Speaker 1: Well, what a packed program I have for you today, starting with economic news.
As predicted, it completely cluelessly by me feeling around the dark and knowing, feeling
around in the dark and knowing absolutely nothing about anything. Inflation has declined. We now
have seen a lower than expected inflation number this morning. This is what I've been saying for
months and since we got the June numbers in July. Inflation year over year. After the June numbers
we received in July were at 9.1%. Now we are down to 8.5% coming in below the expected 8.7%. Now,
the way that corporate media reports these numbers continues to be so confusing. Look at
this headline from CNBC. Consumer prices rose 8.5% in July, less than expected as inflation pressures
ease a bit. This is good news, but the reporting makes it sound like in July of this year,
prices went up 8.5%. That is not the case. What this number means is that for the 12 month period
ending in July, prices are up 8.8. 5%. So another way to think about it would be in July, we got
the inflation numbers from June 2021 through June 2022, and that was 9.1%. Now we are adding
the numbers from July 22 and removing the numbers from June 22. So this new number is for July 2021
through July 2022. There must be some simpler way to report this so that people don't get as
confused as they get. But the important thing is this is good news for an economy that otherwise
looks quite good, essentially full employment, gas prices, declining stock market, at least over the
last six weeks, looking significantly better than it had looked in the first months of 2022. A lot
of these things look good again, considering that these are the traditional economic indicators. And
if we continue to see an inflation decline, which I expect that we will as as gas prices
in the first ten days of August has continued down, that is going to be a very good thing. Now,
one other important bit of news here. Real average hourly earnings for all employees went up 0.5% in
July. So this is another element that makes the economy look relatively solid, which is not only
did we see inflation decline, we also saw wages go up, which this concern about buying power for
the average American is mitigated to some degree by prices down and wages up. Now, is there still
poverty? Of course. Is there still hunger? Of course. Inequality, of course. This doesn't mean
we've solved the economic problems that we have and that are inherent to the economic system we
have. But by the indicators that we pay attention to, this is a significant improvement. Now, what's
the right wing story going to be? I don't know. I mean, listen, inflation's down. Stock markets are
up. Gas prices are down. Hourly earnings are up. Somehow it must be very bad for the country and
for Joe Biden. I don't know what they're going to say probably. Well, inflation is still too high.
Yeah, okay. But it's lower than expected and it's declining. So we'll see what they come up with