Unfortunately, (a) she’s not talking about energy or oil production/supply; and (b) she believes it.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a comprehensively incompetent and unqualified person selected to run the commerce department, blames, without hesitation, a “fundamental lack of supply” for the cause of U.S. inflation [04:38]. She’s not pretending, Raimondo genuinely believes this.
I have struggled with the question of whether it’s incompetence or intentional ideology that drives some of these cabinet members to say stupid stuff. In the case of Commerce Secretary Raimondo, it is clearly incompetence. In order to believe that a lack of supply is driving inflation; which is not coincidentally the same demand-cause opinion held by the federal reserve; a person has to ignore the dozens of key economic indicators that show consumer demand has contracted, inventories are climbing, and orders to manufacturers have dropped.
Even Samsung, one of the largest producers of electronics sold in the United States, has told all their suppliers to stop sending the component goods used to manufacture their products because orders for finished goods have plummeted. Hell, consider this…. THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT, yes, that’s right, the Department that Raimondo is in charge of, has collected the data showing RETAIL SALES have DROPPED. Yet here she is blaming a lack of supply for inflation. WATCH:
It is not a lack of supply driving supply side and producer inflation. It is the massive increase in material, processing and transportation costs associated with Biden’s energy policy that are impacting supply-side inflation. Demand has contracted, inventories are climbing, manager orders have plummeted, and consumers are squeezed. Yet this knucklehead thinks recession is unlikely.
Gina Raimondo was also on Meet The Press, with another knucklehead, Chuck Todd.