inflation

Trump’s ‘I Love the Inflation’ Remark Seen as Latest Display of Contempt for Working Class

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Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

President Donald Trump speaks before signing the Secure America Act in the Oval Office of the White House on June 10, 2026 in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“There you have it: President Trump loves that you’re paying higher prices,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

US President Donald Trump’s remarks Wednesday expressing “love” for new inflation figures were seen as yet another callous dismissal of the economic pain facing the nation’s working class as price hikes driven by the Iran war erase wage gains and make it harder for Americans to afford basic needs.

“You know who doesn’t love inflation, Mr. President?” asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rhetorically. “Working families struggling to afford gas, groceries, and other necessities because of your disastrous actions.”

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Asked about the new inflation numbers in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said, “I love it, the numbers were great.”

“I love the inflation,” the billionaire president continued, celebrating figures showing that the Consumer Price Index hit a new three-year high last month.

Much of May’s inflation was driven by increases in the cost of fuel, which is a direct result of Trump starting an illegal war of choice with Iran in February.

An analysis published by Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, found that the price increases caused by the Iran war have been so large that they’ve wiped out any prior gains in real wages during Trump’s second term.

Zipperer also warned that “as long as the war continues, there is a heightened threat that price increases will spill over to the broader economy, triggering a more permanent increase in the cost of living and further reductions in real earnings.”

Fresh data released Thursday by the BLS signals that inflation isn’t slowing down anytime soon. According to the BLS’ latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report, wholesale prices in May posted a yearly increase of 6.5%, the fastest rate since November 2022.

Because PPI measures input costs paid by businesses, it is usually predictive of future retail increases as companies pass the cost increases off to consumers.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) was among the lawmakers highlighting and condemning the president’s remarks.

“Trump just said ‘I love the inflation,’” Beyer wrote. “I guess he doesn’t care if you’re being squeezed by higher costs as long as he and his cronies get richer.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media, “So there you have it: President Trump loves that you’re paying higher prices.”

Andrew Mamo, a Democratic campaign adviser, said in an interview with The Hill that “every day the president says he loves something Americans clearly hate is a good day for Democrats.”

In interviews with The New York Post published on Wednesday, multiple Republican strategists expressed concern not only about the rise in inflation, but Trump’s apparently blasé attitude about the impact it’s having on Americans’ pocketbooks. The president’s latest remarks came weeks after he confessed, on camera, that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” as he wages war on Iran.

One former Trump campaign adviser told the Post that comments about “loving” inflation “are simply not productive unless he’s looking forward to the impeachments from the Democrats in 2027.”

Another GOP strategist told the Post that the clip of Trump saying he loved inflation would be “the centerpiece of a lot of effective ads” targeting Republicans this fall.

GOP strategist John Feehery went on the record to tell the Post that Trump needed to wrap up his war with Iran by early next month or “independents are going to swing hard against the Republicans in the election.”

Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingTrump’s ‘I Love the Inflation’ Remark Seen as Latest Display of Contempt for Working Class

Under Trump, Inflation Is Costing Average US Family $700 More Per Month

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A Doral, Florida resident checks out at a Walmart on October 10, 2025. (Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“While President Trump claimed that he would bring down prices, the reality is that Americans have seen their costs soar even higher since he took office.”

Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday detailing how much more the average American family in every US state is having to spend monthly to cover the rising costs of food, shelter, energy, and other necessities under the leadership of President Donald Trump.

The panel released its report on the same day the Trump administration was supposed to publish the October Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. The closely watched CPI report was delayed by the shutdown, and the Trump White House said Wednesday that it’s likely the figures will never be released.

Deploying the same methodology that Republicans used to track cost increases under former President Joe Biden, JEC Democrats found that the average US family is spending roughly $700 more per month on basic items since Trump took office in January, pledging to bring prices “way down.”

“While President Trump claimed that he would bring down prices, the reality is that Americans have seen their costs soar even higher since he took office,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the JEC’s ranking member. “As families across the country spend more to pay their bills and put food on the table, Democrats and Republicans should be working together to lower costs. Instead, President Trump is pushing ahead with reckless tariffs that continue to fuel inflation and drive prices up even higher.”

