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Bear Market, Recession, Layoffs: Lots Of Ways For 2024 To Get Worse | John Rubino
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8hq8Hsfyao
The Unexpected Just Sent the Political Elites Into Panic Mode
41% of Small Businesses CANNOT PAY THE RENT!
#1 Risk To Jobs Begins in 2024 as Layoffs Surge
Cost of Shelter, Energy Fuel December’s Higher-Than-Expected Inflation
The seasonally-adjusted Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December jumped 0.3 percent from November, three times November’s 0.1 percent rise from October’s level. Compared to the same month in 2022, December prices were 3.4 percent higher.
The so-called “core” cost index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3 percent from November and 3.9 percent over the last 12 months.
The index for shelter continued to rise in December, accounting for more than half of the monthly all-items increase. The cost of shelter increased 0.5 percent from November and 6.2 percent from November 2022. The cost of rent increased 0.4 percent for the month and 6.5 over the past year., as did the lodging away from home index.
The price of energy in December jumped 0.4 percent from November, in sharp contrast to November’s 6.0 percent decline from the previous month. In December, the increased price of gasoline more than offset a decline in the cost of natural gas. The energy index decreased 2.0 percent from year-ago.
The price of food increased 0.2 percent in December, as the cost of meats, poultry, fish, and eggs spiked 0.5 percent from November, while the cost of cereals and bakery products dipped 0.3 percent. Compared to December 2022, food prices were up 2.7 percent.
Other indexes with notable increases over the last year include motor vehicle insurance (+20.3 percent), recreation (+2.7 percent), personal care (+5.0 percent), and education (+2.4 percent).
"Inflation is surging once again, destroying the narrative that the inflation fight is over. Prices of goods and services are still rising at nearly twice the Federal Reserve's target rate,” Job Creators Network CEO Alfredo Ortiz said in a statement responding to the BLS report.
“Resurgent inflation is a direct result of reckless spending by the Biden administration and Congress. The only way to truly get inflation under control is by ending reckless spending,” Ortiz warns.
Republicans in Congress were, likewise, unimpressed with the December report, issuing a statement to put last month’s numbers into perspective:
“The “higher than expected” numbers come amid “a reversal of some of the declines” from previous months. It’s the 33rd straight month with inflation above three percent and caps a year in which Americans saw massive price increases in areas like car insurance, car repairs, and non-prescription drugs.
“Overall, prices have risen by 17.3 percent since Biden took office. Electricity is up by 25 percent, food prices are up by 20.2 percent, and rent is up by 19 percent under Biden.”
….
“Meantime, inflation remains twice the rate it was when Biden took office. On a year-over-year basis, inflation has averaged 5.7 percent under Biden — more than double the level under any of the past four presidents.”
The business and economic reporting of CNSNews is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.
Inflation Reignites: Consumer Prices Rose at a Faster Pace in December
Inflation accelerated more than December, marking the thirty-third consecutive month with annual prices rising significantly faster than the two percent target seen as healthy by the Federal Reserve.
The consumer-price index, the Labor Department’s broad measurement of what consumers pay for goods and services, rose 3.4 in December from a year earlier.
Economists were expecting a year-0ver-year increase of 3.2 percent. The 12-month gain was 3.1 percent in November.
Compared with the prior month, the CPI was up 0.3 percent, an acceleration from the gain of 0.2 percent in November and faster than the 0.2 percent forecast.
Consumer inflation hit its recent peak of 9.2 percent in June of 2022 and has since retreated as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at a record pace and the Biden administration’s spending was reined in by lawmakers worried about extraordinarily large budget deficits.
The Department of Labor said that increased housing costs contributed over half of the monthly increase. The energy index rose 0.4 percent over the month, driven by higher electricity and gasoline prices.
Food prices rose again in December. Grocery prices rose 0.1 percent while prices for dining out rose 0.3 percent.
Core prices, which exclude food and energy prices, rose 0.3 percent, more than the 0.2 percent forecast by analysts. Compared with a year ago, core prices are up 3.9 percent, which is lower than the 12-month gain of four percent recorded in November but higher than the 3.8 percent forecast.
The market has been pricing in a rate cut from the Federal Reserve as early as March. Rising inflation, however, may force the Fed to hold off on rate cuts. The Fed is already facing scrutiny over the timing of rate cuts during an election year while inflation is still significantly above its two percent target. Former President Trump said in an interview with Breitbart news that he thinks the Fed will cut rates in an effort to help President Biden’s re-election efforts.
Report: Joe Biden Tries to Reassure Donors About Age, Energy, Chances Against Donald Trump
President Joe Biden, 81, reportedly tried to soothe the fears of donors and supporters about his age, energy level, and his chances of defeating former President Donald Trump.
Democrats, for months, raised concerns about Biden’s 2024 chances due to poor polling about his age and physical stamina:
- Redfield & Wilton Strategies: A majority of Democrats are “concerned” about Biden’s ability.
