Nov 01 2021 8 mins 2
Our clogged ports
Sorry for the sound quality this time around. I haven’t unpacked the audio equipment yet from our move.
I thought we’d have some inflation after the lockdowns were over. However, the Biden administration has not been doing much too keep that under control.
I said that when a liberal restaurant owner kicked out a prominent Republican that it was wrong. Today I’m going on the record to say that when it happens on the Right it’s just as wrong. However, this time there is a funny turn of events.
Both Republicans and Democrats have been squishy on the issue of increasing the debt limit. Neither side has been better than the other. But that’s about to change.
Mentioned links:
The incredible, disappearing — incompetent — Team Biden
#EmptyShelvesJoe trending on Twitter amid Biden’s supply chain crisis
WaPo: Bread Lines Aren’t So Bad, Puny Citizens
Florida diner that forbids Biden supporters becomes so popular that it runs out of food
Growing number of Democrats endorse abolishing debt limit altogether
‘Glorious karma’: Braves bring World Series to Atlanta after MLB pulls All-Star Game
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Show transcript
Well it’s been some time since I talked to you. Let’s see what’s been happening.
Inflation has reared its ugly head. Now I will say this; after the shutdowns and lockdowns of 2020, I figured that all that pent-up demand would lead to a buying binge that would mean prices would rise, just like your Econ 101 teacher said they would. But the Biden administration hasn’t been doing such a good job at trying to mitigate it. Getting stuff into our ports has, apparently, been such a hassle for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that he’s been taking paternity leave since August. Ships with shipping containers of all kinds of stuff are hanging out waiting their turn to dock at ports on both coasts. This has driven inflation up more than it would have been otherwise. But I guess it doesn’t matter that the price is higher if you can’t buy it anyway. The hashtag #EmptyShelvesJoe was trending at one point complete with pictures of said shelves.
But the Washington Post, dutifully attempting to cover for a Democrat, tweeted this, “Don’t rant about short-staffed stores and supply chain woes. Try to lower expectations.” You see, we’re too used to being a first-world country. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain who’s paying people to stay at home, or whose incompetence at transportation and commerce is hitting us right in the supply chain. Just get over yourselves!
Does anyone think ideas like that would have been published in the Post if Donald Trump had been elected?
Back in 2018 in episode 218 I talked about how a restaurant, the Red Hen, refused to serve Sarah Huckabee-Sanders. I chided the restaurant for outright refusing to serve someone based on their political affiliation. And now I’m going to be consistent in that belief.
The DeBary Diner in DeBary, Florida put up a sign on its door saying, “If you voted for and continue to support and stand behind the worthless, inept and corrupt administration currently inhabiting the White House that is complicit in the death of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan, please take your business elsewhere. God bless America, and God bless our soldiers.” This is more than what the Red Hen did. The Red Hen refused to serve a high-profile press secretary based on her politics. The DeBary Diner told all Biden voters to stay away, though it presumably would let them self-select rather than asking them on their way in. Either way, this is not the way to go about making your point.
In fact, the DeBary Diner had to close early on the same day it posted that sign. Not because it was ordered to, but because it had received too many orders. See, it got so much support from locals, plus donations from around the world for sending meals to veterans, that it ran out of food. OK, that part of the story brought a giggle to my face. But I guess, given Biden’s poll numbers, it shouldn’t have surprised me.
But otherwise, don’t do this whole political sorting thing, OK? It’s just not helpful at all. OK, but that was funny.
You may have heard, or may not have heard, that the government is approaching the debt limit. That’s basically the credit card limit that the government is allowed to borrow up to without passing a bill to raise it even further. Unlike your own credit card, where you would have to ask the bank to give you a higher limit, Congress can just ask itself, and it always grants the request.
Each time this happens, the party in power wants it raised and the other party wants to make them sweat about it. This is true no matter who the party in power is, whether Republican or Democrat. Neither side comes out looking any better than the other; they both just want to keep expanding those purse strings.
This time however, one side is actually looking quite a bit worse. Democrats, it seems, want to get rid of the debt limit completely, or hand the authority over to someone else. Leave aside that, once again, Democrats want to centralize authority to someone on high to merely make a pronouncement about the debt and absolved them of any responsibility, what they don’t want you to know is that they could raise the debt limit tomorrow with just Democrat votes. Using what’s called the Reconciliation process, Democrats would only need a bare majority in both the House and the Senate in order to pass a bill regarding the debt limit. But you see, that would mean they would own the increased borrowing and spending, especially since they want to borrow and spend about 80 gazillion dollars in the next 10 minutes. If spending that much makes our current inflation even worse, as it almost certainly would, then they would have to own that as well. It’s not something they would enjoy having to defend right before the 2022 elections.
So while it’s true that neither side winds up smelling like a rose when it comes to controlling our nation’s debt, one side would rather not be bothered by it anymore. I wonder what that smells like?
And finally in sports (which is not something I cover very often), my hometown boys, the Atlanta Braves, are going to the World Series. Aside from the fact that their last World Series win was in 1995 and it’s about time they did it again, let’s not forget that fellow Georgian Stacy Abrams and others lobbied Major League Baseball to move the All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver, and denied those businesses at and near the new stadium income from that. And now we’re going to get an even bigger event here in town. Yeah, the best revenge is winning.
The post Episode 322: Rampant Inflation / Refusing Service / The Debt Limit appeared first on Consider This!.
