The Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) inflation index increased 0.6% in November. This after the 0.6% in October 2021 increase was revised upward from 0.6% to 0.7%.
The core PCE inflation rate (without food and energy) was 0.5% in November and 0.4% in October.
This indicates inflation is continuing. When you look at all of 2021 perhaps inflation is accelerating.
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Today’s illustration of leaders blowing off Covid restrictions include the British Prime Minister and the Dutch Royal family.
That reminds me of a line from one of Mel Brooks’ movies, which I quoted above. More on that in a moment.
Mirror – 12/16/21 – Boris Johnson “joined No 10 staff for a Downing Street party during first lockdown” – Allegations have been raised Boris Johnson attended a pizza and wine party on May 15, 2020, yes a couple months into the pandemic. Reports claim 20 staff were present at the party with some of them staying until late at night. Get together took place after a press conference.
Mild denials suggest the P.M. only dropped by for a bit and left early.
My guess? This will be blown off as a staff meeting.
No biggie.
The Guardian, sourced to Agence France-Presse – 12/15/21 – Dutch Royals sorry for Princess Amalia birthday party that broke Covid rules – Royal family of Netherlands held a birthday bash to celebrate Princess Amalia’s 18th birthday. Reports claim at least 21 people were present.
At the time rules in the country prohibited having more than four guests in your home who were over 13 years old.
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The roster is continually growing of flaming hypocrites who routinely ignore they rules they demand we follow. Just a few of the most recent illustrations of our ruling overlords exempting themselves from their dictats:
Do our ruling overlords actually believe there is danger?
The only conclusion we can draw from this nonstop stream of in-your-face hypocrisy is our alleged political leaders don’t really believe Covid is dangerous. By their behavior they show the rules they require or endorse or enforce are not really necessary.
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Our ruling overlords in California have decided to dictate another statewide mask requirement . Los Angeles county and several counties in the San Francisco Bay area have already mandated masks at any indoor location.
The mask diktat now covers all indoor locations in California.
Articles for your consideration:
Wall Street Journal – 12/13/21 – California to Reinstate Indoor Mask Mandate – Secretary of California Health and Human Service Agency royally declared that starting Wednesday, December 15, 2021, all Californian citizens subjects will be required to wear a mask at any indoor event.
Royal decree will run until January 15, 2021.
Any guesses on whether this will be allowed to expire in January?
This follows the state of New York imposing a statewide mask mandate…
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At a time when the media is telling us this Covid pandemic will continue forever and there are frequent variants that will kill us all dead, who should we actually be paying attention to?
The possibilities:
People who know how to spell epidemiology and actually know someone they went to school with who is an epidemiologist:
Tweet by Martin Kulldorff
(more…)“The vocal pro-lockdown “public health scientists”, with their limited knowledge of infectious disease epidemiology, will be the last to recognize the public health disaster they created.”
There are lots of reports out with tidbits of information which combine to paint a picture that the tangled supply chain is not going to untangle anytime soon. For your consideration:
FreightWaves – 12/1/21 – Ships in California logjam now stuck off Mexico, Taiwan and Japan – You may have heard the number of ships parked off the coast of ports in Southern California has dropped recently.
Good news, right?
Well, not so fast.
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So many reports are pointing to the damage caused by government actions during the pandemic. I can’t possible discuss all the news. Here are a few articles for your consideration
Foundation for Economic Education – 12/6/21 – 47,000 More People Died of This Disease in 2020 Due to Lockdowns, World Health Organization Reports – The concept of “excess deaths” is something we all need to become familiar with. This is the idea of some event or circumstance killing more people than would otherwise have died without that circumstance having taken place.
It will take five or 10 years to identify all of the excess deaths which were directly or indirectly caused by government actions to shut down the economy in 2020.
The current data point is 47,000 people dying because of malaria who would have otherwise lived apart from the government lockdowns across the world.
47,000.
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My wife and I are seeing firsthand the impact of turmoil in the employment market to include restaurants that have to close for the day because no staff showed up to work. One restaurant is making up stories about masks being government-required.
Previous post on this topic was back on 6/4/21: What does the economy wide staffing shortage look like to a customer?
This discussion will highlight disruptions I have seen in our local community in the last month. We will discuss separately the wide range of government actions which have caused this turmoil.
In the meantime…
Daily Bulletin – 11/25/21 – “Sorry!” Customers with prepaid Thanksgiving meal orders find doors shut at Boston Market in Rancho Cucamonga – The only employee showing up at the Boston Market stored in my hometown put a note on the door saying
(more…)“No employee showing up today… We are unable to fulfill the orders! We are sorry!”