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FACT CHECK: Who’s to blame for high grocery, energy, other costs?

Published

1 week ago

6 minute read

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

With inflationary costs reaching a 40-year high under the Biden-Harris administration, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others in their administration have repeatedly blamed businesses, livestock producers, grocery stores, oil and natural gas companies and others for high prices.

At the same time, a record number of businesses closed, declared bankruptcy and laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, citing high inflationary costs. In a recent report, nearly half of all small businesses said they won’t survive a second Harris term, higher costs and increased taxes, The Center Square reported.

Despite this, Harris says she plans to implement price controls, increase taxes on businesses and allow the 2017 tax cuts to expire, creating a $6 trillion chasm between her plan and former President Donald Trump’s, the Wall Street Journal reported.

As Americans struggled with increased grocery costs, including the high cost of meat, producers were faced with higher fuel, feed, grain and hay costs, driving up their operational costs that were passed onto consumers, according to multiple reports. In response, in 2021, the White House National Economic Council blamed high meat prices on “dominant corporations in uncompetitive markets taking advantage of their market power.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce disagrees, arguing that market concentration in the meat packing industry had been virtually unchanged for 25 years at the time. It then asked “if high prices are the result of corporate greed, why did these ‘greedy’ companies wait two decades to raise prices?” It clarified that increased meat prices were driven by supply and demand and overall inflation, largely created by increased federal spending and debt.

With costs increasing across the board, some companies adjusted by selling less product for more, referred to as shrinkflation, The Center Square first reported in 2022. However, Biden and Harris blamed companies for higher costs, reportedly in response to Democratic operatives advising them to do so, The​ Washington Post reported.

“What we said is, ‘You need a villain or an explanation for this. If you don’t provide one, voters will fill one in. The right is providing an explanation, which is that you’re spending too much,’” one Democratic operative told the Post. “That point finally became convincing to people in the White House.”

“And thus began the effort to wrongly blame employers for high prices,” the chamber’s executive vice president Neil Bradley said in a report identifying examples of the White House “wrongly blaming businesses for high prices.”

Also in 2022, Biden publicly blamed container companies for high shipping costs. News reports pointed to supply chain issues impacted by worker shortages, changes in customer spending that resulted in more cargo arriving in ports that the ports couldn’t handle, and port fines and fees contributing to higher costs.

The chamber notes that increased prices “resulted from consumers shifting their spending from services to goods” during the COVID-lockdown era, causing increased cargo demand. “Increased demand created backlogs at the ports, raising prices even higher. As supply and demand normalized, prices fell.”

By 2023, the president again publicly blamed the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for gas prices reaching a seven-year high. This was after he took more than 200 actions against the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, U.S. House Democrats introduced a bill that would have added a 50% per barrel tax, and the U.S. Treasury Department proposed a $110 billion tax hike on the industry, The Center Square reported.

But the industry doesn’t control the market, it’s subject to it like everyone else, Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association President Ed Longanecker said. The Biden-Harris administration could have lowered costs by expediting permits, lifting the federal leasing ban and creating “a more stable regulatory environment that provides certainty to producers and investors,” he told The Center Square. “Overburdensome regulations, increased taxes and anti-oil and natural gas rhetoric” exacerbated high energy prices and raised consumer costs, he said.

The administration has also repeatedly sued the industry and Texas, which leads U.S. production, exports and energy creation. In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has aggressively fought to protect the Texas industry from Biden policies, the governor argues.

Also in 2023, the chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers said grocery sector profit margins “were elevated” and needed to “pass-through” to consumers. Earlier this year, Biden again claimed, “there are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation.”

The chamber refutes these claims, pointing to federal data, arguing that “higher grocery prices are a result of inflationary pressure across the supply chain and basic supply and demand dynamics,” explained by Department of Agriculture and Government Accountability Office economists.

Biden and Harris blaming businesses for high prices is “entirely backward,” Bradley says. “The truth is the Administration’s own fiscal and regulatory policies are driving inflation, and the American consumer is left holding the bag.”

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Business

Feds blow $2.7 million on global film festivals

Published on September 19, 2024

By

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Franco Terrazzano 

At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in France, bureaucrats spent $9,930 on “umbrella stand coordinator services”

The Trudeau government blew more than $2.7 million on high-profile film and music festivals around the world, where they made taxpayer cash rain throwing expensive parties.

All that spending occurred for events that took place during a 16-month period, between January 2023 and May 2024, according to government records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Bureaucrats attended the Oscars, the Cannes Film Festival in France, the Berlinale film festival in Germany, and the South by Southwest music and film festivals in Austin, Texas and Australia – all on the taxpayer dime.

