The prominent Canadian fashion and home decor retailer Simons is coming under fire for glorifying suicide as a marketing ploy. 

The company recently produced and released a three-minute film which celebrates the planned assisted suicide of Jennyfer Hatch. More recently, after the project was completed, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation confirmed that “The 37-year-old died on Oct. 23 and chose medical assistance in dying (MAID) after dealing with complications and chronic pain associated with her diagnosis of Ehlers Danlos syndrome, a group of inherited disorders that affect the connective tissue supporting many body parts.” A snippet of the fuller ad can be viewed below…

Canadian retailer Simons promotes assisted suicide in new ad campaign: pic.twitter.com/WUJbJ5kflr

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 27, 2022

And now she’s the subject of the short film and ad campaign “All is Beauty” – which the company claims is all about building a “human connection” and reflects its “values” (so… death/suicide). “Even now as I seek help to end my life, there is so much beauty,” Hatch narrates in the video for the Canadian clothes retailer.

CEO Peter Simons went so far as to reference lessons learned and the hardships of the Covid-19 pandemic as inspiration for the commercial/short film: 

“We really felt — after everything we’ve been through in the last two years and everyone’s been through — maybe it would resonate more to do a project that’s less commercially oriented and more focused on inspiration and values that we hold dear,” said Simons.

However, given the subject matter and eerie scenes like the below, it seems like something more out of a Black Mirror episode…

Consider too how loose the Canadian government’s “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) law is and how actively it is being promoted. A simple Google search of “Canada euthanasia law” returns info encouraging users to learn about their “rights” – which includes the following dystopian and disturbing aspect to the law… 

“…the law no longer requires a person’s natural death to be reasonably foreseeable to access medical assistance in dying.” 

But again, keep in mind that the “All is Beauty” ad film is ultimately all about a ‘woke’ corporation selling more of its product. As Rod Dreher of The American Conservative aptly points out: 

This is so evil. They are making a sick woman’s decision to end her life into an occasion of beauty, and created a short film glorifying suicide … for the sake of selling fashion and home decor! And that’s the truly creepy part about it: that they’re using a glamorized suicide to encourage people to think sympathetically of their brand, so they’ll buy clothes and furnishings there. (Note: an ad like this doesn’t have to directly market the product; a Japanese luxury car brand in the early 2000s, I think it was, pioneered this kind of advertising, designed to associate a certain aesthetic vibe around a product or company.)

See the full 3-minute version of the Simons short film below:

Dreher further concludes in the following: “First Balenciaga, which its child sex chic, and now Simons, selling frocks and trousers by selling suicide. This is beyond Late Roman Empire stuff. A culture that glorifies death like this has lost its collective will to live. And it won’t.”

And one commenter on Simons’ YouTube channel laments that “This woman was murdered and betrayed by every single person she knew who did not try to stop this. And now her death has been commodified and commercialized.”

Flip-flopping headlines from OPEC+ leaks and China COVID restrictions prompted a volatile day in crude markets today but WTI ended higher.

OPEC+ does “not like contango and that is what has raised market expectations of deeper cuts,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects, said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

“I’m not ruling out deeper cuts — that’s of course on the table — but I would say that’s not our base case.”

Earlier in the session, prices rallied above $79 a barrel after Beijing said it would bolster vaccination among seniors then prices briefly flirted with losses after Reuters reported that the production cartel would stick with its current oil-output policy

API

• Crude -7.85mm (-2.49mm exp) – biggest draw since April 2022

• Cushing -150k

• Gasoline +2.85mm

• Distillates +4.01mm

This is the 3rd sizable crude draw in a row…and the 3rd straight week of sizable product builds…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was hovering around $78.50 ahead of the API print and extended gains after…

Notably, the shape of the futures curve has flipped in recent weeks, continuing to signal an oversupplied market.

Source: Bloomberg

That is the largest contango since 2020.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

NBC News correspondent Miguel Almaguer has not appeared on the air since a Nov. 4 report on details surrounding the attack targeting Paul Pelosi last month was retracted without explanation.

Almaguer is usually featured on NBC’s “Today” and “Nightly News” programs. Reports earlier this month indicated that he was suspended by the network after the video report was retracted, and he has not been seen on NBC since then.

Meanwhile, NBC News or its parent company has not issued any statements on why Almaguer is gone, if he was suspended, and for how long. Almaguer also has not publicly commented on the matter.

