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up next:
now reading: The Biden Inflation Octopus



THE BIDEN INFLATION OCTOPUS

.


By Victor Davis Hanson
March 03, 2022
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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The Democrats will suffer historic losses in the November midterms.

This disaster for their party will come about not just because of the
Afghanistan debacle, an appeased Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of
Ukraine, the destruction of the southern border, the supply chain mess, or their
support for critical race theory demagoguery.

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The culprit for the political wipeout will be out-of-control inflation - and for
several reasons.

First, the Biden Administration is in such denial of inflation that it sounds to
Americans simply callous and indifferent to the misery it has unleashed.

Biden officials have scoffed at price spikes as "transitory." Or they have
preposterously claimed spiraling costs are a concern only to the elite. They
blame the Ukraine crisis. Or they fault the out-of-office bogeyman, former
President Donald Trump.



The administration assures us that consumer prices are only rising at an
annualized rate of 7.5% - as if the steepest increase in 40 years actually is
not all that bad.

Yet the middle class knows that inflation is far worse when it comes to the
stuff of life: buying a house, car, gas, meat, or lumber.

Second, inflation is an equal opportunity destroyer of dreams. It undermines
rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals. It unites
all tribes, all ideologies, all politics against those who are perceived to have
birthed the monstrous octopus that squeezes everything and everyone it touches.

The conservative passbook holder sees his meager life savings eaten away. The
liberal teacher's car payments stretch from six to 10 years.



The prospective Republican home buyer sees his hard-earned potential down
payment eaten away each month. The Democratic carpenter feels his new higher
wages buy even less.

Third, inflation is ubiquitous, inescapable, omnipotent - and humiliating. It
destroys personal dignity. And its toxicity is insidious, sort of like seeping,
odorless, colorless, but nevertheless lethal carbon monoxide.

Unlike now-unpopular critical race theory, it cannot be avoided for a day. You
cannot tune it out like one does the mess in Afghanistan or the now nonexistent
southern border. Inflation attacks everyone in 24/7, 360-degree fashion.

It belittles you at the gas station. It downsizes you at the food market. It
humiliates you in the obscene real estate market. It makes you look stupid when
you are paying for a new car. It ridicules you when you buy lumber. Suddenly you
apologize that you really cannot afford your child's braces.

Fourth, inflation undermines a civil and ordered society. It unleashes a selfish
"every man for himself" mentality, the Hobbesian cruelty of a "war of all
against all."

Inflation is the economic and emotional equivalent of smash-and-grab or
carjacking. It is a brazen robber in broad daylight that so infuriates Americans
by its boldness. It convinces them their very civilization is dying.

One day a friendly, hard-to-find plumber announces that he will work for cash
only to avoid taxes that all others must pay. You notice at your neighborhood
Walgreens suddenly lots of once inexpensive stuff is now pricey - and locked up
because of shoplifting fears.

You sense that price stickers are mysteriously glued on top of older, original,
and cheaper price stickers.

In warranted paranoia, you begin to wonder if you are being price-hiked by the
car salesman, the barber, or the mechanic, and conclude that in order to
survive, you too should price-hike others.

The noble fool who won't play the inflation roulette game is reduced to the
clueless standing naif victim of musical chairs - with nowhere to sit once the
music ceases.

Fifth, Americans know that our current inflation is self-induced, not a product
of a war abroad, an earthquake, or the exhaustion of gas and oil deposits.

Biden ignored the natural inflationary buying spree of consumers who were
released from being locked down for nearly two years unable to spend.

Instead, he encouraged gorging that huge demand by printing trillions of dollars
of funny money for all sorts of new redistributionist entitlements, green
projects, and pet congressional programs.

The Biden Administration eroded the work ethic. It kept labor non-participation
rates high by subsidizing with federal checks those staying at home.

It nihilistically slashed gas and oil production by canceling federal leases,
oilfields, and pipelines while pressuring banks not to lend for fracking.

In just a year, Biden reduced America from the greatest producer of gas and oil
in the history of civilization to an energy panhandler begging the Saudis and
Russians to pump more of the oil that America needs but will not tap for itself.

Americans know the inflation octopus was willfully birthed. They are confused
only whether Team Biden unleashed it out of incompetence - or a neo-socialist
idea of eroding the value of money for those who had it while gifting cash to
those who didn't.

Or was Biden deluded by crackpot "modern monetary theory," the fool's gold that
claims printing money ensures prosperity?

In the end, it doesn't matter whether Biden was deluded or diabolical. Come
November, Americans will rightfully blame him for willfully damaging their
lives.

(C)2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution and the author, most recently, of The Case for Trump. You can reach
him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

 

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More from Real Clear

 * 1
   John Daniel Davidson: Delusional Neocons Are Itching For A War With Russia
 * 2
   Chuck Todd on Biden SOTU: "I Fear This Is Going To Feel Like A Speech That
   Didn't Age Well"
 * 3
   Megyn Kelly: It Will Be "Absolutely Devastating" For Democrats Come November

 * 4
   Biden: When History Is Written, Putin's War On Ukraine Will Have Left Russia
   Weaker
 * 5
   Gov. Kim Reynolds Gives SOTU Response: The Country Is Not What Biden
   Promised, It Doesn't Have To Be That Way
 * 6
   Russell Brand: A Government Worried About "Misinformation" Is Telling You
   You're Not Intelligent Enough To Respond To Data







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headlines against the historic events
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