LameStream media has been taking great pains to paint this as a bleak Christmas in terms of consumer sentiment.
Left-wing politicians have joined right in, or maybe I’ve got the order reversed and it is those types who have issued the marching orders to the Democratic house organs that are the LameStream mouthpieces as part of their “affordability” political gameplan.
Regardless of the order, Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren was lamenting it takes more wampum to buy Christmas gifts this year.
Factually, she is correct, but . . .
Where was Pocahontas when Big Chief Clueless Joe was presiding over 9 percent annual inflation? The current inflation rate is in the mid 2-percent range. So, while, in theory, things cost 2.7 percent more this year than last Christmas, they cost 9 percent more, year over year, during the height of Biden’s inflation, and about 20 percent total more over the course of his four years playing president.
You didn’t hear Democrats or the LameStream media whining about that affordability crisis, did you?
Oh, how they cherry pick items. They noted Trump had not gotten egg prices down during his first month or so in the White House. Then, when egg prices declined, they moved on to other items.
Perhaps you have noticed gasoline prices are down? They’d be down much more if Pennsylvania didn’t have one of the most punitive gas taxes in the nation.
I saw one clueless type, ironically while out shopping, with a car window sticker proclaiming how tariffs cost all of us, somehow neglecting to observe that a lot of tariffs are being eaten by the companies in the interest of selling as much product as possible.
But wait, there’s more. Wages are up, on average 4 percent, which is more than the rate of inflation. The economy is growing at more than a 4-percent rate over the past summer and nearly that the past spring.
Add to that the reality of a lot of people who pay taxes being on the cusp of collecting larger tax returns because of Trump’s tax-cutting, including, but not limited to, no tax on tips or overtime, lower tax rates in general and higher deductions.
Because the typical worker didn’t adjust tax withholding to account for such changes during 2025, these people are going to get more of their money back than they might have anticipated in a couple of months.
Even now, I can report from first-hand observation that there was a lot of Christmas spending taking place, even in depressed Greater Johnstown. Richland shopping outlets were packed, both the stores and the parking lots, on several recent shopping trips by me and the wife.
Carts in said stores were brimming with items and the checkout lines were long.
If people are feeling depressed financially, they have a funny way of showing it.
I can tell you I spent more of what Warren would call wampum this Christmas shopping season. I’m retired, so the tax cuts only benefit me in passing, specifically Trump’s $12,000 increase in the deduction for retirees. That’s nice, but my financial happiness has more to do with the prices of gold and silver running away to all-time highs, at long last living up to my long-held predictions.
Also, allow me to note, although I have six vehicles in my fleet, I own them all outright. No leasing for me so as to drive a higher end car than I can afford.
I also don’t indulge in $7 cups of coffee, or trips to Bermuda, Florida, or Hawaii. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans I’m ignoring, massive credit card debt, or a crushing mortgage for a McMansion on an acre or more of land.
I do now what I have done most of my adult life, and that is to consume wisely, hoping to leave a bit of a financial legacy for my son and my granddaughters.
If others have lived beyond their means, spending now on instant gratification and planning on paying later, they need to look in the mirror for the source of their plight, not at the White House, where the current occupant has done more during his first year in office to make things better for the common taxpayer than the previous tenant did in four inflation-prone years.
That, my friends, is the economic reality, regardless of what you might be hearing.
Sam Ross Jr's site 