Inflation breaks records again with the Consumer Price Index raising to 8.5%.

 

Gas prices in Washington DC. Fox Business/AP.

Inflation rates have broken records again with the Consumer Price Index for March reaching 8.5%, the worst in 40 years. Fox Business. The rate of inflation rose 1.2% just between February and March, the largest increase since 2005. Prices have gone up across the board with energy and food prices contributing the most. About the only good news is that used car prices, up 35.3% since last year, has decreased between February and March by 1.8%. The inflation has canceled out wage growth for workers. 

My Comment:

This is probably the most impactful news story of the day. If it hadn't been for a mass shooting in New York this would be the top story everywhere. But unfortunately that is not the case and the story has largely died already. 

The Fox Business article did not place much blame on anyone for this but I place the lion's share of blame falls on Joe Biden. I know his administration is trying to blame all of this on Russia but that doesn't make any sense. The inflation began long before Russia invaded Ukraine. 

And of course, Biden had a lot to do with the effects that actually were from the Ukraine conflict. We never had to sanction Russia. Not buying Russian gas caused a large increase in gas prices and didn't seem to hurt Russia at all. All it did was hurt the American consumers. 

Gas prices in general are due to Biden's policies. Canceling pipelines, preventing new drilling and generally being anti-energy has hurt things quite a bit. Biden has also completely alienated our allies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States won't even take Biden's phone calls, let alone increase oil production for us. Biden even tried to get Venezuela and Iran to increase production but he failed there as well. 

I blame much of the inflation due to monetary policy. For the past couple of years they have been printing money like it has been going out of style. Sending everyone $1200 checks was not worth it because they never paid for it, they just printed new money. In order to stop this inflation the government would have to stop doing this but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

With that being said, I don't think everything is the Biden administration's fault. Food prices are going up due to forces beyond his control. The Ukraine war has increased wheat prices, not helped by China's failed winter wheat crop as well as the droughts we are having here in the United States.  This is causing a major food crisis. Though I don't blame Biden for the crisis I do blame him for seemingly doing nothing about it. 

Are things going to get better? I doubt it. Like I said, they would have to change course to stop this and all the Biden administration does is double down on everything. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we get hyper-inflation just because Biden won't back down.