The Bidas Touch: Inflation Rate Hits 41-Year High

CLAY: We are continuing to hit new records as it pertains to the overall inflation rate. And CNN yesterday, of course, Jen Psaki tried to say, oh, this is Putin’s inflation, this is the reason, Vladimir Putin is, for why inflation has gone up. Of course, that’s not the reality.

But CNN as soon as the news came down this morning they immediately worked hard to minimize the 8.5% inflation rate, arguing that this is the peak, already probably going down. Listen to what’s being said.

CHRISTINE ROMANS: 8.5%, the inflation rate over the past year, that is a big number. It is as expected and it is the hottest inflation since 1982. That’s like a broken record there and you know what it all is. It is gas, it is shelter, it is food. I want to say, though, this is ’til the end of March and, as we’ve been reporting, oil prices and gas prices have been coming down. So in a way, this consumer price number is looking in the rearview mirror. There are some economists who are hoping this is the peak, this is the worst of it and things begin to moderate into the summer.

JOHN BERMAN: It’s crazy to think, though, that the market might be okay with it because it’s exactly in line with what they were expecting today. It’s not worse than what they expected.

CHRISTINE ROMANS: Most economists don’t expect a recession in the U.S.

CLAY: They are covering for everything here, Buck. 8.5% is unheard of for most people out there who did not live through the Jimmy Carter era. This thing is not going to go away, inflation, that is, all the way through the midterms.

Thank God Joe Manchin is there and at least we didn’t pass the, you know, multitrillion additional spending that Joe Biden wanted as part of Build Back Better. But I hope this is the peak. I hope it’s going to come down from here. I’m not confident of that being the case.

BUCK: A lot of our covid policy led to this, folks, just so we understand.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We were sending people checks and then encouraging them to keep staying home, we’re gonna keep sending you checks. Less productivity, more money flowing around. Some of us warned about this at the very beginning, and we were told stop killing grandma. Well, here we are.

Now you’re gonna see — by the way, it had nothing to do grandma being safe or not. It is having a lot to do with our economy and the future of this country. So a lot of bad decisions were made.

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CLAY: Honestly, I sit around and think how close did we come to passing another $5 trillion government spending bill? We obviously spent way too much money. Anyone with a functional brain could have told you, giving people thousands of dollars not to work was going to be a poor situation for the country going forward. But we came close, Buck, last year to Joe Biden adding another 5 trillion in spending.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Build Back Better had passed?

BUCK: Can we just take a step back too? People like you and me — we can go back to the tape — and not to say we were alone. Anybody on the right who was sane and had the most basic understanding of economics was saying we’re going into a period of inflation here.

You’ve already spent trillions of dollars beyond the trillions that was the 30 trillion we currently have in the national debt, and your idea — Clay, the argument that the Biden Democrats were making — and maybe we should go find this — was that it would reduce inflation.

CLAY: That’s exactly what they were saying.

BUCK: To spend 2.5 trillion more dollars. These people are out of their minds. And I mean Joe Biden ’cause he just is a puppet who says whatever the people he advises around him tell him will poll well with idiot Democrats who don’t understand how the economy works at the most basic level.

We’re going into inflation, and their answer is 5 trillion more in spending? And they tell us that will reduce — Clay, it is the economic equivalent of saying, “I know how to put out this fire. Throw gasoline on it.” It is that stupid.

CLAY: It’s exactly what it was. And the only person really who stood against that happening was Joe Manchin, which, I mean, again.

BUCK: He may have saved the Democrats, by the way, by doing this, in a we’re way.

CLAY: He may well have brought some sanity. And I know Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona did as well.

But I don’t think Biden should be able to skate on the fact that he argued — now they’re trying to blame certainly Vladimir Putin. But, Buck, that was his primary argument. He said inflation will come down if we spend 5 trillion more dollars. And, by the way, 5 trillion is actually low because they limited the cost to 10 years. Was actually more than $5 trillion in government new programs that he wanted to put in place.

BUCK: The Biden economic approach is the equivalent of having Joe Biden sit down with somebody who is ruinously in credit card debt and saying, (impression) “I got an idea. Max out all the rest of your cards too. That’ll take care of it.” That’s what he wanted to do. It’s completely crazy.

CLAY: Well, and what should happen is our politicians should just stand down right now. Right? They should not try to pass any more bills that involve substantial government spending or substantial changes to the tax code. They’ve screwed things up enough. They need to just get out of the way and hopefully allow some form of moderation to return to the economy as that money flushes itself out.

But what I’m concerned about, Buck, is a lot of trillions of dollars that we spent last year hasn’t even fully washed through the economy yet. So I think we’re still gonna be reaping what we’ve sown in the early days of the Biden administration going forward. It is economic suicide that we have created. It is a disaster.