The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell openly contradicted President Joe Biden’s recent statements of inflation this week.
While speaking to the US Senate, Powell was asked by Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-TN, “Would you say that the war in Ukraine is the primary driver of inflation in America?”
Instead of following Joe Biden’s narrative that inflation is entirely tied to Ukraine, Powell suggested it had begun spiking before war ever broke out.
“No,” said Powell, “Inflation was high before, certainly before the war in Ukraine broke out.”
Powell continued his explanation, adding, “If you look at comparable large, advanced economies like ours, you’ll see inflation rates that are quite similar to ours and some cases higher or some cases lower … But there are important differences in the characteristics. Ours is more about demand. I would say that for most of the others, theirs is more about energy prices and things like that.”
Almost immediately after Powell made his statement to the Senate, Joe Biden’s @POTUS twitter account pushed a random tweet about the “Putin Price Hike” while bragging about his “leadership” on oil production.
The tweet read, “I’m doing everything I can to blunt the Putin Price Hike and bring down the cost of gas and food. I led the world to coordinate the largest release from global oil reserves in history, and I’m working to get 20 million tons of grain out of Ukraine to help bring down prices.”
Joe Biden is expected to head to Saudi Arabia this month in a last-ditch effort to lower the cost of oil without having to reopen domestic pipelines or increase our own drilling. Despite his reluctance, he will most likely be meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to negotiate the deal.
Biden has previously suggested that he would never meet with the Saudi crown price over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The about-face shows how desperate he is to try and reign in inflation on some level before the upcoming midterm elections.
President Joe Biden has been trying to blame Putin and Donald Trump for America’s economic woes. Unfortunately for him, not even his own economic chiefs like Powell are willing to fall in line with his narrative these days. Do you think Ukraine is the biggest driver of current inflation or is the war just an excuse for the failures of our current leader?
