Analysts are starting to wonder aloud whether Putin is winning the war in Ukraine.  We see that some territory has been reclaimed, and a Russian ship blown up near Odessa.  But the refugees are streaming out, and the radio tells us we’ll get 100,000 of them here in the U. S.  It’s hard to know what or who to believe with the news coming constantly.  It’s hard to see Vladimir calling the whole thing off and declaring victory.  But everybody is nervous.  By everybody, we’re talking about all the current and former politicians who were using the country as a corrupt piggy bank.

Justin Trudeau got told off to his face in the Canadian parliament.  It looked like he might have been crying.  Hard to tell with his mask covering most of his face, but he didn’t look happy. He got told off again, called a dictator and asked, politely, to “spare us your presence” at the meetings in Brussels where world leaders have convened to talk about the war in Ukraine.  Too bad Gavin Newsome wasn’t there.

All the airline execs have signed a letter saying the mask mandate on airplanes is a burden upon employees who were never trained as enforcement agents.  Airlines have hospital-grade filtered air on their airplanes, and many of the contentious episodes resulting in passengers being removed from flights and charged with crimes is because stewardesses, uglier than ever, are now barking orders instead of serving drinks.  It’s not about a disease, it’s all about control.

Gas prices are near record levels.  There’s little debate as to why, although we’ve been programmed to blame everything on Putin’s invasion.  The government response has been, not to release the oil companies to drill proven reserves, but to try and buy oil from the likes of Venezuela and producers in the Middle East.  Not to mention drawing down our national reserves.  But they’ve got another idea.  Why not issue government sponsored credit cards that people can use to buy gas?  Inflation?  Anybody?  We certainly wouldn’t want to irritate the squad!

We hope you’ve seen the woman at the swim meet.  About the large guy in a girl’s swimsuit she said, “I’m a woman, and that’s not a woman.”  Some idiot from a couple rows below says, “What are you, a biologist?”  She says, “No, and I’m not a vet, but I know a dog when I see one.”  Maybe you’ve already seen the exchange, but it’s still funny.  They asked the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji if she could define what a woman is, and she said she couldn’t, she’s not a biologist.  We don’t need to see how she’ll vote on every issue before the High Court, everything will be totally predictable.

Wouldn’t it be something if the world is plunged into war, and U. S. leadership is utterly compromised from the outset.  You wonder when the information we Americans are finding out will ever be recognized by the mainstream.  They’re supposed to be telling us what is going on, but it looks like they’re the last to know.  Even when nearly everybody (who’s paying attention) knows the answer, the mainstream has never heard the question.

Nobody could write a novel containing all that is afoot in high places. Who’d believe it?  If somebody wrote a true rendition about what’s transpiring in our daily news, it would seem too fictional.  But it’s our reality in 2022.  Maybe some of this nightmare can be turned around, we surely hope so.  On the other hand, it could get worse.  With the U. S. fighting for the Western “values,” and the corruption that has taken place in high places it’s difficult to say who the good guys are.  All this is certainly not the fault of Ukrainian civilians.  It’s not our fault either.  We don’t believe that a man can put on women’s clothes, and presto!  Everyone is at pains to call it a girl, or suffer the wrath of social media, the corporations and the mainstream.  That’s one of the “values” that’s being fought over.  One thing we know for sure, you can’t imbibe too much tribulation without an emotional reaction.  We just don’t know who all we should be mad at.  None of this is going without notice.  May God’s Will be done in His time.  Propaganda means nothing to Him.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 25 March 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

By the time this is published the average gas price in Texas will have likely set a new record high. At the time of writing, it was just seven cents off the old record and had risen 60 cents from the previous week.

President Joe Biden is looking for every excuse to ignore the powers he has but refuses to use to help bring prices down.

“Can’t do much right now,” he told reporters. “Russia is responsible.”

GAS PRICES: BIDEN RELIES ON NYT FACT CHECK, WAPO OP-ED TO DEFLECT GOP CRITICISM OF ENERGY POLICY

He accused oil companies of exercising “excessive price increases or padding profits” and exploiting American consumers.

But the trends are clear. After gas prices crashed following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, they stabilized around $2.20 through 2020.

From the beginning of 2021 through the middle of May of that year, prices spiked from $2.25 to over $3.00. From there, gas prices rose steadily hitting $3.40 in mid-November, dipping slightly as the country dealt with the Omicron variant, only to continue upward for most of 2022.

All that occurred before Russia invaded Ukraine. The president has only himself and his opposition to domestic energy production to blame.

RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

In the first week of his new administration, the president signed an executive order to “pause” oil and gas leasing on federal land. By the end of the year the Interior Department was recommending new regulations and fees that would drive up the cost of onshore drilling and dissuade companies from leasing the land all together.

