Via BBC: Why is inflation in the US so high?

Inflation is at a nearly all time high in the US at 8.6%. This is amazingly high, higher than in most other countries in the world.

In an attempt to protect the socialist policies put in place, the BBC points the finger firmly at the people of the US spending so much.

A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded that pandemic relief packages probably contributed to 3 percentage points of the rise in inflation until the end of 2021 – a factor that goes a long way to explaining why US inflation outpaced the rest of the world.

Oscar Jorda, senior policy adviser at the bank and one of the people who worked on the study, cautioned against reading too much into the exact percentages, but said the overall picture is clear.

“These programmes… were a considerable infusion of liquidity into consumers’ pockets at a time when perhaps industry wasn’t quite ready to respond to an increase in demand,” he said in an interview in May. They “signified a big push of what I would call demand push inflation”.

There you have it. Because you were out of work because of shutdowns and the government handed you a few dollars, YOU caused the inflation when you spent it.

If you had just saved that money then inflation wouldn’t be so bad.

Historically, when inflation gets bad, people spend money as soon as they have it to convert money into hard goods. To put this in perspective of today, people are moving to keeping their vehicle gas tanks mostly full.

The cost, to me, of filling my tank last week vs filling my tank this week was about $8.50. That’s a $0.50 increase in the price of gas. When you are afraid your money will be worth less tomorrow, you want hard goods now. We bought a 1/2 cow because we know the price of beef is going up. We bought more chickens, we know that the price of eggs is going up and making our own eggs reduces our weekly food bill.

In addition to all of the above, the demand continues to grow for hard goods. This also increases prices.

If you are interested in a good introductory book on economics:
Basic Economics, Fifth Edition: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell

Via Yahoo Finance: More than half of U.S. teachers are considering leaving the profession: Survey

Can we get the politics out of the classroom?

–Randi Weingarten

My wife is a teacher, she applied for an online teaching job this year. She wants out of the brick and mortar schools. And it isn’t the money. Nor is it ungrounded fear of “school shootings”. It is violence within the schools.

For the last school year they have had two or three students that have controlled the school. These are kids that refused to stay in class. Refused to obey instructions. Threw things, broke things, vandalized classroom, attacked and teachers. One teacher had her arm broken by one of these children. (Grades k-5).

All the teachers are tired of the alert messages that tell them that the good students have to be held inside their classrooms because the animals have taken over part of the school again. (For the liberal bleeding hearts, race doesn’t come into this question.)

But according to Yahoo it is that teachers don’t get paid enough.

But the real reason that teachers are thinking of leaving the profession is:

“What [teachers] really want is they want us to do the common sense gun safety precautions that are being talked about in Washington right now, that Governor Hochul did in New York state with the legislature just a few days ago, that GOP Governor Baker did in Massachusetts a few years ago, what the overwhelming number of Americans — Republican, Democrat, Independent — want us to do: They want something done,” Weingarten said.

Weingarten said this while trying to get politics out of the classroom. Maybe she should keep politics out of the classroom too?

Yes, there are teachers in the local school system that are terrified of school shootings, but hardening the schools with armed guards is not acceptable. It will frighten the children. I don’t understand how that is more frightening than doing lock down drills.

Evaluating Teacher Pay

If some teacher or teacher’s representative tells you they don’t get paid enough, make sure you do the actual math. You need to know the teachers salary, the value of the benefits package and the number of contract hours. A nominal contract is for 185 days per year.

So compare a teacher making $50,000/year and a nurse making $50,000/year. Ignoring benefits.

The nurse makes $24.03/hour. The teacher makes $33.78/hour. If the teacher worked full time, year round like other employees, then they would be making the same $24.03/hour. The difference between being paid $50k/2080hrs and $50k/1480hrs

Via Roger Williams University Law Review, Spring 2006:
The Obfuscation of Rhode Island’s Clearly Expressed Constitutional Right to Bear Arms: Mosby v. Devine

Claudia J. Matzko does a great job of going over how the courts abuse RKBA. Trying to conflate group rights with individual rights.

It never ceases to amaze me that “The right of The People” seems to mean “the right of the state” or “the right of the militia” to so many people.

Via Go Local Prov: Senate Approves Large Magazine Ban on Floor – Bypassing Own Committee

The bill was part of a larger package of gun infringement laws, most in direct contradiction to the constitution:

Article I, § 22 of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Last time I quoted from Google Search referencing Giffards. I love that the RI RKBA is so short and clear.

The Democrats had a large slate of bills infringing on the RKBA. It got side tracked into committee where it stalled in a 50/50 split.

Because they weren’t winning via normal means, the Dem’s pulled this one bill out of committee to the floor where they voted on it and passed it.

I don’t directly follow RI politics but I believe this means the bill is on the way to the governors office for signature now. This is a ban on standard capacity magazines.

Via Fox News Jean-Pierre claims Americans can ‘take on inflation’ because of Biden American Rescue Plan

In an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon:

Jean-Pierre said on CNN that Americans must understand the position President Biden was in when he took office and asserted that the U.S. economy is “bouncing back.” She added that the administration believes they are in a “good position” to take on inflation.

“We’ve got to remember when thinking about gas prices and food this is coming from Putin’s war against Ukraine,” Jean-Pierre caveated. “The moment that Putin amassed forces on the border of Ukraine, we saw from then until now, we have seen a $2 increase per gallon on gas.”

