Bidenflation clocks in at 13.2%, according to new TIPP index; so much for Joe Biden's crowing
Joe Biden made a big deal about inflation falling this week, to 7.1 percent, down from a 9.1-percent high last June, and lower than last month's 7.7 percent.
"That was the slowest pace in nearly a year and better than analysts expected," wrote the BBC, echoing much of what's been parlayed in the press.
Biden found that something to crow about, according to the New York Post:
"In a world where inflation is rising at double digits in many major economies around the world, inflation is coming down in America," Biden said at the White House, referring primarily to European inflation, which slightly outpaces US rates due to energy disruption from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Make no mistake, prices are still too high and we have a lot more work to do," the president said. "But things are getting better and headed in the right direction."
"Most Americans can see the progress driving down the street and finding relief at the pump as gas prices fall," he went on. "Today's report contains another piece of good news: Food inflation slowed last month, providing much-needed relief for millions of families at the grocery store."
All of this is baloney to the average consumer. Prices are up, and Joe Biden caused the problem by spending and printing money for government boondoggles, like a drunken sailor.
The figure cited is year-on-year, which doesn't really convey the extent of the problem. The real measure of inflation is the one that begins with Joe Biden's administration, with the first whole month of it in February 2021, not the year-on-year figures, which aren't what the public thinks about as it watches this wide-scale inflation eat up paychecks. February 2021 is the month that separates whatever minuscule inflation that existed in the system before his administration with the monster inflation that coincides with Joe Biden's term in office.
That number, according to the new TIPP inflation index, the TIPP CPI, is 13.2 percent.
Intriguingly, no media outlet bothered to inform its readers or viewers that the prices have increased by 13.2% under President Biden's watch between February 2021 and November 2022.
The simple calculations don't need a rocket scientist. But no one is curious to make that. The mainstream media would rather play defense for the White House and pretend that its policies are working.
That's where we fill the vacuum. We developed the TIPP CPI, a metric that uses February 2021, the month after President Biden's inauguration, as its base and measures the rate of change.
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, as Milton Friedman once put it. It's not caused by oil prices, meat-packers, oil companies, gas station–owners, Vlad Putin, or anything else, as Joe Biden would have you think.
It's caused by money-printing and huge increases to the money supply, which has been expanded to pay for Joe Biden's vast government programs.
It was brought down indeed from the past year, by the Federal Reserve, which hiked interest rates seven times this year, including a big 50-basis-point hike just a few days ago. That move does tamp down inflation (and there's a long way to go to get to normal) even as it comes at a cost, shutting young people out of the mortgage market and making loans more expensive overall. Since Joe Biden doesn't want young people owning anything anyway, he's happy to see it happen.
It's down a bit but nothing Joe Biden can claim credit for. Biden did indeed create the Bidenflation by spending money, but it was the Fed that stepped in and hiked rates to drain some of that excess money now floating around the system which cuts inflation. Fed chair Jerome Powell can take a bow for the lower inflation, cleaning up Joe Biden's mess, but he's got a long way to go. Biden claiming credit for the lower inflation is like an arsonist claiming credit when the firefighters put out the fire.
The other garbage coming from Joe is in his claim that other countries have higher inflation than we do, so that makes Joe his own hero. This too is nonsense. Some countries indeed have overspent, as Joe has, but in many other cases, these other countries closely track the Fed and the dollar and must raise rates with the Fed to keep their currencies competitive and their economies on track. Biden claiming to be a better steward of money than they are must leave a pretty sour taste in the mouths of many of them. Biden can't claim credit for being Mr. Fiscal Discipline around them, either; they know the truth.
It goes to show what a mess Joe Biden has made of the economy, as well as the gaslighting he's willing to engage in to praise himself as the great steward of the economy. He doesn't have the numbers. The numbers start with his administration, as the TIPP CPI shows, and all we see is double-digit inflation that has a long way to go before it can come down.
Image: Screen shot from a camera aimed at a television set during a live broadcast, edited with Adobe CameraRaw.