The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a program of monthly data that records the changes in prices paid by urban consumers on a typical basket of goods and services.
Why Is This Important To Me?
Because it represents money coming out of your pocket each month. Ahhh, now you see the picture. You feel it in YOUR wallet or purse. Here are some examples from the CPI for the month of March 2011:
Price Increases From a Year Ago
- Tomatoes up 13.9%
- Wheat up 53.7%
- Sugar up 54.2%
- Coffee up 123.2%
- Corn up 103.9%
- Butter up 31.5%
- Cocoa up 9.2%
- Soybeans up 35.2%
- Cotton up 144.4%
- Milk up 10%
(Source Neil Cavuto - FOX Business channel)
You may have noticed that at the end of the month, your salary hasn't gone up and there's not enough money to pay for the usual things. Welcome to the club! What's changed? This is called "StagFlation."
What's StagFlation?
We are living in a time of very high unemployment (regardless of what the government tells us) and we are experiencing inflation at the same time. This condition is referred to as "StagFlation." This is brought about by bad economic policies. For example - banking on electric cars, "cheap solar", and high speed rail instead of drilling for oil and natural gas. This doesn't make gasoline any cheaper or lower the cost of living. It wastes money in technologies that may never keep their promises. In fact, these technologies have failed to help Spain even though they spent billions to fix their situation. We have the world's largest coal reserves and this administration HATES COAL and refuses to allow any expansion of this natural resource. Meanwhile, energy costs go up. Instead of raising corn to eat, the government subsidizes farmers to make ethanol using government subsidies. Consequently, we are literally burning food so we can fuel our cars. DUH?
This administration will not tell us that the situation is bad because Obama is running for re-election in 2012. No, instead they're are telling us how great the Stimulus was, that the bailouts saved us all-including Cash for Clunkers, and that unemployment is slowly going downwards.
Meet the Old Boss...
The US has experienced this phenomenon before under the Carter administration. If you're too young to remember, under Carter we had outrageous mortgage interest rates (17%), high gasoline prices (and gas shortages), along with big unemployment numbers. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
Carter told Americans to turn-down their home thermostats and put on sweaters to save energy! He told us how solar energy would save the day and that we would no longer rely on imported oil. We see how well that has turned-out. Unfortunately, now we are hearing the same message from Obama.
Same as the New Boss...
StagFlation is here again under Obama with $4.00 gas (and rising...), high unemployment, and skyrocketing food prices. Apparently, we don't learn from our previous mistakes. Will this trend continue? Yes, because we have stagnant wages and POOR ECONOMIC POLICIES once again! This is no coincidence. Obama's policies and those of the Federal Reserve Bank are NOT working. Quite the opposite. It's a repeat of the failed Jimmy Carter administration.
Ben Bernanke has fueled inflation by de-valuing the dollar. Obama refuses to drill and he has NOT created new jobs as he told us he would with HIS Stimulus and economic policies of outrageous spending. America, it's time to admit your mistake. We cannot afford another four years of this incompetence!
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