In his second month in office, Biden reinstated the “social cost of carbon” to $51 per metric ton from $8, which is largely a made-up figure but allows the government to regulate – and prevent – domestic production much more aggressively.

The administration was begrudgingly forced into auctioning offshore leases last year, but only after a federal judge said the initial ban was illegal. Yet the ban received new life in January when a D.C. District Court judge invalidated the entire sale. There are no signs Biden will appeal the ruling.

BIDEN CLAIMS ‘INFLATION IS LARGELY THE FAULT OF PUTIN,’ NOT DEMOCRATIC SPENDING

In the summer, Biden reversed efforts to reduce the time it takes to build infrastructure projects, like energy production facilities, as well as reimposing methane restrictions that provide no environmental benefit but do raise the cost of creating energy here at home.

Oddly, Biden is pretending to care about increasing oil supply by suggesting he would ease sanctions on Venezuela, begging Saudi Arabia to open the spigot, and seeking a deal with Iran. Meanwhile, the Keystone pipeline, a project in conjunction with our friendly neighbors to the north, remains canceled. Keystone would increase capacity by 500,000 barrels of oil per day.

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Biden has apparently submitted his early entry to PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year contest: “It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production.”

That’s undeniably false. And it is certainly true that his administration is not actively pursuing an increase in domestic energy production, which, unlike war in Ukraine or running an oil company, is something he does control.
Announcing today that the U.S. will make every effort to increase domestic oil supply would send the right signals to the market and start to put downward pressure on prices. Biden could immediately instruct his administration to prioritize lease sale approvals and remove the self-imposed regulatory barriers causing unnecessary delays. The president could approve pending pipeline and LNG export permits, and suspend the antiquated Jones Act that prohibits domestic port-to-port shipping.

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If he doesn’t, gas prices – along with already punishing inflation – will continue to anger and frustrate the American people. Eventually, Biden’s blame game won’t matter, because Americans will know exactly who is responsible.

Greg Sindelar is the CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-high-gas-prices-blame-himself

The post Biden can only blame himself for high gas prices first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Inflation hit a 40-year high in February, with the Consumer Price Index rising nearly 8 percent over last year. The White House reacted by pointing out that “Americans’ budgets are being stretched by price increases and families are starting to feel the impacts of Putin’s price hike.”

Setting aside the fact that only a fraction of February’s inflation report captures the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the administration’s attempt to blame a foreign dictator for its own year-long mismanagement of the American economy is both cynical and easily debunkable.

Let’s start with oil.

Jen Psaki sent out an explainer on why gas prices are rising. “You may have noticed this week that your gas prices have gone up,” the White House press secretary said before blaming Putin, noting that the “only way to protect the U.S. over the long term is to become energy independent.”

In what way has Biden moved to make us energy independent? The administration approached OPEC+ last summer, long before Putin’s invasion, and asked the cartel to increase production. The administration argued at the time that affordable energy — which it had worked to undermine domestically — was imperative for economic growth.

And yet…

On September 4, 2019, when Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden promised at a CNN “Climate Crisis” town hall that he would end all new drilling on federal lands, the national average for a gallon of gas was $2.59. On April 27, 2020, it was down to $1.77. On Inauguration Day 2021, the price was $2.37. It was at $2.39 the day Biden signed an executive order pausing all new government leases on public lands, where nearly a quarter of oil production takes place. Gas was at $3.00 when Biden lifted Trump-era sanctions against Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It was $3.00 on the day Biden officially killed the Keystone pipeline in June 2021. It was at $3.09 when the Interior Department stopped pursuing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico over concocted “social cost of carbon” externalities. It was at $3.50 the week that oil-rich Gulf leaders refused to take Biden’s calls because his administration was forging a deal (with the help of Russia) to empower their enemies in Iran. It was at $3.60 the day Putin invaded Ukraine and at $4.10 the day Biden sent envoys to Venezuela to ask for oil.

There is, of course, the depressing possibility that when Psaki calls for “energy independence” she means turning to inefficient solar and wind — currently only a sliver of our energy portfolio — and retrofitting the entire American infrastructure to accommodate them, along with replacing 290 million cars on the nation’s roads with pricey, impractical electric models. If so, that would mean the administration is alarmingly unserious or dangerously delusional.

And if the Russian dictator is at fault for soaring prices, why did Democrats tell us last year that inflation was merely “transitory”? Did we have Putin-flation on July 19, 2021, when Biden was falsely claiming that “nobody” was “suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist”? After throwing nearly $2 trillion into an overheated economy, on top of the $3 trillion bipartisan COVID-relief bill that came before it, Biden was downplaying inflation fears for partisan reasons, working to ram through the Democrats’ $5 trillion policy goody bag (which would have also increased demand and added $3 trillion to the deficit).

