<a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/cryptocurrency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cryptocurrency</a> lender BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on Monday as a liquidity crisis continues to upend the nascent digital asset sector.
Despite measures taken to protect the company from fallout related to defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which was expected to acquire BlockFi, executives announced efforts to “consummate a comprehensive restructuring transaction that maximizes value” for stakeholders.
“From inception, BlockFi has worked to positively shape the cryptocurrency industry and advance the sector,” Berkeley Research Group Managing Director Mark Renzi, a financial adviser to the company, said in a <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221128005451/en/BlockFi-Commences-Restructuring-Proceeding-to-Stabilize-Business-and-Maximize-Value-for-all-Clients-and-Stakeholders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. “BlockFi looks forward to a transparent process that achieves the best outcome for all clients and other stakeholders.”
BlockFi, which presently has $256.9 million on hand, has frozen the use of its platform. The company listed an outstanding $275 million loan to FTX.US in a bankruptcy filing, according to a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/28/blockfi-files-for-bankruptcy-as-ftx-fallout-spreads.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from CNBC. The company “expects that recoveries from FTX will be delayed” as fallout in the cryptocurrency sector continues.
The House Financial Services Committee is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bipartisan-committee-to-hear-from-sam-bankman-fried-and-crypto-allies-next-month" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preparing to hold</a> hearings regarding the collapse of FTX, which is based in the Bahamas, as the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission continue their own investigations. Regulators are renewing calls for enhanced federal oversight of the industry.
FTX, which had been controlled by 30-year-old multibillionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, filed for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30-year-old-billionaire-loses-entire-fortune-overnight-as-his-bahamas-based-cryptocurrency-empire-implodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bankruptcy</a> after users discovered that trading firm Alameda Research, a company run by former Bankman-Fried love interest Caroline Ellison, had allegedly been using funds from FTX to make investments. Bankman-Fried, whose fortune disappeared overnight when his company folded, initially sought $8 billion from investors to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-crypto-billionaire-sam-bankman-fried-whose-entire-fortune-just-went-to-zero-is-calling-around-for-new-investors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cover withdrawal requests</a> made by customers after the bankruptcy filing. A number of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-investors-who-lost-millions-in-the-ftx-implosion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">institutional investors</a> marked down their shares in the company over the past several days.
John Ray III, the lawyer who represented plaintiffs after the collapse of Enron, said that the cryptocurrency empire run by Bankman-Fried was the worst example of mismanagement he has ever witnessed. “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray, who succeeded Bankman-Fried as chief executive to manage the bankruptcy, said in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawyer-overseeing-ftx-fallout-never-in-my-career-have-i-seen-such-a-complete-failure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">court documents</a>. “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”
Bankman-Fried garnered controversy as a result of his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-democrats-and-republicans-who-received-campaign-cash-linked-to-bankrupt-crypto-empire-ftx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extensive contributions</a> to the Democratic Party, to which he was among the largest contributors in the most recent midterm elections, as well as his parents’ <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mother-of-disgraced-crypto-billionaire-sam-bankman-fried-is-a-democratic-fundraiser-who-once-wrote-essay-blasting-personal-responsibility" target="_blank" rel="noopener">connections</a> within left-wing political circles. The possible fraudster has also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/left-of-center-media-accepted-millions-from-democrat-donor-and-disgraced-crypto-wunderkind-sam-bankman-fried" target="_blank" rel="noopener">donated millions</a> to media outlets such as Vox, ProPublica, and The Intercept.
Earlier this year, cryptocurrency companies Voyager and Celsius declared bankruptcy. Lawmakers recently increased their <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-renew-push-for-cryptocurrency-regulations-target-company-that-serves-as-both-exchange-and-bank" target="_blank" rel="noopener">skepticism</a> of SoFi, a company which operates both a bank holding company and a cryptocurrency exchange, while other cryptocurrency firms such as Genesis have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/second-major-cryptocurrency-exchange-could-be-poised-to-go-bankrupt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">indicated</a> the looming possibility of bankruptcy. Genesis is owned by Digital Currency Group, which also holds investments in popular exchange platform Coinbase and several dozen other cryptocurrency ventures, according to a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/21/silence-digital-currency-group-dcg-genesis-crypto" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from Axios. Genesis ceased withdrawals and new loan activity last week.

