysis that showed when we allocated trade according to the flag of the company instead of where something was manufactured, then the US had a trade surplus instead of a trade deficit. Trump understood that and offered a one-time tax deal to bring their profits home. The Democrats screamed because they wanted 40% in taxes. But they would not bring the money home and so they got 0%.
Currently, as we move into 2024, this entire COVID scam has seriously disrupted the supply chain. Companies shifted to Just-In-Time inventory systems to save on financing an inventory. But then COVID lockdowns came and this resulted in chronic shortages.
So your answer is we are already in a STAGFLATION mode because inflation will surpass economic growth. With the dramatic tax increases the Democrats want to shove down the economy’s throat, all we will see is a decline in economic growth with rising prices thanks to chronic shortages. So we get the worst of two worlds.
The Democrats are deliberately pushing the World Economic Forum agenda and are actively trying to confiscate wealth while simultaneously crushing the economy to Build Back Better. Just like George Bush Jr took the blame for the Iraq war, which was all Cheney, Biden will go down in history as the patsy for this foreign infiltration of the United States to change our economy into a Marxist wonderland.
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Are You Prepared for the Mass Repricing of Goods and Services?
One industry feeling the pinch of rising natural gas prices is the fertilizer business. As we noted several weeks ago, several fertilizer plants in the UK have had to suspend operations because of soaring natural gas prices. Here in the US we’re not aware of any fertilizer producers suspending operations. But fertilizer prices are up, nonetheless.
In fact, the Green Markets North American Fertilizer Price Index recently soared to a record high, thus eclipsing the prior record set in 2008. Sky high fertilizer prices will further raise the cost of food production for farmers.
https://economicprism.com/are-you-prepared-for-the-mass-repricing-of-goods-and-services/