Then again, blaming the invasion of Ukraine for inflation is almost, though not quite, as transparently stupid as arguing that Build Back Better “costs zero dollars.”

When it comes to inflation or the price of commodities, there is only so much a president can do. Of course Biden will still take credit for every morsel of positive economic news, like the return of jobs in states decimated by government-imposed COVID lockdowns, that he has absolutely nothing to do with. But the president has done nothing that would help the economy weather a future shock and nothing to expand “energy independence.” His administration has exacerbated inflationary pressures and suppressed domestic energy production — nearly every climate plan Democrats have proposed intends to artificially create scarcity to disincentivize the use of fossil fuels. Right now, Biden is reduced to flailing (and failing) attempts to get either erstwhile allies or our enemies to send us more oil.

Putin’s nefarious aggression against Ukraine will impose heavy costs on the world, no doubt. But Biden should not get a pass for his amateurish mismanagement of the economy and foreign affairs.

Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/bidens-cynical-attempt-to-blame-putin-for-inflation/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in&utm_term=first

The post Biden’s Cynical Attempt to Blame Putin for Inflation first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Inflation surged more than expected in January, notching another four-decade high as strong consumer demand and pandemic-related supply-chain snarls fueled rapid price gains that wiped out the benefits of rising wages for most Americans.

The consumer price index rose 7.5% in January from a year ago, according to a new Labor Department report released Thursday, marking the fastest increase since February 1982, when inflation hit 7.6%. The CPI – which measures a bevy of goods ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents – jumped 0.6% in the one-month period from December.

Economists expected the index to show that prices surged 7.3% in January from the previous year and 0.5% on a monthly basis.

So-called core prices, which exclude more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 6% in January from the previous year – a sharp increase from December, when it rose 5.5%. It was the steepest 12-month increase since August 1982.

“U.S. annual CPI is the highest since 1982, and what’s worse is that this likely isn’t the peak,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “Higher-than-expected monthly gains in core CPI indicate continued underlying heat and will do nothing to relieve pressure on the Fed to tighten sharply and urgently.”

Stocks declined after the report, with tech leading the broad market selloff.

Rising inflation is eating away at strong wage gains that American workers have seen in recent months: Real average hourly earnings rose just 0.1% in January from the previous month, as the 0.6% inflation increase eroded the 0.7% total wage gain, according to the Labor Department. On an annual basis, real earnings actually declined 1.7% in January.

Price increases were widespread: Although energy prices rose just 0.9% in January from the previous month, they’re still up 27% from last year. Gasoline, on average, costs 40% than it did last year. Food prices have also climbed 7% higher over the year, while used car and truck prices – a major component of the inflation increase – are up 40.5%. Shelter costs jumped 0.3% for the month and 4% year-over-year.

The inflation spike has been bad news for President Biden, who has seen his approval rating tumble as consumer prices rise. The White House has blamed the price spike on supply-chain bottlenecks and other pandemic-induced disruptions in the economy, while Republicans have pinned it on the president’s massive spending agenda and his energy policies targeting the oil and gas industries.

The eye-popping reading – which marked the eighth consecutive month the gauge has been above 5% – could also amp up pressure on the Federal Reserve to kick off its interest rate increases next month with a half-basis point hike. Raising interest rates tends to create higher rates on consumers and business loans, which slows the economy by forcing them to cut back on spending.

Traders are now pricing in over a 44% chance of a hefty half-point rate jump when policymakers meet next month, instead of a more modest quarter-point increase. It would mark the first time since 2000 that the U.S. central bank raised the federal fund rate by 50 basis points. The Fed has not raised rates since December 2018. The odds of a sixth quarter-basis point hike this year, meanwhile, jumped to 63% after the inflation report.

“At this point it’s not a question of will they, won’t they – it’s a question of how many hikes we’ll see in 2022, and what the magnitude and pace will be,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*Trade. “Given views on these aspects are all over the map at this point, there is a lot for the market to be uncertain about.”

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Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has left open the possibility of a rate hike at every meeting this year and has refused to rule out a more aggressive, half-percentage point rate hike, but said it’s important to be “humble and nimble.”

“We’re going to be led by the incoming data and the evolving outlook,” he told reporters during the central bank’s policy-setting meeting last month.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/consumer-price-index-inflation-january-2022?test=38861ea43380e1402f1c90f21546ad4b

The post Inflation accelerates 7.5% in January, hitting a fresh 40-year high first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

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