Crypto Lender BlockFi Plans Bankruptcy Filing Within Days In FTX Fallout

Crypto Company BlockFi Files For Bankruptcy After FTX Collapse

Another Major Crypto Company Files For Bankruptcy

Business

Cryptocurrency

Economics

Securities and Exchange Commission

Speaking at the B20 event in Bali, part of the G20 summit, which is comprised of 19 countries and the European Union, Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), spoke of his hopes for a “deep systemic and structural restructuring of our world.”
Back in the midst of the COVID epidemic, Schwab seized the opportunity to advance his agenda, <a href="https://www.globalgovernanceproject.org/the-great-reset/klaus-schwab/">writing</a>, “There is now a brief opportunity for global leaders to cooperate to achieve a ‘Great Reset’ – a step forwards to a more resilient, cohesive, equitable and prosperous world.”
“If we look at all the challenges, we can speak about the multi crises, economic, political, social, ecological, and institutional crises,” Schwab said at the G20 summit. “But actually, what we have to confront is a deep systemic and structural restructuring of our world. And this will take some time and the world will look differently after we have gone through this transition process.”
“Politically, the driving forces for this transformation, of course, is the political transition into a multi (unintelligible) world, which has a tendency to make our world much more fragmented. For this reason, events like this one, the G20 and so on, are the very important connectors to unwind a too great segmentation &#8230;” he continued.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Klaus Schwab is now part of the G20 and here he is giving his instructions directly to our &quot;elected&quot; leaders…
🔊sound &#8230;🧐<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WEF?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WEF</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/KlausSchwab?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#KlausSchwab</a> <a href="https://t.co/SSpLUkUONI">pic.twitter.com/SSpLUkUONI</a>
&mdash; Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) <a href="https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1592519737677959172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“We have continuous partnerships with many governments around the world,” Schwab has said in the past. “Then of course, we have NGOs, we have trade unions, we have all those different parts – media, of course – and very important experts and scientists and academia … religious leaders, social entrepreneurs …”
“We can, says Schwab, cure ‘inequality and the unfairness that underpins it,” Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro wrote in a piece titled, “<a href="https://dailywire.com/news/ben-shapiro-the-real-story-of-the-great-reset/">The Real Story Of The Great Reset</a>.”
“He doesn’t mean that we ought to press forward free markets and property rights more broadly – the greatest alleviators of poverty in human history,” Shapiro continued. “Instead, he means we ought reorganize the global economy in centralized fashion. Every country ought to pursue ‘a broader, if not universal provision of social assistance,’ plus ‘a move toward enhanced protection for workers in the form of mandatory benefits.’ This inevitably means that governments will ‘decide that it’s in the best interest of society to rewrite some of the rules of the game and permanently increase their roles.’”

Greentech Festival 2020 – Day 1

WEF Chairman Urges World Leaders For ‘Deep Systemic And Structural Restructuring Of Our World’

WEF Chairman Urges World Leaders For 'Deep Systemic And Structural Restructuring Of Our World'

