- Warren Warns Powell That Fed’s Rate Hikes Could Drive US Economy ‘Off a Cliff’: “You know what’s worse than high inflation and low unemployment? It’s high inflation with a recession and millions of people out of work,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told Jerome Powell. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday told Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell directly that the central bank’s recent decision to enact more aggressive interest rate hikes in an effort to combat inflation could push the U.S. economy “off a cliff”—and throw millions of people out of work—without reining in soaring prices. “Inflation is like an illness and the medicine needs to be tailored to the specific problem, otherwise you could make things a lot worse,” Warren (D-Mass.) said during her remarks at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. “Right now, the Fed has no control over the main drivers of rising prices.”
- Who Is to Blame for Inflation? The Power Brokers of Capitalism: A half-century-long power play, led by corporations, Wall Street, governments, and central banks, has gone badly wrong. The blame game over surging prices is on. Was it too much central-bank money being pumped out for too long that caused inflation to take off? Was it China, where most physical production had moved before the pandemic locked down the country and disrupted global supply chains? Was it Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine took a large chunk out of the global supply of gas, oil, grains, and fertilizers? Was it some surreptitious shift from pre-pandemic austerity to unrestricted fiscal largesse?
- Progressives Say Windfall Profits Tax a ‘Better Solution’ Than Biden’s Gas Tax Holiday: “A windfall tax would get more relief to more people by penalizing the Big Oil profiteering that’s driving up prices,” said one campaigner. As President Joe Biden on Wednesday prepares to urge Congress to temporarily suspend federal gasoline and diesel taxes in a bid to ease pain at the pump, progressives are calling instead for the passage of Democratic lawmakers’ overwhelmingly popular bill to impose a windfall profits tax on Big Oil. “Congress should take the president’s call and answer it with the windfall profits tax legislation already proposed in the House and Senate,” Jamie Henn, a spokesperson for the Stop the Oil Profiteering (STOP) campaign, wrote on social media. “A windfall tax would get more relief to more people by penalizing the Big Oil profiteering that’s driving up prices.”
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/politicsdoneright/message
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/politicsdoneright/support