CNBC
Biden to tout plan to protect millions of workers’ pensions
From July 6, by Rebecca Shabad and Sally Bronston, includes “President Joe Biden will travel to Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday to announce a plan to prevent cuts to millions of workers’ pensions. The launch of the program, created under the American Rescue Plan, comes as Biden’s approval rating remains in the doldrums and consumer anxiety mounts over 40-year-high inflation. Under the final rule for the program, 2 to 3 million workers and retirees who faced pension cuts because of investment losses will get the benefits they were set to receive for their retirement, a White House official said. More than 200 ‘multiemployer’ plans, which are created between employers and unions, ‘were on pace to become insolvent in the near term because their investments struggled during economic crises,’ the official said.”
Washington Examiner
Biden to tout effort bolstering retirement plans on Ohio trip
From July 6, by Naomi Lin, includes “President Joe Biden is expected to promote the Democrats-only $1.9 trillion COVID-19 spending bill's shoring up of multiemployer pension plans when he travels to Cleveland, Ohio. … ‘Two to three million workers and retirees who would have faced dramatic cuts to their pensions will receive the benefits they paid into and depended on for their retirement security, and previous cuts to their pensions will be reversed,’ the source said.”
United States Department of the Treasury
Statement from Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen on the release of the final pensions rule
From July 6, includes “Today’s action by President Biden ensures that millions of hardworking Americans will receive the pension benefits they worked all their lives for and feared were lost. This action will have a significant impact on the lives of workers and their families, and represents one of the most meaningful improvements in our nation’s retirement security in years. In addition, this initiative extends the solvency of the program that insures multiemployer pensions by nearly three decades.” (Note: In his 1946 book, Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt summarized the ‘one lesson’ as "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.")
CNS News, “Government cooks CPI to hide inflation”
From June 29, by J. Kennerly Davis, includes “… There is no free lunch at the federal trough. We pay, one way or another, for every benefit payment we get from the government. As the renowned economist Henry Hazlitt explained, every dollar of government spending not paid for by taxation contributes to inflation, itself an onerous tax levied on all of us. … The Consumer Price Index, the most widely reported measurement of inflation, is calculated by the government using a methodology designed to greatly understate actual inflation. For example, the shelter component of CPI is not based on actual home prices, which rose more than 20% in the last year. Without its downward adjustments, CPI would, by some estimates, be twice the 8.6% reported for May! …”
Mises Institute, “How governments expropriate wealth with inflation and taxes”
From June 27, by Daniel Lacalle, includes “Central banks and governments have exhausted all demand-side policies at the expense of the middle class by eroding real wages and deposit savings. Even worse, governments created a larger inflationary spiral by maintaining all ‘pandemic relief’ packages even after the reopening, well beyond the recovery. They expected a spectacular aggregate demand increase and they got it. Now the result is higher inflation and lower economic growth. But government size and deficit spending remain. Everything that government spends is paid by you. There is no free money.”
American Institute for Economic Research, “Consumer sentiment plunged to a record low in June”
From June 24, by Robert Hughes, includes “The final June results from the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers show overall consumer sentiment plunged to a new record low (see first chart). … The index is consistent with prior recessions. … According to the report, ‘Inflation continued to be of paramount concern to consumers; 47% of consumers blamed inflation for eroding their living standards, just one point shy of the all-time high last reached during the Great Recession.’ … The report adds, ‘Consumers also expressed the highest level of uncertainty over long-run inflation since 1991, continuing a sharp increase that began in 2021.’ The plunge in consumer attitudes reflects a confluence of events, with inflation leading the pack. …”
The Washington Post, “America’s era of free-lunch politics is over”
From April 25, by Matthew Yglesias, includes “The return of inflation for the first time in my lifetime also means the return of difficult short-term tradeoffs in economic policy for the first time in the 21st century. To put it another way: The era of free-lunch politics is over — and it’s Republicans, even more than Democrats, who will have a hard time adjusting.”