Klaus Schwab

Politics

World

World Economic Forum

<a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/democrats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Democrats</a> heavily benefited from the campaign contributions of disgraced cryptocurrency billionaire and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, while other affiliates of the company likewise helped <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/republicans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Republicans</a> ahead of the company’s failure last week.
FTX filed for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/30-year-old-billionaire-loses-entire-fortune-overnight-as-his-bahamas-based-cryptocurrency-empire-implodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bankruptcy</a> on Friday after users discovered that firms controlled by Bankman-Fried were allegedly fraudulently intertwined, causing him to lose his fortune overnight. The young multibillionaire contributed nearly $39 million during the recent midterm elections, with 99.6% of funds benefiting Democratic candidates, according to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/top_donors/2022?disp=D&amp;type=V&amp;superonly=N" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from Open Secrets, which listed him as the nation’s sixth-largest individual midterm donor.
The 30 year old <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/donor_detail/2022?id=U0000004705&amp;type=I&amp;super_only=N&amp;name=Bankman-Fried%2C+Sam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">donated</a> $27 million to Protect Our Future PAC, a left-leaning group which in turn <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/protect-our-future-pac/C00801514/independent-expenditures/2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spent</a> heavily on behalf of Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. A contribution of over $10 million from Protect Our Future PAC benefited Carrick Flynn, who lost his Democratic primary in Oregon. Other beneficiaries included Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA), Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), Rep. Robert Garcia (D-NC), and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), all of whom won re-election.
Bankman-Fried also contributed $1 million to the Senate Majority PAC, which supports Democratic candidates for the Senate, and $6 million to the House Majority PAC. During the 2020 election cycle, he was the second-largest donor to the Biden campaign.
Bankman-Fried directly supported a number of individual candidates as well. Two such candidates, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) and Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-IL) donated their respective $5,000 and $2,900 contributions to charity after FTX filed for bankruptcy, according to a <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/186918/gop-lawmaker-donates-ftx-execs-campaign-contribution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from The Block.
FTX Co-CEO Ryan Salame donated heavily to right-leaning organizations, according to more <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/donor_detail/2022?id=U0000004758&amp;type=I&amp;super_only=N&amp;name=Salame%2C+Ryan+D.+%26+Susan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from Open Secrets. He contributed $12 million to American Dream Federal Action, a right-leaning group which <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/C00809020/independent-expenditures/2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spent</a> on behalf of candidates such as victorious Republican Senate nominees Ted Budd and Katie Britt, of North Carolina and Alabama, respectively.
Salame also contributed $2 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $2.5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which are the Republican equivalents of the House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC. The latter group, which is directed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), came under criticism following the midterms for arguably deprioritizing important swing-state races critical to Republicans.
Bankman-Fried, a self-proclaimed “effective altruist,” had been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/billionaire-ftx-founder-who-lost-entire-fortune-gave-massive-sum-to-democrats-before-empire-collapsed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preparing</a> to spend as much as $1 billion during the 2024 election cycle to keep the Democratic Party in control of the White House. His parents, Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-ukraine-and-a-30-year-old-crypto-billionaire-how-the-implosion-of-ftx-connects-to-the-global-elite" target="_blank" rel="noopener">well-connected</a> within Democratic circles. The former has aided Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) with drafting financial regulations, while the latter leads Mind the Gap, a left-wing organization which raises funds for the Democrats among wealthy Silicon Valley donors.
Earlier this year, Bankman-Fried launched an initiative alongside Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation to fundraise for the embattled nation, which has received billions in humanitarian and military <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-sending-5-5-billion-more-in-aid-to-ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aid</a> from the Biden administration, marking “the first instance of a cryptocurrency exchange providing a conduit for crypto donations to a public financial institution,” according to a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ukraines-ministry-of-digital-transformation-ftx-and-everstake-launch-crypto-fundraising-site-aid-for-ukraine-301501959.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> from a Ukrainian-based cryptocurrency firm. FTX converted the donations into fiat currencies and transmitted the funds to the National Bank of Ukraine.

Collage Maker-15-Nov-2022-10.05-AM

Here Are The Democrats And Republicans Who Received Campaign Cash Linked To Bankrupt Crypto Empire FTX

Democrats Benefited Heavily From Crypto Empire FTX, But Republicans Did Too

Democrats

Republicans

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who during her tenure has had Chicago cops <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/chicago-cops-turn-backs-on-mayor-after-female-cop-killed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">turn their backs</a> on her, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lori-lightfoots-private-text-during-george-floyd-riots-the-city-is-up-for-grabs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">texted</a> “this city is up for grabs” when riots broke out after the death of George Floyd, and <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/i-have-the-biggest-d-in-chicago-chicago-mayor-lightfoot-accused-of-raging-against-officials-who-wanted-to-display-columbus-statue-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">boasted</a>, “I have the biggest d*** in Chicago” when she attacked a former Chicago Park District official who made a deal with an Italian American group to allow a Christopher Columbus statue to be used in a parade, has now decided she is worthy of a 5% raise in salary.
Lightfoot said on Wednesday she endorsed a plan that would tie her salary, as well as those of  the mayor, city clerk and treasurer, to inflation. The pay raise would be capped at 5% and could take effect in 2024.
“To be clear, the ordinance that was introduced today would put the mayor, the city treasurer and the clerk in line with (aldermen) regarding a cost-of-living increase,” Lightfoot <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chicago-mayor-pay-city-salary-20221026-qb2nm4jh2jhczmx46b5viq47fi-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>. “It’s not a salary increase.”
The mayor&#8217;s salary has been the same since 2006.
In September, Lightfoot protested that she had not “raised that issue” of her salary, insisting, “I think there’s conversation around … some of the other citywide elected officials.&#8221;
&#8220;You’re aware that the mayor’s compensation hasn’t been changed in, I think, almost 20 years. But that’s not really what I’m focused on. I’m focused on making sure that we do the work of the people of the city every single day.”
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11360051/Chicago-Mayor-Lori-Lightfoot-proposes-pay-rise-despite-criticism-spiraling-crime-rate.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Violent crime</a> is up in Chicago 37% this year; over 2,300 shooting incidents have been reported.

