Guest Post by Victor Davis Hanson
The Democrats will suffer historic losses in the November midterms.
This disaster for their party will come about not just because of the Afghanistan debacle, an appeased Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of the southern border, the supply chain mess, or their support for critical race theory demagoguery.
The culprit for the political wipeout will be out-of-control inflation – and for several reasons.
First, the Biden Administration is in such denial of inflation that it sounds to Americans simply callous and indifferent to the misery it has unleashed.
Biden officials have scoffed at price spikes as “transitory.” Or they have preposterously claimed spiraling costs are a concern only to the elite. They blame the Ukraine crisis. Or they fault the out-of-office bogeyman, former President Donald Trump.
The administration assures us that consumer prices are only rising at an annualized rate of 7.5% – as if the steepest increase in 40 years actually is not all that bad.
Yet the middle class knows that inflation is far worse when it comes to the stuff of life: buying a house, car, gas, meat, or lumber.
Second, inflation is an equal opportunity destroyer of dreams. It undermines rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals. It unites all tribes, all ideologies, all politics against those who are perceived to have birthed the monstrous octopus that squeezes everything and everyone it touches.
The conservative passbook holder sees his meager life savings eaten away. The liberal teacher’s car payments stretch from six to 10 years.
The prospective Republican home buyer sees his hard-earned potential down payment eaten away each month. The Democratic carpenter feels his new higher wages buy even less.
Third, inflation is ubiquitous, inescapable, omnipotent – and humiliating. It destroys personal dignity. And its toxicity is insidious, sort of like seeping, odorless, colorless, but nevertheless lethal carbon monoxide.
Unlike now-unpopular critical race theory, it cannot be avoided for a day. You cannot tune it out like one does the mess in Afghanistan or the now nonexistent southern border. Inflation attacks everyone in 24/7, 360-degree fashion.
It belittles you at the gas station. It downsizes you at the food market. It humiliates you in the obscene real estate market. It makes you look stupid when you are paying for a new car. It ridicules you when you buy lumber. Suddenly you apologize that you really cannot afford your child’s braces.
Fourth, inflation undermines a civil and ordered society. It unleashes a selfish “every man for himself” mentality, the Hobbesian cruelty of a “war of all against all.”
Inflation is the economic and emotional equivalent of smash-and-grab or carjacking. It is a brazen robber in broad daylight that so infuriates Americans by its boldness. It convinces them their very civilization is dying.
One day a friendly, hard-to-find plumber announces that he will work for cash only to avoid taxes that all others must pay. You notice at your neighborhood Walgreens suddenly lots of once inexpensive stuff is now pricey – and locked up because of shoplifting fears.
You sense that price stickers are mysteriously glued on top of older, original, and cheaper price stickers.
In warranted paranoia, you begin to wonder if you are being price-hiked by the car salesman, the barber, or the mechanic, and conclude that in order to survive, you too should price-hike others.
The noble fool who won’t play the inflation roulette game is reduced to the clueless standing naif victim of musical chairs – with nowhere to sit once the music ceases.
Fifth, Americans know that our current inflation is self-induced, not a product of a war abroad, an earthquake, or the exhaustion of gas and oil deposits.
Biden ignored the natural inflationary buying spree of consumers who were released from being locked down for nearly two years unable to spend.
Instead, he encouraged gorging that huge demand by printing trillions of dollars of funny money for all sorts of new redistributionist entitlements, green projects, and pet congressional programs.
The Biden Administration eroded the work ethic. It kept labor non-participation rates high by subsidizing with federal checks those staying at home.
It nihilistically slashed gas and oil production by canceling federal leases, oilfields, and pipelines while pressuring banks not to lend for fracking.
In just a year, Biden reduced America from the greatest producer of gas and oil in the history of civilization to an energy panhandler begging the Saudis and Russians to pump more of the oil that America needs but will not tap for itself.
Americans know the inflation octopus was willfully birthed. They are confused only whether Team Biden unleashed it out of incompetence – or a neo-socialist idea of eroding the value of money for those who had it while gifting cash to those who didn’t.
Or was Biden deluded by crackpot “modern monetary theory,” the fool’s gold that claims printing money ensures prosperity?
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether Biden was deluded or diabolical. Come November, Americans will rightfully blame him for willfully damaging their lives.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Why do I keep hearing that the democrats will be decimated in the next election? NONE OF THE FRAUDELENT METHODS USED IN THE LAST ELECTION HAVE BEEN FIXED!!! Can you say Dominion machines, ballot boxes, “mail in” ballots, etc. Challenges to results are met with silence or snoring by Soros appointed judges and attorney generals.
