Tom Cotton Admits Trump, Not Biden, Caused Inflation

[Galraedia]

Republicans have been hammering the Biden administration over inflation. Democrats have tried to respond by blaming supply-chain shortages caused by the pandemic. But Republican senator Tom Cotton has a completely different theory: He blames inflation on Donald Trump’s poor selection to lead the Federal Reserve.

Cotton’s view, laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, places the blame for inflation squarely on Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chairman. “Mr. Powell’s Fed has forced millions of American families to choose whether to pay the mortgage, feed their families, fill up their gas tanks, heat their homes or buy Christmas presents,” he argues.

Cotton makes this case in the course of explaining his forthcoming vote against Powell’s renomination. And obviously, Cotton is not trying to blame Trump (whose name does not appear in his column). But, while anything Powell does in his second term will be on Biden, the reason Powell has the job in the first place is that Donald Trump appointed him.

Trump selected Powell in large part because he deemed his predecessor, Janet Yellen, too short to effectively handle monetary policy. Once in office, Powell was an inflation dove, leaving interest rates low in order to run the economy hot. Trump was constantly demanding Powell push interest rates even lower.

Read more: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/jerome-powell-inflation-federal-reserve-tom-cotton-trump-biden.html

[Walleye]

1. They always got to find a villain. Inflation is happening worldwide

Their whole attitude is, who do we have to vilify to distract from this problem

[House of Roberts]

2. No matter who is to blame

these idiots think they can blame giving poor people money as the cause for inflation.

The money most people got was a substitute for their regular job income that evaporated as the pandemic forced employers to close.

I still haven't seen even one of these 'experts' explain how the aggregate demand increased due to the unemployment checks and relief checks, and show the numbers.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Powell is responsible for this hot mess.

He followed Bernanke's lead on dovish policy, partly because the Fed tried to make policy where Congress and TFG would not - mitigating the covid collapse for example. A GOP Congress simply did not know how to support the economy on the lower end very well - it chose money for business instead of monthly payments to consumers.

Biden made the best choice. Powell is responsible. If Biden appointed someone else, Biden would be blamed more. But Powell, or anyone else, is not going to solve anything. The remedy is Volcker style - and no one wants a recession, and now they think they can avoid stagflation by running the economy even hotter. Wait until inflation hits 9-10%. Then we'll have a national discussion.

[BidenRocks]

4. Buy Christmas Presents?

This ass doesn't even understand the meaning of Christmas!

Perhaps he never read "The Gift Of The Magi".

[jmowreader]

5. Well...kinda

The real truth is Trump wanted to pump up the economy to heights never seen before to prove what a wonderful president he was…so not only did he force Powell to slash the prime rate, he also used all the tools, like quantitative easing, that you’d use on a struggling economy on the good economy President Obama left him. As a result, when the pandemic made it necessary to pull out those tools to stimulate the economy, they were already gone.

What Republicans don’t and never will understand is that an economy can only be pushed so far before it breaks. There is a “correct” amount of taxation, and it’s what Nixon had. There is a “correct” amount of spending. There is a “correct” prime rate, and it’s five percent. And five percent is the “correct” amount of year-to-year growth. The nation’s fiscal policy needs to be directed toward keeping a nice even keel. If you do that, and if you have a good mix of what Taiichi Ohno defined as the “wealth creating industries” (mining, forestry, agriculture and manufacturing) as your economic drivers, then you can pretty much not worry about the economy because it’ll take care of itself.

Pro tip: every year your local newspaper will publish a list of the top employers in your county. If the top three employers in your county are the hospital, the county government and Walmart, YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW!

Before you ask: Taiichi Ohno invented the Toyota Production System. There is a paper floating around the Internet describing it, or you can buy Yasuhiro Monden’s book on it.