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June 11, 2021 - The Ben Shapiro Show
49:33
No One Is Too Radical For The Democratic Party | Ep. 1274
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Time Text
Ilhan Omar's latest anti-Semitic blowup results in zero serious blowback from Democratic leadership, inflation is getting even uglier, and bipartisan populist agreement breaks out to eat the rich.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
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Alrighty, so.
It was a week in which there were many days ending in Y, and because it was a week in which there were many days ending in Y, one of those days, undoubtedly, would feature Ilhan Omar saying something anti-Semitic and or anti-American, because that's what Ilhan Omar does for a living.
The representative from Minnesota is very often anti-American in her rhetoric, she is frequently anti-Semitic in her rhetoric, and she receives essentially zero blowback from the Democratic leadership.
Well, things got awkward this week, because a few of the Jewish Democrats in the House decided that they wanted to We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.
We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
I asked Secretary Tony Blinken where people are supposed to go for justice.
So this is her in a tweet equating the United States, Hamas, you know, like a terrorist group that hides rockets behind children and that hides tunnels underneath hospitals and under schools, And this is what she does.
I mean, she's been doing this her entire career.
groups on the planet, a group of people who literally tried to murder young schoolgirls if they go to school.
And so that is Ilhan Omar doing yeoman's work on behalf of terrorist rhetoric everywhere.
And this is what she does.
I mean, she's been doing this her entire career.
She's been doing this since she entered politics.
And as a woman who once wrote a letter to a judge recommending less harsh jail time for a person trying to join ISIS, because obviously American society was so terrible and horrible that it drove people towards these sorts of activities.
We are.
I mean, Ilhan Omar is a disaster area.
She's been a disaster area for a very long time.
And yet every time she says one of these things, and she's said it over and over, right?
The Jews are hypnotizing the world, or that it's all about the Benjamins, or that Israel and Hamas are exactly the same, or even worse, that Israel is actually perpetuating terrorism.
You know, when Ilhan Omar does this sort of stuff, the usual Democratic response is to simply whistle and walk away.
Now, there's been a growing anti-Semitism problem inside the Democratic Party for quite a while now.
This is perfectly obvious from the fact that half the CBC, half the Congressional Black Caucus, has met with Louis Farrakhan.
It's perfectly obvious from the fact that AOC met with radical anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn and then tweeted it out.
And then when she was caught, she said, oh yeah, I'll have a listening session with members of the Jewish community.
Never happened.
Rashida Tlaib openly associates with people who are complete abolitionists about the state of Israel, would like to see Israel wiped from the map.
In fact, on a map in her office, when she originally took office, she had a post-it on the map that where Israel was, the post-it said Palestine and pointed an arrow directly at Israel, which is a genocidal point of view with regard to the state of Israel.
Rashida Tlaib didn't like the Jews very much.
Ilhan Omar, same sort of deal.
And every time this sort of stuff comes up, the Democratic Party edges right up to criticizing.
And then they realize, oh, wait a second.
These women, they're Muslim and they seem brown.
And that means that if we criticize them, then we have violated our own intersectional protocols.
Now, this blew up into sort of ugly view for the Democrats yesterday because a bunch of House Democrats, all Jewish, put out a statement quasi condemning Ilhan Omar.
Just kind of quasi-edging up to it.
Always they edge up to it.
Now, recognize something.
On the right side of the aisle, when Marjorie Taylor Greene was talking about Jewish space lasers, every major Republican came out and said this is crazy and unacceptable.
When Steve King said stuff that was racist, the entire Republican Party stripped him of his committees and then primaried him.
Inside the Democratic Party, you can hobnob with Liz Farrakhan, you can hang out with terror supporters like Razmia Oda, you can hang out with Linda Sarsour and do campaigning with her, you can hang out with Jeremy Corbyn, you can say openly anti-Semitic crap, and the best they're going to do is maybe they will mildly criticize.
Now, one of the things that's really disturbing about this particular criticism is that it came only from the Jewish members of Congress who are Democrats.
Right?
And it was only 12 of them.
There are 25 Jewish Democrats in Congress.
Only 12 of them signed this joint statement.
And it is really, really weak tea.
But the fact that only Jews were willing to sign on to the statement demonstrates that anti-Semitism is treated unlike any other form of vicious hatred inside the halls of democratic power.
If somebody in the Democratic Party had said something racist about Ilhan Omar, about her race, Do you imagine that it would only be black members of Congress who would say something?
Or it would be every member of the Democratic caucus that said something.
But Ilhan Omar, every couple of weeks, just to set that calendar, days since anti-Semitic accident, back to zero.
Every couple of weeks.
And only Jews signed this statement.
There wasn't a single major Democrat, or minor Democrat, as far as I'm aware, who is not Jewish, who even expressed sympathy for this statement.
Which is kind of incredible.
Basically, they're saying if you're a Jewish Democrat, you are on your own.
Because antisemitism is not part of the intersectional coalition.
Jews are not part of the intersectional coalition.
And this has been true in progressive circles for quite a while.
You'll remember that just a few years back, there was something called the Chicago Dyke March, which was an LGBT march in Chicago.
And they banned people from flying a flag with the Star of David on it.
Because Jews are not part of the intersectional coalition.
