NEWS YOU CAN USE, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR LAST NAME IS KRUGMAN, KLAIN, OR BRANDON: Understanding Inflation, the ‘Mugger.’

“The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices in November rose 6.8 percent in the last 12 months, the most since 1982.”

I was told that there would be no math, but “since 1982” means we are talking about 40 years.

“This,” the unnamed editorialist wrote, “should be all the warning Democratic doubters need to shelve President Biden’s Build Back Better Act that could fuel more inflation.”

They like to keep things understated at the Journal. 

Still, mention of “fuel” reminds me of the Biden administration’s war on energy.

About the first thing Biden did on coming to office was kill the Keystone pipeline.

That cost tens of thousands of jobs and overnight assured that America would go from being energy independent to begging OPEC to pump more oil.

It also assured that Americans would being paying a lot more to run their cars and heat (or cool) their houses.

And let’s not forget Suale Omarova, the Russian-born Communist-sympathizing academic whom Joe Biden nominated to be head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Among much else, Omarova was looking forward to bankrupting major swaths of the oil, coal, and gas industries in order to “tackle climate change.”

Reality crept in, just a little bit, to Omarova’s confirmation hearings, so she had to withdraw her nomination.

But the fact that Biden could even think of nominating someone like her—someone, that is to say, who is both ostentatiously anti-prosperity and anti-American—tells us all we need to know about his priorities.

No, when it comes to inflation, most people agree with Ronald Reagan, not Jen Psaki.

“Inflation,” Reagan said, “is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hitman.”

Exactly right.

Earlier: Joe Biden, Milton Friedman, and the Tyranny of Tiny Minds.