Archive for the ‘Inflation’ Category

Thursday Thoughts

Thursday, March 10th, 2022

Is there any hope for Ukraine?

Years ago, when I was a young man starting down life’s bumpy road, I had a difficult decision to make. Should I take the right-hand fork, or the left? So, I went to my mother for advice. I described the issue and the choices. She let me talk, heard me out. Then, after pausing for a moment, she said, “Tommy, pick very carefully the barricade upon which you are prepared to die.”

I made my decision, didn’t look back, and, to quote Robert Frost, “that has made all the difference.” It helps to have a mother a lot smarter than you are.

Right now, we are now witnessing the wanton, senseless, cruel-beyond-imagining death of innocents and innocence in Ukraine. Ukrainian twenty-somethings, all born after their country achieved freedom from Soviet domination in 1992, have no memory of life in the Soviet Union, the USSR. They’ve studied it in school, their parents told them stories, but they haven’t lived it. It’s like a different galaxy, spinning its own way in the cosmic beyond.

Now, they and all Ukrainians who manage to survive this living nightmare, are faced with the prospect of being sucked back into that distant galaxy, which has turned and is now quickly spinning toward them. Their heroic defense, their country’s patriotic self-sacrifice, their refusal to lose, their you-shall-not-pass attitude, all of this inspires awe in the rest of us. But at the same time, one cannot help asking, “Is it worth it?” Is it better to save lives by surrendering, even though by surrendering you lose your country and maybe your soul? The Ukrainians say “No” to that. What do the rest of us say, though?

This problem is made no easier by Russia’s obvious war crimes as its military amps up its indiscriminate shelling and cluster bombing of civilians. Yesterday, they killed three and wounded 17 by bombing a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol. The Russian government justified this by claiming the hospital was held by “local radical militias.” Wonder what kind of weapons the babies were firing?

I think of that now with profound sadness, as I contemplate the choice facing the U.S., its NATO allies and the European Union. Given that Ukraine will not surrender, do they keep playing the long game by continuing to tighten the screws of economic sanctions on Russia and its oligarchs, hoping  to cause sense to return to formerly (maybe) sensible people and bring an end to the suffering? Or, do they (we) tiptoe toward what might be Armageddon by becoming just a wee bit more militarily involved? Do we do whatever it takes to lickety-split get those Polish MIGS to Ukrainian pilots? Do we take the right-hand fork, or the left?

This is not a Hobson’s Choice.

By the way, Putin has already said he considers economic sanctions, and probably anything else we do, “akin to an act of war.” That is precious, indeed.

Real Earnings Release: Inflation is taking a heavy toll on the middle class and the poor

As the story goes, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald is supposed to have once said to fellow novelist Ernest Hemingway, “You know, the rich are different from you and me.” Hemingway supposedly replied, “Yes. They’ve got more money.”

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly report on inflation and Real Average Earnings, which are earnings after inflation is factored in. The news is not good.

Real average earnings for all employees decreased 0.8 percent from January to February 2022, seasonally adjusted. This result stems from essentially no change in average hourly earnings combined with an increase of 0.8 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.

Real average hourly earnings decreased 2.6 percent, seasonally adjusted, from February 2021 to February 2022. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with an increase of 0.3 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 2.3 percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period.

Now, this announcement hits the middle and lower classes where they live, literally. The rich may have to put off buying the new Bentley, but the average Joe just got a cut in pay of 2.3%.

For the Republican Party, this is the most beautiful political fodder imaginable — they have someone to blame, Joe Biden. It’s all his fault. It’s a simple message, easy to deliver, and it will stick.

Of course, it’s not simple. It’s terribly complicated. We are at the center of a confluence of unfortunate events, global in nature, that have set the entire world back on its heels. This will get worse, especially when the Federal Reserve begins raising interest rates, which is momentary.

I, like most of you I think, fervently wish our elected officials could put their political opportunism and hypocrisy  aside, marshal their collective brains (such as they are), and work together to do what they can to help soften the blow that is gobsmacking so many vulnerable people. Is that too much to ask?

Right, and pigs will soon be seen flying past my great big third floor window.