BLM has openly endorsed the Terrorist activities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
I know that we're supposed to pretend that they were just supporting quote-unquote the Palestinians, but they weren't.
Okay, they have openly acknowledged that they wish to see Israel disappear.
BLM, I mean this was in their original manifesto.
They talk about liberating Palestine, which really does mean getting rid of Israel from the river to the sea.
And when they say they support the quote-unquote Palestinians in the middle of a Hamas-Gaza-versus-Israel rocket war, it's pretty obvious what they are talking about.
They're really not trying to hide the ball very hard here.
Plus, if you go to any of these BLM rallies, they'll actually have full anti-Semitic signs up there.
So, the intersectional coalition does not welcome Jews, and so the Jews in the Democratic Party are on their own right here.
So here is the statement they put out about Ilhan Omar equating Israel and Hamas, which by the way, again, is only part of what she said.
She also equated the United States and the Taliban, which is, again, typical Ilhan Omar.
She's consistently suggesting the United States is a massive human rights violator akin to terrorist groups, because this is what she does.
And then of course she laughs about 9-11 on occasion.
She's really a wonder and a joy.
Amazing that we have such great Congress people in the United States.
She tweeted out, Equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided.
This is what the Jewish Democrats put out.
Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredits one's intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice.
The United States and Israel are imperfect, and like all democracies, at times deserving of critique.
But false equivalencies give cover to terrorist groups.
We urge Congresswoman Omar to clarify her words, placing the U.S.
and Israel in the same category as Hamas and the Taliban.
Clarify!
Right?
So they didn't condemn her.
They didn't just say, this is gross.
They could have ended this before the last sentence, right?
They didn't.
Instead, they said, we'll give you a way out.
Just clarify.
And we will pretend you didn't mean what you very obviously meant, since you've said it over and over and over.
All you have to do is clarify just a little bit.
So, here is how Ilhan Omar originally clarified.
She originally clarified by accusing the Democrats in her own party of Islamophobia.
Because this is what she is, right?
She is a person who is viciously anti-Semitic, and if you criticize her, then she claims that you are anti-Muslim in some way.
No, I'm just against people who aren't anti-Semitic, actually, as it turns out.
There are many Muslims who are not.
Ilhan Omar is not one of them.
There are many Muslims who are very pro-America.
Ilhan Omar, in her rhetoric, certainly is not.
And we're allowed to criticize Ilhan Omar without it being quote-unquote Islamophobic.
But this is the... You want to know why, in the wake of all of these acts of Jew hatred that we saw on the streets of New York and Miami and Los Angeles and Chicago in the last few weeks?
In the wake of that, all the Democrats were tweeting out about Islamophobia?
Because what Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and company and the Intersectional Coalition have succeeded in doing is they have succeeded in suggesting that if you call out anti-Semitism, this is an act of Islamophobia.
Which, by the way, is slanderous towards Muslims.
Because it turns out that Muslims don't actually have to be anti-Semitic.
If the claim is that you calling out anti-Semitism is inherently Islamophobic, what you are actually saying is that Islam is anti-Semitic.
Which again, there are many, many, many millions of Muslims who are not anti-Semitic.
In any case, here's Ilhan Omar.
She tweeted out, right, this is her clarification, original clarification.
She tweeted out, it's shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for clarification and not just call.
The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive.
Where are the Islamophobic tropes?
Seriously, where?
Can she name them?
Notice the game she's playing right here.
So the anti-Semitic tropes she's used in the past include that the Jews hypnotize the world and that Jewish money controls American Congress.
Those are actual anti-Semitic tropes.
There's not a single Islamophobic trope in that entire statement, but she's accusing her colleagues of Islamophobia.
The constant harassment and silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable.
Unbearable!
Oh, oh, the tears!
It's like LeBron James flopping politically.
Like, oh my God, oh, I can't, oh, I can't believe it.
The constant harassment.
Oh, it's so difficult to be Ilhan Omar.
It's so difficult to be elected to Congress, being an immigrant to the United States, and being on the cover of Rolling Stone, and being featured on the Foreign Affairs Committee despite being openly anti-Jewish.
Wow, I mean, what a rough world she has.
By the way, this lie that her colleagues never go to her quietly, it is just that.
It is a lie.
Okay, the fact is, members of the Jewish Minneapolis community went to her quietly.
They went behind closed doors, and then she betrayed them by talking about how terrible they were, basically, publicly.
Rashida Tlaib has done the same thing, so has AOC.
Amazing to watch Democrats like Johan Omar, who has not been shy about ripping into other Democrats, suggest that it's the responsibility of other Democrats to come to her and clarify with her quietly about all this.
Just such a lie.
They don't do any of that.
Okay, so...
What has been the response from the higher-ups in the Democratic Party?
Because this looked like it was coming to a head.
It looked as though, finally, it was going to be the Jewish Democrats versus Ilhan Omar and the rest of the squad.
Because you had people like Rashida Tlaib tweeting in defense of Ilhan Omar, right?
Rashida Tlaib tweeted this out.
This is such unbelievable gaslighting.
Quote, freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress, she said on Twitter to her millions of followers.
As printed in every major newspaper.
Freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress?
Really?
Really?
You wonder where freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women?