Nothing is Joe’s fault. It is all the fault of the mean tweets.

She said that because of the American Rescue Plan we are all in a place where we can “take on” inflation.

I’m sorry, I’ve not seen my income increase to match inflation. I’ve not seen my wife’s salary increase.

What I’ve seen is that the gap between income and expenses is getting very very thin and soon will be near zero. We are already making decisions on which of two items we purchase. Do we feed the vehicles or do we feed the family. Fortunately for us we have food. It is the costs of everything else that scares me.

From Bloomberg via yahoo news: Biden Ally Floats 21% Surtax on Oil Profits to Blunt Inflation

“The proposal I’m developing would help reverse perverse incentives to price gouge, by doubling the corporate tax rate on companies’ excess profits, eliminating egregious buybacks and reducing accounting tricks,” [Senator Ron] Wyden said about the proposal he plans to introduce in the coming weeks. “By contrast, companies that provide relief to consumers by either reducing prices or investing in new supply would not be affected.”

Inflation isn’t caused by any policy of Joe or the Democrats, nope, it is those evil nasty capitalist oil companies being greedy.

If greed was the driving force, wouldn’t they oil companies have raised their prices long ago to maximize their profits? It would be much easier to sell $2.99/gal gas to public than $5.25/gal.

To quote somebody wiser than me: The beatings will continue until moral improves

A California pet shop and shelter is working to address wrong think.

“We do not support those who believe that the 2nd amendment gives them the right to buy assault weapons,” Kim Sill, owner of the Shelter Hope Pet Shop in Thousand Oaks, wrote on the organization’s website. “If your beliefs are not in line with ours, we will not adopt a pet to you.”

While the Constitution states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, Kim Sill is of the opinion that doesn’t apply to assault weapons.

She has determined that in order for you to adopt (buy) an animal from them you must prove you are scared of firearms and hate them. You will be grilled in a long and detailed interview.

“If you forster for us and believe in guns, please bring our dogs and/or cats back” Kim said. Expressing her firmly held belief that guns are imaginary. And that you are unfit to be a pet owner if you believe in guns.

Being a member of the NRA will also disqualify you. Never mind that the no mass murder has been a member of the NRA nor has the NRA ever advocated for murder. And the NRA being the oldest civil rights organization, fighting to get blacks equal protection doesn’t count.

Animal shelter bans pro-gun supporters from adopting dogs

The NSBA is the group that worked with the Biden DOJ to come up with a letter painting parents as domestic terrorists.

The old game of “If you aren’t calm we are going to remove you from the room.” Parents that were angry and speaking in anger were told they were the worse possible people. All the while petty bureaucrats did all they could to block transparency into what was happening in the schools.

A number of state school board associations left shortly after the NSBA sent their letter to the DOJ demanding that the DOJ investigate parents. What most didn’t see is that many states are just no renewing their memberships.

Nebraska Association of School Boards being the latest to cut ties with the NSBA. They just waited till their membership expired then voted not to pay to remain.

Keep it in mind that some types of resistance take a bit of time to actually take affect.

Opinion: Protect the right to keep and bear arms, reject fear, and pass Iowa’s Freedom Amendment

The proposed Freedom Amendment reads:

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

There are only six states that do not have some sort of state constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms. Iowa is one of those states and they are working to fix the issue.

The article has a link to the opposite opinion so they are trying to be balanced.

From Discord at Supreme Court mirrors diminishment of democratic norms

The warnings from dissenting liberal justices battling the conservative supermajority have become overt. Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred last Wednesday to “a restless and newly constituted Court” that “sees fit … to foreclose remedies in yet more cases” in a decision limiting civil lawsuits against federal agents who violate constitutional rights.

Note the standard CNN methodology of cropping quotes. It really isn’t all that hard to give full context and references.

Seems that Sotomayer decided to call out those that disagree with her at a personal level. Not all that surprising.

But you have to see that it is everybody on the court complaining. Clarence Thomas spoke of distrust among the justices. Not mentioned was that he was talking about the leaked draft opinion. So yeah, it might be a good thing to show a bit of distrust. And Alito talked about an indefensible opinion.

And it is absolutely horrible how law clerks for the court are being forced to sign affidavits and turn over phone records. Because somebody broke the law. And it is horrible how these law clerks have to behave while under a “cloud of suspicion”.

According to a Harvard professor of American legal history, Michael Klarman. It hasn’t been this tense in the court since the 1930s when Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) coerced the court into ruling in his favor by threatening to pack the court. Good thing the Justices saw the light, as it were.

And the conservatives are breaking our democracy by curtailing the deep state of regulatory authority. It is just so dangerous to follow the Constitution and have congress make laws, not to have an agency create law (regulations which are enforced with guns, threats of imprisonment and/or financial ruin) that are adjudicated by agency employees.

And of course, words have meaning, it is the courts up coming opinion on “New York state’s longstanding permit system for carrying handguns outside of the thome” that is the issue, not the corrupt “may issue” after you show that you have an unusual need.

And the one that gets me “Conservative justices have been pressing for the expansion of Second Amendment rights,…” How is it an expansion when the right is “Shall not be infringed”?

Just spin and more spin. Go read if you’ve taken your BP meds.