Crap, stuff is so expensive.  Inflation, right now at 8.3%, is making an impact across all sectors.  Not long ago, my McDonalds coffee and sausage biscuit was $2.14.  Now, it is close to $5.  Gas went from under $2.00 to $3.50 here in GA.  It is out of hand!

Now, the government has all these charts and reasons for the rise in prices.  None of the reasons are their fault.  They mention it is because of the pandemic, supply chain issues, blah blah blah.  Well, my eyeballs tell a different story.  The rise in prices are 2 reasons, labor and fuel.  In many businesses, especially service businesses, fuel and labor is most of their cost.

For labor, Biden’s famous “Pay them More” speech made workers demand higher wages and, because of the labor shortage, they had to pay them.  My daughter just got a job right out of college.  Companies were throwing money at her as signing bonuses and retention bonuses.  Now, these companies are not going to absorb these higher costs, they are forced to raise prices…inflation.  This is not something we can eliminate, now that folks are getting paid more.  We cannot lower wages, that would cause mass protests.  However, we can help with fuel prices.

Everything comes to stores by truck, we also drive our cars into work, fuel is needed for all aspects of our economy.  Fuel costs are up tremendously since 2021, when Biden took office.  When he took office, he immediately signed executive orders handcuffing the oil companies to drive toward electric vehicles.  Although I believe electric vehicles are a good idea, we are not ready to abandon fossil fuel vehicles.  The technology is not ready and the infrastructure is not available. Until these issues are ironed out, we need to stay at the status quo.  Being able to drill for oil and become a net exporter of oil, like we were before Biden took office, will drive down fuel prices. Biden says that most land drilling is on private land and that is not on them.  What the government does not say is that oil companies must have a permit to drill on any land and 100% of offshore drilling is controlled by the Federal Government.  The Executive Orders rescinded the drilling permits causing a major slowdown in drilling…the price of gas immediately went up.  Biden also says the war in Ukraine caused fuel to rise.  I read that we get 10% of our fuel from Russia.  If that is true, that does not seem to be enough to drive the steep rise in prices.  In addition, if we were a net exporter, the rise of prices from Russia wouldn’t matter.  Companies are not going to absorb these costs as well.  They raise prices to accommodate those rises in fuel costs.  The solution is to drill, become a net exporter again, and lower the cost.

One other part of inflation we are not talking about are credit card fees that consumers are now paying when buying products.  I went to a restaurant and they were charging 3.5% service charge when paying with a credit card. First, that is outrageous. If they are wanting to cover their costs, they need to be paying somewhere around 2.4% in fees, not 3.5%.  The owner of the restaurant said they cannot afford to absorb the credit card fees anymore due to the rising costs of labor, food and supplies.  Therefore, she had to pass them along to the customer.  The extra percentage may be a way she can raise her prices, but not show on the menu.  This is all due to inflation caused by the rise in labor and fuel costs.  Now, tack on another 3.5% above the 8.3% inflation rate.

Biden just announced releasing 15 million barrels to help with fuel costs. We use 24 million barrels per day,  so it will not help with prices.  Biden can release permits and off shore drilling.  This will reduce fuel costs, almost immediately. Therefore, just like the border issue, the Federal Government has no interest in solving this problem.