CRISIS BY DESIGN: Border officials count 599,000 ‘gotaway’ migrants in Fiscal Year 2022. “The number of gotaways in FY2022 – which spans from Oct. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2022 – is up drastically from the year before. In April, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told the House Judiciary Committee that there were 389,155 gotaways at the border in FY2021.”
Archive for 2022
October 3, 2022
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Inflation pushing nearly 90% firms to raise prices in 2023.
In a new Forbes/Xometry/John Zogby Strategies survey shared with Secrets about the impact of inflation and the continued supply chain crisis under President Biden, 87% of manufacturing CEOs said they planned to increase prices in 2023.
Many cited the ongoing supply chain crisis, problems getting materials from China, and sellers taking advantage of the economic mess to jack up prices.
“Our margins are under pressure as costs creep up throughout the supply-chain network,” one CEO told the poll conducted by Jeremy Zogby, the managing partner of John Zogby Strategies.
Nearly half of the 150 CEOs polled said they had already begun to raise prices to consumers by as much as 20%.
“The poll of 150 manufacturing CEOs surveyed in late August found that nearly half of companies (45%) had passed on the costs of inflation to customers today, while 38% said they had avoided doing so and 17% said their companies absorbed the costs despite the financial hit. With inflation running above 8% in August, the vast majority of executives polled who had passed on the costs of inflation (80%) said that they increased their prices between 5% and 15%. Twelve percent said they hiked prices between 15% and 20%,” said the poll analysis.
Inflation and the concerns about a recession surged this year, shocking the public and the Biden administration which had earlier shrugged it off as a momentary crisis. Some experts see it continuing to the presidential election, with a handful predicting a recession or worse.
Zogby said in his analysis that the surge in prices has already started to drive away customers.
“Those price increases had an impact. More than half (55%) said they had lost customers over the past year due to price increases, while nearly one in five (19%) have cut their workforce to keep costs in line,” he wrote.
Politically, inflation is a huge red warning light. In a new Ipsos survey, concerns about the economy dominate all other issues for voters.
And should.
Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
RISE OF THE “FAR RIGHT?” NO. “The establishment is having yet another freakout about the plebeians getting too uppity.”
The latest example is the election of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, but before that there was the conservative victory in Sweden (Sweden!!). Eastern Europe has leadership that is far too traditional for their liking, and of course in the United States the Republican Party has jettisoned the Romney- and McCain-type candidates who gracefully lose, and instead embraced more aggressive and winning candidates such as Ron DeSantis.
The elite saw Donald Trump as an existential threat and went nuclear on him, barely defeating him by hook and by crook in 2020. They expended nearly all their ammunition on him, and despite this fact recent polling shows that a wounded Trump would still beat Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup today. The power of the elite is slipping, but it has little to do with the electorate getting a taste for Mussolini-type politicians.
Related: Why the left keeps smearing its political rivals as Hitlers or Mussolinis.
RIP, JUDGE LAURENCE SILBERMAN. A huge loss for liberty. And we can be sure that he will be replaced by an inferior substitute.
MICHAEL WALSH: DEI, Monster, DIE.
BECAUSE HE’S A THREAT TO THE DEMOCRATS: Kurt Schlichter: DeSantis Is History’s Greatest Monster For Some Reason.
Related: Why the left keeps smearing its political rivals as Hitlers or Mussolinis.
THAT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE ON THE SIDE OF THE ONES DOING THE SHOOTING: As Women in Iran Are Shot Down While Fighting for Their Rights, the Squad Has Little to Say.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Another Racism Scandal for John Fetterman: Democrat who held unarmed black jogger at gunpoint promotes TikTok video glorifying violence against black men.
THE RACE GAME: The New Criterion’s October issue contains a great bunch of essays as a part of a symposium entitled “Affirmative Action and the Law.” My contribution is behind a paywall, but I include it in case you have a subscription. I’ll be able to post it without the paywall in a few weeks. In the meantime, here are links to the whole shebang,* most of which is not behind the paywall:
Introduction: “Adjudicating the racial racket.”
Frank Resartus, “The affirmative action regime.”
Gail Heriot, “An agenda for Congress.”
James Piereson, “The Voting Rights Act after six decades.”
John Yoo and Wen Fa, “Facially neutral, racially biased.”
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, “Affirmative action, democracy & the Supreme Court.”
