When Will The People Of Walmart Wake Up To Inflation?

April 4, 2011 by Bob Livingston


Serious price inflation will come this summer.

Although I have warned readers for some time that hyperinflation is coming, this is not me saying it, but Walmart CEO Bill Simon. Last week he told USA Today that inflation is “going to be serious” in the coming months.

“We’re seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate,” he said.

Of course, back in October 2010, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke promised that inflation was his goal. “For the first time in many decades, [the Fed] had to take seriously the possibility that inflation can be too low as well as too high,” he said.

“Every single retailer has and is paying more for the items they sell, and retailers will be passing some of these costs along,” John Long, retail strategist at Kurt Salmon told USA Today. Along with steep increases in raw material costs, labor costs in China and fuel costs for transportation are weighing heavily on retailers, he said.

READ ON: 
http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/when-will-the-people-of-walmart-wake-up-to-inflation/

Chuck Norris

$200,000 for Capitol Hill Bottled Water?

The Congressional Budget Office just reported that in the past two years since President Barack Obama took office, federal spending is up 21.4 percent.


The national deficit was $1.29 trillion in 2010 (second to the $1.4 trillion in Obama's first year in office, 2009), which means that for every $1 the federal government spent this past year, it borrowed 37 cents of it!

The feds will tell you that their outrageous spending habits were necessary to pull our economy out of its recession. But would their same rationale justify the fact that the money Congress spends on itself has soared 89 percent over the past decade, more than three times the U.S. inflation rate?

It's true. In 2000, the feds spent $2.87 billion to run Capitol Hill. In fiscal year 2010, they almost doubled the amount, to an enormous $5.42 billion. From 2000-10, while inflation went up 26 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Capitol expenses went up 89 percent.

Were all those expenditures necessary to pull the economy out of a recession, too? Will the Obama administration again blame former President George W. Bush for its contemptible spending habits in its first two years?

According to Capitol News Connection and the congressional watchdog groups Sunlight Foundation and LegiStorm, here are just some of the itemized personnel costs of your legislative branch of government, including their comparative increases from 2000:

--Congress members' salaries and benefits: $126 million, up 23.5 percent.
--Expense allowances for Senate leaders: $180,000, up 99 percent.
--Senate officers: $178.98 million, up 99 percent.
--House leadership offices: $25.88 million, up 82 percent.
--Other House officers: $198.30 million, up 120 percent.
--Senators' personal offices: $422 million, up 75 percent.
--Representatives' personal offices: $660 million, up 62 percent.
--Architect of the Capitol salaries: $106.78 million, up 118 percent.
--Capitol Police salaries: $265.18 million, up 237 percent.
--Capitol Police general expenses: $63.13 million, up 860 percent.

Other items:

--Senate inquiries and investigations: $140.5 million, up 96 percent.
--Capitol grounds upkeep: $10.97 million, up 102 percent.
--Capitol building maintenance: $33.18 million (not listed separately in 2000).
--Senate office buildings: $74.39 million, up 16 percent.
--House office buildings: $100.46 million, up 169 percent.
--Capitol Visitor Center: $22.45 million (didn't exist in 2000).
--Congressional Budget Office: $45.16 million, up 72 percent.
--Government Accountability Office: $556.84 million, up 47 percent.
--Library of Congress: $446.15 million, up 73 percent.

--Congressional Research Service: $112.49 million, up 57 percent.

And if you don't think those costs are reflective of a nation in economic peril and government run amok, consider momentarily how critical these following costs are to running our country -- or are they?

--Since Democrat Nancy Pelosi took over the position of speaker of the House in January 2007, funding for her office soared 62 percent, from $2.9 million to $4.7 million. For a single office?!

--And taxpayers paid an enormous printing bill of $93.76 million, up 212 percent. (How many copies of the 1,000-plus-page Obamacare bill do you think that bought the feds? In a computer age of paperless transactions, don't you think they could save a few dollars here by learning what PDF files are?)

--According to the Sunlight Foundation, $4.28 million was spent on student loan repayments during the first quarter of this year as one of the congressional staff member employment perks.

--Pension costs continue to soar as congressional members enjoy the $60,000 annual benefit when they retire at age 62 after only having five years of congressional service. More than 400 former members receive average pensions of $60,000 a year.

--Taxpayers also forked out $3.27 million for Capitol Hill office supplies, as well as $628,332 for food. In addition, we spent $51.05 million on electricity and $4.63 million on sewer and water services in the Capitol building.

--And that water bill doesn't include the bottled water, which the House offices alone spent nearly $200,000 on during just the first quarter of 2010!

Friends, this next election fight is not for the weak at heart. Those elected next will either plummet our country into a fiscal abyss by maintaining the present course or deliver our economy from utter ruin by turning sharply to avoid economic disaster.

