Fed Chair Ben Bernanke once famously said on 60 Minutes that if inflation ever got out of control they could raise interest rates in 15 minutes

 The first Fed rate hike under Powell came in March when inflation was already way out of control, and Americans began loading up their charge cards at 18-28% interest to cope.

That's even more insane to me than the inflation.

The main Fed interest rate is still at 3.08% today, the rate available only to the banks, the same guys who pay you 0% interest, with inflation just cruising along up there above 8%.

It took the Fed over a year to move. A year. And then by just 0.75 points at a time, which the stock market parasites screamed bloody murder about.

Pretty amazing to me that ordinary folks aren't screaming, aren't mad as hell, and seem to be prepared to just swallow and take it some more.

I guess the fight has been bred out of the American people.

Sad!

 

Mike Lee is such a phony, advocating for a clean continuing resolution instead of a last minute omnibus, as if there's much of a difference

 Mike hopes you never hear of regular order again.

Here.

Last guy to mention it I think was Paul Ryan in 2015:

"We need to let every member contribute, not once they earn their stripes, but now," he said. "The committees should take the lead in drafting all major legislation: If you know the issue, you should write the bill. Let's open up the process." "In other words," he said, "we need to return to regular order."

Are we at war?

 Asking for a friend.

 

Federal spending is completely out of control: Outlays dwarf receipts by 69% in 2021

 

:

Remember last fall when a bunch of Nobel economists assured us that gobs more spending by Joe Biden wouldn't have serious inflationary impacts?

 Here's what the ring leader of Tom Nichols' vaunted expert class of economists had to say at the time:

Some, however, have invoked fears of inflation as a reason to not undertake these investments. This view is short-sighted. ... We need safe school buildings and bridges, and affordable child and elder care, whether inflation is 2% or 5%. With the investments being financed by tax increases, the inflationary impacts will be at most negligible ...

The Build Back Better package ... would transform the U.S. economy to be more efficient, equitable, sustainable, and prosperous for the long run, without presenting an inflationary threat.

From Joe Stiglitz' letter last September, here. Robert Shiller of all people signed on to this load of hooey. Carl Schramm unloaded on all this yesterday, here.

Stiglitz wrote that with a straight face when inflation had already soared to 5.3% in July. The orgy of coronavirus spending in 2020-2021 was already stoking the inflation engine, but the experts then simply ignored it, and called for more! more! more!

Now look where we are, even without more.

Government spending in the United States hasn't been financed by tax increases in decades. We wouldn't be $30 trillion in the hole if it were. It's financed by borrowing, and the interest payments on that borrowing progressively accumulate to crowd-out other spending. One day soon interest payments on the debt will become the biggest part of the budget, severely limiting our ability to allocate resources responsibly.

 

 

The US Senate quickly approved the omnibus spending bill and already has sent it on to Biden for his signature by the deadline tomorrow

 Story here.

I'm guessing that will be the last spending bill of any significance until September when they have to do another continuing resolution because of the upcoming election in November, after which we'll have another omnibus instead of regular order, which no one even remembers what it looks like anymore.

Our government is perennially dysfunctional.

Build Back Better is well and truly dead: House passes $1.5 trillion omnibus to fund federal government through September

 $780 billion is for the Department of Defense.

The bill(s) go to the Senate next.

The usual sausage making, with a little spice added in.

Story.