*I just looked up the word “shebang.” It means “a rustic dwelling or hut.” I had no idea. I have never heard it used in any context other than “the whole shebang.” It’s funny how a familiar word or phrase–one that you’ve been hearing all your life–can suddenly slap you in face and say, “You don’t know who I am at all, do you?”
HURRICANE IAN AND REGULATION. “Why wait until the aftermath of a hurricane to deregulate this sort of thing in a way that is more friendly to economic freedom? Why not make these changes permanent rather than temporary? The answer probably has something to do with the fact that there are a whole set of bureaucrats that exist to collect these fees and dispense the licenses, and politically connected firms that supply the licensing tests. It’s probably not out of any real concern that any animal is going to be endangered by an out-of-state veterinarian, not out of any real worry any community association resident is going to be endangered by a community association manager who took the licensing exam three years ago rather than two years ago. Let the winds of the hurricane blow away the red tape.”
DEAL OF THE DAY: SuperHandy Meat Slicer. #CommissionEarned
VIDEO: The Ukrainian Way of War.
Once again, if you don’t have the time or inclination to watch a video, Lawrence Person has done a fine job of breaking out the bullet points.
AND YET: READ IT: FBI’s Brutal Draft Letter Firing Disgraced Agent Peter Strzok Revealed. “Strzok, despite being humiliated by the exposure of his emails, extramarital affair, and repeated bungling of investigations, has written a book and frequently appears on hard-left cable news channel MSNBC to defend the FBI against accusations of political bias.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The Taliban Are Planning Their Move On Central Asia. “Corruption is rife across Central Asia, and while Russia has long assumed a paramount security role, its miscalculations in Ukraine leave all of the countries of its southern flank at risk. That Turkey, the same country whose support was crucial to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is influential in Central Asia, should raise broader concern. The Biden administration as well as the many Republicans who support U.S. retrenchment might believe Afghanistan and Central Asia are not U.S. concerns but as the Islamic State demonstrated in 2014, forces of altruism seldom fill vacuums. It would be a mistake to confuse absence of press attention in Afghanistan with quiet. All indications are that the period of calm before the storm is fast ending.”
Let’s go, Brandon!
SAY ANYTHING: Biden Washes His Hands of Gas Prices Now That They’re Going Back Up. “Once again, here’s the Biden administration falsely accusing the U.S. energy companies of profiteering, which is in their playbook.”
ON SUNDAYS I DO A PROMO POST, MOSTLY FOR INDIE AUTHORS: Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
Today we have an exceptionally good batch books. (And not just because mine is one of them.)
SALENA ZITO: Pulling up roots: What a community loses when small businesses can’t survive.
None of the people waiting for his signature stack of ricotta pancakes stuffed with blueberries, his home-cured smoked salmon and caper platter or his savory sunny-side-up egg and brisket hash have any idea the man behind the kitchen counter — Ray Mikesell — has placed his beloved restaurant up for sale. He’s calling it quits two decades after he returned home from Baltimore to raise his children and carve out a life in Pittsburgh.
Through tears he says he simply has had enough — not of his customers, not of creating new dishes or specialized drinks, but of all the uncertainty that has dogged nearly every small businessman in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.
“It started with COVID and just over time, the uncertainty, the stress of trying to stay open, the inability to hire people, the underlying tension in society, the inflationary cost of everything you need to purchase to create quality food, that is, if you can get it…” he says, his voice trailing. He stops and pauses to hold it together.
The food costs are crushing him, he said, but so is the cost of doing business, period. His utility bills have skyrocketed, as has the cost of fuel to pick up fresh meats and vegetables from local farms or to deliver food for catering jobs. The costs are crippling, he says, and they are creating a barrier to investing in a business he has loved for so long.
“It just breaks you down no matter how strong you are,” said Mr. Mikesell.
Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
Also: The rich and powerful thrived as the rest of us suffered in the year of lockdowns.
FAMINE IS ALWAYS A WEAPON OF THE LEFT: The climatista attack on farmers is part of a long history.
THE REAL FASCISTS WANT YOU TO THINK FASCISM IS “RIGHT WING”: Defining Terms.
Personally, communism needs to stink as bad as fascism. Let’s necklace them with it.
THE LEFT IS A BUNCH OF PETTY CHILDREN: Starbucks and Patty Murray.
NOT UNTIL WE TAKE THEIR FRAUD AWAY: The Daily Chart That Should Terrify Democrats.
PLEASE MAKE IT STOP: Hillary 2024?
IT’S POSTURING ALL THE WAY DOWN: New York Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate.