The rising price of oil is inflaming the cost of living. From Matthew Piepenburg at goldswitzerland.com:
In many recent articles and interviews, I’ve warned that Powell’s “higher for longer” war against inflation will actually (and ironically) lead to, well… greater inflation.
That is, the rising interest expense (nod to Powell) on Uncle Sam’s fatally rising 33T bar tab will inevitably need to be paid with an inflationary mouse-clicker at the Eccles Building.
I’ve also consistently maintained that Powell’s war on inflation is mostly just optics, as he secretly seeks inflation to help pay down that bar tab with an increasingly inflated/debased USD.
Powell achieves this open lie by publicly declaring a steady decline in inflation by simply misreporting the true CPI number.
As John Williams recently argued, true inflation using an honest (rather than the openly bogus BLS) measure is now closer to 11.5% rather than the officially reported headline rate of 3.7%.
This should come as very little surprise to those whose eyes are open to the Modis Operandi of debt-soaked/failed regimes. As former European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker confessed: “When the data is too bad, we just lie.”
But even for those who still believe the current Truman Show inflation (and “soft landing”) narrative out of DC, the Bezos Post or legacy media A, B, or C, there’s more fire adding to the inflationary flames than just bogus narratives and calming platitudes.
In particular, I’m talking about oil-driven inflation, and nothing burns faster.
Scary Flames in the Oil Supply
Left or right, the dumb out of DC just keeps getting dumber.
Between rising rates (nod to Powell), which make capex investing untenable for US oil producers, and a Weekend at Bernie’s White House, which has spent years effectively legislating US oil into oblivion, US energy supply is falling, and we all know that weakening supply leads to higher prices—and inflation.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, whom that same White House called a “pariah state,” has not been warming to Biden’s awkward fist-pumps and increased production pleas, but rather joining other OPEC leaders in cutting, rather than expanding, oil production.
UBI bugs and pods uber alles after dollar go bye bye.
At least some of the cosmopolitan carpet bagger predator class ticks could shake off in that process.
Mad Max world will have a quick learning curve and the weak weal be weeded out real fast.
These things happen when the controllers want more for them and less for us. (h/t-GC)