If our country is to survive, we must elect only those who show proof of fiscal discipline, refuse under all circumstances to increase our national deficit, disdain special interests, are willing to radically cut spending, and commit to pass and live under a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. (Please join the movement to pressure Congress to do so, by signing BBA Now's petition for a Common Sense Balanced Budget Amendment. And for a voter guide detailing where candidates in your state stand on issues, go to http://www.christianvoterguide.com/.)

With the present elective battle at hand, I call upon the great battalion of patriots to get out and vote Nov. 2 in the same spirit in which George Washington admonished his army in 1776: "The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty -- that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."

(I also encourage everyone to check out the trailers to two new patriotic films playing near you, "I Want Your Money" and "Battle for America.")

Chuck Norris is a columnist and impossible to kill.



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http://townhall.com/columnists/ChuckNorris/2010/10/26/$200,000_for_capitol_hill_bottled_water/page/1

Senior citizens brace for Social Security freeze

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer Matt Sedensky, Associated Press Writer – Mon Oct 11, 7:30 pm ET


BOCA RATON, Fla. – Seniors prepared to cut back on everything from food to charitable donations to whiskey as word spread Monday that they will have to wait until at least 2012 to see their Social Security checks increase.

The government is expected to announce this week that more than 58 million Social Security recipients will go through a second straight year without an increase in monthly benefits. This year was the first without an increase since automatic adjustments for inflation started in 1975.


"I think it's disgusting," said Paul McNeil, 69, a retired state worker from Warwick, R.I., who said his food and utility costs have gone up, but his income has not. He lamented decisions by lawmakers that he said do not favor seniors.

"They've got this idea that they've got to save money and basically they want to take it out of the people that will give them the least resistance," he said.

Cost-of-living adjustments are automatically set by a measure adopted by Congress in the 1970s that orders raises based on the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. If inflation is negative, as in 2009 and 2010, payments remain unchanged.

Still, seniors like McNeil said they'll be thinking about the issue when they go to vote, and experts said the news comes at a bad time for Democrats already facing potentially big losses in November. Seniors are the most loyal of voters, and their support is especially important during midterm elections, when turnout is generally lower.

"If you're the ruling party, this is not the sort of thing you want to have happening two weeks before an election," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

At St. Andrews Estates North, a Boca Raton retirement community, seniors largely took the news in stride, saying they don't blame Washington for the lack of an increase. Most are also collecting pensions or other income, but even so, they prepared to tighten their belts.

Bette Baldwin won't be able to travel or help her children as much. Dorcas Eppright will give less to charity. Jack Dawson will buy cheap whiskey instead of his beloved Canadian Club.

"For people who have worked their whole life and tried to scrimp and save and try to provide for themselves," said Baldwin, a 63-year-old retired teacher, "it's difficult to see that support system might not sustain you."

Baldwin and her husband mapped out their retirements, carefully calculating their income based on their pensions and Social Security checks. Trouble is, they expected an annual cost-of-living increase.

"When we cut back, we're cutting back on niceties," Baldwin said. "But there are other people that don't have anything to cut back on. They're cutting back on food and shelter."


Many at St. Andrews said the cost-of-living decision won't affect who they vote for next month. But seniors tied the Social Security issue to what they see as a larger societal problem with debt, entitlements and hopefulness for the future.

"I'm kind of glad in a way," Stella Wehrly, an 86-year-old retired secretary, said of the freeze. "One thing depends on the other and when people aren't working there's not enough people feeding into the Social Security system."

Wehrly and her husband, Hank, said curtailing government spending is necessary to maintain the Social Security system.

"We have a generation now that we're not going to leave a very good legacy for," she said.

Jack Dawson, 77, said the freeze is the right move considering the state of the government and the American economy.

"Who would be surprised what's happened?" he asked. "I feel this is the right decision in light of the malaise."

More than 58.7 million people rely on Social Security checks that average $1,072 monthly. It was the primary source of income for 64 percent of retirees who got benefits in 2008; one-third relied on Social Security for at least 90 percent of their income.

At the Phoenix Knits yarn shop in Phoenix, 73-year-old owner Pat McCartney said she already worries about paying for utilities, groceries and gas. Not having the increase makes her worry even more.

"If I have any major expense, I don't know what I'll do," McCartney said while helping customers with their knitting. "I live on Social Security."

In Kansas City, Mo., Georgia Hollman, 80, said Social Security is her sole source of income. She would have liked a bigger check, but said she's grateful for what she gets.

"There isn't nothing I can do about it but live with it," she said. "Whatever they give us is what we have to take. I'm thankful we get that little bit."

Advocates for seniors argue the Consumer Price Index doesn't adequately weigh the costs that most affect older adults, particularly medical care and housing.

"The existing COLA formula does not account for the economic reality of the true costs that most seniors faced," said Fernando Torres-Gil, director of UCLA's Center for Policy Research on Aging and the first person appointed to the governmental post of assistant secretary for aging, during the Clinton administration.

