Brandonomy: Health Of Consumers Sees Troubling Sign

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature

Gas prices are through the roof. That’s just how Biden wants it.

Approaching his 500th day in office this week, Joe Biden is the least popular U.S. president at this point in his first term in the modern polling era. His approval rating might drop even further now that Americans are home from their Memorial Day weekend travels. According to AAA, this was one of the most expensive Memorial Day travel periods on record, with gas prices hitting $4.62 — the highest average price at the pump ever recorded. (snipping through a bunch of things you know Biden has done to skyrocket gas costs)

Taken together, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Democrats welcome high gas prices as part of an intentional strategy to speed our transition away from fossil fuels. They don’t like the political blowback, so they are trying to divert blame onto Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Biden did in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week. But many Americans are beginning to suspect that, just as the government deliberately raised the cost of cigarettes to curb smoking, Democrats want to see gas prices rise so that Americans will stop using fossil fuels.

They do. He does. There certainly comes a point where you would think this isn’t incompetence, but, malfeasance. Intentional. The highest I’ve seen in Raleigh is $4.59. So far.

Gas prices: A ‘troubling sign’ emerges on the health of consumers

Sticker price shock at the gas pump may finally be breaking the back of the U.S. consumer, new data shows.

Current U.S. gasoline consumption levels are running 3% lower than a year ago and have been declining at a 3-5% clip the past seven weeks, according to researchers at DataTrek (chart below). DataTrek noted that these declines were not the case prior to April 2022, suggesting that pain at the pump is affecting consumer behavior.

“Given that commuting is the single most common reason Americans drive, we would have thought gas consumption would still be showing positive comps to last year,” DataTrek writes. “Office occupancy was barely 20% at this point last year and is double that now (43%). Lower gasoline consumption is therefore a troubling sign about overall consumer spending patterns.”

Remember, a lot of stuff wasn’t open at this time last year. A lot of people were still working from home. Travel was still rather muted. Delta was hitting hard.

Inflation — hitting necessities such as food, fuel, and housing — seems to be weighing on the minds of Americans: The University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment measure fell to 58.4 in May, down from 59.1 earlier in the month, marking the lowest level in more than 10 years.

Consumer spending clocked in with a solid 0.9% increase in April, according to data from the Commerce Department, but the increase was fueled by consumers dipping into their savings — the savings rate fell to 4.4% in April from 5% in the prior month.

“The U.S. economy remains strong approaching mid-year,” EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Greg Daco wrote in a note to clients, “but cracks are starting to appear in the foundation.”

Republicans do not want to see this happen just to win an election, because it means Americans are getting hurt. But, we also know that Biden and his Democrat Comrades will not only not change course, they’ll triple down on their bad policies. They really do not care who gets hurt on the way to their Statist paradise. Some of you f’ing Republicans with Trump Derangement Syndrome need to own up to your horrible votes.

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