In some states—including Alaska, California, and Colorado—average families are spending over $1,000 more per month to maintain their living standards as costs continue to rise, in part due to Trump’s erratic tariff regime.

The report’s findings run directly counter to Trump’s triumphant rhetoric on inflation and the US economy more broadly.

CNN‘s Daniel Dale noted earlier this week that Trump has been on a “lying spree about inflation,” falsely claiming that “every price is down” and that “everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden.”

“None of that is true,” Dale wrote. “Prices are up during this administration. Average prices were 1.7% higher in September than they were in January, according to the most recent figures from the federal Consumer Price Index, and 3% higher than they were in September 2024. There has been inflation every month of the term, and far more products have gotten costlier than cheaper.”

“Inflation not only very much continues to exist but has been accelerating since the spring,” Dale added. “As of September, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingUnder Trump, Inflation Is Costing Average US Family $700 More Per Month

In 100 Days, Trump Has Invented Something New: Clown-Show Fascism

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https://newrepublic.com/article/194463/100-days-trump-clown-show-fascism

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The Trump administration is a serious threat to democracy. They’re also laughably incompetent. But the result is no laughing matter.

…

Clown-show fascism describes a regime marked simultaneously by hubristic and defiant assaults on the democratic and constitutional order on the one hand and, on the other, a nearly laughable incompetence in just about every other area of the regime’s activity. The first characteristic certainly applies to the Trump administration, and it’s chilling and frightening and not at all funny. Just ask Mahmoud Khalil.

Yet at the same time, in other areas, the incompetence has been staggering. Trump’s constant about-faces and walk backs on tariffs have been an international embarrassment. Elon Musk’s DOGE has fired federal workers willy-nilly only to turn around and rehire many after the Musketeers realized they weren’t deep-state bloodsuckers and the work they did was kind of essential, after all—you know, like the people who tend the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.  

It can be hilarious to watch. But it carries two consequences that are no laughing matter.

First and more obviously, we have the prospect of the impact of Trump’s tariffs policy on real people. Will they cause inflation and a recession, as most experts now believe? As fate would have it, Trump will go to bed the night of his 100th day in office—Tuesday—and wake up the very next morning to the release of the first-quarter GDP number. Economists expect anemic results. The Atlanta Fed even predicts negative growth, around -2.5 percent. During Trump’s first week in office, its forecast nudged a gaudy 4 percent, but the president’s actions have liberated that figure ever downward.

Second and more insidiously: Even the gross incompetencies take us into treacherous territory because they contribute to making this all about one man, the man who must be in front of the cameras every day. He doesn’t have policies so much as he has urges, which he must announce to the world on a constant basis in a desperate plea that we keep him front of mind at all times. Some of those urges are cruel; some of them are a joke. What unites them is that they make the story entirely about him.

That is not how it’s supposed to work in democracies. Which we still are, for now, as we reach this 100-day mark. Only 1,361 to go.

Michael Tomasky https://newrepublic.com/article/194463/100-days-trump-clown-show-fascism

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Rental prices have risen three times faster than inflation, new figures find

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/rental-prices-have-risen-three-times-faster-inflation-new-figures-find

CAMPAIGNERS intensified demands for limits on rent hikes after damning new research found that rents are soaring at triple the rate of inflation.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics have shown that the average rent in Britain has increased by 7.7 per cent to £1,332 in the last 12 months to March.

The increase is three times more than the current level of Consumer Price Index inflation, which measures how much the overall price of everyday goods and services has increased.

The figures show a steep 8.9 per cent increase in Wales, where the average rent is £792. In Scotland, rents were up by 5.7 per cent to £1,001.

According to a December 2024 report from Zoopla, rents for new lets are now £270 per month higher than they were three years ago.

The figures mean that a staggering £3,240 has been added to the annual cost of renting since 2021, equating to a 27 per cent increase.

