You can triple the official rate of inflation to approximate the real rate—$15%. That’s how much the Commerce Department distorts and hides inflation using all kinds of gimmicks and adjustments.

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World Affairs Brief, October 29, 2021 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).

BIDENFLATION STALLS ECONOMIC RECOVERY

Breitbart Economic editors are warning that,

Prices are rising rapidly, inflation has proven to be anything but transitory, the supply chain should be renamed the shortage shackles, and growth has gone dangerously sluggish. No wonder the latest Gallup poll shows 68 percent of Americans, including 72 percent of independents, think economic conditions are getting worse.

One of the weirder attempts at illusionism at last night’s Virginia rally was Biden’s claim that there are more people working today than there were prior to the pandemic. In reality, American payrolls are still five million workers short of where they had grown to in the Trump era. By every measure, employment is lower now than it was in February 2020. Claiming otherwise is not going to persuade anyone the economy is doing great. It just makes Biden sound out of touch with reality.

Yesterday, U.S. economic growth crashed in the third quarter, as the economy grappled with the Delta variant driving a resurgence of Covid-19 infections and supply-chain disruptions.

It was hardly a “crash” but rather the first signs of a slump, and it wasn’t because of the Delta variant, but the vaccine mandates were causing labor shortages, coupled with supply chain shortages. 95% of manufacturers report that they are experiencing supply chain disruptions and shortages. People are also cutting back on purchases to due 15% inflation. That is what is called “stagflation”—when high prices that outstrip common people’s income cause a slowdown in consumption.

Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S.—grew at an annualized rate of two percent from July through September, after adjusting for inflation and seasonality, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That was below the consensus expectation for 2.9 percent growth.

My brother Mark, a free market economist, disputes this 2% growth number as inflated. He says, “The Atlanta Federal Reserve had 3rd quarter GDP at near zero, so 2% is higher than that.” Mark is also responsible for getting the federal government to accept his Gross Output (GO) economic measure as an alternate (and more reliable guide) to GDP—which measures business output along all the stages of production rather than the GDP’s end point consumption criteria. Sadly, the GO statistic doesn’t come out until December. He affirms that the “drop is due to supply chain slowdown and shortages.”

[Back to Breitbart] The economy grew at a better than expected 6.7 percent in the second quarter, boosted by widespread business reopenings, vaccinated Americans spending on out-of-home services and travel, and a massive infusion of government stimulus.

The third-quarter GDP growth was initially forecast to be even more robust. As late as June, analysts were forecast growth of seven to better than nine percent… The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index increased 5.3 percent, compared with an increase of 6.5 percent in the prior period.

You can triple the official rate of inflation to approximate the real rate—$15%. That’s how much the Commerce Department distorts and hides inflation using all kinds of gimmicks and adjustments. Even FED chair Jerome Powell has had to admit to worsening inflation after downplaying it as “temporary” a few months ago. It’s anything but temporary. Adding to the labor shortage is the fact that more than 3 million Americans have retired early due to the vaccine mandates.