Pretty much everywhere in the Islamic world.
That's where freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women.
Women, like, doesn't exist.
The statement is so self-contradictory, it's unbelievable.
Doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress.
I think we've established that Muslim women have freedom of speech in the United States.
They're in Congress, the legislature.
What in the actual?
But you're silencing Rashida Tlaib.
How dare you silence Rashida?
She doesn't sound so silent, but, you know, maybe that's just me because I'm actually reading her words.
Freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress.
The benefit of the doubt doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress.
There's no benefit of the doubt.
She literally equated the United States and the Taliban and Israel and Hamas.
And she does this over and over and over.
You don't get the benefit of the doubt the ninth time.
You get the benefit of the doubt, like, the first time.
Maybe the second time.
By the time you're getting to, like, six, seven, eight, nine anti-Semitic statements, people start to go, hey, maybe we shouldn't give this person the benefit of the doubt.
Weird, you know?
I gave you the benefit of the doubt the first time my wallet disappeared at your house, but like the eighth time my wallet disappeared at your house, I had to start thinking to myself, hey, maybe there's something going on at this person's apartment.
Says Rashida Tlaib, House Democratic leadership should be ashamed of its relentless exclusive tone policing of Congresswomen of color.
Notice that the turnabout is fair play here.
How dare Nancy Pelosi, how dare anybody criticize Muslim women of color?
You can't do that.
You can't do that.
Relentless tone, again, these are the same people who are claiming that Jewish Democratic statement, which was like the mildest thing I've ever seen, that that is tone policing, that they're censoring them.
Okay, so finally, you have people like, I mean, AOC did the same thing, by the way.
Here's AOC's response.
Pretty sick and tired of the constant vilification like intentional mischaracterization and public targeting of Ilhan Omar coming from our caucus.
They have no concept for the danger they put her in by like skipping private conversations and leaping to fueling targeted news cycles around her.
This is coming from the same lady.
Who every day goes out and rips on Joe Manchin and basically suggests he's a racist.
But I love this.
That Ilhan Omar, oh man, they're constantly vilifying.
Oh, she's such a victim, Ilhan Omar.
So is AOC.
They're such victims.
The crybullying is beyond compare.
I mean, truly crazy.
AOC on the cover of Rolling Stone with Ilhan Omar and Nancy Pelosi.
Oh my God, people are just targeting her.
Oh, the vilification.
Oh, woe is me.
America's a terrible place.
People noticed that Ilhan Omar hates Jews, and then they said it.
They noticed that she equated the United States and the Taliban, and then they pointed that out.
Oh, the viciousness.
Oh, the cruelty.
But here's the bottom line.
This is Ilhan Omar's party, and she can cry if she wants to.
We'll get to that in just one second.
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Okay, then finally, after all of this, after all this hubbub, she issued a clarification.
Ilhan Omar did.
Ah, a clarification.
She released the following clarification on her questions during the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week.
Quote, on Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about an ongoing international criminal court investigations.
Okay, not good grammar.
To be clear, the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding these ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S.
and Israel.
I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.
Well, number one, thanks to Ilhan Omar for acknowledging that Israel is a democratic country with a well-established judicial system.
That's a first for Ilhan Omar.
But also, can we go back to her original tweet?
Because according to her, she's not making a comparison.
Quote, we have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
I kind of think you were making the comparison.
I kind of think you were, because you do it all the damn time.
Okay, so she issues her clarification.
And now the Democratic Party has its way out.
Now they can all pretend that she didn't mean what she very clearly meant.
Right, now they can all go, go back to, go back, everything, weapons down, everything is fine.
So you have John Garamendi, Democratic representative saying, I don't think that Ilhan Omar intended to compare the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, even though she does it like all the damn time.
No, no, she, no, Ilhan, no, come on.
I think she needs to be much more careful.
I don't think she ever intended to lump the United States and Israel into the same terrorism that was being conducted by those terrorist organizations.
She ought to walk it back.
She ought to be very, very careful here.
The problem is that this kind of language incites violence here in the United States.
Okay, but she didn't mean it, guys.
Probably she didn't mean it.
Now, do you think that that benefit of the doubt would accrue to any other members of Congress other than Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar?
Truly, do you think doubt?
Nope!
So here's Nancy Pelosi's statement.
So here's an amazing thing.
There was a several hour period here where Ilhan Omar had not quote-unquote walked anything back or clarified, right?
There was a several hour period yesterday when these Jewish Democrats had put out a statement and Ilhan Omar and her crew were busily tweeting about how vicious and terrible these Jewish Democrats were.
Not a single member of the media hunted down a single Democrat in the House and asked, who do you side with here?
Who do you think is right?
Not a single one.
Not a single one went to Nancy Pelosi and said, do you have any response to these Jewish Democrats claiming that Ilhan Omar is engaged in basically anti-Semitism?
It's amazing.
So, if Marjorie Taylor Greene, before she enters Congress, puts out a weird Facebook post about Jewish space lasers or whatever, and by the way, even if I did control a Jewish space laser, I wouldn't tell you guys, but They went to every single Republican in Congress and asked about Marjorie Taylor Greene.
She's a backbencher.
Ilhan Omar's on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Ilhan Omar's appearing on the cover of magazines with the Democratic House leadership.