We are a banana republic now…elections don’t mean squat.
Build that local community that you can depend on when TSHTF.
Brewer – Statewide elections are the easiest to cheat in because the big cities can overwhelm the smaller population areas of a state – think Philadelphia overwhelming all of PA with fraudulent ballots. In House races, it is a much harder task for them to overwhelm the legitimate voters. I expect to see the House flip somewhere around 65 – 75 seats in November, but the Senate will see very little change.
Of course, that does not take into account the repubicant’s innate ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as has been proven time and time again.
If 100% of us vote, and the socialist democrats cheat, then the total vote will exceed registered voters everywhere. Invalidation of the election, followed by either new elections or revolution will have to follow.
Attorneys General. Surgeons General. Postmasters General. Courts Martial.
Not on the watch of the 400 Pound Shaniquas-With-Braids “counting” the “votes” in Democrat-run blue areas.
What if the Biden Administration pulls a Trudeau when that giant convoy gets to DC?
I know Francis Marion hasn’t had time to put together one of his excellent updates about Canada’s Fringe Minority, but there is a real convoy heading to Washington, DC. The fact that they’ve already built a fence suggests it is considered a clear and present danger.
Count on the Biden Administration pulling a Trudeau… FIFY…
Unless you were alive in the 1970’s, the thing no one today understands about inflation, is that at some point it becomes a feedback loop. It is called the Fisher Equation, and it happens as a result of businesses that have to order far in advance, or have extended production times need to anticipate inflation and build it into their prices in advance. This begins to happen across the board and becomes impossible to stop short of inducing economic collapse. This is usually done by increasing interest rates to the point where consumption is stifled. That is your future.
stagflation?
Crush small/medium businesses; then raise rates to keep them crushed. Devious, indeed.
=================
Anyway, Volcker got rates briefly up to 20%. If that happened again, within a year the federal government would be unable to service the national debt — i.e., cost to service the debt would be massively in excess of all federal tax revenue.
Way back in the good ol’ days**, when the debt was a mere $20 Trillion, the cost to service the debt was about half a Trillion per year, with tax revenue just under $4 Trillion. Now think of that with the debt 50% higher and a fed funds rate 100 times higher.
It’s either that or experience how that Fisher feedback loop causes hyperinflation (i.e. exponential growth in the rate of inflation) until the Dollar is worth zero, a la Zimbabwe, Weimar, et al.
Either way, we’re screwed. The Dollar will end soon and be replaced with an entirely new monetary system.
And if you think it won’t be a CBDC tying your bank acct to your social credit score, your vaccine compliance, your politics, your online and recorded statements, and every other bit of data that BigTech and BigGov have amassed about you in a searchable profile; then you haven’t been paying attention.
==================
** ( i.e., two years ago)
The government will always service the debt. The last time they went bankrupt, they simply raised income taxes up to 90% brackets, and confiscated much of the countries wealth which was being held in gold. They are not above doing that again. It is not the governments debt, it is yours and mine.
And the psychology of inflation exacerbates the problem. Buy today whether you can afford it or not, because next year it will cost more. That’s how nearly all young professionals bought and traded up houses again and again (I was one of them) until the music stopped, and the last house they bought before they could afford suddenly was worth less than they owed (luckily, I wasn’t one of them.)
High interest brought down the stock market because why take market risk when you can get a bank CD paying 12% for a year? 1970-1980: CPI up 100%; DJIA up 3.5%.
Jdog, yes indeed, And in the 70s there was no worry of chip shortages, supply chain disruptions, extreme just-in-time inventory, labor shortage across most markets, and possible real shortages of food and fuel. Add those things into the Fisher loop. (And, oh yes possible nuclear war being led by DC full of Manchurians and Trojans) . There is now no way to project costs or prices for the forseeable future for most businesses. The real economy will simply grind down and seize up like an engine out of oil and coolant. Yes, Bidet is to blame because all results are from his decisions ad EOs. Probably too late for elections to help even if they were honest.
I HOPE the first sentence of this article comes true: “The Democrats will suffer historic losses in the November midterms.” Besides concern over voter fraud, I am even more worried about conservatives getting over confident and turning out less than 100%…like in November 2020, when only 60% of conservatives even bothered to vote. If we don’t all commit to voting in November 2022, we will lose and in the process will lose our nation.
Even if “we” win, we lose. Same as it ever was.
Vote harder.
The Democrats did not get us where we are alone. EVERYONE in Washington is a traitor and is selling out the American people. There needs to be a bounty on them.
God thoughts but all will be cancelled by Dominion.
gold, silver, and lead.