NBC News has not returned a request for comment on Monday on if or when Almaguer will return. The Epoch Times also contacted Almaguer for comment.

After the report was pulled down from its “Today” website, NBC included an editor’s note saying, “This piece has been removed from publication because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards.”

What Was Said

In his retracted video report, Almaguer said that Paul Pelosi—the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—opened the door to their San Francisco home last month when police arrived. However, he did not try to escape or alert police to an emergency, and he instead walked to the police and back toward the alleged attacker, David DePape.

When his report was shared en masse on Nov. 4, coming days after the attack was reported, NBC removed the report from its website and social media.

Almaguer also has not posted on Twitter, where he is normally active, since Nov. 3. Last week, Almaguer posted photos of himself in Barcelona, Spain, on Instagram, suggesting he spent the Thanksgiving holiday there.

“After a ‘knock and announce,’ the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi. The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or tried to leave his home but instead began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police,” Almaguer said in the now-deleted Nov. 4 video report. Almaguer cited unnamed sources for the claims.

“It’s unclear if the 82-year-old was already injured or what his mental state was, say sources,” the NBC correspondent added.

His report appeared to contradict some official statements that were made by police and the local district attorney’s office, who said police officers arrived to find Pelosi struggling with DePape over a hammer. When police told the two to drop the hammer, DePape allegedly then struck Pelosi, 82, in the head with it, according to the DA’s office.

Earlier this month, a spokesperson for NBC told the Daily Beast that “we don’t comment on personnel matters.” Almaguer’s agent told Fox News on Monday they will not speak “on client matters.”

More Details

Pelosi’s office confirmed later that Paul Pelosi returned from the hospital about a week after the alleged attack. DePape has, in the meantime, pleaded not guilty to federal and state charges.

Paul Pelosi told a 911 dispatcher that he was sleeping when a man he had never seen before entered his bedroom looking for Nancy Pelosi, who was in Washington, D.C. Officers later found a broken glass door to the back porch. They recovered zip ties, a roll of tape, white rope, a second hammer, and a pair of rubber and cloth gloves, according to court documents.

Read more here…

A wave of deflationary impulses overnight from European inflation data combined with headlines suggesting China could be easing its COVID restrictions supported futures overnight but by the time the US cash markets opened, stocks were already leaking lower (not helped by weak housing data).

At around 1057ET, a headline hit that the Chinese city that houses the key iPhone production plant is set to loosen COVID restrictions – which would seem like good news – but instead it sent AAPL reeling and that dragged the entire market lower…

By the close, Small Caps managed gains. The Dow managed to get back to unch with some last minute magic, but Nasdaq the biggest loser…

The S&P traded around CTA momentum triggers:

• short-term 3879

• medium-term 3969 (most important)

• long-term 4064

Fed Chair Powell is due to speak tomorrow – his last public address before the FOMC meeting – which will be followed by Payrolls later in the week, and we suspect some anxiety on positioning is likely to have added to today’s fragility.

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields ended higher on the day, with the long-end underperforming as AMZN hit the calendar with some major issuance prompting rate-locks to reverse the TSY gains overnight…

Source: Bloomberg

The 10Y yield spiked up from overnight lows to run stops at Friday’s yield highs…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended the day lower but followed a similar trajectory top yesterday with overnight weakness reversing into gains during the EU/US session…

Source: Bloomberg

Overnight saw a bid hit Bitcoin, lifting the crypto back above $16,500…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices ended the day higher – though faced significant intraday volatility amid China and OPEC headlines…

Gold managed gains on the day, despite closing well off the intraday highs…

Finally, for the firs time since at least 2000 (since Bloomberg’s records began), the average yield on global sovereign debt maturing in 10 years or more has fallen below that of securities due in one-to-three years…

“Central bankers paralyzed by inflation fears will keep cash rates anchored in the restrictive zone for longer,” said Prashant Newnaha, a rates strategist at TD Securities Inc. in Singapore.

“This will be a key catalyst for ongoing curve flattening.”

The inversion of the yield curve is typically seen to herald a recession, as investors switch money to longer-term bonds due to pessimism over the economic outlook. Those fears are growing as policy makers around the world pledge further monetary tightening to tame rising consumer prices.

Authored by ‘BTCCasey’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Fidelity, one of the world’s largest financial services providers, has officially started opening retail bitcoin trading accounts.

The development comes after their announcement of a wait list previously this month. According to a report by The Block, certain users, presumably those on the wait list, received an email detailing the release, which stated that “The wait is over.”