US-NEWS-CHICAGO-GUNS-TIPS-1-TB

Lori Lightfoot Endorses Herself Getting 1st Pay Hike For Chicago Mayor In 16 Years

Chicago

Lori Lightfoot

Question of the Day: Should you leave your children an inheritance?
You guys know my story. I didn&#8217;t come from anything. But now that I&#8217;m raising children, I get worried that I am spoiling them and they won’t learn to appreciate hard work. They need to have a little bit of struggle to understand how to be productive human beings in society.
I think about it even with my son&#8217;s little actions that he does — when he doesn&#8217;t want to eat his food and he just sticks his head up, sticks his nose up.
I think to myself, I was not allowed to do that as a kid. I would get smacked in the back of the head if I didn&#8217;t eat my food.
Now, of course, my son isn&#8217;t even two years old, so he&#8217;s got plenty of time. But what about people that grow up and they&#8217;ve always had every single thing they’ve ever wanted? Do these people turn out to be okay?
I think the answer is mostly no, and I&#8217;ll tell you why.
There&#8217;s one experience that has really stuck with me. And I say this with sympathy in my heart. There was a girl that I was best friends with throughout my college years and I’m still good friends with her. She is actually a good person, but she grew up with a little bit of wealth.
Her parents were able to give her whatever she wanted. She was the firstborn in her family and after school, we both moved to New York City.
I remember being with her right after her father decided it was time for her to start taking care of herself.
So, I have worked since I was actually 14 years-old. I had to take out student loans to go to college. I&#8217;ve always had to pay my own rent in life. If I was not paying my own rent, I would have been living at home.
My friend didn’t have that experience, so this entire concept of supporting herself really caught her off guard.
Her dad was very fair about it. These were the rules that he established. He told her every three months he was going to remove 25% from his financial support.
So essentially, when she moved to New York City, he was covering 100% of her rent and expenses. So for example, he would start off giving her $2,000 per month, then three months later knock that support down to $1,500, and then three months later $1,000 and so and so forth.
Personally, I thought this was a pretty good deal — giving her an entire year before she would have to support herself.
Yet it devastated her.
Obviously, she was suddenly realizing that money does not come out of thin air, that she was not making enough money to live in New York City. I remember going over to her house when she was having a legitimate anxiety attack. She was crying, breathing deeply.
I was trying to calm her down when she said something to me that never left me. She said, “If my dad wanted me to figure out how to support myself, then maybe he shouldn&#8217;t have gotten me a pony.”
She was being very serious. She wasn&#8217;t making a joke.
And I remember looking at her almost like an alien visiting another planet. I couldn&#8217;t even comprehend the words coming out of her mouth, but I  knew that she meant the words sincerely.
Again, she was not a bad person. She was a person that had never been made to suffer. And being cut off from her father was the first form of “suffering” that she had to experience — a full year to figure out how to support herself in her young twenties.
While I felt bad for her, I realized at that moment I was grateful to have come from nothing because it had completely changed my perspective throughout life.
It made it so that I had to work harder from a younger age. I understood that everything she had was a sign of privilege.
She had the exact opposite of what I experienced. She had no perspective of where the money came from.
And because of that, I believe firmly in “rich kids&#8217; problems.”
It is a legitimate problem.
We have to do a better job. So I ask the question again, should you leave your children with everything you worked for? Does it actually produce a good human being at the end of that lifetime?

Candace_4b_216x9 copy 32 (1)