Not a single question I'm aware of to any member of Congress about this sort of stuff until after Ilhan Omar had already performed her walkback.
It's certainly no questions to the members of the House leadership.
The media just fell asleep at the switch or they don't really care.
And the answer is they don't really care because they are too invested in the same intersectional politics that the Democrats are invested in.
Which means the Radicals rule the roost here.
There are two ways Radicals take over the Democratic Party.
One is they get elected to Congress.
That's happening sometimes but not all the time.
The second is the rest of the party simply caves to the Radicals because the Radicals are loud and annoying and irritating.
And that is definitely happening.
So here was a statement From Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Majority Whip Clyburn, Assistant Speaker Catherine Clark, Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, Caucus Vice Chair Pete Aguilar.
Quote, Legitimate criticism of the policies of both the United States and Israel is protected by the values of free speech and democratic debate.
And indeed, such criticism is essential to the strength and health of our democracies.
But drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S.
and Israel, and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban, foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.
We welcome the clarification by Congresswoman Omar.
There is no moral equivalency between the U.S.
and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban.
Oh, well, you welcomed it, did you?
Wow.
I mean, amazing.
So you called for a clear the Jewish Democrats called for a clarification.
She clarified by basically saying, you know, that thing I said, you just misinterpreted it.
I definitely didn't mean that thing that I very obviously said.
And Pelosi, Incredible.
So she'll just continue getting away with this sort of stuff, and we'll play this game every couple of months, and the Democratic Party will continue to engage with the growing anti-Semitism in its own ranks and pretend that it doesn't exist.
The New York Times obviously is going to foment this stuff.
Here's how the New York Times reported this.
You ready?
Because the New York Times, as Seth Mandel points out, he's over at the Washington Examiner, he says the New York Times is not a newspaper.
Correct.
Here's how the New York Times covered this.
You ready?
Republicans, eager to stoke outrage and portray Democrats as anti-Israel, jump on Ms.
Omar's language, especially after anti-Semitic comments by one of their own members, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, whose recent comparisons of the Holocaust to pandemic safety policies drew condemnation from her own leaders.
Wait, what the F?
What does this have to do exactly with Republicans?
It's always Republicans pounce.
Ilhan Omar, anti-Semite.
Rashida Tlaib, anti-Semite.
Democratic caucus mildly condemns them and then backs away.
And the story is Republicans pounce.
Also, how exactly is that an owning of the Republicans?
I'm confused.
So according to the New York Times, the bad guys here are somehow the Republicans who condemned anti-Semitism in their own ranks and also condemned it among Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Democrats who refuse to condemn anti-Semitism in their own ranks, they're totally fine.
That is a hot take right there.
But again, this Democratic Party, it is run by the radicals on all of the important issues.
They kowtow to the radicals.
And these issues of shifting the Overton window to completely include open anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, by the way.
I should point out again, that statement is rather anti-American comparing the United States and our armed forces to the Taliban and Hamas.
But apparently all of that is totally fine.
It's totally fine, because Ilhan Omar is part of the intersectional coalition, and you are not.
End of story.
That is all that matters to the Democratic Party at this point.
So they will march arm and arm forward, so long as those people believe in all of the same progressive policies that they believe in.
Allies of convenience are more important than fundamental principles about, you know, being anti-hate and all that.
Alrighty, in just a second, we'll get to the latest economic reports.
It turns out that blowing money into the economy at extraordinary rates And encouraging people never to go to work again, it creates this thing.
It's called inflation.
I know you've heard of it.
We'll get to that in just one second.
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Okay.
Meanwhile, Bydenomics is a complete failure.
CBS News reported yesterday that inflation has now reached a 13 year high.
Prices are rising as the U.S.
economy recovers from the pandemic downturn.
The inflation rate soared to a 13-year high in May, pushing the cost of living 5% higher than this time last year.
Labor Department data shows the consumer price index rose 0.6% from April, exceeding expectations.
Record high prices for used cars were the largest contributor to the inflation surge, with prices climbing more than 7%.
The nation's inflation watchdog, the Federal Reserve, is dismissing concerns over rising prices, saying it's only temporary.
Okay, well, it may only be temporary, but the question is, how long does temporary remain temporary?
There are two problems with regard to the Bidenomics policy.
One is the short-term inflation.
The Fed keeps saying that inflation is going to go down at some point here.
Now, the experts were saying earlier this year that the inflation rate for the entire year of 2021 was going to be like 2.6%, already at like 4%.
So, unless things dramatically decrease in the remaining half of the year, We've got a problem on our hands, right?
It's very easy to fall into an inflationary cycle so long as you keep pumping money into the economy, so long as Congress keeps passing unemployment benefits, so long as Congress keeps pushing forward these $2 trillion infrastructure packages, keep pouring money into an economy while encouraging people never to go back to work.
The definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too little product.
You end up with price inflation, and this means that your dollar doesn't go as far.
It means that people are unlikely to invest as much in American debt.
Which again, drives the Fed to start perching some more of the debt to inject more money into the economy.
All of this is really bad.
So that is problem number one.
Problem number two is that the general view of the Bidenomics crew is that the more money you suck out of the private sector and redistribute in these ways, the better it is.
