Eric Boehlert: Inflation's a global dilemma -- the press blames Biden

[babylonsister]

https://pressrun.media/p/inflations-a-global-problem-the-press

Inflation's a global dilemma — the press blames Biden
GOP talking points
Eric Boehlert
2 hr ago


snip//

The New York Times: “A troubling development for President Biden.” The Washington Post headline: “Democrats Worry Biden Could Pay the Political Price For Rising Inflation.” (The first person quoted in the piece was a GOP pollster.)

What’s missing from the inflation coverage is the consistent acknowledgement that the trend of rising prices is a global phenomenon, fueled by the pandemic. The Politico report made no mention of worldwide inflation, neither did the Times or Post dispatches; the AP included just one sentence.

Dismissed or downplayed is the fact that systemic, record-setting inflation has taken hold in virtually every major economy:

• “Germany: Annual Inflation Hits Highest Rate Since 1993”

• “Italian Inflation Hits Highest In More Than A Decade On Energy”

• “Mexico Ends Year With Inflation At 7.36%, Most In 20 Years”

• “Russian 2021 Inflation Accelerates To 8.39%, Preliminary Data Shows”

• “Spain's Annual Inflation Jumps To 6.7% At End Of 2021, Highest Since 1989”

• “UK Inflation Hits 10-Year High Ahead Of Key Bank Of England Meeting”

• “Canada's Annual Inflation Rate Matches 18-Year High, Set to Keep Rising”

Thanks to international reporting, we know inflation is on the rise around the world. But news consumers here have to search that information out because it’s rarely included in coverage of the U.S. economy. Most often, domestic inflation is presented in a silo, independent from the global economic trend that has been sparked by a worldwide virus.

snip//

It was no surprise that a recent AP poll found consumers fixated on inflation: “Income Is Up, But Americans Focus on Inflation.” Why is that? Americans are inundated with the media’s constant inflation coverage, most of which omits the fact the trend is now happening all around the world.

[Wicked Blue]

1. Because the repuke-owned media hates Biden

and is working to tear him down at any opportunity

Democrats need major media of our own

[HariSeldon]

2. MMT says inflation should be judged in scope of financial sovereignty

That is, the boundaries of who may legally create and destroy currency are the limits within which inflation can rationally be discussed.

MMT also says that effective economic tools exist to fight inflation: the government sector (the federal government in the USA) needs to tax more and/or spend less. While these tools are effective, employing them in the current political climate is nearly impractical.

The BBB plan would have attempted a back-door approach by keeping the deficit (i.e. spending minus taxes) approximately the same, but spending more among the bottom economic rungs where such spending has increased economic leverage, raising the country's economic productivity without increasing the money supply, which is a way of creating deflationary pressure.

[spanone]

3. We can always depend on our media to echo republican talking points