Fidelity has been active in the bitcoin industry for some time — according to the company website, it began mining bitcoin in 2014. In addition, it launched a spot bitcoin ETF in Canada in December of 2021.

The financial services giant’s interest in bitcoin has not come without criticism, having been the subject of U.S. senators’ scrutiny for its offering of a 401k plan that allows users to allocate to bitcoin.

The same criticism has resurfaced again recently, from the same group of senators, who stated in their latest letter, “Fidelity Investments has opted to expand beyond traditional finance and delve into the highly unstable and increasingly risky digital asset market.”

Despite these warnings, Fidelity appears to be diving headfirst into bitcoin, as interest in bitcoin amongst the traditional finance community continues to grow. It should be noted, the move comes at a particularly interesting time, given recent developments surrounding the collapse of FTX and the heightened attention being paid to volatility in the industry.

With industry perception perched so precariously, the actions of behemoths like Fidelity will almost certainly have ramifications for the future of bitcoin regulation.

In the data-packed week, it is tomorrow’s speech by Fed chair Powell at Brookings titled “Economic Outlook and the Labor Market” (at 1:30pm) that is captivating markets.

As Goldman notes, it is the risk that Powell will once again unleash a market beatdown that is keeping sentiment depressed. As Goldman puts it “keep an eye on Powell speech wed for more verbal Financial Conditions tightening“. The Fed chair will discuss the economy and labor market; echoing the language in the post-meeting statement, FOMC participants argued that the level of the policy rate, the uncertain lags with which monetary policy affects activity, and the incoming data would all be important factors for the future path of monetary policy.

Powell speech comes just days after a more dovish than expected FOMC Minutes helped push stocks above 4,000, however briefly, as gains then vaporized amid the Covid zero drama and with Powell’s own speech looming. On Monday morning, Goldman trader Rich Privorotsky said to “expect the market to trade weak into the event…” and although there is little that he can say to make Fed not be data dependent (NFP and CPI pre Dec FOMC still matter) “he can start to shape the reaction function.”

As Privorotsky concludes, “the message will be hawkish, an attempt to reiterate that even if it looks like inflation is falling this Fed will keep real rates higher for longer to ensure inflation expectations come down to their objective (2%).” To be sure, markets are already frontrunning this with Goldman Prime writing that “flows last week showed selling with investors re-engaging with single stocks shorts “Macro Products were net bought, driven largely by short covering, while Single Stocks were net sold with short sales outpacing long buys (6.4 to 1).“

That’s the bad news: the good news is that as another Goldman trader, Michael Nocerino (both notes available to pro subs) writes, just days after the Powell speech, the Fed Blackout begins (Dec. 3) lasting ten days until the FOMC Dec 14 announcement; and as Nocerino reminds us, “recall last blackout Fed got dovish (FCI was at YTD highs, S&P was 3600-3700, 10yr was 4-4.3%, and there was fear of overtightening & market hopes of a potential pivot soared).” Now, however, the Goldman financial conditions index is back under 100, 10yr rates are at 3.7%, S&P is in a 3950-4000 range and the Fed is doing what they can to not lose ground, and yet Powell’s jawboning will the last of the Fed’s “verbal FCI tightening” while a disappointing payrolls report is set to follow immediately, with another weaker than expected CPI is on deck before the Dec FOMC.

Then there are the the technicals, while buybacks continue to crank at a very healthy clip, or roughly double the average pace at $6BN per day…

BUYBACKS…Volumes finished the week 2.0x vs 2021 FY ADTV. Currently estimate ~98% of S&P to be in their open window. Per our estimates, this is roughly $6B/day in demand

We are still currently in an estimated open window with ~98% of the S&P 500 estimated to be in their open period when they have the ability to enter discretionary repurchase orders. Historically, we typically see November to be a more active month of the year as majority of companies are estimated to be in their open window. We estimate the next blackout window will begin ~12/19…

… it is what CTAs do next that will be critical. As Nocerino explains, “keep an eye on this math this morning…we closed right around the MT threshold of 3969. This should hinder the demand we’ve been seeing. Would also note that they have covered and gone long a decent amount ($153B) so the demand will start to dwindle.” And some more details from his Goldman trading colleague, John Flood:

CTAs are currently long $4.1b of S&P. Over the last week we estimate CTAs have purchased $8.2b S&P (+$23b over the last month). This S&P demand has now flipped to supply (an $8b reversal overnight) as CTA medium term momentum pivoted from positive to negative with S&P closing below 3969 (short term momentum trigger is 3879 and long term is 4064). Medium term momentum is the most followed threshold in terms of total CTA AUM.

