Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
The Covid global pandemic (which began in 2019) roiled all markets and caused the spike in inflation. Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, supply chains were broken, (and are still being blamed - and used - by businesses to keep prices artificially high), and global trade was thrown into chaos. Global shipping, for the most part, is not a problem anymore, compared to pandemic times. If companies couldn't/can't get the materials they need to make finished goods - and the consumer demand is high - inflation is the result. Just last evening, farmers were on TV talking about how the changing climate is causing them to spend more on adapting to hotter temperatures, a mix of extreme drought/ torrential, and flooding rains. Either too hot & dry - or under water. They've adapted by planting more vegetable crops in long, tunnel-type enclosures to be able to control some things. But all the things they've done to keep from having fields flooded, or drip-irrigating their crops costs more money ..... and those costs get passed on to consumers. Not blaming those farmers - even they know it's a changing climate, and are trying the best ways they can to keep farming. This isn't just a U.S. problem - it's global. Many of the vineyards of southern Europe are moving north to cooler regions like the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. to be able to grow the grapes that can't tolerate the hotter temps. of southern France, Italy, & Spain. Some of the California vineyards are moving north to Oregon and Washington for the same reasons, including ever-increasing wildfires in the west. None of these large vineyards are doing this on a whim - they've seen the evidence, they're tired of losing vines to heat & drought or fires - so they move. These farmers and vineyard owners will pass along any of the related costs of climate-induced adaptations to consumers. Beef and pork producers lose feed crops to drought - or in some cases flooding - and so meat prices go higher. Farmers aren't getting greedier - it's just the increasing costs they face themselves. What do those farmers blame??? Climate change. Their words.
As for Biden pumping financial aid to individuals & businesses (who got the lion's share BTW) to keep the economy afloat during the Covid pandemic ...... I don't recall seeing anyone - R's, D's, I's, businesses, or anyone else - mailing those checks back. All hands were open and grateful for the help when everything shut down globally due to the pandemic. So any lingering effects on the economy/debt - are the result of those emergency, pandemic-related efforts to keep our economy going. Such a pandemic hasn't hit the world in about 100 years or more, so we either take extreme measures to keep people in their homes and fed - or risk even greater catastrophe's to even more citizens. Not much choice, IMO. Maybe close some of the loopholes in the "tax code" that 99% of us do not have access to like the billionaires do, and they pay a fairer share of taxes. That would surely make a dent in the debt. Or maybe us "little people" (billionairess Leona Helmsley's words) should have our Social Security checks cut, Medicare & Medicaid cut, and any tax credits we get for having kids, installing energy-efficient doors / windows / lights / furnaces / AC / heat pumps be taken away to reduce that nasty debt. Leave the billionaires alone with their FAT, cushy tax loopholes. Better for them to save a couple hundred million each - every year - on their taxes, than for the "little people" to still keep their Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, child tax credits/earned income tax credits untouched. Take from the "little people" to reduce the debt - not the billionaires. Who favors that approach???
Right now, as most investment pros have been saying, global, geo-political instability is the biggest reason markets are volatile. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the increasing aggression by China in the Pacific Region, and the Middle East war/never-ending regional turmoil, have businesses and investors (individual and more-so institutional investment firms) leery of making long-term plans. Fears of a global war breaking out are on the minds of executives of many large companies - and they mention that - as it relates to diving into investing for future plans. Geo-political instability is the reason companies are "on-shoring" to the U.S. and other close-by, friendly, allied countries. Many global companies have the sh##s of China, and their hunger for world domination by aggression and state-sponsored theft of intellectual property. Corporate greed (U.S. and other countries') for very cheap Chinese labor has spawned consequences no one worried about in the mad-dash to China - but the world is paying the price now - because global companies fed the Communist machine in China. They stole our high-tech, cutting-edge technologies because it was sitting there on their soil !!!! How's that for moving our hen-houses to the foxes den??? Seems quick profits on cheap labor were blinding the 1% to the after-effects & long-term consequences. China's economy built up, their technology got better, and now they're using that stolen tech to rapidly build their military to throw their weight around in the world. How many of our kids'/grandkids' blood will be spilled in wars surely coming ........ because of Russia and China??? Just who sped up this process for China?? Who is now being hacked repeatedly by Communist, enemy-state China, to steal more technology, and interrupt our power grid, water systems, etc.??? You think any of that has an effect on inflation?? (ours and other countries')
