Inflation an asset? Did Biden say that?

Yesterday Joe Biden held yet another press conference about some pointless program of his, the Competitiveness Council. This is yet another adhesive bandage on an arterial bleeder, and about as useful. But that’s not what drew everyone’s attention. What actually did was Joe Biden calling a reporter a “stupid [SOB].” That, of course, created a firestorm, but few people picked up on something far more important. When you put the President’s remark in context, he sounded as if to say that inflation is a political asset. Did he really say that? Did he mean to say that? You decide.

A question about inflation turns into yet another embarrassment

Peter Doocy, the target of the insult, shared part of the context on The Five yesterday.

According to Doocy, he was at the press conference, which Biden was giving to talk about the so-called Competitiveness Council. Someone (Doocy didn’t identify him) started to ask a question about whether Russia would invade Ukraine. Biden refused to answer “any questions about Russia.” That’s when Peter Doocy asked the Duesie of a question, and got a Duesie of an answer:

Q. Will you take questions on inflation, then? Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the Midterms?

A. No, it’s a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid [SOB].

Incredibly, this is now in the official transcript.

CNAV rarely gives a hat tip to Never-Trump commentators like Erick-Woods Erickson. But it was Erickson who found the above tweet and gave two separate interpretations.

CNAV readily agrees with this much. We have two choices of how to interpret the reference to inflation. Neither has anything to do with Presidential rudeness. So either:

1. The President really means that inflation is a great asset and the country should have more of it, or
2. The President was speaking in sarcasm.

The unspoken subtext would then read:

Of course inflation is a political liability going into Midterms! What, do you think I’m stupid?

The sarcasm interpretation

CNAV is not yet big enough to apply to the White House Press Office, or the Capitol Press Gallery, for credentials for accredited reporters. But Town Hall is.

We also have a clip of his rude remark, early in a montage by Dr. Steven Turley.

So when Erick-Woods Erickson says that Biden delivered the inflation remark in sarcasm, one can believe it. (Except Mr. Erickson nowhere says either that he was there, or that he heard it from one who was there.)

And how does Mr. Erickson interpret it?

This is actually the biggest admission against interest that Biden knows the Democrats are screwed in November and it came as dismissive sarcasm to a reporter. In his actual press conference, Biden deflected on these issues. Here, however, as dismissive sarcasm, Biden knows just where things are headed. And now, most importantly, we all know he knows where this thing is headed.

Well, if Joe Biden doesn’t know about his Party’s dismal Midterms prospects, he should. Those prospects also explain why candidates, like Beto O’Rourke of Texas, don’t want to share a stage with him. (Neither did Stacey Abrams, by the way.)

But suppose it wasn’t sarcasm?

Mr. Erickson misses this part. In Economics 102, your editor learned that inflation does benefit a certain class of economic actors. To put it in brutally simple terms, the deadbeats. They’re the kind who borrow heavily today, knowing that tomorrow the money they borrowed will be worth much less. When eventually they have to pay the loan back, it takes less effort. Imagine if lenders lent gold or silver and insisted on payback in those metals! That would reform certain profligate borrowing faster than I can type this sentence. And we all know who are the biggest deadbeats in Western society today. Governments. Their fiat currencies let them get away with borrowing, and borrowing to cover their debts.

Eventually, war will come, and with it the biggest Bad Debt Write-off in the history of civilization. But we digress.

In blunt fact, CNAV sees no evidence that this President even cares that, some day, ordinary folks will be wheeling barrows full of cash just to buy loaves of bread. St. John of Jerusalem predicted this:

A loaf of bread for a day’s wages, and three loaves of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil or the wine.Revelation 6:6

And that is where our country is headed. Nor do we really know that Biden knows that.

Postscript

The Western Journal points out something that might or might not be significant. They regard the President’s outburst as a hot mic moment, meaning Biden did not even realize that anyone was recording his words. That could mean that he really meant that he considered inflation an asset. The article goes on to describe the impact of the inflation that began with this administration.