Journal of Accountancy, SALT cap challenge is denied Supreme Court review
From April 18, by Paul Bonner, includes “The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review an appellate case that upheld the $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that can be claimed as a deduction on individual federal income tax returns. … New York, joined by Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey, had sued the United States, Treasury, and the IRS, and their respective secretary and commissioner, soon after the enactment of the limitation by the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act …”
Insider, “White House press secretary Jen Psaki says student loan cancellation is ‘still on the table”
From April 16, by John Dorman, includes “White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday said President Joe Biden's use of executive action for the cancellation of some federal student loan debt is ‘still on the table,’ with a decision likely to come in the months ahead.” (Note: Student loans are the largest and, since 2008, fastest growing ‘asset’ on the federal government’s balance sheet. In 2021, the federal government reported more than $1.3 trillion in student loan assets — ten times the $132 billion in 2008, before the onset of the 2008/2009 financial and economic crisis. And the federal government justifies not including tens of trillions of dollars of unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations as liabilities on its balance sheet under the dubious reasoning that the government controls the law, and can change the law at any time. If so, why are student loans a $1 trillion asset?)
Federal Reserve Board of Governors, “Federal Reserve System publishes annual financial statements”
Press release dated March 21, includes reference to Federal Reserve Banks’ Combined Financial Statements with auditor letter dated March 10, and a balance sheet for the 12 Reserve Banks with 2021 assets of $8.8 trillion, up from $7.4 trillion in 2020.
Reason “Blame Biden for high gas prices”
From March 18, by Nick Gillespie and Regan Taylor, includes “… The main culprit is the massive infusion of money into the economy over the past few years by the federal government and the Federal Reserve. Spending in Washington increased 50 percent between 2019 and 2021 on both Biden's and Donald Trump's watch. … If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Biden is blaming Putin for the predictable results of his and Trump's irresponsible spending policies. If we can't expect lower fuel prices any time soon, we can at least demand an honest accounting of the main cause of inflation, the most insidious form of taxation.”
The Hill, “From economic sleight of hand to stark reality”
From March 21, op-ed by Thomas Vartanian and William Isaac, includes “Politicians must think voters live in an alternate reality. Why else would they push fantastic fictions about the boogeymen they claim are responsible for inflation, when every morning they see the culprit staring back at them in the mirror? … Dealing with this is not a job for the faint of heart. It’s time for leaders to step forward who know how to create the future rather than waiting for it to happen and then looking for someone else to blame. And it’s time for us to elect them.”
March 17. Here’s a picture from the latest annual Financial Report of the U.S. Government, released a month ago, with little media coverage. It puts some perspective on a recent Biden claim to deficit reduction.
From March 9, by Kerry Murakami, includes “… House lawmakers late Wednesday passed a $1.5 trillion spending bill that will keep the federal government funded, after abandoning a plan that would have involved taking away billions of dollars in previously approved pandemic aid that states are expecting. … The clawed back dollars would have come from a second round of payments that the states were set to receive under the ARPA’s main, $350 billion state and local aid program. … Three dozen Republican senators suggested in a letter to Biden last week that it is unclear how states and localities are using ARPA dollars and said they want a further accounting of the spending taking place before they would consider supporting the additional emergency Covid funding the president wants.”
From March 9, op-ed by Henry Olsen, includes “Congress’s sweeping new omnibus appropriations bill is a typical Washington compromise — the surest way to get to yes is to give both sides the irresponsible spending they want. … Here are the “trade-offs”: Democrats get tens of billions in new domestic spending while Republicans get tens of billions more for defense. … All that new discretionary spending is real money even by Washington standards. And yet not a dime in new revenue will be raised to offset it. … It shouldn’t be necessary to point out why this plan is so unwise, but apparently it is. First, inflation is still rising, and massive, debt-financed government spending during the pandemic is obviously the biggest reason for that. … It’s also unwise because, as everyone knows, the country has a massive, long-term debt problem. …”ce to add more details about your site, a customer quote, or to talk about important news.
CoinDesk, “America’s quiet default”
From March 9, by Nic Carter, includes “Things came to a head when the U.S. spent extravagantly on President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the Vietnam War, and sovereigns began to doubt the veracity of America’s promise to redeem currency for gold on demand. In August 1971, France called America’s bluff and dispatched a battleship to retrieve their gold. … Joe Biden did not heed the warning of his former boss. First, the U.S. seized Afghan central bank assets held in New York and bizarrely handed a large portion over to the plaintiffs in a 9/11 lawsuit. While the seizure may have been predictable, expropriating the savings of ordinary Afghans and distributing them to Americans affected by 9/11, an attack perpetrated by Saudis, is deeply unusual. … Not content with that, Biden then dropped a financial nuke on Russia with the seizure of her reserves. It’s important to untangle the perceived morality of this action – a reaction to an unjust invasion – and its prudence. While seizing Afghan or Russian reserves may feel righteous and just, the immediate effect of such actions is to completely undermine the credibility of dollar debt as an international savings device. …”
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