Yesterday we estimated +$8b of S&P to buy over 1 week in a flat (medium term Mo was positive)…

Versus today we now estimate -$172mm of S&P for sale in a flat tape (Medium term Mo negative south of 3969)…

Translation: much will depend on where the S&P closes today and in the next few days; here again are the key CTA levels:

• short-term 3879
• medium-term 3969 (most important)
• long-term 4064

Oh, and those asking if pensions will spoil the party with another month-end dump, here is the answer: according to Goldman, the November Pension rabalnce has funds sitting on $1BN to Buy, “a non-event.”

In summary, if Powell fails to spark another selloff, and stocks close above 3,969, the blackout period of no more Fed jawboning until Mid-December may be all that is needed to push the S&P into the year-end meltup which both Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank now expect as their base case.

All reports mentioned above available to pro subs.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Anthony Fauci once again defended brutal Chinese lockdowns, admitting that the Communist government is forcefully locking people inside buildings but adding that if it means people get vaccinated then he is “okay” with it.

“China’s official news agency today published an op-ed asserting that the country’s strict COVID measure are scientific and effective. Are they?” host CNN host Jake Tapper asked.

“Well when you want to shut down in order to interrupt immediately a process that’s going on like the spread of infection, there should be a purpose to it like you want to make sure you get enough ventilators or enough PPE or you want to get your population vaccinated,” Fauci responded.

“The comment that I made about their severe actions that they’ve taken is that you have to have an endgame,” Fauci continued, adding “What’s the purpose? If the purpose is let’s get all the people vaccinated, particularly the elderly, then OK. For a temporary period of time to do that, but they have very, very strict type of a lockdown.”

Tapper further stated “obviously I’m not here to defend the Chinese government, but they say they’re doing it just to stop the spread, right?”

Biden Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci on China’s draconian lockdowns: “If the purpose is ‘let’s get all the people vaccinated, particularly the elderly,’ then okay” pic.twitter.com/MMIXJJDpu0

— Brad Porcellato (@BradPorcellato) November 29, 2022

Fauci made the comments despite the fact that China has exploded into chaos with protests over the government locking people inside a building in the northwestern Xinjiang region that caught fire, killing up to forty people.

Fauci has continuously expressed support for lockdowns, particularly in China.

Flashback!

In April 2022, Dr. Fauci praises China’s lockdowns: “Better than anyone else” pic.twitter.com/yOSoyeyIVG

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 28, 2022

During the same interview, Fauci claimed that he’s “almost certain” his NIH didn’t fund the gain of function research in Wuhan that led to the lab leak of the particular virus that caused the pandemic:

@R_H_Ebright How many lies were told in this less than two minute segment?

— Drew Hawk (@WeGotOneBich) November 28, 2022

That is quite some spin.

As we highlighted yesterday, Fauci blamed President Trump Sunday for China’s continued obfuscation of the origins of COVID, and refused to call China’s actions a “cover up”.

Fauci defends China for covering up COVID origins, blames Trump for it pic.twitter.com/U08yPQxxL5

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 27, 2022

Anthony Fauci is asked if he agrees with using the words “cover-up” and “intentional distortion” to describe China’s role in COVID.

FAUCI: “I don’t know what that means, no.” pic.twitter.com/NbJnIG1AuC

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 27, 2022

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has refused to denounce China’s crackdown on protesters, or the Communist state’s Zero COVID lockdown policy:

Could they issue a weaker statement please 🙏

— Dave Danna (@DaveEDanna) November 28, 2022

Pitiful. At a potentially historic inflection point, Dems shill for the CCP.

Pure weakness from the Biden administration.

It’s almost as if Biden wishes he was driving a tank in Tiananmen Square…. https://t.co/rTx5kkABg4

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 28, 2022

Remember, no Western leaders said a thing about the CCP’s covid zero lockdowns

The same way they are silent about the protests today

They’re all on the same team

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 28, 2022

A reporter asks John Kirby if a statement issued earlier in the day included explicit calls for China to stop detaining and harming protesters and journalists:

“We continue to stand up and support the right of peaceful protests.” pic.twitter.com/B93kDKy2Ak

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 28, 2022

A reporter asks John Kirby if Biden supports the efforts of protesters in China to regain personal freedoms in light of lockdowns:

“The White House supports the right of peaceful protest.” pic.twitter.com/68dTtVnAHK

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 28, 2022

John Kirby on the protests in China: “The President’s not going to speak for protesters around the world. They’re speaking for themselves.” pic.twitter.com/6Vp7gEGE9h

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 28, 2022

Peter Doocy: “Why the White House’s line that ‘Everybody has the right to peacefully protest’ and not ‘The US thinks it’s bad to lock people up in their houses to stop COVID’?”

