The Treasury secretary’s recent comments about rising prices have put the Biden administration on the defensive.
At her confirmation hearing in early 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told lawmakers that it was time to “act big” on a pandemic relief package, playing down concerns about deficits at a time of perpetually low interest rates and warning that inaction could mean widespread economic “scarring.”
A year and a half later, prices are soaring and interest rates are marching higher. As a result, Ms. Yellen’s role in crafting and selling the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Congress passed in March of last year, is being parsed amid an intensifying blame game to determine who is responsible for the highest rates of inflation in 40 years. After months of pinning rising prices on temporary supply chain problems that would dissipate, Ms. Yellen acknowledged last week that she had gotten it “wrong,” putting the Biden administration on the defensive and thrusting herself into the middle of a political storm.
“I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” Ms. Yellen said in an interview with CNN, adding that the economy had faced unanticipated “shocks” that boosted food and energy prices.
Republican lawmakers, who have spent months blaming President Biden and Democrats for rising prices, gleefully seized upon the admission as evidence that the administration had mismanaged the economy and should not be trusted to remain in political control. …
The Treasury Department has scrambled to clarify Ms. Yellen’s remarks, saying her acknowledgment that she misread inflation simply meant that she could not have foreseen developments such as the war in Ukraine, new variants of the coronavirus or lockdowns in China. After a book excerpt suggested Ms. Yellen favored a stimulus package smaller than the $1.9 trillion that Congress approved last year, the Treasury released a statement denying that she had urged more spending restraint.
At this tenuous moment in her tenure, Ms. Yellen is expected to face tough questions on inflation when she testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday and the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday. The hearings are ostensibly about the president’s budget request for the 2023 fiscal year, but Republicans are blaming Mr. Biden’s policies, including the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, for high prices for consumer products, and Ms. Yellen’s comments have given them grist to cast his first term as a failure. …
The glare is particularly uncomfortable for Ms. Yellen, an economist and former chair of the Federal Reserve, who prides herself on giving straight answers and staying above the political fray.
In recent weeks, Ms. Yellen has had to defend the Biden administration’s economic policies even as fault lines have emerged within the economic team. She has expressed reservations about the lack of progress in rolling back some of the Trump administration’s China tariffs, which she views as taxes on consumers that were “not strategic,” and she has been reluctant to support student debt forgiveness proposals, which could further fuel inflation if people have more money to spend. …
In an executive action on Monday, President Joe Biden announced a number of measures aimed at boosting solar energy in the US, including a two-year “bridge” meant to alleviate a squeeze on the flow of solar equipment imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The moves come after a federal investigation into whether solar manufacturers had been evading tariffs on goods from China by exporting them through other countries. The Department of Commerce says it will levy penalties on companies that it finds are evading taxes as part of its investigation, but only after the two-year reprieve from tariffs on imports from Southeast Asia ends.
A team of researchers from the University of Central Florida will be exploring an unknown and mysterious region of the moon.
Two UCF planetary scientists, Kerri Donaldson Hanna and Adrienne Dove, have been asked to lead a $35 million mission which would land a spacecraft over the Gruithuisen Domes—an unexplored part of the moon that has left NASA scientists scratching their heads, according to a NASA press release.
The domes, which are found on the western part of the moon, appear to be the result of a rare form of volcanic eruption, according to NASA. What’s mysterious about the domes is that such geological structures on Earth require oceans of liquid water and plate tectonics to form. Without such ingredients, NASA scientists are left baffled as to how the structures came to be. …
… UCF’s involvement will take place through NASA’s Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) program, in which a spacecraft will would launch in 2026 carrying a robotic rover to study the domes’ chemical composition …
“For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid,” David Malpass, head of the bank, said.
For large and small nations around the globe, the hope of averting a recession is fading, the World Bank warned on Tuesday.
The grinding war in Ukraine, ongoing supply chain chokeholds, Covid-related lockdowns in China and dizzying rises in energy and food prices are battering economies all along the income ladder, saddling them with slower growth and surging inflation.
This suite of problems is “hammering growth,” David Malpass, president of the World Bank, said in a statement. “For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid.”
Global growth is expected to slow to 2.9 percent this year from 5.7 percent in 2021. The outlook, delivered in the bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report, is not only grimmer than one produced six months ago, before war erupted in Ukraine, but also below the 3.6 percent forecast in April by the International Monetary Fund.
Growth is expected to remain muted in 2023. Growth for the 2020s is expected to fall below the average achieved in the previous decade, the report said.