The problem with this, of course, is that it leads to economic stagnation because it turns out the people who are most likely to invest and people who are most likely to put their money in R&D, to develop new products and services, are the people whose money you are taking away from them.
The truth is, every check that you have ever gotten as an employee is coming from somebody who is richer than you.
That is just a general good rule of thumb.
And that will always continue to be true because you generally don't have People who are poor engaging or employing people who are richer.
People who are richer, because they have more capital, they tend to then expend that capital to take risks and build businesses, right?
Entrepreneurship drives the economy forward.
The reason that the economy now is more robust than the economy 50 years ago, and it is.
It's because of all the new products and services.
Human nature hasn't changed.
What has changed is the cool stuff that you can get for a buck that you could not get for a buck 50 years ago.
The truth is, the middle income person in the United States today is living better than the richest person on earth was probably in 1900.
I mean, undoubtedly in 1900.
They didn't have working toilets in many places in the world in 1900.
There were no cell phones.
There were no cars.
Devices have gotten better.
Things have gotten better.
The reason things have gotten better is because people took their money and they invested it in brand new products and services that you enjoy.
The entire Bidenomics model is designed to take money away from those people and then redistribute it as geniuses like Joe Biden think is fit.
We need to have Ronald Klain deciding where dollars go.
All these people who have never created a product, have never created a service, have never employed a person with their own money, all of these people are saying they know what to do with the money better than the people who've actually, you know, hired hundreds of millions of people.
Which is kind of an incredible statement.
And what are they doing?
What are the experts doing right now?
Well, they're busy blowing out the inflation rates.
The same people who are inflating the currency are the people who say that we should give them more money and they should borrow more money in order to presumably remake the economy, quote unquote, better.
Now, right now, there are 9 million open jobs in the United States.
9 million.
There are only 3.5 million jobs gained during the last few months.
What does that mean?
It means people are staying home.
They are not re-entering the workforce.
Biden and team, they keep suggesting the reason for this is people are wary of COVID.
Well, if they are, that's because you guys suck at PR.
The reality is that everyone has had a chance to get the vaccine now.
And in most states, the vast majority of the elderly have already had the vaccine, which means once you've had a chance to get the vaccine, whether you get it, whether you don't get it, that one's on you.
Okay, so it is not COVID hesitancy that is driving down employment rates.
I was talking to a construction guy here yesterday in Florida, and he was telling me he literally cannot find laborers.
People do not want to come to work.
Simultaneously, he's telling me that the price on all goods has gone up tremendously.
He can't get lumber.
He's had to do roofing in different ways.
He can't use foam for roofing because the materials are just not available.
Because again, production is not ramping up to meet the price inflation that is occurring.
According to the Washington Post, prices rose by 5% in May compared with a year ago, the largest increase since the Great Recession, continuing a steady climb in inflation, even as policymakers insist on staying the course.
Price spikes often coincide with downturns.
Officials from the White House and Federal Reserve have predicted that prices will climb over the coming months, especially compared with a year ago when the economy was reeling from COVID pandemic shutdowns.
However, the move adds new fuel to criticism from Republicans and at least one prominent liberal economist that too much government spending could wreak havoc and lead to an overheated economy.
According to the Washington Post, it could take months before it's clear whether the current rise in inflation is temporary.
But the steady climb is already weighing on numerous policy debates.
Republicans pushed back hard on President Biden's proposal to spend $4 trillion on infrastructure and other proposals, complaining it amounted to an infusion of too much money at a time when prices on certain products were rising faster than wages.
On certain products.
On most products.
GOP opposition has led the White House to rethink its spending strategy in recent weeks.
The most recent inflation figures do not seem to have forced any course correction decisions inside the Biden administration or at the Fed.
Both predict prices will continue to rise until supply chains and consumer demand recalibrate and the economy recovers.
The Fed says it's not going to rush to raise interest rates.
So what is this resulting in?
It's resulting in businesses taking out cheap debt and then using it on hard assets.
If you don't like businesses doing that, perhaps you should be protesting, you know, the governmental actors who are actually answerable to us.
As we'll see, people instead have this sort of simplistic view of economics in which you rip on corporations for doing exactly what corporations do.
But the reality is you need to change the incentive structures if you wish for the corporations to change their order of business.
Okay, we'll get to that in just one second.
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Alrighty, it is that glorious time of the week when I give a shout out to a Daily Wear member.
Today, it's Jose Garza on Instagram who understands proper hydration when attaining your fitness goals.
In this pic, Jose is sitting at his kitchen counter preparing to wash down a sub sandwich with delicious tears from the world's most elite beverage vessel.
The caption reads, post-workout, just about to watch.
Ben Shapiro, Real Daily Wire, new episode.
By the way, far superior to my wife's louder with Crowder mug.
Hashtag leftist, here's Tumblr.
Yes, Jose, that Crowder ashtray can do nothing for the gains you are seeking.
You've made the right call.
Well done, my friend.
Thanks for the pic.
Thanks for being a Daily Wire member.
Also, it is no secret that the amount of content we are putting out is growing rapidly, both in quantity and in quality.
From our new investigative journalism team, to our sports column, to my own fact-filled podcast, there is so much to see and hear and read and enjoy.
Even the most avid DailyWire member would be hard-pressed to keep up.
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We thought of everything, and we have a solution for you.
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Also, I'd like to take a moment just to acknowledge all the people that make all the new projects and growth at The Daily Wear possible.
You, our audience.
Now, as I'm sure you know, we have seen a ton of change and growth in the last several months.
We've been doing a ton of stuff.
I'm genuinely excited about all the cool stuff that we are going to be announcing in coming months, but we gotta thank you for making it possible.
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We've been running a survey for a couple weeks now to get to know our audience members better.
If you haven't already taken it, it is not too late.
Go to dailywire.com slash Shapiro, fill out my audience survey, tell us a little more about yourself, and to sweeten the deal, everyone who completes the survey will be entered to win a $1,000 gift card.
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While all of this bad spending policy is leading to some pretty dire economic warnings from According to The Hill, as the world economy awakens from the 15-month slumber caused by the pandemic, Deutsche Bank has launched a series of research articles to spark debate and discussion about pressing post-pandemic economic issues.
On June 7th, Deutsche Bank issued its first report of the new series titled Inflation, the defining macro story of this decade.
According to the report, quote, U.S.
macro policy, macroeconomic policy, and indeed the very role of the government in the economy is undergoing its biggest shift in direction in 40 years.
In turn, we are concerned it will bring about uncomfortable levels of inflation.
Based on the latest inflation report from the United States, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that in April, the consumer price index for all urban consumers rose 0.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, rising 4.2 percent over the last 12 months.
Deutsche Bank notes the current fiscal stimulus is more comparable with that seen around World War II.
Then, U.S.
deficits remained between 15 to 30 percent for four years.
While there are many significant differences between the pandemic and World War II, we would note that annual inflation during that period was 8.4%, 14.6%, and 7.7% in 46, 47, and 48, after the economy normalized and pent-up demand was released.
Apparently, there are a couple of big problems according to Deutsche Bank.
One is the giant spending by Congress.
They say monetary stimulus has been equally breathtaking.
In numerical terms, the Fed's balance sheet has almost doubled during the pandemic to nearly $8 trillion.
During the 2008 crisis, it only increased a little more than $1 trillion and then another $2 trillion in the subsequent six years.
So basically, this is just the Federal Reserve creating fake money and then buying up bonds to inject it into the capital markets.
The Deutsche Bank report says we worry inflation will make a comeback.
Few still remember how our societies and economies were threatened by high inflation 50 years ago.
The most basic law of economics, the ones that have stood the test of time over the millennium, have not been suspended.
An explosive growth in debt financed largely by central banks is likely to lead to higher inflation.
Raising prices will touch everyone.
The effects could be devastating, particularly for the most vulnerable in society.
So that's Deutsche Bank warning about what is happening right now.
And indeed, the United States is setting records for taxes, spending, and deficits through May.
According to CNS News, federal taxes hit a record $2.6 trillion.
Federal spending climbed to $4.6 trillion in October through May, resulting in a federal deficit of $2 trillion.
That's just October through May, which is just an astonishing increase in the federal deficit over the course of essentially half a year.
That is wild stuff.
Okay, now the predictable result of all of this is not just inflation, it's also, as I say, economic stagnation.
Because when you remove money from the private sector, and when you blow out the debt, and thus blow out the value of savings, what you end up doing is making it more difficult for businesses to do anything.
Because again, there are two problems.
One is the inflation problem, and the second is what happens if the federal government, the Federal Reserve continues to pump money into the banks by issuing overnight rates that are zero or below zero, Which encourages banks to lend.
And what if businesses look around and they go, wait a second, there's no demand.
Why are we borrowing?
Why exactly should I leverage up when the demand is not keeping up with my leverage?
Why would I borrow money I'm not going to be able to pay back?
It doesn't make any sense.
And so we are seeing both of these things come to pass.
There's a reason that Joe Biden's budget, his $6 trillion garbage budget that he's pushing, there's a reason that it forecasts a 2% rate of growth for the next 10 years every year.
And that is high.
It will end up being below 2% if Joe Biden gets his way in terms of this economy.
Simultaneously, you're seeing people get ticked off at corporations for doing what exactly it is that they do, which is they see a cheap debt instrument available to them, and they immediately start taking out loans and then buying up hard assets.
Now there are people who get angry at the corporations for this.
You're getting angry at the wrong people.
I may not like it either, but the point is that unless you stop the Federal Reserve from pumping money into the system, corporations are going to take cheap loans and then they're going to use those loans to arbitrage.
They're going to take the loans at 0% and then they're either going to lend it out at 3% or they're going to go buy hard assets they think are going to appreciate at 3% or more over the course of the next 50 years.
This is leading to massive price inflation, especially in real estate.
So there's a big story that came out yesterday and a lot of people right, left, and center are really mad about it.
And this is where populists go wrong.
Not because they are wrong in being angry about things, but because very often they're angry at the wrong people.
It is not a corporation's fault if cheap loans are available, that they are taking the cheap loans and then going and buying real estate.
Any more than it would be their fault if cheap loans are available and they go and they take the cheap loans and then they buy stock.
Okay, this all comes down to government policy.
If you are willing to take up the risk of buying an asset at a higher price than the market would suggest, if you're willing to foot that risk, that's your problem, so long as you don't get bailed out.
So there are two things that people who are seriously troubled by what's going on economically ought to oppose with all of their heart and might.
Okay, one is the inflationary policy of the Federal Reserve, the cheap debt that continues to be pumped into the economy, The government spending that continues to promote unemployment and keep people at home, that is one.
And two, no bailouts.
No bailouts.
If a big corporation like BlackRock decides to take out a bunch of money from a bank, or they decide that they're gonna sell their bonds to the Federal Reserve and they're going to get back all of this cheap money, and then they take that cheap money and they invest it in real estate, and then the real estate goes south, no bailouts.
The moral hazard of TARP was just that, it created a massive moral hazard.
And just like Occupy Wall Street was angry at the wrong people, they shouldn't have been occupying Wall Street.
They should have been occupying K Street.
They should have been over there in Washington, D.C., yelling at Congress.
You remember the Occupy Wall Street movement that cropped up in 2009, 2010, in the aftermath of the great bubble bursting and the Great Recession?
You'll recall people went over to Wall Street and started yelling at Wall Street.
And it was like, why are you yelling at Wall Street?
You should be yelling at Congress.
Congress is answerable to you.
Do you think yelling at BlackRock is going to make them stop pursuing fiscally smart decisions?
It's not going to.
The reason they're doing what they're doing is the incentive structure is all screwed up.
Go yell at your congressperson.
Go yell at the Federal Reserve.
Go yell at Joe Biden.
Those are the people you elected.
Those are the people who are answerable to you, not the people who work at BlackRock.
And yet people are misdirecting all of their energies.
They're mad at corporations because, again, what populism does is it very often gets the diagnosis correct, but then the actual prescription is completely wrong.
So the diagnosis is right, that you don't want corporations, giant corporations necessarily, coming in and buying up swaths of real estate and preventing first-time homeowners from being able to buy at market prices.
You don't want them artificially driving up the price of real estate, but this is the point.
It's not an artificial drive up of the price of real estate unless there's artificially cheap money being pushed into the system.
The price of a house is what somebody is willing to pay for it.
So you can say that BlackRock or these other big corporations are paying above market prices.
Yes, they are paying above what the market price was before they were willing to pay for it.
Now what they are willing to pay for it is the new market price.
If you don't like that market price, perhaps you should oppose the Federal Reserve's inflationary policy.
Which again, that's a government agency.
BlackRock is just taking out debt and then they're spending it.
And you should also have to explain, by the way, why it is that you think that the current homeowner shouldn't have the right to sell to BlackRock at an inflated price.
That homeowner is, you know, part of the consenting bargain here.
Yes, there is an affected third party.
That affected third party shouldn't be angry at BlackRock.
That affected third party should be angry that the Fed keeps giving out cheap money.
And yet people are directing their anger at all the wrong places.
There's a piece in the Wall Street Journal about this that drove all sorts of ire the other day.
That if you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund.
Now again, if the buyer is a pension fund, you know who owns stock in pension funds?
A lot of people who are not actually big corporations.
A lot of unions own stock in pension funds.
A lot of retirees.
A lot of your 401k is tied up in those pension funds.
This is sort of like when people got very mad at the short sellers for no apparent reason with regard to GameStop.
Like, oh, those short sellers, they're so bad.
Look at them.
They're leveraging up to short sell GameStop, and that's just terrible.
Or maybe they are pricing in the risk of a market correction with regard to GameStop, right?
That's literally what short sellers do.
They are necessary to the market.
In order to properly price all of these assets.
And so, you can think that it's kind of hilarious what happened to the short sellers with regard to GameStop, but you can also recognize that short sellers are not malevolent forces in the financial universe any more than people who pump up the price of a stock are malevolent forces.
As long as you bear the risk of your own decisions, it's on you what happens next.
In any case, this Wall Street Journal article says a bidding war broke out this winter at a new subdivision north of Houston.
The prize this time was the entire subdivision, not just a single suburban house, illustrating the rise of big investors as a potent new force in the U.S.
housing market.
D.R.
Horton built 124 houses in Conroe, Texas, rented them out, and then put the whole community, Amber Pines at Foster's Ridge, on the block.
A who's who's of investors and home rental firms flocked to the December sale.
The winning $32 million bid came from an online property investing platform, Fundrise LLC, which manages more than $1 billion on behalf of about 150,000 individuals.
The country's most prolific home builder booked roughly twice what it typically makes selling houses to middle class, an encouraging debut in the business of selling entire neighborhoods to investors.
We wouldn't expect every single-family community we sell to sell at a 50% gross margin, said the builder's finance chief, Bill Wheat.
From individuals with smartphones and a few thousand bucks to pensions in private equity firms of billions, yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family houses to rent out or flip.
They're competing for houses with ordinary Americans, are armed with the cheapest mortgage financing ever, and driving up home prices.
Again, cheap fiscal policy means inflation.
And whether it is people creating a bubble thanks to subprime mortgages in 2006, or whether it is the federal government pursuing inflationary monetary policy that drives down the price of loans, and therefore drives up the price of things like real estate, centralized, bureaucratic money decision-making is generally not a good idea with regard to this stuff.
And there are many people on the left who make fun of people who call for a gold standard.
