The Fed invokes first rate hike to "curb inflation" but it's way too little, too late
By jdheyes // 2022-03-21
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Shortly after Joe Biden was installed as president, he and his regime responded to the inflation that his policies were causing by calling them "transitory." That claim was even made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who once served as the chairperson of the Federal Reserve -- the 'financial gurus' and 'experts' of the country who are largely in charge of setting fiscal policies ostensibly aimed at controlling negative economic phenomena like inflation. She and other regime officials made those claims back in October when inflation was only around 3-4 percent per month -- which is high, but not earth-shatteringly destructive. Some months later, and more than a year into the Biden disaster, inflation is now around 8 percent per month, and a key indicator, the Producer Price Index, is at 10 percent, which is historic (and at a very alarming level because it means producers are paying far more for goods and supplies -- costs that are going to be passed to consumers). Long story short, America is in a massive inflationary period and it doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon, thanks, in part, to Fed policy. As such, the Fed has announced a series of a half-dozen rate hikes for 2022, the first of which will come this week: 0.25 percent. While economists say this small hike is aimed at not shocking the markets too much, the fact is, it's not going to do anything to halt the runaway inflation we're seeing thanks in large part to Biden's economy-destroying policies. First and foremost, Biden signaled to the oil and gas industry, which literally 'powers' our economy, that he was deferring to the left-wing environmental lunatics within his Democrat Party when he signed a series of executive orders on his first day in office that took aim at the production of fossil fuels. He canceled the Keystone XL pipeline (while green-lighting the now-delayed Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany); he banned new oil and gas drilling leases on all federal lands; he shut down oil and gas exploration in the ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) off the coast of Alaska, a region known to surpass even Saudi Arabia in terms of supplies; and he 'pivoted' to unproven and very expensive electric vehicle production, despite the fact that the bulk of the materials needed to make the batteries for said vehicles is controlled by, and comes from, China. Why does this matter and what does it have to do with rising prices for everything else? By launching a 'war' on fossil fuels, Biden signaled to oil and gas speculators in the stock market that he will de-prioritize its development, and since oil and gas prices are based in large part on future production, the shuttering of large segments of production led speculators to predict higher prices in the future based on shorter, or more expensive, supplies. Nearly all of our goods are moved by transportation systems that require some blend of fossil fuels; higher fuel costs mean higher transportation costs, and the latter drives price hikes by manufacturers desperate to recover the added expense of moving their goods to market. In addition, many goods are manufactured using components that are derived from oil; as oil prices climb, so, too, do prices for those components. And so on. So while the dream of a world free of all fossil fuels may sound good to many people (who wants to be the first passenger on an all-electric or all-solar plane?), the fact is, it is not a feasible objective -- not at this time and frankly, not at any time in the near future. Shutting down an industry that literally powers modern economies like ours is a death knell for that economy. The inflation Biden's energy policies have helped cause is not something that a quarter-point rate increase by the Fed will fix. Sources include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com
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