The USA has a few problems, but the one on everyone’s minds right now is inflation. Rising prices mean our income buys less and our savings are losing value.
Families that used to have disposable income to save or buy luxuries are now struggling to pay for essentials like housing, rent or gas.
In June US inflation reached 9.1%, the highest rate since 1983. It’s fallen back slightly since then, thanks to a dip in gas prices, but it’s almost certain to climb again – and it could go a lot higher.
Why Is Inflation Surging?
Economists are arguing about exactly why inflation is so high right now, but most agree that several factors have combined to push prices through the roof.
Supply Chain Issues
A global supply chain crisis started developing last year, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the whole world.
At the height of the pandemic, many factories were producing much less than normal or had even shut down completely.
This created shortages of many goods, although the shortage didn’t become obvious at first because, with tens of millions of people temporarily out of work, demand for many items fell. Now demand is back, but until all the factories are running normally again there aren’t enough goods for everyone who wants to buy them.
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One of the most basic rules of economics is the law of supply and demand. This says that if more people want to buy an item (demand) than there are items available (supply), the price will rise until supply and demand are equal.
The principle is simple: However many people are willing to pay $10 for a product, slightly fewer are willing to pay $11 for it. At the same time, slightly more are willing to pay $9. In a free market economy, prices adjust to match supply and demand. The problem is that shortages push prices up, causing inflation.
Since the end of the pandemic unemployment in the USA has fallen to a historic low, just 3.6%. This means more people are working than ever before, and that pushes demand up.
Low Interest Rates
It might not feel like it if you have a mortgage, but since the 2008 financial crisis it’s been very cheap to borrow money. Low interest rates make sense when you’re trying to stimulate an economic recovery after a crisis. The problem is that once the crisis is over, low interest rates overheat the economy – and that causes inflation.
Related: 10 Things to Do on the Day The Economy Collapses
When interest is low people, and governments, tend to borrow money to spend on things they don’t really need. When people do that the result is increased demand, and then inflation. When governments do it more money gets pumped into the economy, demand goes up and, again, we get inflation.
The Federal Reserve has finally recognized that interest rates have been too low for too long, and has started pushing them up again – but that’s going to be painful for anyone with debt, which is most of us.
Higher mortgage and credit card repayments will leave us less money to buy things, which should reduce demand and bring inflation down, but falling disposable income will also increase calls for wage rises, and that can push inflation right back up again.
Energy Prices
The most dramatic price rises have been for energy; oil and natural gas are leading the charge, but coal prices are rising too.
Energy price rises are very bad news for inflation, because more expensive energy puts up the price of almost everything else.
More expensive coal, oil and gas means more expensive electricity, because a lot of electricity is generated by burning fuel. Anything that needs coal, oil or gas to manufacture – and that’s a lot of things – becomes more expensive.
Anything you buy in a store also becomes more expensive, because the cost of shipping it from the factory to the store rises (and so does the cost of heating, cooling and lighting the store). The most painful impact for most of us is the extra cost of heating, lighting and air conditioning in our homes.
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The bad news is that, while inflation is already at dangerous levels, it looks like it could get a lot higher.
What’s Coming?
Many analysts are predicting that inflation will soon peak, then start to fall. However there are some real dangers ahead. The big one is the EU’s energy policy.
The European bloc plans to ban imports of Russian oil by the end of the year. That will reduce Russia’s exports – and the amount of oil on the global market – significantly, at the same time as the EU starts looking for new suppliers to replace Russian oil.
Related: How The War In Europe Will Affect The US Economy
Oil prices are set to rise sharply. Right now a barrel of Brent crude is selling for $107, but JP Morgan are predicting it could rocket to $380. If you think gas prices are bad now, wait and see what they’re like when oil is nearly four times the current price.
We’ve already looked at all the reasons high oil prices push up inflation. The EU ban could blow up the whole economy. If oil goes to $380 a barrel the price of gasoline could easily double – and the increase in transport costs would drive inflation through the roof.
It’s already running at over twice economists’ predictions for this year, which ran from 1.69% to 4.3%. It could easily double again. If that happens it could trigger an economic apocalypse; after a certain point inflation can start to feed on itself.
Higher prices make demands for higher wages irresistible, and higher wages increase production, transport and retail costs, pushing prices even higher. Usually the cycle only ends when the economy tips into recession, or a full-on economic crash.
