Bidenflation hits 40-year high

This morning, inflation hit its highest year-over-year rate since June, 1982. Core CPI rose 5.5% year-over-year. Core CPI excludes food and energy. Core CPI was the highest since February, 1991. Gone are economists' claims that inflation is "transitory", aka temporary.

On another front, Fed Chairman Jay Powell said that "high inflation posed a 'severe threat' to a recovery in the US jobs market as he declared the era of pandemic stimulus was over." That's a rather provocative statement for a Fed chairman to make while testifying to Congress. This is part of what Chairman Powell said during his confirmation hearing:

In testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Powell, who was nominated by President Joe Biden in November to serve a second term leading the Fed, said the economy no longer "needs or wants" the "highly accommodative" policies that have been in place since the onset of the coronavirus crisis.

Powell also warned that entrenched inflation could jeopardise what had been a historically strong expansion. "To get the very strong labour market we want with high participation, it is going to take a long expansion. [And] to get a long expansion, we are going to need price stability," Powell said.

"High inflation is a severe threat to achieving maximum employment and to achieve the long expansion that could give us that."

Democrats are in a difficult spot. Thanks to this morning's report, Build Back Better isn't on life support. It's got a toe tag on it. The coroner is picking up the body of BBB.

The Fed likely will need to start raising interest rates before they wanted to. That might lead to slower job growth, slower economic growth and potentially a recession. This isn't likely to lead to a soft landing of the economy. Ed Morrissey nails it in this post:

Those of us who were in the workforce in 1982 recall that year as an improvement in the inflation picture, or at least on the end slope of a years-long inflationary wave. The inflation reports over the last few months show that this is not “transitory,” nor is it indicative of growth. The December jobs report shows how little “growth” we have experienced in the American economy while inflation rips away at capital and savings.

I can't dispute the wage increases. However, Biden can't honestly disput that wage gains haven't kept up with inflation. When the shelves are empty, what's on those shelves is expensive and teachers' unions are calling parents domestic terrorists, that points points to a Democrat wipeout this November. This is what an onslaught of terrible news looks like. That's what happens when a president makes one policy mistake after another.