Generation Rent chief executive Ben Twomey said: “When we are forced to spend too much of our income on rent, the effects ripple across the rest of our lives.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/rental-prices-have-risen-three-times-faster-inflation-new-figures-find

Continue ReadingRental prices have risen three times faster than inflation, new figures find

Trump Is Turning the White House Into a Billionaire Time-Share

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Original article by Bob Burnett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk talk ringside during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo: Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

It appears that Trump has entered into a power-sharing agreement with Musk and several other wealthy individuals including Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and David Sacks.

Democracy decays into oligarchy when a few individuals accumulate most of the political power.

The reelection of Donald Trump has accelerated the decline of the United States into oligarchy. Trump has had billionaire donors for each of his presidential campaigns, but in 2024 the role of these wealthy donors expanded. Donors such as Elon Musk made gigantic contributions to Trump’s campaign; in return for this they are taking an active role in the Trump White House. Perhaps, this time around, Trump turned the oval office into a time-share.

On December 19, Elon Musk led the call for House Republicans to repudiate a continuing resolution they had just negotiated to keep the federal government running through the end of the year. Perhaps Musk’s charter includes coordination with Congress.

When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy speak of increasing government efficiency, they usually start with services for the unfortunate.

It appears that Trump has entered into a power-sharing agreement with Musk and several other wealthy individuals including Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and David Sacks. However this arrangement works, it’s likely that the Trump administration will cater to billionaires—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) observed that the 13 billionaires chosen by Trump to serve in his administration have a combined wealth of at least $383 billion.

What do these billionaires want? The oligarchs and billionaires want lower taxes and reduced government regulations. Of course, each billionaire has a particular set of interests; for example, David Sacks, Trump’s “AI and crypto czar,” is a venture capitalist with heavy investment in AI and crypto. Sadly. most of the oligarchs are climate-change deniers.

The oligarchs want more wealth. Robert Reich observes:

Since [1980], the median wage of the bottom 90% has stagnated. The share of the nation’s wealth owned by the richest 400 Americans has quadrupled (from less than 1% to 3.5%) while the share owned by the entire bottom half of America has dropped to 1.3%… The richest 1% of Americans now has more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.

The oligarchs share a fiscally conservative agenda. They intend to shrink the size of the federal government. The particulars vary but the oligarchs are not concerned with the size of the defense budget; their cost-cutting focus is on programs that service the poor and disadvantaged—such as Medicaid. When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy speak of increasing government efficiency, they usually start with services for the unfortunate.

What are the practical consequences of this shift to oligarchy? It’s unsettling to be in a political situation where we do not understand who is in charge at the White House. We don’t know how power-sharing will work. The relationship between Trump and Congress has been fraught. The shift to oligarchy will make this relationship even more difficult.

Will the oligarchs fix the economy? Trump was elected because he promised to fix the economy. Most Americans believed he would drive down inflation; they thought Trump would reduce the cost of food, housing, and household and medical expenses. Since November 5, Trump has given no indication of how he plans to do this. Perhaps he has lost interest.

During the presidential campaign, Trump said his inflation-fighting agenda would rely upon tariffs, but it’s likely that the oligarchs will influence how Trump’s tariff strategy plays out. Musk has huge business interests in China, and it’s unlikely that he would support a tariff policy that would hurt his relationships with the country.

Trump has appointed a “czar” for immigration (Tom Homan), energy (Doug Burgum), and AI & Crypto (Sacks). Trump has not appointed a czar for inflation. With much fanfare, Trump has appointed a commission on “government efficiency;” they’ve already started meeting. Trump has not appointed to a commission to curb inflation.

After January 20, Trump will own inflation and the economy. Trump’s immigration “purge” will drive up the cost of food. Trump’s tariffs will drive up the cost of household expenses.

Trump’s trying to ignore inflation. Or turn it over to an oligarch co-president. Stay tuned.

Original article by Bob Burnett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingTrump Is Turning the White House Into a Billionaire Time-Share