Unless the Biden administration can suddenly find a miracle cure for the growing problem things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
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Glad i bought a 2500 HD big block chevy then
Yeah, I just got a 6L GMC. Not being driven much.
i just drive it like a Farm work truck used to be made for. Go to town pick up what i need and come home. I don’t treat it like some cruiser for going on long hauls to see the world.
Gotta love chevy for making the LS engines.
Blackbird, there’s a saying “when you’re stupid you gotta be tough”
So, you must be one tough idiot. Come to think about it might be Chuck as he and Blackbird are the same person.
Folks if you have an unlimited cell phone plan and it’s not part of your employment FIND A CHEAPER PLAN.
Same with a lot of things. Last time gasoline went crazy I remember Silverado PU’s went on SALE at massive discounts. Really pissed off a lot of my doctor Friends that they still owed so much on them and were so lousy on gasoline.
Get serious about living below your income and expect that your job can go away very fast as someone cheaper is awaiting your job.
kind of hard to not have a truck and a homestead so…..
get a mule
DZ yeah… i can sure use the MULE to get feed from town……. i think that desert living fired your brain.
your advice might be a little more believable if you weren’t such an ignorant Moron !
DZ and city chick do the best they can.
At an early age, I was instructed in the important value of living below one’s means, so I have always lived below my means, but comfortably as I spent my money wisely. I did not waste anything, and appreciate whatever I had. I saved when I could and expected a good return on my investments. This has enabled me to weather many a storm and come out ok. It’s never too late to start. All you have to do is change the way you think about what is important in life and start from there.
CC, right now when we buy fruit, it’s going in a freezer. Mangos are 6 bucks for 10 lbs. 100 lbs bought, 75 lbs in the freezer till the humidity drops in the fall. Then most of the stuff goes in a food dryer. Apples are canned as sauce (Golden Dorsett tends to bloom from late February thru October). 70 lbs unpitted dates in the freezer. Gotta get more corn (grain), because we use a LOT of starch, but the canna are tall and starting to spread. Those are strange this year, they’re a starch-domesticated variety and roots should get as long and almost as thick as my forearm but are clumping. sweet corn is OK, and the wheat (volunteer from a half-ton bale of straw) bloomed well even with no rains till June. That’s traded for corn, we’re gluten intolerant. Grain sorghum is iffy, but doing. Clergy Lady was in ShowLow, AZ, camping with family from the rez, and had a bad tumble but is doing very well. Better, in fact. A fine, handsome gentleman helped her after her tumble and, it turns out, he’s a widower and a prepper. Your prayers are welcome ! niio
America is done for, people just don’t know it yet. It may take a while buy it is inevitable.
How can we go from a prosperous economy to a depression in one day? Under President Trump, everything was fine, affordable and plentiful. Under Biden and his signing 50+ executive orders in one day on 20 January 2021, everything started to rise exponentially, gas, food, medicines, job losses, businesses closing, and all this due to the massive mandate bombs Biden signed into law. COVID is just like every flu virus, people get sick, then they recover – they do not die in such massive numbers like a lot of my relatives and friends.
Then Biden gets real chummy with Red China, his son brings millions to “the big guy”. Everybody in Congress and the executive branch starts to ignore the Constitution, and Gun Control becomes the big issue when we already have enough laws on the books to take care of those felons and do not need to persecute honest, loyal, Gun owners. Is it someone in Government afraid of a coup? Or is Obama controlling Biden? We all know someone is making Biden a puppet because Biden seems to not be able to take care of himself, or speak plainly on his own. The attempts Biden makes are ridiculous, and if things were not so serious, it would look like a Saturday Night Live Skit. I have not watched a National news show in months because of all the lies. Biden should say “depression”, not recession if he says anything at all on his own. AND, Joe Biden does not have COVID, he is dying of old age. I do not know which is worse, dying on your feet defending the Constitution, or dying of old age whimpering in bed. I think dying of old age is the worse.
every one knew the demonrats would attack America Because they Hate God and Hate America ,but nobody could have foreseen just how bad and how fast they could cripple
our beloved America !
Agree 100% with the one day depression accomplished by bidy. Agree 100% with the covid BS. I also agree, with a heavy heart, on the bidy/china problem where china owns our president. By the way, Ob/sama said he was going to fundamentally change America…you might say he IS running bidy. As far as gun control, thats got nothing to do with guns, but with control. Have a nice day, unfortunately, may be one of your last.
The question about how we went from a “prosperous economy to a depression in one day” was explained in the article.
