July 13, 2022
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Buttigieg Missing in Action on Supply Chain Disasters
By Rick manning
Pete Buttigieg is the United States Transportation Secretary elevated from his role as a failed presidential candidate and a marginally competent mayor of South Bend, Indiana. During his tenure, our nation has suffered from unprecedented supply chain disruptions ranging from on-going back-ups at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, where forty percent of our nation’s imports arrive, to airline pilot shortages which are causing thousands of flights to be cancelled during high volume travel days.
When the port crisis was at its worse, Secretary Pete was on maternity leave with a do not disturb sign on his door. Now, even as the crisis has not completely abated, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the implementation of a California state law known as AB 5 which promises a supply chain disaster. The law would reclassify many independent truck drivers as employees with no guidance on how about 70,000 California owner-operators can operate legally.
FleetOwner.com quotes Avery Vise, the Vice President of Trucking for Freight Transportation Intelligence saying, “There are going to be some operations that just say, 'I can't deal with this. I'm just going to leave California or I'm going to shut down altogether.’”
Jim Ward, President of the Truckload Carrier Association is concerned that the law, “will only serve to expand upon this country’s supply chain crisis.” What most people don’t know, but Secretary Pete should, is that the transport of cargo from ocean vessels will be disproportionately impacted by California’s attempt to force independent operator truckers to become employees with sites on future unionization efforts. The supply chain disruption resulting from this California state law is knowable, predictable and can be mitigated by the Department of Transportation.
On top of the potential loss of thousands of California independent truckers, a 2021 American Trucking Association report on driver shortages states that we already are suffering from a nationwide truck driver shortage of around 80,000 drivers. This shortage alone is putting severe pressure on our nation’s ability to meet just in time delivery requirements for our nation’s retailers and grocers, and the California assault on truckers will make it much, much worse.
When dramatically higher diesel costs pressuring already struggling truckers across the nation are included in this toxic mix, our nation’s economic vitality is at significant risk. As driving costs for the delivery of goods skyrocket, and trucks to deliver those goods become scarce, the high inflation reality will become even harsher.
The part that is needed to make the lathe or milling machine work, will cost much more and will likely arrive late. That means the cost of goods produced will go up and the cost to get those goods to their end destination will increase. Trucking makes this country work and driving those truckers out of their vehicles due to arbitrary work rules and high fuel costs serve as one of the chief causes for the systemic inflation that is overtaking our nation’s economy.
Yet, Pete Buttigieg remains dormant, safe in his cocoon of wokeness, and not intervening against California by ensuring that Interstate truckers will be able to pick up and deliver loads into California’s ports, isolating the impact of the formerly golden state’s war on commerce.
But Buttigieg, the bicycling transportation bunion, is not content to just ignore the predictable upcoming port crisis. Instead, he seems intent on not only allowing the disruption of the delivery of goods and food at the ports and throughout the country, but also is obstructing common sense legislation by Senator Lindsey Graham to alleviate the airline pilot shortage. Graham’s idea is to increase the mandatory age for airline pilots to retire from 65 to 67. After all, the age requirement is arbitrary and any fool knows that a pilot who was competent to fly on the day before his/her 65th birthday did not become incompetent because the clock struck midnight.
Yet, Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary, the persistently incompetent Pete Buttigieg announced his opposition to extending the retirement age due to pilot competency fears. Ever obtuse, Buttigieg seems unaware that by refusing to agree to lift this age requirement just two years, even as President Biden himself nears 80 years of age and plans to run for reelection, is pure comedy gold.
The airline industry has been hit by a mix of early pilot retirements and a mandatory retirement age that forces experienced pilots to the sidelines and the result has been the breaking of the air travel system.
Just another supply chain problem that the inert Biden administration would rather watch fall apart than help solve.
When Pete Buttigieg took the Transportation Secretary job, he undoubtedly thought it would entail giving speeches, cutting ribbons, and handing out big checks for infrastructure projects while getting tight with big unions for his 2024 presidential run. Ill-prepared and clueless, Buttigieg has overseen America’s supply chains being shattered. Rather than relieving chokepoints, he seems content wandering around in the cloistered inner circles of the left accepting accolades for the job he refuses to do.
