Looming Urgency: Gary Cohn Flagging Inflation Warning Should Alarm All Americans
Sharp intake of breath reverberates from Wall Street to Main Street, as Democrat businessman and former advisor to President Trump, Gary Cohn, boldly declares American consumers are “completely right” to be indignant over escalating inflation instigated by President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Cohn, as the erstwhile Director of the National Economic Council, made this disclosure during an engrossing interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan, sparking a new conversation replete with economic urgency and political gravity.
Underpinning these revelations were Joe Biden’s recent critiquing remarks about billionaires’ tax contributions, to which Cohn gave a reality-check, highlighting the factually inaccurate nature of the claim. He pressed that every billionaire, if earning in the U.S, has at least a 20% tax obligation hanging over his income. In an antiquated read to a make-believe narrative, he reminded us that “the Constitution talks about taxing your income… there is no income in this country unless you buy a tax-free bond that doesn’t get taxed at a minimum of 20 percent.” This contravened the rhetoric about billionaires paying zero taxes in today’s America.
In the face of Biden’s attempt to catalyze public ire against corporations on the premise of maltreating ‘the little guy,’ Brennan diverted the conversation to the economic boogeyman for U.S citizens – inflation. What emerged was Cohn’s assertion of the compounding influence of inflation, an often neglected but vital concept. This mechanism implies that inflation accumulated annually doesn’t reset to zero; if, for instance, we saw 6% inflation last year followed by 4% this year, it equates to a staggering 10% inflation.
A critical consumer insight was discussed next – how a $100 grocery basket from early 2020 now costs a wallet-draining excess of $125, a tangible testament to Cohn’s statement. This year-on-year additions, far from being cheap change, generate massive cumulative effects. Brennan’s revelation that consumers were indeed correct about inflation led to Cohn’s emphatic confirmation, “they’re completely right.”
The consumer dissatisfaction, as per Cohn, stems from the erosion of their purchasing power due to inflation occurring under Biden’s watch, and the constraining high-interest rates hindering investment in their future. An atmosphere of frustration prevailed as everyday living expenses ballooned while even dreams of homeownership became far-fetched.
The gravity of these revelations is underlined with a tweet from Steve Guest highlighting Cohn’s decimation of Biden’s lax narrative regarding inflation; “Inflation has a compounding effect. Meaning as you look at inflation year over year.” Sound the alarms; if there were ever a time to pay attention to the tells of our national economy, it would be now, under the looming shadow of an inflation just as relentless as it is insidious.
Directive in Republican philosophy liberty and a free-market system does not come without a cost. As we fall deep into the statistical abyss of an escalating and concerning inflation, it is crucial to heed the early warnings of economic veterans like Gary Cohn. The consequences of overblown public spending and deprecatory taxation practices bear a compounding impact, reflecting profoundly in our cost of living and lifestyle. As this evidence splinters the alleged relief of the American Rescue Plan, we must question if the remedy has unknowingly turned poison. The time demands our collective focus, or the growing economic chasm may swallow our fiscal security whole.