But, what is not explained in the article is our national debt, which has been growing for decades, and reducing the spending power of the dollar.
I believe an argument could be made for the destruction of our economy long before the Biden administration…
Some believe it goes back to when we went off the gold standard.
But, our current situation is definitely fueled by the surge in consumer demand the article discusses, along with the fuel ban / shortages.
The fuel ban / shortages and consumer demand are here to stay regardless of who is President. As the article stated, the current ban on Russian fuel imports by the EU has nothing to do with who the President of the United States happens to be, nor his policies.
Fred: Definitely 100%. Why do dems hate the US? We took away their right to own people like cattle, at least openly. Why hate Trump? He said he’d fight against slavery, then all hell broke out.
DNC is nazi. Hitler came up with a golden plant to induce the wealthy to communism, elitist communism. Most wealthy people loved it. They get back real power without us hoi polloi standing in the way of sadistic overlords and demigods. FDR called hitler his friend, as did a lot of wealthy Americans. FDR had to be blackmailed (something not hard to do, given his appetite for rape) to declare war on hitler AND to kick gays out of the military. FDR gave us nazism and the dnc has been working hard to make this a nazi nation since. Abortion right, animals more important than humans, woke, gay rights, all go right back to nazism, a dark, atheist, version of New Age. Even unto cannibalisms and human sacrifice.
I was taught about this crap from a preschooler by people who had been SS and hate it. My stepmother always said, the dnc is nazi, that it’s socialism and worse, communism. I was raised under in in Penna and yep, redskin got the scars to prove it. niio
everything was fine….. yeah and this is why we are a dead stupid nation.
The last 100 years our country has done nothing but over tax the citizens and send them to pointless war’s for profit. Over spend and raise the nations debt and over regulate everything we do under the guise of safety. In return your Food is GMO garbage that’s killing you. Everything you want to do is illegal and the cops will burn you alive if you don’t follow along, and your sons and daughters will get sent to some war for the elites to get rich off of. Oh and even better when they get sick and sent back home. The same elites will send 50 billion to ukraine but deny your troops money for health care issues from the same elites who let you get killed over seas.
Trump was what i called a 3 year window of time to get ready. Most of you thought he was the second coming and went off and did nothing. Others like ourselves used it to get things cheap and train up. The negatives of Trump was his anti gun and he did what everyone else did spend…… and not curb the debt.
But go ahead think it all just happened in the last 24 months.
Take your marbles and go home! Negativity will get you nowhere!
Bury your head in the pillow and bite hard cause life is about to get you dry
Red – All this good news shows that God’s Plan for us never fails. As long as we are steadfast, we have nothing to worry about.
Not just America… the whole world
I find it hard to believe the government unemployment figures. When I look around at local businesses and see a widespread shortage of workers I’m convinced that the government numbers reflect “those who want to work “. Even fedex here has taken to hiring casual drivers who incidentally don’t have the area knowledge or integrity needed. Local big companies are routinely short staffed. The most obvious impact shows in buildup of stock in aisles, slow response to customer needs, unanswered phones, etc. Call me bitter, but I believe very little of what the government proclaims.
The unemployment rate is meaningless and doesn’t reflect reality, and it hasn’t in a LONG time. It only counts applications for unemployment benefits. Once someone ages out of benefits, even though they might be looking for work, they aren’t counted. A lot of people never went back to work after the COVID cash giveaway paid them more to stay home than to work, but they are no longer being counted.
Unemployment rate is an outright lie.
Rehiring people who lost their jobs over Covid SCAMDEMIC is not affecting the real unemployment rate which is 3-4 times what they claim.
When businesses close, those lost employees are not counted after unemployment runs out.
So the official numbers are artificial and skewed.
Yes I have seen restaurants wanting help.
Why? Because they are McJobs – random hours, low hours, bad working conditions.
Only time a restaurant job benefits you is for BEER/GAS money.
