President Joe Biden’s claim that businesses should be cutting prices because inflation has declined—and his accusation that not cutting amounts to price gouging—prompted laughter and derision Friday morning from the normally straight-laced anchors of Bloomberg TV’s “Surveillance” program.
“I have no idea who actually wrote this tweet, but it’s got the president’s name on it so we should probably read it,” said Bloomberg anchor Jonathan Ferro.
Jonathan Ferro & Lisa Abramowicz of Bloomberg on Biden’s now infamous inflation tweet. pic.twitter.com/6GnOaO8TET
— John Carney (@carney) December 1, 2023
Ferro then displayed President Biden’s post on X.com accusing companies for price gouging for not cutting prices while inflation has declined.
Let me be clear to any corporation that hasn’t brought their prices back down even as inflation has come down: It’s time to stop the price gouging.
Give American consumers a break.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 30, 2023
Ferro then read out an X.com post from Jim Bianco explaining the problem with Biden’s core claim.
Apparently, he does not know the difference between prices RISING at a slower pace and prices FALLING.
It signals he does not listen to @SecYellen because she knows the difference. https://t.co/yzp1QQHiXJ
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) November 30, 2023
“It’s not great when the president needs community notes underneath his tweet to explain why he’s not exactly getting it right,” anchor Lisa Abramowicz added. “Does he understand—or do his people understand—between slowing inflation and deflation? Or is there a sense that he’s trying to cater to a certain political anger that has created a real negative draw on his polling.”
Abramowicz went on to point out that the Biden statement, which Biden has made repeatedly this week, undermines the credibility of the administration on economic matters.
“It feels very political and yet I wonder if anyone says, ‘Just letting you know, it’s going to seem a little off, considering it is economically wrong,’” Abramowicz said.
Ferro said that he refuse to believe that Biden economic advisers such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and White House chief economist Lael Brainard do not understand the difference between falling inflation and deflation.
“This is pure politics and nothing else,” Ferro said.
“This raises the question of what is the policy going forward if the Inflation Reduction Act was more geared toward certain infrastructure building? What is there plan to message this? Not necessarily to address inflation but to message this heading into next year?” Abramowicz said.
The two anchors returned to the Biden claim later in the program.
Ferro & Abramowicz hit the “categorically… nonsense” Biden inflation post a second time this morning. pic.twitter.com/VJYElRnbGY
— John Carney (@carney) December 1, 2023
“Who writes these tweets for the President of the United States? There’s no way that President Biden is sitting down at his iPhone and whacking these out,” Ferro said.
After reading the X.com post from the President, Ferro added described its contents as “politics and bad economics.”
“To me, the real issue is: what does this signal about the desperation to try to push the blame of inflation on to someone else,” Abramowicz added. “A lot of people will just categorically say it is nonsense.”