John Kirby: “We’ve made it clear that a lockdown is not a policy that we’re going to support here.” pic.twitter.com/iaIeHT3tvF

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 28, 2022

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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Under pressure from President Biden, Speaker Pelosi said that House lawmakers will take up legislation on Wednesday to stop a nationwide strike by railroad workers by imposing a proposed contract that members at four railroad unions had rejected, saying Congress needs to intervene to prevent devastating job losses.

“I don’t like going against the ability of unions to strike, but weighing the equities, we must avoid a strike. Jobs will be lost, even union jobs will be lost, water will not be safe, product will not be going to market,” she said.

Both sides in the negotiations had agreed to a cooling-off period until Dec. 9 with the sticking points involving work schedules and paid sick time.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, under the Railway Labor Act, Congress can make both sides accept an agreement that their members have voted down.

As you would expect some Democrats are hesitant to bite the hand that feeds them and tell labor unions what to do; and some union leaders have already expressed their ire at the intervention.

“We’ve made it clear we wanted this process to play out, and we even asked Congress not to intervene in this process because by doing that, it takes away any leverage we have with the industry,” said Michael Baldwin, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.

Michael Paul Lindsey, a locomotive engineer in Idaho and steering committee member for Railroad Workers United, told Insider it was a “blatant betrayal,” but he wasn’t surprised.

“I thought it was kind of laughable that anyone would think that either the Democrats or the Republicans actually cared. Bottom line, they care about money,” he said.

Even so, “there was always that hope in the back of my mind that maybe someone would do something that was actually right for the American worker for once — instead of just what’s right for corporate America.”

Republicans have traditionally philosophically-opposed government intervention into private contractual obligations, and Senator Marco Rubio has vociferously defended the workers’ rights:

“Just because Congress has the authority to impose a heavy-handed solution does not mean we should,” he said.

“It is wrong for the Biden administration, which has failed to fight for workers, to ask Congress to impose a deal the workers themselves have rejected.”

We will see tomorrow if Pelosi really does have the votes she claims to pass this bill.

Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

When people talk about “inflation” today, they generally mean rising prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). But historically, “inflation” was more precisely defined as an increase in the amount of money and credit causing advances in the price level. Inflation used to be understood as an increase in the money supply. Rising prices were a symptom of inflation.

I find this change in definition problematic. But many disagree with me. They argue that I’m being pedantic and the definition doesn’t really matter all that much.

In a social media exchange, I argued that rising oil prices due to the invasion of Ukraine weren’t technically “inflation” but are better described as price shocks. Price shocks do, in fact, raise prices. And those price increases can cascade through the economy. But unlike price increases due to an increase in the money supply, decreases in other areas of the economy will ultimately balance out price shocks (absent inflation) as people shift spending patterns. For example, if people are paying more for gasoline, they may cancel vacation plans. This drop in travel demand will cause hotel prices to fall.

In contrast, a rise in the money supply (inflation) will cause a general rise in prices with no corresponding price decreases.

“Joe,” a commenter on Facebook, disagreed.

You’re wrong. What you call ‘price shock’ is in fact inflation. The BULK of inflation is in fact Fed debasing the currency as you note. The inflation of prices is also a function of market forces that have nothing to do with the Fed. These pale in comparison to adding mega-trillions of dollars to the currency supply.”

If you read carefully, you’ll see that Joe simply substituted the current definition of inflation for the historical definition. He lumped price increases caused by Federal Reserve monetary expansion and price shocks together under one banner — inflation.

So, what’s the problem?

I can understand why people might think that this is nothing more than semantical nit-picking. After all, word meanings evolve over time. When I insisted on the classical definition of inflation, Joe argued that there was no reason to hold fast to archaic terms.

That you believe modern vernacular of the term includes things you think did not used to be in the term is meaningless. Why should I care about anachronistic uses of terms? I speak in the modern vernacular. I, for example, don’t speak in Elizabethan English so I’m not a KJV kind of guy. Likewise, I won’t insist on something from the 70s, because economic policy 50 years ago doesn’t mean a whole lot to me right now.”