It’s so funny to watch this play out. Oh it’s the worst thing that can happen to us but I’m talking about how the liberals pour money into robots to work the $10/hr jobs thinking this is fixing everything. How much employment taxes have you seen a robot pay? And the displaced worker simply ends up on welfare. How much more does that cost the taxpayer. They kill millions of future workers thus taxpayers at the hands of abortion and gripe that our population is decreasing. No S–T! They destroy the energy industry before they use it to build all of their electric toys which heavily depend on it to produce the damn things. They pull out the military from Afganistan leaving the civilians behind to die then say OOPS we have to go back in to save the civilians. Climate change, now there’s one…. We destroy the coal industry fired electric plants here while China is opening up 30 brand new coal fired generation plants there and buy coal from us to fire them. These guys are so smart that it’s no wonder the US will be out of business soon. Liberals have given our national treasures away by the train car loads. And, what do you think these 3 million illegal aliens are going to do for jobs? Steal, rob at gun point, kill our citizens, take up space in our ER’s and Hospitals, Destroy what is left of our Woke School System, suck up resources and food supplies that should be going to our citizens first and of course get welfare, cell phones, free transportation to a destination of their choice and a damn drivers license that we have to wait in line at DMV for hours to get after proving we are citizens with our Birth Certificate. Yes, I am very pissed off and it shows.
The liberals pour money into robots? Really? You mean the republicans corporations.
No all Corporations are not owned by Republicans. Besides, they are too patriotic to sell out their employees to robots. I am talking about your crazy liberal Woke Corporations you back with your liberal vote. I hope you can eat your Green Agenda because after Xiden gets through with you that is all you have left to eat. Good luck!
Bill Gates is a large proponent of so called “green farming” to include driverless tractors, drones, and other electronic sensors that monitor soil, weather, etc. All linked of course to the microsoft cloud. He is the largest owner of agricultural land in the US now. Couple that with being a confirmed globalist. I just don’t see that ending well.
republican’s are patriots lol….. good grief shut off the news dude. They want you just as disarmed and dead as the other wing of the same bird.
The liberals pour money into their “minion” robots with free cell phones, free welfare, housing, healthcare etc…etc…then what isn’t given to them for free they are given “tax payer funded assistance” to make up for it. 🙁
No actually you baby murdering demon rats hate God and hate America and you will do anything and every thing to kill steal and destroy just like your father Satan ! And of course Cripple our country !
Republican corporations, really….. better do some research dear.
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That was wonderful ….. here here. Are they still trying to convince us america is the greatest country in the world? Oh please!
Feel free to leave. I am tired of AMERICA bashing. Most of us want the same things; to live our lives without government mandates, free to grow our business and prosper, to feel safe in our towns, to have our children taught the history of this great country and it IS a great country. Our problem is that we have people in government who spend more than we have, make idiotic decisions on our energy industry and want to control our very existence. If you don’t like it here, try Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, or Mexico. All of them are struggling to get here and leave the socialist/communist/marxist oppression of their home countries, that the left is trying to muzzle us with. Have a nice day!
Climate change is just part of the great food famine around the world. Oil is part of the fertilizer component for farmers. Putin the crazy man could have avoided the land war by brokering a land lease for his pipelines instead.
Russia should eliminate the crazy man to a mental institution, save us all the destruction.
Release all the wheat grain in the restricted ports.
Bite Me left huge piles of high tech weapon equipment for the Afghans. To sell off to China and Russia to exploit our taxpayer funded wars. Thank you liberals.
Also Bite Me has depleted our military weapons supply chain to low supplies, big mistake. Ukraine is sucking up the ammo too fast. Will there be enough ammo for defending Taiwan?
What about Bite Me & Hooter selling off our strategic oil reserves to China?
Who is the traitor now?
Yes. Give me a break! It’s all a globalist shell game played on the world’s stage before the American people. A government that can’t stop a teeny tiny little virus is now somehow suppose to stop ”climate change!” What an utter rouse! There should be consequences. First up, Dr Fauci should be charged with crimes against humanity!
Everybody stay home, work as a computer IT Tech, BS.
No blue-collar taxpayers worky, no welfare tax funding for those in need.
Social Security is based on a Ponzi scheme to fund the next set of retirees in waiting.
The Washington Swamp sucked up all the Social Security saving funds years ago. For their pet pork projects. You all suffer now, high taxes.
Remember these sleazebags in politics during Covid, never lost their jobs or money.
But you did, how fair was that to you?
Well this country doesn’t even have the capability to produce its own things anymore….
Start counting everyone on welfare as unemployed and the true rate is EXTREME.
Over 50% of the people are on welfare.
People might want to look up how to ‘Withdraw Consent to be Governed’.
Study that well.
Counting mortgage interest in this topic… meh! Most folks move (and get a new mortgage) by choice, so they are stuck with a higher interest rate. But anyone that has taken an adjustable rate when the rates were already at an all-time low deserves what they get.
