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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   President Joe Biden took aim at corporations Monday for charging prices he   
   said were artificially high even though the rate of inflation has slowed   
   and some shipping costs have fallen.   
      
   “Any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as   
   inflation has come down, even as the supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s   
   time to stop the price-gouging,” Biden said at the launch of a new White   
   House supply chain initiative. “Give the American consumer a break.”   
      
   While it’s true that the annual rate of inflation has cooled from its high   
   last summer, this doesn’t translate directly into falling consumer prices.   
   It only means that prices are rising at a lower rate.   
      
   Prices for some everyday goods have fallen over the past year, a reality   
   reflected in lower Thanksgiving costs this year, for example. And lower   
   costs have in turn left some consumers with more money in their budgets   
   for things like Black Friday shopping, which rose 7.5% this past weekend   
   over a year ago.   
      
   As Biden runs for reelection, the White House has sought to claim these   
   broad spending and pricing trends as victories for the president and his   
   economic agenda, dubbed Bidenomics.   
      
   But the argument that Biden deserves the credit for a strong economic   
   recovery has proven to be a tough sell to voters, who consistently give   
   the president low marks on the economy.   
      
   “We understand that people are still not feeling it, we get that,” White   
   House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday, ahead of the   
   president’s supply chain event.   
      
   Faced with a skeptical audience, targeting so called junk fees, which   
   Biden said “companies sneak into your bill,” offers the White House with a   
   chance to directly show voters what Biden is doing on their behalf.   
      
   It also provides the president with an easy target in the inflation blame   
   game.   
      
   “Junk fees take real money out of the pockets of average Americans,” Biden   
   said Monday. “They can add up to hundreds of dollars, weighing down family   
   budgets and making it harder for families to pay their bills.”   
      
   Consumers, said Biden, “feel like they’re being played for suckers. Which   
   they are.”   
      
   As America emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, prices soared. In the two   
   years starting in April 2021, the average price of all goods rose 13%,   
   according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average price of food in   
   that same period rose a whopping 20%.   
      
   The price hikes were driven by a combination of pent-up consumer demand,   
   pandemic-era ecomonic stimulus and ongoing supply chain snarls.   
      
   As a result, inflation hit record highs and consumers felt their budgets   
   under pressure.   
      
   Biden’s new Supply Chain Resilience Council, launched Monday, will aim to   
   help keep the momentum of that recovery going.   
      
   As part of the council’s creation, Biden also announced 30 different   
   initiatives to help ease supply chain pressures and and prevent future   
   shortages for products like drugs and semiconductors.   
      
   https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/white-house-supply-chain-bidenomics-   
   wins.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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