The President spent Sunday telling the country that grocery prices were “way down,” that energy was “way down,” that “everything is way down,” and that “the press doesn’t report it.”
Buddy. The press is reporting it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which the President fired the head of in August because he did not like what it was reporting, is still reporting it, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been reporting price information since 1884 and you cannot fire eight thousand career economists in one news cycle. The numbers, this week, said: groceries up 1.4 percent year-to-date. Consumer prices up 1.7 percent on average since January.
The President says down. The receipt says up. The receipt was right there in your bag from the supermarket. You looked at the eggs. You did not need a press release to look at the eggs.
I have run a casino floor. There is a thing the management does sometimes called the “comp sheet.” It says: this guest got a free drink, this guest got a free room, this guest got a free buffet. The comp sheet is what management tells management things are great. The receipt is what the guest takes home. The two never match. The casino still has to pay the bill at the end of the month.
This week, the Treasury Secretary went on three different cable shows and used three different price baselines. On Fox he was at one number. On NBC he was at another. On CNBC he picked a third. Every number he chose made the administration look better than the previous number. None of them matched the BLS. The Treasury Secretary is, by training, a hedge fund guy. The hedge fund guy knows what cherry-picking a comparison set looks like, because the hedge fund guy did it for thirty years.
The President is telling you down. The store is telling you up. The Bureau is telling you up. Your wife is telling you up. The receipt is telling you up.
Trust the receipt.
I’m arguing with the television again.
The breakdown.
- Factual basis U.S. consumer prices rose 1.7% on average in his second term per BLS; groceries up 1.4% Jan-Sept 2025.6/25
- Self-awareness He fired the BLS commissioner in August for the numbers; the numbers kept reporting.4/20
- Staff containment His own Treasury Secretary used different prices on different shows that week.7/20
- Recovery attempt By December he was calling affordability a 'hoax' outright.4/15
- Public spectacle Wall Street to Walmart, the disconnect was the week's running story.12/20
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