At the end of the day, the main culprit in all this is China, for intentionally or unintentionally releasing COVID19. Not because someone at a bat or something. After that, you can blame politicians and bureaucrats and such “public health officials” for stoking too much fear, locking things down, shutting businesses down, and then keeping it going too long. Not just here in the U.S., but, many 1st World nations. Of course, some nations are recovering better than others. The U.S. was recovering well till Biden took office. Now? Not so much.
Consumers may already be reeling from higher prices for things like groceries and energy, but S&P Global Ratings says inflation has more surprises in store.
“Packaged food and household products companies have yet to pass through all of
their price hikes, and so consumers will likely face more sticker shock before prices stabilize,” wrote Sarah Wyeth in a note published Thursday.“As grocery and gas bills increasingly squeeze budgets, we expect that consumers will defer some expenditures and switch to less-expensive brands in the second half of the year.”
The U.S. inflation rate has reached a 40-year high of 7.5%. With prices heading north, some shoppers are already tightening their belts with the help of off-brand everyday goods.
But for many shoppers, government stimulus programs and other COVID-related conditions have offered a cushion.
Hmm, so all those programs are just pushing the pain off, and, really, making the coming pain worse.
The S&P forecasts that inflation will ultimately drive shoppers to more closely consider their budgets. Retailers will have to respond with discounts and other measures.
“We believe the credit quality improvement will slow in the year’s second half, as retailers will need to resort to sales and promotions to move products when consumers are less eager to shop.”
But, therein lies the problem: inventory quantity is already way, way down. It’s not really getting much better. Retailers can often not really afford to do big sales, because they do not have the amount of sales to be able to discount on quantity. Will there be enough in the 2nd half? Good thing Brandon is working hard to enact policies that make things worse.
The most disappointing and revealing thing I heard Trudeau of Canada utter is the country he respected the most was China.
Now we know that China threatened Canada with economic damage of biblical proportions because Canada is even more dependent upon them than they are the USA. And of course, the USA is everyones whipping boy these days.
But With Biden in the White House he is unraveling everything Trump had accomplished by getting the world to turn against China a bring back to their own countries jobs and manufacturing they had ceeded to China.
India and Trump/USA were fast becoming bosom buddies, now China is shaking hands with India and they are bosom buddies as the USA fast Isolates itself from the rest of the world by a mockery of a foreign policy that consists of FUK YOU WORLD YOU RACIST PIGS, WE ARE WOKE AND YOU ARE A JOKE.
Every country in Europe and Canada is opposed to Wokism, CRT, and almost everything the left is fighting for in this world. Oh don’t get me wrong, the establishment leftists around the world are still rah rahing Biden but the rest of the world is in rebellion.
Meanwhile China is laughing at the USA as is most of the rest of the world.