“Government bureaucrats spent $175,000 a month partying it up at international film and music festivals,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “In what world does it make sense for bureaucrats to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on festivals when the government is more than a trillion dollars in debt and record numbers of Canadians are lining up at food banks?”

During South by Southwest festivals, bureaucrats spent $35,000 on plant and furniture rentals for a “Canada House” event, as well as $5,000 on “DJ services” and “animation services.”

An additional $15,000 was spent on a “social media champion” for the Canada House. Food and drink catering costs for a reception, as well as an “opening party” came to $11,700.

The 2023 South by Southwest festival in Australia also had a “Canada House,” with costs totalling at least $97,000. Bureaucrats also expensed $17,000 for an “event coordinator.”

At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in France, bureaucrats spent $9,930 on “umbrella stand coordinator services.”

During the Berlinale festival, the rental fee for a “Canada Pavilion” came to $74,000.

Additional expenses at the festivals included professional photographers and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on decoration services.

“Maybe government bureaucrats should figure out how to do basic things, like answering taxpayers’ phone calls, before trying to DJ international parties,” Terrazzano said. “Taxpayers are giving this international film festival party junket two big thumbs down.”

The spending happened at the ministries of Global Affairs Canada and Canadian Heritage, with money also spent by the National Film Board.

All told, the cost to taxpayers came in at $2,798,719, according to the records. The events all occurred during a 16-month period. That means the average spending on the festivals was $174,919 per month.

The government has already earmarked spending for future film and music festivals, with bureaucrats indicating the “plan is to continue to support Canadian talent at these world-class markets,” according to the records.

The details were released in response to an order paper question submitted by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill).

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Automotive

Ford Files Patent to Surveil Drivers

Published on September 18, 2024

By

News release from Armstrong Economics

By Martin Armstrong

Governments are pushing the public to switch to smart vehicles to reduce fossil fuel consumption, but there is also a second motive – surveillance.

This September, Ford filed a new patent to eavesdrop on riders. They plan to share this information with third-parties to personalize the advertisements riders hear. Ford will also take the driver’s destination into consideration to determine location-specific advertisements and suggestions. The technology will factor in the weather, traffic, and all external sensors to fine tune when and what to market to passengers.

Advertisements are perhaps the least ominous use of voice data based on the plans that these car manufacturers have. Car insurance rates in the United States spiked 26% in the past year, which is partly due to car manufacturers sharing ride data with insurance companies. Even older cars with basic features like OnStar have tracking devices that report your driving behavior to the manufacturers who share your data with insurance companies and, ultimately, the government. LexisNexis, which tracks drivers’ behaviors and compiles risk profiles, has been sharing individual data with General Motors, who passes that information along to the insurance companies. General Motors.

One driver demanded that LexisNexis send him his personal report, which was a 258-page document containing every trip he or his wife took in his vehicle over a six-month period. LexisNexis said that this data will be used “for insurers to use as one factor of many to create more personalized insurance coverage.” They even reported small issues such as hard breaking and rapid acceleration, according to the report. “I don’t know the definition of hard brake. My passenger’s head isn’t hitting the dash,” an unnamed Cadillac driver enrolled in the OnStar Smart Driver subscription service told reporters.

“Cars have microphones and people have all kinds of sensitive conversations in them. Cars have cameras that face inward and outward,” a researcher with Mozilla Foundation told the Los Angeles Times. In fact, 19 automakers in 2023 admitted that they have the ability to sell your personal data without notice. Law enforcement may subpoena these records as well.

Ford claims that the patent was submitted, but they do not necessarily plan to use the technology. “Submitting patent applications is a normal part of any strong business as the process protects new ideas and helps us build a robust portfolio of intellectual property. The ideas described within a patent application should not be viewed as an indication of our business or product plans. No matter what the patent application outlines, we will always put the customer first in the decision-making behind the development and marketing of new products and services,” Ford said in a statement released to MotorTrend.

Now, the US Department of Transportation is permitted to mandate that certain manufacturers provide them with vehicle data. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward Markey of Massachusetts testified that all vehicles in the United States with a GPS or emergency call system are collecting travel data that car manufacturers have remote access to via the computer chips. The computer chips are compiling data on vehicle speed, movement, travel, and even using exterior sensors and cameras to record the vehicle’s location.

All of this violates the Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. These car manufacturers are surpassing what anyone would consider a reasonable expectation of privacy. Governments, third-party advertisement companies, and insurance companies all have warrantless access to personal data, and drivers are largely unaware they are being spied on. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permits the government to have backdoor access to this data.

The aforementioned senators’ concerns fell on deaf ears at the Federal Trade Commission. The Department of Transportation clearly is not listed within the US Constitution. People are already experiencing stiff consequences from autos sharing data with the sharp uptick in insurance rates.

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