An Ikea Hot Dog Is a Cure for Bidenflation
An Ikea Hot Dog Is a Cure for Bidenflation
Plus, the U.N. calls for banning fossil-fuel advertising
Progressives are urging President Biden to blame big business for inflation, the New York Times reports. “They say that taking the fight to big business could bolster the broader Main Street vs. Wall Street argument he is pursuing against former President Donald J. Trump.” The Times quotes Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts: “The effort to bear down on corporate price gouging is part of the sharp contrast between Biden and Trump…Trump cheers on the corporate profiteers. Joe Biden fights them.”
This approach is doomed to fail. First of all, Biden running against Wall Street just makes him look like a phony. The other night Biden had a campaign fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut. He’s going to run against Wall Street while raising money in Greenwich alongside J.P. Morgan heir Ned Lamont, as he did on June 3? Come on.
Second of all, Americans can see with their own eyes that while inflation is soaring in connection with a lot of things government dominates—property taxes, energy, health care, education—big corporations are playing a role in helping consumers keeping costs down. Costco’s new chief financial officer, Gary Millerchip, attracted a ton of press attention the other day when he confirmed “the $1.50 hot dog price is safe.”
I happened to be in an Ikea this morning and that store was advertising a 75 cent hot dog, a 65 cent veggie dog, and a 70 cent “plant dog.” The bun and the condiments are included in the price. Unlike at Costco, there’s no annual membership fee required, either.
Sure, there may be some businesses that used the inflation surge to implement long-delayed price increases in a way that helped profitability. But former Harvard Law School professor Warren, who with her spouse earned $893,534 in total income in 2023, including her current law professor husband’s $417,358 in wages from Harvard, is fortunately not in a position where she’s trying to save money on meals. If she were, she’d realize that businesses are helping consumers cut costs in response to the wave of inflation that was unleashed at least in part by a government spending binge, by quantitative easing and low interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and by government regulations restricting energy production and housing construction.
Instead of helping Biden, the strategy of blaming business rather than government for inflation is only likely to reinforce the image of Biden and the Democrats as hostile to free enterprise. Polling shows Americans think Big Government is a bigger threat than Big Business. The same polling show Americans trust Big Business more than they trust the federal government. If Biden tries this blame-business approach, business and the Republicans could team up to push back and reply, in essence: sorry Senator Warren and President Biden, the inflation problem isn’t the American private sector, with $1.50 Costco hot dogs and 75 cent Ikea hot dogs. The problem is the Biden administration spending $6.4 trillion a year with a $1.6 trillion deficit.
Personally I try to stay away from hot dogs; when I do indulge they are the kosher variety rather than the Costco or Ikea ones. But surely the 75 cent hot dog, or the $1.50 hot-dog-and-soda special, are among the reasons that Americans appreciate free markets and the businesses that flourish in them. Trying to blame business for Bidenflation is the sort of Elizabeth Warren idea that might make sense to self-described left-wing radicals like Warren’s former Harvard Law School colleague Duncan Kennedy. But it is almost certain to backfire with most mainstream Americans.
UN Calls for Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising: The U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, gave a speech yesterday calling for a ban on advertising by oil and gas companies.
In the address in Manhattan at the American Museum of Natural History, he called on advertising and public relations firms to “Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients, from today, and set out plans to drop your existing ones.”
“Many governments restrict or prohibit advertising for products that harm human health – like tobacco. Some are now doing the same with fossil fuels,” Guterres said. “I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies. And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising.”
The New York Times noted, “Several publications, including the Guardian newspaper, have stopped accepting fossil fuel advertising. The New York Times accepts ads from oil and gas companies with some restrictions, including prohibiting sponsorship of its climate newsletter and climate events, a company spokesman said. The Times also doesn’t allow fossil fuel companies to buy all of the ad spots on individual episodes of its podcast ‘The Daily.’”
This seems so far off-base to me on so many levels that I’m surprised it’s not getting more attention. First of all, it’s offensive to free speech principles that an industry that is being demonized should be prevented from voicing its views directly to the public. Where are PEN America and the ACLU when it comes to the speech rights of the energy companies? What’s the consistent First Amendment standard by which some foreign graduate-student is allowed to shout “there is only one solution, intifadah revolution” outside some Jewish student’s classroom or dorm room, or inside a Jewish professor’s classroom, but if ExxonMobil wants to buy a quarter-page ad in the New York Times to express a point of view on public policy issues, that should be outlawed?
Second of all, it seems a blunt instrument. ExxonMobil is banned, but Harley-Davidson can still advertise gas-powered motorcycles and NetJets can still advertise gas-powered private planes? Does anyone really think people are going to use less gasoline or natural gas because there is less advertising? A lot of the ads I see seem geared at brand selection (“our specially engineered gas or oil is great for your engine”) rather than consumption (“buy a bigger car and move farther away from your office so that you drive more miles and use more of our gas and oil”).
Third of all, the United Nations is an international organization. The U.S. pays for about a quarter of the thing, which is significantly more than any other country pays for. Did the Senate or House, when they authorized the funding for the U.N., think they were paying for advocacy of a ban on fossil-fuel advertising?
I’m against pollution, own at least one hybrid vehicle, am hoping eventually to replace my gas stove with an induction range, and am totally open to a future more reliant on nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, solar, or other yet-to-be-invented technologies. But the U.N. position seems so extreme it verges on counterproductive. It’s also another example of how the Big Philanthropy foundations, together with the universities, have pushed divestment from fossil fuels and themselves sent a message that this is an issue to be dealt with by performative virtue signaling rather than by practical measures and technological advances.
Guterres and the U.N. have been at the forefront of the Israel-bashers, and this, like the Duncan Kennedy case, seems like another example of where the people are bothered by the profits as much as by the pollution, and where the hostility to capitalism and hostility to Israel travel jointly. I’d characterize it as a hostility to freedom.
Recent work: “‘Absolute Lies’: Israeli Minister Denounces New York Times Article” is the headline over my latest piece for the Algemeiner. “What bothers the Times most is the chance that Israel might be able to use new and democratic technology tell the truth to the American public without having to rely on the New York Times as an intermediary.” Please check the piece out over at the Algemeiner if you are interested in that sort of thing.
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