Still, Torres-Gil said the political reality is different, and many feel seniors are lucky to have their checks determined by the CPI, instead of some new formula that might make it even harder to secure a raise.

"We may just lucky to keep the current index," he said.

Associated Press writers Michelle Smith in Providence, R.I., Terry Tang in Phoenix, Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., and Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101011/ap_on_bi_ge/us_social_security_no_cola

Townhall Columnist: Larry Kudlow

Destroying King Dollar Is Not the Solution

Fed head Ben Bernanke and the FOMC dropped a new policy bomb at their meeting this week. Now they say inflation is too low. That’s the real problem. And the solution? Punch up the money supply and punch down the dollar -- or what I used to call King Dollar. No more.


In the 24 hours following the Fed announcement, gold rocketed up toward $1,300, a new record high. And the dollar plunged. It’s a big vote against the central bank and its constant tinkering and fine-tuning.

The Fed actually has opened the door even wider for more money-creating, balance-sheet expanding, Treasury-bond-buying actions at its next scheduled meeting, which will come the day after the midterm elections on November 3. That’s when QE2 may sail. “Quantitative easing” is what they call it. I call it dollar whack-a-mole.

Here’s a currency-trader quote from the Wall Street Journal: “Quantitative easing is broadly viewed to be corrosive to a currency’s value.” Right on, brother. Even though Bernanke doesn’t get it, the weaker dollar will rev up inflation mighty fast.

But right now, the reflation trade is king, not the dollar. Gold, commodities, some stocks, and foreign currencies are the place to be.

And do we really need more inflation? And should the Fed sacrifice the value of the dollar to get it?


Wall Street economist John Ryding doesn’t think so. He notes that over the past four-and-a-half decades, the consumer price index (CPI) has increased six-fold. So Ryding believes it’s absurd for the Fed to worry about a low inflation rate over the past year or so. Ryding is right.

Regarding the so-called too-low inflation rate, here are some facts: The CPI over the past year is up 1.1 percent. Producer prices paid by businesses are up 3.1 percent. And import prices are rising 4.1 percent. So it’s not as though all these indexes are actually plunging. And to the extent that the CPI and the personal consumption deflator (1.5 percent) are rising only a bit, well, that should be a good thing.

But here’s what the Fed is really missing, or ignoring: All of these price indicators are backward-looking. Sensitive, forward-looking inflation proxies -- like gold and the CRB spot raw-materials index -- are surging upwards. And the dollar downwards.

One of the cornerstones of economic growth in a free-market model is domestic price stability and a stable, reliable dollar. This is crucial for confidence and capital formation. In fact, Nobelist Robert Mundell always argued for low tax rates to spur growth and a steady dollar linked to gold to ensure price stability.

But now we are moving deeper into monetary Keynesian fine-tuning to control the economy. That, plus an overspending Keynesian fiscal policy, may be combined with higher tax rates and an ever-weakening dollar. It’s totally wrong. It’s exactly the reverse of Mundell’s thesis. Sinking the greenback and pumping more money into the system while raising tax rates and overspending is, over time, a prescription for stagflation: too much money chasing too few goods.


Now think of this: With all the Fed’s pump-priming since late 2008, there is still $1 trillion of excess bank reserves sitting on deposit at the central bank. This massive cash hoard suggests that liquidity is not the problem for the financial system or the economy. And putting another $1 trillion into excess reserves only doubles the problem.

A much better idea would be a fiscal freeze on spending, tax rates, and regulations. This is apparently what the tea-party driven Republican congressional leaders intend for their election platform.

Such a freeze would go a long way toward reducing the massive overhang of uncertainty that has plagued the economy and stifled the animal spirits. The Fed can print money, but it can’t print new jobs or growth. On the other hand, a rollback of the big-government obstacles to growth would get folks to put money to work. Not only the $1 trillion in excess bank reserves, but the massive corporate cash hoard, estimated at roughly $2 trillion.

And a lot of that corporate cash is lodged overseas to avoid punitive U.S. taxation. So, in addition to freezing tax rates at home, why not move to a 5 percent tax-rate holiday on repatriated foreign corporate profits? The result would be $300 billion to $400 billion flowing back into the U.S. economy for investment and job-creating purposes.

In other words, pro-growth fiscal action is the solution, not wrecking the value of the dollar or somehow boosting the future domestic inflation rate.

Historically, nothing good has ever come to our economy from a steadily rising gold price. Doesn’t anybody around here have enough common horse sense to see that? Maybe that’s what this midterm election is going to be all about.

http://townhall.com/columnists/LarryKudlow/2010/09/23/destroying_king_dollar_is_not_the_solution/page/2
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THE SOLUTION

THE SOLUTION: Featuring Schaeffer Cox


There are 7 parts; well worth listening to even while you do something else.

Reforming the Giant Monster Clutching Us! Please take time to look at and LISTEN to this, very important concepts here! Very, informative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9zldMZujyw&feature=player_embedded

The Death of the Dollar

The Death of the Dollar