- YouGov: Fifty-five percent say Biden’s health and age “severely” limit his ability to do the job.
- NBC News: Most registered voters have “major” concerns about Biden’s age and health.
CRASH LANDING! Biden Falls at U.S. Air Force Academy Commencement
People familiar with the meetings say there is no set agenda, and the conversations have covered a range of topics, including how to take on former president Donald Trump, the Israel-Gaza conflict and abortion rights. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the movie mogul who is a national co-chair of Biden’s campaign and a longtime Democratic fundraiser, has been organizing the meetings.
Biden’s meetings with the donors at the White House might not be legal.
“There are certain rooms in the White House, particularly in the residence, that are not covered under the Hatch Act,” Kedric Payne, ethics director at the Campaign Legal Center, told Axios.
“The president is allowed to legally meet with and entertain donors at the White House,” Payne added. “But you cannot give campaign contributions or solicit for campaign contributions while in the White House.”
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Biden’s meetings are totally “typical.”
“It is typical for any president, regardless of party, to host supporters at the White House complex, which is both a working office as well as a personal residence,” he told Axios. “President Biden and his team take all rules concerning the White House and re-elections seriously, and we’re proud of that.”
Biden’s attempt to calm donors’ fears comes amid a rash of negative polling for the president.
- Morning Consult: Trump has been more popular than Biden for ten straight weeks.
- WSJ: Only 23 percent of voters say Biden’s policies have helped them.
- CNN: A majority say there is “no chance” they would vote for Biden in 2024.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
There’s new information about who’s really in charge of Joe Biden
Most people watching Joe Biden believe that he’s a puppet who says and does what he’s told. He seems to be a “useful idiot,” as the 20th century’s communists would have said. The big question, then, is who’s really in charge in the White House? Barack Obama? Valerie Jarrett? Nope, a Bloomberg report intimates. It’s really Jill Biden, and she intends to see her decrepit husband run again.
According to a Nancy Cook article at Bloomberg, the person with whom Joe doublechecks every decision he makes is his unelected wife, Jill Biden, a school teacher who wrote a shoddy dissertation to justify a truly meaningless doctorate in education. Writes Cook:
[W]ithin the White House she is understood to be the president’s closest and most protective confidante.
“She is his gut check on everything,” said Michael LaRosa, former press secretary to the first lady and special assistant to the president.
As the campaign unfolds, the first lady is expected to assert herself on major decisions, especially the biggest of them all: whether Biden — at 80, the oldest person to ever hold the presidency — will run for re-election in the first place. She supports a bid, according to people familiar with the matter, because she cares about how her husband is perceived and believes he’s better at the job than his 42% average approval rating indicates most Americans think.
After several paragraphs describing how the couple met, Cook returns to Jill’s influence on Biden’s administration. We’re told that, while Jill “does not have a reputation for involving herself in policy minutiae, the first lady pays close attention to her husband’s broader public portrayal and to themes of his speeches and events.” If she’s overseeing “themes,” that means she has a say in (or control over) policy.
Image: Jill Biden preps for the G7 in 2021. Public domain.
Another thing that Jill does is work hard to protect Biden from looking bad. Thus, according to Cook, Jill chastised Joe’s top aides in 2022 for letting the president take questions from the press for two hours. That the American people are entitled to know what’s going on (a function the press barely performs) must take second place to Jill’s efforts to keep from reminding Americans that their president is a decrepit, declining man.
Mostly, the Bloomberg article is a puff piece, talking about how useful Jill will be on the campaign trail in 2024 and how she’s less divisive than Michelle or Melania. It’s important to note here, though, that Melania did nothing out of the ordinary and was an unusually beautiful and poised woman who kept out of politics. She was “divisive” only because the media attacked her for anything and everything.
I tend to think that the Bloomberg article understates just how involved Jill is in the Biden administration. I haven’t forgotten how Jill, during the first year of Biden’s administration, tweeted out a photo of her “Prepping for the G7”:
No one doubts that, in an affectionate marriage (which the Bidens clearly have), there’s inevitably pillow talk that sees the president discussing issues with his wife. However, no one looking at the Biden marriage believes that the president has the capacity to discuss issues intelligently with his wife. To the extent there’s mental wattage in that marriage, the ideas and decisions flow from her to him and not vice versa.
What all of this means is that America isn’t governed by a president whose election was dubious at best; instead, it’s governed by the completely unvetted wife of that same dubiously elected president. And that wife has rather consistently demonstrated that she’s not very bright or informed but is very pushy.
The one good thing is that it’s the Democrats’ nightmare to see Joe run again. In 2020, they could get away with the con that Americans hated Trump so much they’d rather have a barely sentient, corrupt, creepy fossil in the White House. However, given the myriad (and intended) disasters of Biden’s administration—a failing economy, a broken border, flailing national security, and an ever-closer WWIII—it'll be a lot harder to cheat Joe into the White House, especially with Kamala at his side.
