War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Inflation is falling. Or at least that’s what Donald Trump sayss.
I wrote yesterday, following the publication of the latest consumer price index, which Trump had snatched defeat of inflation from the jaws of victory. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its other measure of inflation, the Producer Price Index, which measures wholesale prices, and it was even worse, significantly higher than forecasters expected:
My basic point – that Trump inherited relatively moderate inflation and squandered that legacy with his tariffs and war – comes out even more clearly from the PPI than from the CPI. And the PPI is often a leading indicator of future consumer prices, so no relief is visible in the near future.
There is no mystery about what is happening: it is mainly a question of the prices of petroleum products, particularly diesel. Diesel prices have increased more than twice as much like gasoline prices over the past year – and rising diesel prices are rippling through the economy, raising business costs and spurring inflation across a wide range of products.
But didn’t Trump just make a deal to buy Russian diesel? Yes, and it was shameful. It also proved ineffective: even if Putin could deliver the fuel, which is doubtful – the Ukrainians have resumed strikes against Russian refineries – the quantity was far too small to make much difference. Indeed, wholesale diesel prices remain significantly higher than they were at the height of the war with Iran, let alone before Trump started that war:
Regardless, Trump’s response to the grim news about inflation – even worse for him politically because of the extravagant promises he has made in the past – is denial: he continues to insist that inflation is descent. Is he deliberately lying or does he really not know what’s going on? We should not exclude the latter possibility. Keep in mind that Trump does not, and he certainly does not, read the data published by the BLS. And while he probably has aides who know what the numbers say, are they willing to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear? Probably not.
Again, I may be making a category mistake. As far as I know, Trump doesn’t believe there is an objective truth, there is only what he wants to be true. Hence my reference to Orwell at the top of this article. Trump does not have the full powers of a totalitarian leader, but often behaves as if he does (and is empowered to engage in this behavior by almost the entire Republican Party.) And Orwell wrote about the mutability of history under totalitarian regimes:
If the Leader says of this or that event: “That never happened,” well, it never happened.
In this case, what never happened was high inflation.
But while Trump is surrounded by lackeys willing to deny reality, according to the latest Fox News Poll55 percent of voters say inflation is “not at all” under control – and that includes 30 percent of Republicans.
Inflation won’t be the only problem in the midterms. This same Fox News poll shows that voters are even more concerned about “corruption in government.” But it’s also not exactly a source of Republican strength.
If these numbers don’t generate a blue wave, nothing will.
I have another day playing academic statesman at Oxford, so that’s it for today.
Gn bussni
