Biden’s Inflation Problem Is about More Than Putin

 

Biden's Inflation Problem Is about More Than Putin | National Review   "The February inflation report is in, and it’s at 7.9 percent, the highest rate since January 1982. Also in January 1982, the San Francisco 49ers, led by Joe Montana, defeated the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl at the Pontiac Silverdome. 

"Unlike in 1982, though, the Silverdome no longer exists, inflation is going up, not down, and while there’s a famous Joe in the headlines, he certainly isn’t “Joe Cool.” President Biden greeted the news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics by saying, “Today’s inflation report is a reminder that Americans’ budgets are being stretched by price increases and families are starting to feel the impacts of Putin’s price hike.”

"Putin’s price hike? It certainly matters for the global oil market that the dictator of the third-largest producer of crude oil invaded his neighbor unprovoked. The sanctions on the Russian economy will cause problems for energy, metals, and food markets for months at least. But it’s not as though inflation was coming back down and then turned around because of the war in Ukraine.

"The BLS first described our current bout of inflation as “broad-based” in its October 2021 report, and that fact hasn’t changed since then. Where the White House used to point to the soaring price of used cars and claim it was making the average look worse, the price index for used cars actually declined last month, while food and energy prices increased faster than they did in January. “All six major grocery store food group indexes increased in February,” the report says. And we all know what gas prices have done in the past few weeks.". . .