Other than a handful of oil exporting nations like Saudi Arabia, which are benefiting from prices of more than $100 a barrel, there is a barely a spot on the globe that has not seen its prospects dim. Among the most advanced economies like the United States and Europe, growth is forecast to slow to 2.5 percent this year. China’s growth is projected to fall to 4.3 percent from 8.1 percent in 2021. …
i imagine this will increase demand for young brains…
“Youth Transplants” Really Can Slow Aging Process – Stanford scientists find infusions of cerebrospinal fluid can regenerate the brain’s memory centre and may help to rejuvenate elderly bodiesHarvesting the blood and body parts of the young in the hope of achieving immortality has long been a familiar trope in horror novels and conspiracy theories.But as macabre as it sounds, science is beginning to discover that “youth transplants” really can slow down the ageing process.The fountain of youth, it seems, is youth itself.Although nobody is suggesting we siphon the bodily fluids of youngsters into our elderly, it opens the door to artificially replicating the cocktail of chemicals found in young people.Young people have more powerful cells which operate more efficiently and could restore vitality to ageing systems.This week Stanford University showed that infusing cerebrospinal fluid of young mice into old mice improves brain function, a breakthrough which could have enormous implications for dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions. Cerebrospinal fluid is a clear liquid found within the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord of humans, and is packed full of nutrients, signalling molecules and growth factors which nourish neurons.The Stanford team infused fluid from 10-week-old mice into the brains of 18-month-old mice over seven days, and found that older mice were better at remembering to associate a small electric shock with a noise and flashing light.Closer examination showed the fluid had “woken up” processes which regenerate neurons and myelin – the fatty material that protects nerve cells within the hippocampus, the memory centre of the brain.
May the United States rule foreign territories without granting their inhabitants constitutional rights? Yes, according to landmark Supreme Court decisions in the “Insular Cases” more than a century ago. Without those decisions, our overseas territorial empire could not have existed.
Suddenly that decision is under fierce attack from within the Court itself. The fate of America’s five populated colonies — Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands — may hang in the balance.
In April the Supreme Court decided what seemed to be an abstruse case about federal benefits owed to Puerto Ricans. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion began with a startling passage. He asserted that the United States has no business deciding anything for Puerto Rico because our ownership of that island — and by extension other US colonies — is unconstitutional.
“A century ago in the Insular Cases, this Court held that the federal government could rule Puerto Rico and other territories largely without regard to the Constitution,” Gorsuch wrote. “It is past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: the Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They deserve no place in our law. . . . And I hope the day comes soon when the Court squarely overrules them.”
Those strong words set off a flurry of activity. Three residents of American Samoa were already suing the US government for denying them full citizenship; like residents of other US territories, they cannot vote in presidential elections, are not represented in Congress, and may only pass laws of which the US government approves. Encouraged by what Gorsuch wrote, they have expanded their case and are now asking that the Insular Cases be reversed. If they win, it means that we have no constitutional right to hold overseas territories. What would happen then? No one knows. Even Gorsuch conceded that “settling this question right would raise difficult new ones.” …
Depending on who you ask, that’s a question likely to elicit eye rolls, at least outside of Silicon Valley.
Many people dismiss the metaverse as a nascent, virtual world filled with cartoon avatars that has no clear purpose. (And in some ways, that’s an accurate depiction of what it is like today.) Some firms joke about the thought of investing in it. …
will (it) play an increasingly significant role in people’s professional and social lives, impacting where they spend their time and money. (Think retail, entertainment, fashion.) …
“That may seem crazy to us, that you would pay $200 for a picture of a sneaker that your avatar could wear walking through the metaverse … [or]millions for a computer-generated ape,” …
Persistent Inflation Puts Yellen in the Spotlight
NY Times – June 7
Related?
President Joe Biden will pause solar tariffs…
The Verge – June 6
In an executive action on Monday, President Joe Biden announced a number of measures aimed at boosting solar energy in the US, including a two-year “bridge” meant to alleviate a squeeze on the flow of solar equipment imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The moves come after a federal investigation into whether solar manufacturers had been evading tariffs on goods from China by exporting them through other countries. The Department of Commerce says it will levy penalties on companies that it finds are evading taxes as part of its investigation, but only after the two-year reprieve from tariffs on imports from Southeast Asia ends.
Fred, Yellen made the mistake of honestly saying she didn’t see the inflation coming, so now the congresscritters are blaming her for it…
Is this anything?
Researchers tapped again for NASA moon mission, set to explore mysterious domes
Phys.org – June 6
No rush, however…
Global Growth Will Be Choked Amid Inflation and War, Says World Bank
NY Times – June 7
Stagflation Risk Rises Amid Sharp Slowdown in Growth
i imagine this will increase demand for young brains…
Neil Gorsuch is making some adjustments…
The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US
Boston Globe – June 8
Note: ‘FB’ (FaceBook stock symbol) is no more. It is now ‘META’, its official name now being Meta Platforms, Inc.)
The metaverse is a ‘new economy.’ Should anyone care?
Boston – Globe – June 9