In other words, Joe Biden is the Republicans’ dream Democrat candidate. And if that’s what Jill brings to the 2024 election…well, “Let’s go, Jill!”
Biden Planning a Second Presidential Basement Campaign
When your campaign plan is hoping your candidate won't have to debate, that means you know he's not competent.
February 16, 2023 by Daniel Greenfield 13 Comments
The kindest advice I gave the Democrats was that they should have taken a loss in 2022. Hand the House and the Senate to Republicans and clear the deck for a new generation of leadership. Biden would have been forced to follow Pelosi into retirement after a long grueling struggle with congressional Republicans.
Democrats would have had a good shot at winning in 2024 with a younger candidate who wasn’t at the wheel during these miserable years.
Instead, Biden was locked in for a second term. Most of the critics fell silent and endorsed his reelection campaign. The potential competitors, primarily Newsom, have gotten out of the way. They’ve won the battle and lost the war. And having caught the car, they have no idea what to do now.
Every potential Biden successor has fallen in line behind his yet-to-be-announced candidacy. Meanwhile, the private conversations about the wisdom of nominating an octogenarian and despair over who could take Biden’s place have hardly subsided…
“Nobody wants to be the one to do something that would undermine the chances of a Democratic victory in 2024,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) explained to me. “Yet in quiet rooms the conversation is just the opposite — we could be at a higher risk if this path is cleared.”
“It’s fear, plain and simple,” Phillips explained of both the lack of Democratic officials calling for a new nominee and reluctance of other candidates to step forward. “People are focused on self-preservation and their aspirations.“
Now, unless there’s a concerted effort to shed Biden, that path will be cleared.
There was the senator who said few Democrats in the chamber want Biden to run again but that the party had to devise “an alignment of interest” with the president to get him off the “narcotic” of the office; there was the governor who mused about just how little campaigning Biden would be able to do; and there was the House member who, after saying that, of course, Democrats should renominate the president told me to turn off my phone and then demanded to know who else was out there and said Harris wasn’t an option.
My favorite, though, was the Democratic lawmaker who recalled speaking to Jill Biden and, hoping to plant a seed about a one-term declaration of victory, told her how her husband should be celebrated for saving democracy. When I asked if I could use any of that on the record, the lawmaker shot back: “absolutely not.”
Weak, really weak.
Democrats have two options, push scandals undermining their own president, or prepare to challenge him in primaries. Both options are in theory on the table, except that they’re not.
The DNC voted to rig the primaries for Biden. In theory, a challenger should have good odds of beating Biden in the primaries, considering the polls, but the primaries have now been rigged to favor Biden’s black electorate. That means Biden will win the majority of early primaries out of the gate. Biden’s only likely challenger is also likely to be from the Bernie camp and that means a whole bunch of Democrats who may want an alternative will stick with Biden. If a more mainstream candidate jumps in, he or she will split the vote with the Berniecrat. Alternatively, he or she can cut a deal with the Berniecrats which will once again drive away more moderate voters. There are possibilities here, but few serious candidates seem to have the nerve to go all-in.
The alternative is to hope that the Hunter Biden investigation does something. That’s why the media has been giving it the time of day. But Democrats, of all people, ought to know how long of a shot that is. Even assuming that there are any criminal charges stemming from it that won’t just be dismissed by paying a fine (that’s what I suspect will happen), they’re not likely to touch Biden. Not under Merrick Garland.
A concerted party-wide consensus could shift the dial, but that isn’t likely to happen until things get scarier.
And meanwhile, there’s Kamala looming in the background.
When nearly a dozen Democratic governors lined up for a news conference to trumpet their midterm gains, eager to take a turn at the microphone, the voluble bunch grew quiet when I asked if they thought Harris should be nominated without a primary were Biden not to run.
“I don’t think we’re going to go there on that one, the president is running,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
When I asked if any of the other governors wanted to speak to the question, they all stayed silent until Murphy said “we’re good” and the governors broke out in a round of nervous laughter.
More to the point, Democrats have seen what happens when anyone in their party openly criticizes Harris — they’re accused by activists and social-media critics of showing, at best, racial and gender insensitivity. This doesn’t stifle concerns about her prospects, of course, it just pushes them further underground or into the shadows of background quotes.
Such as this, from a House Democrat: “The Democrats who will need to speak out on her are from the Congressional Black Caucus, no white member is going to do it.”
Maybe tethering their party to identity politics wasn’t the best plan?
Meanwhile, Team Biden is preparing for a second basement campaign.
The Biden folks believe that Trump or any other Republican nominee will be reluctant to work with the Commission on Presidential Debates, lessening the chances, and risk, of a head-to-head debate.
When your campaign plan is hoping your candidate won’t have to debate, that means you know he’s not qualified or competent to run.
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
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