Chuck you and the boyfriend get married yet ?
I see a lot of stats that put Gates in the 270,000 acre range. If that is correct he is nowhere near the largest landowner in the US. Just one ranch in Florida owned by the Morman Church is bigger than that. They have many other land holdings. Heck the King Ranch in Texas is over 800,000 acres.
I never said Gates was the largest land or ranch owner. I only mentioned agricultural land. Agri = Farming field crops.
We can’t fix stupid if the voters elect the same tired old politicians over and over.
People hated TRUMP for his twatting, but voting for globalist was the worst.
Bite Me opened the border and shutdown the Keystone, what did those voter’s think?
Bite Me is the China’s Trojan Horse into controlling our politicians and farmlands. The Chinese are buying up American real estate. Faster then Congress grooming the IRS to attack us hard working taxpayers soon.
Elections do have issues.
lol you think voting makes a difference
Why the hell does someone wanting to vote piss you off. It doesn’t affect you in anyway. Give it up.
Interesting in Arizona the mail ballots, Dropbox and mis-counting is underway again.
This will never stop until until the voters cry fowl and vote the Dino’s & Rino’s out of office.
These next two elections will determine our country’s fate.
California Gov. Newsom is rotten to the monkey-pox core. He’s no presidential material, he is an NPC!
It’s “Donkey-pox”! And they will most likely try to shut it all down and shut us all up again before the first Tuesday in November 2022!
cough…. told you voting is pointless
but JUST VOTE HARDER IN 2024 …i think thats when the red wave comes lol
Did Americans sell their own country’s soul for cheap Chinese products? Then quality made American products? There is responsibility on both sides.
The Chinese took advantage of our consumer weakness. The politicians and corporation made tidy profits. While the American taxpayers got left holding the bag of shame.
What will the American population do to fix this? What you do to help?
Each China crap product is funding their military to defeat America. While Nero – Bite Me fiddles away at night in his vanilla ice cream garden or basement. We get to eat cake.
You shop at Walmart so good job
America never makes quality products.
ALL severely overpriced and designed obsolescence.
high end chips… high end steel…… oil but yeah nothing you would use.
Wow the politics are doing exactly what they are intended to do. Divide us. They the political scum are from both sides of the exact same agenda. The sooner you realize this the better off we will all be.
Good luck to all reeeeaaaal Americans
This is a long article but gives one a lot to think about, surely some of you read w/o moving your lips.
Counterpunch Interview on the DESTINY of CIVILIZATION
🙈🙉🙊
Demand for higher wages, higher prices on materials and people not spending money like they used to will shutter a lot of businesses. When prices continue to surge, those demanding higher wages will be willing to take lower wages but those jobs will be gone by that time.
Chuck, “Blackbird” is that idiot aka “Raven the lying hypocrite”, aka “Charlie Foxtrot X-spurt”, aka “Megafool”, and a few other monikers but I’m sure you get the idea.
Chuck, if you’re going to act like the “Charlie Foxtrot X-spurt”, at least try to pay attention and remember what gets posted, and by who. Michael is NOT the idiot Raven. And the X-spurt wants you to send him naked pictures – he has a fetish for other men’s balls.
Chuck you understand my anger towards you is because i have fallen in love with you hot stuff…
I remember a few years ago when fast food restaurants had to pay their employees a lot more because the minimum wage went way up. Now a few years later. Everything costs more. I used to work for $3.35 an hour on a farm. When I left, my boss replaced me with 2 illegals who he had to pay $6.00 an hr.
Hey I bailed hay for many years for $1.00 an hour and was happy to get it.
Good-man Ferguson! Very nice take on it. Expect a recession if not a depression every time the dnc grabs power. A given when they adopted nazism in the 30s, the elitist communists.
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” –Adolf Hitler
And
Hitler said, “I want to raise a generation of young people that will be void of a conscious, relentless, imperious, and cruel.”
“If there is no God, everything is permissible.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Doomsday is always 4 months away and it seems it always will be.
Do ANY of you research what’s going on in the real world – say from news sources that are are Rumble or Telegram or even Truth Social. The info from ‘Thruthers’ , News programs like Newsmax? I read every article from ‘ ask a prepper’ and every comment. You seem to love to bicker about nothing. Maybe some of you have been Prepping so long you don’t see anything else. And sorry if i stepped on toes. Im old, and have no filters & make no apologies!
Even Rumble censors things.