Off the Editor’s Desk – 8-11-2024
Trump and Musk are both right!
A story appearing in “The Capitol Guardian” on August 13th just after Donald Trump and Elon Musk had their conference on X (formerly Twitter) saying; “Trump and Musk are both right, not enough energy production and too much spending after Covid contributed to the inflation.”
One of the things that those two were discussing was the drivers and potential solutions to the post-Covid inflation being experienced by this country and the world economy.
Trump pointed out, according to the story in the Capitol Guardian, “A lack of energy production as a major factor to the inflation. ‘In 2019, right before the Covid pandemic, U.S. crude oil production was 12.3 million barrels per day and global oil production totaled 100.1 million barrels per day.’” Trump continued, “President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris did not move to restore oil, energy and other production back to its prior levels with leasing and other incentives.”
Presently our production of crude oil is around a million barrels less what it was five years ago and world production is almost five million barrels per day less.
Elon Musk noted; “The supply and demand was not the only factor contributing to the inflation. After spending $2.2 trillion dollars during Covid, Congress did another $2.8 trillion dollars afterward in 2021 as the Federal Reserve fired off the printing presses and left interest rates too low, too long at near zero, as inflation was skyrocketing in 2021. They’re both right. It was literally too much money chasing too few goods.”
Trump concluded, “A lot of people just don’t understand where inflation comes from. Inflation comes from government overspending. So, if the government spends far more than it brings in, that increases the money supply. And if the money supply increases faster than the rate of goods and services, that’s inflation. So really, we need to reduce our government spending.”
Musk added, “To deal with the Covid economic lockdowns and the 25 million jobs lost, Congress and the Federal Reserve combined spent, borrowed and printed $3.9 trillion in 2020, including the $2.2 trillion spend on the overwhelmingly bipartisan CARES Act in 2020.
“And while what was created in 2020 could almost be viewed as a necessary evil, it was embraced on a bipartisan basis, what came in 2021 and in 2022 was gratuitous, which only Democrats and President Biden and Vice President Harris supported.
“Biden and Harris,” according to the Capitol Guardian, “wanted an economic stimulus of their own to take credit for, and so another $1.9 trillion for the very partisan American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 that only Democrats supported was spent by Congress and signed into law by Biden.”
“Throwing more fuel into the fire, Biden then proposed and the Democratic-led Congress passed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act with $891 billion of green energy subsidies and other spending included. Biden signed it and Harris supported it,” according to that story.
The Capitol Guardian concluded; “As a result, there was another $2.8 trillion in 2021 and 2022 added to the M2 money supply, bringing the total created to $7 trillion all total.”
As of Monday morning, the debt clock showed me that the United States is in debt some $35.359 trillion dollars. Our share of that debt is $105,000 for each and everyone. So start digging to pay that off. Or we could let the people in Congress do what they are doing, that is to put that amount on the shoulders of our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton