Consumer prices in the USA rose 0.4% in August, four times July’s 0.1% increase, while annual inflation remained at 3.4%. The politicians will point to that 3.4% number and pretend inflation has somehow stabilized. But look beneath the surface and you see an entirely different economy. Energy rose 2.1% in a single month and 16.3% from a year ago. Gasoline jumped 3.9% in August alone and is now 27.4% higher than a year ago. Other motor fuels, including diesel, surged 9.6% in one month and 44% annually. This is precisely why reducing inflation to one government statistic is absurd.
The August Producer Price Index already rose 0.4% for the month and 5.4% annually, while processed goods for intermediate demand jumped 1.8%. Diesel prices at the producer level surged 24.1% in August. Those costs work their way through the entire economy. Businesses either raise prices, reduce margins, cut workers, or close. There is no fifth option.
Food increased only 0.1% for August and grocery prices were unchanged, but that does not mean Americans suddenly received relief. Food prices remain 2.7% higher than a year ago. Eggs rose another 2.9% during August. Eating at restaurants continues to rise, and households are still paying the snowballing increase from the inflation that already occurred. Government economists speak as though a lower rate of inflation means prices went back down. They did not. If something rises from $100 to $120 and then increases another 3%, you are not recovering purchasing power. You are simply being robbed more slowly.
Shelter increased 0.3% in August and remains 3% higher annually. This is where the Federal Reserve has created its own nightmare. Raise rates to fight inflation and mortgage payments become unaffordable. Lower rates and you risk reigniting asset prices and inflation. Meanwhile, the federal government continues borrowing trillions regardless of where rates stand. There is no monetary policy that can cure fiscal irresponsibility.
Core CPI supposedly looks better because it excludes food and energy, precisely two things people cannot choose to stop buying. Core inflation rose 0.3% in August, stronger than expected, although the annual rate eased from 2.5% to 2.4%. Airline fares rose 2.7%, hotel and motel prices jumped 2.4%, mobile phone costs surged 5.9%, and new and used vehicle prices also increased. So while economists debate whether 2.4% core inflation is encouraging, the person trying to pay the bills sees something entirely different.
Inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings declined 0.3% from a year earlier. Real wages have now fallen for five consecutive months. THAT is what people actually feel. It does not matter what Washington tells them about GDP or employment when the paycheck buys less every month. People know inflation from their bank account, not from some economist sitting in Washington manipulating a basket of goods.
This is also why the Fed is trapped. Markets are now overwhelmingly expecting another rate hike. But raising rates will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, produce another barrel of oil, lower diesel prices, or end geopolitical conflict. You cannot cure an energy shortage with interest rates. The Fed will nevertheless raise rates because that is the only tool it has, and then everyone will blame the Fed when mortgages, auto loans, business credit, and government interest expense rise again.
This inflation is increasingly geopolitical and fiscal rather than merely monetary. War drives energy higher. Tariffs alter supply chains. Government borrowing keeps expanding. Defense spending is exploding throughout NATO. Europe is constructing a war economy while sovereign debt continues to rise. Then central banks are expected to somehow neutralize all of this by moving an overnight interest rate up or down 25 basis points.
The CPI is telling us something far more important than whether inflation was 3.3% or 3.4%. The structure of inflation is changing. The easy post-pandemic explanation is finished. We are entering an environment where geopolitical instability, energy, sovereign debt, and declining confidence in government increasingly dictate capital flows and prices.
That is precisely the environment where the old economic theories begin to fail. The Fed cannot control war. It cannot control Congress. It cannot control the national debt. It cannot control global capital flows. Yet everyone will demand that it somehow control the consequences.
For years, anyone who dared question the integrity of the election process was treated as some conspiracy nut. We were told election fraud was virtually nonexistent, that safeguards were more than adequate, and that demanding tighter controls was somehow an attack on democracy. Well, take a walk through Skid Row in Los Angeles and explain this one. Federal prosecutors have now charged three people in an alleged operation that paid people on Skid Row to sign California ballot petitions using the stolen identities of registered voters.
They pulled the identities of actual registered voters from a database, handed those identities to people on the street, paid them to copy the information onto petitions, and had them forge the corresponding signatures. That is precisely the type of manipulation we were repeatedly assured should not concern us.
James Brass, known as “Lord,” has been arrested and charged along with Courtney Price and Jateisha Herron. Prosecutors say the operation ran from February through August 2026. Brass allegedly received approximately $41,600 from coordinators associated with one petition-management company, while false declarations were signed claiming the circulators had personally witnessed the supposed registered voters signing the petitions.
Skid Row contains some of the most vulnerable people in America. Homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction are everywhere. Earlier reporting from undercover investigations described people being offered cash, cigarettes and marijuana for petition signatures.
And this is not even the first federal case to emerge from Skid Row this year. Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong (no relation) agreed to plead guilty after admitting that she paid people, including homeless individuals, to register to vote. She normally received money for petition signatures only when the signer was a registered voter, so prosecutors say she began offering people money to complete voter registration forms as well. Some homeless people had no address, so she supplied her own former Los Angeles address for them to use. California automatically mails ballots to registered voters, meaning ballots associated with some of those registrations potentially could have been sent to an address where those individuals did not live or receive mail. How many warning signs does government require before admitting that vulnerabilities exist?
What particularly infuriates me is the exploitation of the homeless. Politicians parade around pretending they care about these people while Los Angeles has allowed human misery to become part of the landscape. Then along comes a political signature industry where every valid signature has monetary value. Suddenly the homeless person is valuable, not because anybody intends to get him off the street, treat his addiction or restore his dignity, but because his hand can produce a signature worth money. That is how sick politics has become.
There is a financial incentive behind this entire petition business. California requires hundreds of thousands of signatures to qualify statewide initiatives, creating an industry in which petition management companies pay circulators and signatures themselves acquire economic value. Once government creates a system where political access is measured by hundreds of thousands of signatures and each signature can generate money for somebody in the chain, do not act shocked when people attempt to game it.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the defendants allegedly used members of Skid Row’s vulnerable homeless population to “cover up their tracks.” This is why identification and verification should never have become partisan issues. If someone tells me that requiring safeguards somehow “suppresses democracy,” I ask the obvious question: whose democracy are we protecting?
We have created a society where government knows virtually everything about YOU. Flock cameras can track your automobile. Banks report your transactions. Your phone knows where you sleep. The IRS knows what you earn. Government databases know where you live. Yet somehow when it comes to protecting the political process, asking that identity actually be verified becomes controversial. They can track an ordinary citizen across a city with cameras, but ensuring that one human being corresponds to one legitimate political identity is suddenly an unbearable burden.
Enough. We are destroying confidence in our institutions because politicians refuse to acknowledge weaknesses until federal prosecutors put somebody in handcuffs. Nobody should exploit a homeless addict for a political signature. And nobody should be afraid to demand that the system be secured simply because some political hack will call them an “election denier.”
Democracy cannot survive without confidence. Confidence cannot survive without transparency. If these allegations are proven, prosecute everyone involved regardless of party or ideology and follow the money wherever it leads. Stop pretending that fraud cannot happen. The federal government itself is now prosecuting people precisely because it can.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
De Oppresso Liber
A group of Americans united by our commitment to Freedom, Constitutional Governance, and Civic Duty.
Share the truth at whatever cost.
De Oppresso Liber
Uncensored updates on world events, economics, the environment and medicine
De Oppresso Liber
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Australia's Front Line | Since 2011
See what War is like and how it affects our Warriors
Nwo News, End Time, Deep State, World News, No Fake News
De Oppresso Liber
Politics | Talk | Opinion - Contact Info: stellasplace@wowway.com
Exposition and Encouragement
The Physician Wellness Movement and Illegitimate Authority: The Need for Revolt and Reconstruction
Real Estate Lending