The problem is that this change in definition creates confusion. And I believe that is precisely why government officials and the academics who support them have worked to change the common meaning of inflation.

Economist Ludwig von Mises warned about this shifting definition decades ago.  In his essay “Inflation: An Unworkable Fiscal Policy, Mises reiterated the precise definition of inflation.

Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country, means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check.”

Over the years, the government, along with its apologists in the corporate media and academia, altered the definition. Why? To suit government purposes. The standard definition of inflation bandied about today is nothing more than government propaganda.

Mises explains the problem with this change in definitions.

People today use the term `inflation’ to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. . . . As you cannot talk about something that has no name, you cannot fight it. Those who pretend to fight inflation are in fact only fighting what is the inevitable consequence of inflation, rising prices. Their ventures are doomed to failure because they do not attack the root of the evil. They try to keep prices low while firmly committed to a policy of increasing the quantity of money that must necessarily make them soar. As long as this terminological confusion is not entirely wiped out, there cannot be any question of stopping inflation.”

In other words, the modern definition allows policymakers to shift the blame to other things while continuing their expansionary monetary policy.

Keep in mind, the Federal Reserve (and all global central banks) constantly inflate the money supply as a matter of policy. After all, the inflation “target” is 2%!

In fact, inflation is a stealth tax.

The inflation tax is the primary way the US government finances its deficit spending. The federal government spends billions of dollars every month, but it doesn’t collect enough taxes to cover its costs. That means it has to run deficits. The Federal Reserve monetizes those deficits. In effect, it prints money. They call it quantitative easing, but when you boil it all down, they’re just inflating the currency. As the money supply grows, prices rise and you feel the pain every time you go to the grocery store or the gas station. The government is getting bigger and bigger, and families across America are bearing that burden through higher prices.

The government loves the inflation tax because it never has to accept responsibility for levying that tax. It can blame it on all kinds of other factors like corporate greed, the pandemic, or “Putin’s price hikes” (i.e. oil price shocks).

This is especially true if you redefine inflation as simply “rising prices.” You lose the ability to parse out the impact of monetary policy.

If we use the traditional definition of inflation as an “expansion of the supply of money,” the culprit becomes clear. Who expands the supply of money? It’s the Fed and the federal government. So, if you accurately define inflation, you know exactly who’s to blame. But if the government can fool people into believing that one effect of inflation is inflation, they can blame it on everybody but themselves.

This is not to say price shocks and other factors don’t cause prices to rise. This is not to minimize the impacts of those price increases on our lives. The point is it’s important to distinguish inflation – an increase in the money supply causing a general rise in prices – from other factors driving prices higher. Without a precise definition, we lose our ability to talk about the phenomenon of rising prices and monetary expansion with any precision. And the government gets away with harmful policies.

By Ven Ram, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and reporter

Sometimes, just sometimes, the markets want to hear what they want to and discard what seems discordant — even if policymakers keep hammering home the same message.

And so it was on Monday when Federal Reserve speakers let traders know that they were underestimating their intent on how far rates may climb in this cycle. Fed St. Louis President James Bullard, who has often been an accurate bellwether for where benchmark rates are headed, put it bluntly:

• The Fed needs to get to the bottom end of the 5%-7% range;

• Markets are underpricing the risk that the policy committee may be more aggressive; and

• The Fed needs to move farther into restrictive territory

His New York counterpart, John Williams, followed up with remarks that the Fed will need to stick with a restrictive policy through next year, meaning a rate cut — contrary to market expectations — is unlikely before 2024. For good measure, he has revised up his rate trajectory since the September dot plot.

Despite those reminders, Treasuries seem to be singing from a different hymn sheet of late. Two-year yields have basically sleepwalked through November, while 10-year Treasuries have rallied on conviction that the economy is wilting. It’s the reaction at the front end of the curve that seems particularly jarring. Front-end Treasuries don’t seem to give one the impression that they are quite priced for a terminal rate that may be higher than 5%.

Analysis shows that the differential between front-end yields and the Fed’s benchmark has always been positive before the conclusion of monetary tightening. And the Fed hasn’t been able to conclude its tightening cycle before the real funds rates is significantly positive — and at the moment we are at around -1%.

Given all the concerns about the strength of the economy, long-dated Treasuries may still be relatively better bid, but the front end could come for a re-assessment in the days to come.