The reason for a gold standard is specifically so you can't do this crap.
The reason for a gold standard is that you don't have people manipulating the worth of money.
You wonder why so many members of the left are pissed off at Bitcoin?
The reason that people are pissed off at Bitcoin is because Bitcoin is not controllable by a central authority, which is why people like me tend to be fans of Bitcoin, at least in theory.
But people instead yesterday got super mad.
If you pointed out that the ire was misplaced, that if you're mad at BlackRock, maybe you shouldn't be mad at BlackRock.
Maybe you should actually be mad at the federal government.
People are like, no, I want to be mad at BlackRock.
And it's the same sort of ire that is driving all of the rage with regard to this new ProPublica report.
So, amazingly enough, ProPublica, you know, they got a hold of a bunch of leaked IRS documents.
Now, quick note.
Kind of hilarious that the entire media put the kibosh on quote-unquote leaked documents from Hunter Biden's computer, right?
Because they were leaked, is what we were told by the social media bros.
Then, Obviously leaked documents from the IRS, which is a crime, right?
Obviously leaked documents were printed by ProPublica and they've been blasted all over social media.
So I don't think the Hunter Biden shutdown had anything to do with leaked documents.
In any case, you know what those leaked documents showed?
Pretty much nothing.
What they showed is that wealth is not taxed the same way as income, which again makes sense because wealth that has never been cashed out is not in fact income.
If you have a house, and over the course of 10 years your house doubles in value, you are not worth more money on a practical day-to-day level unless you sell the house or take out debt.
Take a second mortgage or something.
The reality is that until you realize the value of the increased value, nothing has changed for you.
It shouldn't be taxed the same way.
How would you even do that?
Okay, and yet people are super pissed.
They don't understand this.
They look at Jeff Bezos, they see that Jeff Bezos is really rich, and because they see Jeff Bezos is really rich, they're like, that guy should pay more taxes.
And this sort of populist ire, it does span both sides.
There's a populist movement on the right that embraces just this sort of stuff, and there's a populist movement on the left, the sort of Bernie Sanders progressives, who believe this sort of stuff.
And they sort of horseshoe around.
You'll see that there are populists on the right who do the same sort of class-baiting that people on the left do.
How is it that Jeff Bezos paid no tax in 2018?
Well, because he didn't realize income in 2018.
The value of his stock went up, but he didn't sell any of his stock.
If the value of his stock went down, would you give him a tax refund?
I don't think so.
And yet still, this has been treated as a major story by the media.
Again, that ProPublica story, as Daily Wire points out, found that billionaires often manage to employ tax loopholes to legally avoid paying income tax, except those aren't tax loopholes.
Those are just how taxes work.
The highest earning Americans overall pay the lion's share of U.S.
income taxes, period.
The bottom half of income earners pay less than 3% of all income taxes, plus.
People who are wealthy pay sales tax on their purchases.
Income is not the same as wealth.
Bottom line, though, is that the ire at corporations is ire that is being misplaced.
It is being put in the wrong place.
Now, there's ire at corporations that I think is sometimes being put in the right place.
But again, here's the rule with corporations.
You need to change the incentive structure.
Corporations respond to incentives.
Corporations are just Legal mechanisms for developing profit.
That is all corporations are.
And for limiting liability.
That's all they are.
They respond to incentive structures.
So if you don't like what corporations are doing, then you should change the incentive structure.
I will say I am amused to watch all of these corporations who attempted to comply with the diktat of the woke left now being eaten by the woke left.
So you may have noticed this month, because it is quote-unquote Pride Month, you may have noticed that every major corporation that you can think of has decided to change its logo to include rainbows.
And now they've all got rainbows, right?
I've got Zillow on my phone, and Zillow has changed its logo to include rainbows.
Wow.
So all the houses are gay houses now or something.
Okay, well, congratulations.
And now, people who are cynical might say that they are doing this because they wish to appeal to the most radical base, and they feel that everybody on the right is just going to ignore it, which is why Nickelodeon is pushing transgender propaganda to children.
Okay, but, remember, the left will eat these people.
AOC tweeted out, This week's guilty pleasure, watching Representative Jayapal, Pramila Jayapal, go down the list to expose phony corporate pride rebrands with how much money they've given to fund anti-LGBT plus politicians.
Remember, just because a company slapped on a rainbow doesn't mean they support the LGBT plus community.
Yes, they're never going to stop, gang.
You decided to kowtow to them?
They're never going to stop.
They're going to eat you alive.
And you know what?
You full well deserve it.
You bought the ticket, now you take the ride.
Again, you bore the risk, and now the risk is coming home to roost.
And by the way, folks on the right, you should get active in just the same way.
It turns out we have market power as well, and we are fully capable of using that market power to change the incentive structure for profit-seeking corporations.
Alrighty, we'll be back here a little bit later with an additional hour of The Ben Shapiro Show.
First, you can't forget to end your week by checking out The Andrew Klavan Show.
Drew shows every Friday.
He's got an exciting evening planned for you.
Head on over to dailywire.com this evening at 7 p.m.
Eastern, 6 p.m.
Central.
Tune in.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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Copyright Daily Wire 2021.
Hey everybody, this is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
You know, some people are depressed because the republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching, and the moon's turned to blood.
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