Rick Manning is President of Americans for Limited Government
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/07/buttigieg-missing-in-action-on-supply-chain-disasters/
Biden’s economic carnage continues
July 13, 2022, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement responding to the most recent increase in inflation:
President Biden’s continued wrecking of the US economy is evidenced by prices going up 1.3 percent in June, 9.1 percent for the past twelve months. Real wages after inflation is calculated declined by a full one percent in June alone, and the dropped a whopping 3.2 percent over the past year.
That is right, the money Americans earned is worth one percent less today than it was a month ago.
A desperate Biden is meeting with the Saudi ‘s today to try to convince them to open their oil spigot, even as he has closed America’s while selling our Strategic Oil Reserve to China.
The one good thing that could come from the Biden-Saudi meeting is that it is rumored that Hunter Biden may be joining the new Saudi-backed LIV professional golf tour if the price is right.
For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at [email protected].
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/07/bidens-economic-carnage-continues/
John Carney: Crude Crashes and Inflation Smashes
Fears of a global recession played a role in Tuesday’s crash of crude. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell by around 8.12 percent. Brent sank 7.5 percent. Both were below $100 a barrel, a psychologically and financially important benchmark that has become a kind of shorthand for the direction of the price of gasoline.
While recession has become a favorite topic of speculation on Wall Street, there was little in the news today that particularly would have provoked the big sell-off in oil. Witness the stock market, which fared much better. None of the major indexes were down by even a full percentage point on Friday, which hints that something specific about oil was afoot.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) left its forecast for growth in world oil demand unchanged at 3.4 million barrels a day in 2022. But OPEC’s monthly report sees oil-demand growth slowing next year “supported by a still solid economic performance in major consuming countries, as well as improved geopolitical developments and containment of COVID-19 in China.” Perhaps oil traders thought that was too sunny of an outlook given China’s ongoing commitment to locking down cities with outbreaks and recessions looming in Europe and the U.S.
It’s also possible the market is preparing for a breakthrough in the relationship between the Saudis and the Biden administration. So far officials have been keen to downplay expectations, telling reporters that they do not expect any major announcements about expanded oil production. This likely suits both the Saudis and the Biden administration just fine. The Saudis do not want to be seen to be pandering to a president who called them a pariah state, and the Biden White House is wary of angering its party’s climate change alarmists by pushing too hard for more oil. Even still, the Biden administration would no doubt like to be able to put points on the scoreboard for this visit, so perhaps some vague promise of more oil supply with be forthcoming.
Hot Times, Summer in the CPI
We never bought into the notion that consumer prices peaked in March or even that the rate of inflation had peaked. This belief appeared to be based on the idea that inflation was mostly a matter of snarled supply chains that would get worked out over the spring. We are convinced that inflation has become more deeply ingrained in the economy than that, fueled now by a still very hot labor market that has pumped up demand for a wide variety of goods and services.
It will not always be so. Even without central bank intervention, inflation pushes up prices of necessities, shifting demand away from discretionary purchases. This has a self-correcting tendency. Lower demand for discretionary purchases leads initially to inventory sell-offs and lower production, eventually dragging down employment. The Federal Reserve’s role here is really to accelerate this process by forcing demand to fall before high prices force it down.
We expect inflation remained elevated in June. The consensus of economists is that headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 1.1 percent on a month-over-month basis and 8.8 percent year-over-year. The headline figure will be driven by a big jump in energy inflation and a lesser increase in food inflation, so you can expect to hear more about “Putin’s price hikes” from the Biden administration. Core CPI, which excludes energy and food, is expected to rise 0.6 percent for the month and 5.8 percent compared with 12-months ago.
In short, June inflation likely smashed the previous high hit in March to be the worst seen since December 1981.
If inflation comes in cooler than forecast, there may be some pullback in the expectations for interest rate hikes in the months ahead. Absent a big crash, the Fed is likely to stick to the planned 75-basis points hike at the July meeting. After that, however, the size of the Fed’s next moves are up for grabs and dependent on incoming data. If inflation comes in hot, the stock market will probably panic a bit, fearing even more tightening by the Fed.
To view online: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/07/13/real-wages-fall-again-as-bidenflation-beats-earnings/