Crooked Media - What A Day: No harm, no Powell

At no point in our history have Americans not been concerned about the economy, but inflation, housing scarcity, and most middle class Americans unable to afford the cost of living has brought that concern to a boil. 
 

• The past two-and-a-half years of pandemic have strained the global economy in unforeseen ways. The pandemic certainly isn’t over, but the distribution of vaccines and boosters has allowed the U.S. and many other countries to return mostly to normal, but nonetheless the Federal Reserve is freaking out. Inflation is at a 40-year high, but many economists and finance experts note that this is not your mother’s inflation, and that it’s more similar to a post-war phenomenon than it is to the inflation the U.S. saw in the 1970s and 80s. 
   

• The Fed was quick to pin some of the blame for inflation acceleration on increases in the cost of labor, and that may be true in some sectors, but the fact remains that the federal minimum wage has not been increased in 13 years. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the minimum wage, in inflation-adjusted terms, has not been worth so little since the 1950’s. The $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage, and its effects on all American workers’ wages are difficult to overstate, especially in a period of historic inflation. 
   

• A rule of thumb holds that if the gross domestic product falls for two consecutive quarters, we’re in a recession, and second-quarter data is due to be released on Thursday. But according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and many others, what the U.S. is experiencing is not consistent with a recession. President Biden said today, “We’re not going to be in a recession, in my view,” noting that “the unemployment rate is still one of the lowest we’ve had in history…We still find ourselves with people investing.” The good jobs report coupled with evidence that inflation is showing signs of easing should prompt everyone to chill the fuck out, but Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is looking at another 0.75 percent interest hike as soon as this week.

Many worry that another hike could trigger the very recession everyone should want to avoid.
 

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) argued that continued aggressive interest-rate hikes will not address the true causes of inflation, and will have the added immense harm of costing millions of Americans jobs. She notes that Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee in June that increasing interest rates likely would not bring down food and gas prices, two major pain points for American consumers. They won’t end pandemic-induced supply chain problems, or Russia’s war on Ukraine, which significantly increased energy costs, or corporate monopolies setting prices as high as they please. 
   

• The problem may lie in imprecise or misleading GDP numbers based on faulty data that doesn’t reflect reality. The nuances of the pandemic’s toll on supply chains and its lasting effects cannot be accurately captured in the regular data. A reporter asked Biden’s White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if the administration is “trying to change the common definition of a recession,” and she said no, but it’s clear that the common definition of a recession is insufficient to capture this economic moment, because there is no historical precedent for it. The Fed actively triggering a recession could do far more damage than it bargained for, and possibly do nothing to curb inflation at all.

With all this in mind, here’s hoping that the Fed will not try to impose a painful, one-size-fits-all solution on this already-painful moment in economic history.

This week on America Dissected, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed asks: What happens when Facebook gets ahold of our medical records? Journalist Todd Feathers and Engineer Simon Fondrie Teitler join Abdul to discuss how Facebook is stealing data from period tracking apps - and how that data could be weaponized -  in a post- Roe world.

New episodes of America Dissected drop each Tuesday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

New reports detail a disturbing nationwide trend of institutional investors led by private-equity firms and real-estate investment trusts are buying mobile-home parks, backed by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Despite their name, mobile homes cannot be moved easily or without great expense. So when institutional investors swoop in and buy a park, mobile owners are forced to either accept unaffordable rent increases, spend thousands of dollars to move their homes, or abandon them entirely and lose the money they invested to buy it. An assistant attorney general in Iowa said complaints have gone up “100-fold” among mobile home residents since out-of-state investors began buying up parks. More than 22 million Americans live in mobile-home parks, the majority of whom are low-income, so these firms are making a conscious choice to exploit an already-exploited class, knowing how few options they have, all while fallaciously claiming that they are “expanding access to affordable housing.” The president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy said that parks containing about one-fifth of mobile home lots in the U.S. have been purchased by institutional investors in the past eight years. Widespread complaints of double-digit rent increases soon followed, and residents also noted being inundated with fees for everything from pets to basic maintenance that used to be standard in most mobile-home park agreements. Institutional investors committing this kind of extortion has now reached every corner of the housing market, and the government needs to intervene to protect vulnerable Americans from these unconscionably predatory practices.

According to his doctor, president Joe Biden’s COVID-19 symptoms are “almost completely resolved.” 

On August 2, Kansas will hold a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban abortion there. 

Joe Manchin has covid, and we would wish him a speedy recovery but we’re just really concerned about inflation, so we can’t do it this term.

The U.S. broke over 350 daily high-temperature records last week.

A huge oak fire near Yosemite National Park covering 17,000 acres has forced thousands to evacuate, but more than 10 percent of it has been contained as of this morning. 

A new video from the January 6 committee shows that former president Trump crossed out a line calling for the Capitol insurrectionists to be prosecuted in a draft of the address he was supposed to give on January 7. 

Two people were killed and four injured after gunfire broke out in Peck Park in San Pedro, CA.

The Greenland Ice Sheet saw a sharp increase in the rate and extent of melting last week, pouring 18 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic in just three days. The melting ice in Greenland is the top annual contributor to global sea-level rise. 

A new report shows that Los Angeles, CA is letting thousands of federal housing vouchers go unused, while there are more than 60,000 unhoused people in L.A. County. 

A Colorado man who was charged in the presumed death of his missing wife pleaded guilty to forgery for casting her 2020 election ballot for Trump in the 2020 election. MAGA world only attracts the cream of the crop!

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave a speech in Romania over the weekend in which he said he did not want Eastern Europe “to become mixed race,” as he believes other E.U. nations are. Unsurprisingly, Orbán remains very popular among American conservatives. 

Coachella’s Parent Company gave a major cash donation to the Republican Attorneys General Association, the tip of the spear in the GOP war on reproductive rights, days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. There’s gotta be a more ethical way to listen to music while doing drugs and not showering in the desert. 

A panel of lawmakers at the Aspen Security Forum concluded that biological and chemical weapons have the potential to pose a threat to U.S. national security for which it is not prepared. Sure, just add it to the list of things to be extremely scared of!

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff testified to a federal grand jury last week; in hopefully-related news, Merrick Garland will sit for an interview with Lester Holt this week.

When the House voted to codify protection for same-sex marriage last week, it was clear from the outset that the Senate would be a hurdle, but many liberals did not predict just how high. Ten Republicans will have to vote with all Democrats to overcome a GOP filibuster, and thus far only five Republicans have stated that they will support the bill for same-sex marriage. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Richard Burr (R-NC) are unsurprisingly, all enthusiastic no votes. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg weighed in yesterday, saying that he doesn’t understand how just a few hours after discussing Transportation policy with him, House Republicans could, “go around the corner and say that my marriage doesn’t deserve to continue.” The first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwain (D-WI), has been lobbying her Republican colleagues to vote in favor of the bill, but admits, “I had not expected to be fighting to protect a right that’s already been won in court.” Preach, sister.

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A co-defendant in the 1989 “Central Park Five” case is expected to have his related conviction overturned today.

Moving on to news of someone who definitely DOES deserve to feel the wrath of the judicial system, right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s defamation trial begins today. 

More than 17 congressional staffers protested in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office this morning urging him to keep negotiating a climate-change bill, and six were arrested for refusing to leave. 

The White House announced a plan to develop the next generation of covid vaccines.

A new AP Poll found that about two out of three Americans favor term limits or a mandatory-retirement age for Supreme Court justices.