As the Dollar’s Purchasing Power Drops, Janet Yellen Stresses ‘Pandemic Calls the Shots’ for the Economy, Inflation

Inflation has continued to make the price of goods and services in America rise as the U.S. dollar’s purchasing power is not what it used to be. Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s former economic advisor, Larry Summers, recently told the press that “We’re going to see inflation of a kind we haven’t seen in 30 years.” Despite the gloomy forecasts, the White House doesn’t believe these predictions and U.S. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen is blaming inflation on the Covid pandemic.

Americans are forking over more and more dollars to pay for gas, rent, homes, food, healthcare supplies, medicine, vehicles, and more, ever since the U.S. government expanded the money supply like at no other time in history. President Joe Biden seems to think that the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill will help alleviate inflation even though economists are doubting this prediction. Speaking with CNN, Larry Summers, the American economist who served as the 71st United States Treasury secretary, said: “We’re going to see inflation of a kind we haven’t seen in 30 years.”

NBC's Peter Alexander: "Americans are seeing their dollars, their paychecks stretched right now. Why should Americans not be concerned that injected another $1.57 trillion or more would raise inflation?"

Psaki: "B/c no economist out there is projecting that[.]"

Um, wut? pic.twitter.com/Cz4vcguSvs

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 15, 2021

However, when White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about inflation soaring by an NBC journalist who kept pressing her, the secretary rejected such predictions. Fox News contributor Joe Concha made fun of the press secretary’s commentary on Twitter and said: “There are too many economists to count who say trillions in new spending will only raise inflation further. These Psaki-Bombs are beyond comical at this point,” Concha added.

While economists are predicting a drawdown in the U.S. economy, U.S. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen told the press on Sunday that the inflation America faces is due to Covid-19. “It’s important to realize that the cause of this inflation is the pandemic,” Yellen said. “It led to a dramatic increase in demand… for products,” she continued. “And although the supply of products has increased in the United States and globally, not as much as demand.”



Gold bug and economist Peter Schiff mocked Yellen’s statements about Covid-19 causing inflation. Schiff highlighted in a tweet that he believes the Federal Reserve is to blame for the loss of purchasing power. “According to Yellen, inflation resulted from a dramatic increase in consumer demand to buy products,” Schiff tweeted. “But where did consumers get the money to buy those products? From the government, which in turn got the money from the Fed. The Fed caused the inflation.”

When Yellen spoke on Sunday she did not get into the highly chastised government mandates the U.S. government has enforced over the last two years. American officials across the entire nation shut down businesses, created terms like “essential workers,” crafted vaccine mandates, enforced a rent moratorium for well over 16 months, and pumped more USD into America’s monetary supply than in the first three-quarters of the country’s entire history in less than two years.

On Sunday, however, Yellen’s statements on the CBS broadcast “Face the Nation,” indicate that she believes the virus, not the central planners, has been holding the reigns of the U.S. economy. “The pandemic has been calling the shots for the economy and for inflation,” Yellen concluded. “And if we want to get inflation down, I think continuing to make progress against the pandemic is the most important thing we can do.”

The day before Yellen spoke on CBS, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank president, Neel Kashkari, explained that inflation will likely keep rising during the next few months. “The math suggests we’re probably going to see somewhat higher readings over the next few months before they likely start to taper off,” Kashkari said. Similar to Yellen, Kashkari stressed that supply chain issues and the Coronavirus pandemic are the main reasons why inflation persists.

“We’re seeing both a surge of demand because Congress has given a lot of money to families and businesses to get through the pandemic, but we’re also seeing supply disruptions at the same time because of the Covid virus,” Kashkari further remarked.

Additionally, the director of the National Economic Council serving under president Joe Biden, Brian Deese, told the press that addressing Covid would help ease inflation. When ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos asked Deese if “there [is] anything president Biden can do” to address inflation, Deese responded by saying: “Number one: We have to finish [the] job on Covid…getting those shots out to 5-11-year-olds is gonna provide a lot of comfort to American families.”

What do you think about the rising inflation in America and the different viewpoints about the loss of purchasing power from U.S. officials and economists? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.