Rich Kid ‘Problems’ And Leaving Your Children An Inheritance

Candace Owens

Money

Readers Pass

Thousands of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/florida" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Floridians</a> without flood insurance could face financial ruin in the wake of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hurricane-ian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hurricane Ian</a>, which first <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/millions-left-without-power-as-hurricane-ian-devastates-florida" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hit</a> the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday, according to a new <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/01/hurricane-ian-will-financially-ruin-homeowners-00059615" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>.
Large swaths of Florida’s western coastline, including the Fort Myers area, were battered by Ian as ocean waters slammed the coast and the storm brought massive rainfall, leading to the flooding of inland areas where people are less likely to have flood insurance. 
“Ian could financially ruin thousands of families in Florida. There’s no better way to say it,” Mark Friedlander of the Insurance Information Institute told Politico. He added that people could be “devastated” by the impact of the storm, especially if they did not have flood insurance. 
According to E&amp;E News, only 29% of individuals in the nine counties with a disaster <a href="https://www.wptv.com/weather/hurricane/president-joe-biden-approves-major-disaster-declaration-for-9-florida-counties-after-hurricane-ian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declaration</a> approved by the White House have flood insurance. The counties, Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Hardee, Hillsborough, Lee, Manatee, Pinellas and Sarasota, are home to roughly 2.8 million people. 
In Hardee County, which has around 8,000 households, only 100 are covered with federal flood insurance. This means that thousands of residents could be in serious trouble if their homes were destroyed as a result of Ian. 
“There are going to be a lot of folks without flood coverage,” said Carolyn Kousky, an expert on floods. “If you don’t have insurance, economic recovery from these events is really hard.”
<div id="attachment_444859" style="width: 500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-444859" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-444859" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GettyImages-1243632309-300x186.jpg" alt="" width="490" height="305" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/10/GettyImages-1243632309-300x186.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/10/GettyImages-1243632309-929x576.jpg 929w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/10/GettyImages-1243632309-768x476.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/10/GettyImages-1243632309.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px" />FORT MYERS BEACH, FL &#8211; SEPTEMBER 30 Storm damage from Hurricane Ian at Fort Myers Beach, FL, on Friday, September 30, 2022. (Ted Richardson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)</div>
According to one <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/hurricane-ians-damage-reach-65-billion/story?id=90693223">estimate</a>, the storm could cost between $55-65 billion in damage to infrastructure, homes, and farms in the Sunshine State. Florida’s citrus industry is expected to take an especially hard hit because of the storm.
Florida’s insurance industry is also facing financial difficulties, which could be exacerbated by the aftermath of the massive storm. 
“Florida is already having a problem with [insurance] availability. It’s having a problem with affordability. And it’s having a problem with reliability when insurance companies are going insolvent,” said Nancy Watkins, a principal with an actuarial consulting group. “All three of the pillars of a sustainable market are under threat.” 
Since hitting Florida, Hurricane Ian has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ian-downgraded-to-post-tropical-storm-flash-flooding-high-winds-still-expected-to-batter-carolinas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">downgraded</a> to Post-Tropical Cyclone Ian as it moves across the eastern <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/south-carolina-piers-collapsing-one-floating-south-as-ian-strikes-again">Carolinas</a>, but officials are still warning of dangerous conditions brought on by the storm.
The National Hurricane Center <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?start">said</a> Friday afternoon that high winds of up to 70 mph are expected to continue through early Saturday along the coasts of South Carolina and in southeastern North Carolina. “Considerable flooding” is also forecast for the Carolinas and southeast Virginia.
The agency previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/not-out-of-the-woods-yet-hurricane-ian-makes-landfall-again-in-south-carolina">warned</a> residents of coastal South Carolina that storm surges could reach heights of seven feet in some areas if peak surges occur during high tide. Video of the touristy downtown Charleston, South Carolina, showed major flooding already affecting the city. Downed power lines were also reported in the area.
Zach Jewell contributed to this report.

Hurricane Ian hits Florida

Thousands Of Florida Households Facing Financial ‘Ruin’ In Wake Of Hurricane Ian

Thousands Of Florida Households Facing Possible Financial 'Ruin' In Wake Of Hurricane Ian

Florida

Hurricane Ian

Welcome to Bidenomics, where the president&#8217;s plans to fix the student debt crisis could drive up both <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inflation</a> and the overall cost of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/colleges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">college,</a> while doing nothing to fix the root of the problem, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/national-debt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cost</a> taxpayers as much as $1 trillion.
According to the Wharton School, the plan is going to cost a bit more than the marketed $300 billion price tag. Biden&#8217;s “debt cancellation alone will cost up to $519 billion, with about 75% of the benefit accruing to households making $88,000 or less,” Wharton <a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/8/26/biden-student-loan-forgiveness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> in a new study.
“Loan forbearance will cost another $16 billion” and “the new income-driven repayment (IDR) program would cost another $70 billion, increasing the total plan cost to $605 billion” at a minimum based on Wharton&#8217;s model.
“Depending on future IDR program details to be released and potential behavioral (i.e., &#8216;non-static&#8217;) changes, total plan costs could exceed $1 trillion,” the school warned.
For his part, Biden doesn&#8217;t believe that massive government spending contributes to inflation. In the spring, the president <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/im-sick-of-this-stuff-biden-complains-that-the-american-people-believe-increased-government-spending-causes-inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">barked</a> that he was “sick” of criticism against his administration&#8217;s spending plans.
“We have to talk about it because the American people think the reason for inflation is government spending more money. It’s simply not true,” he claimed. Even the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-covid-health-business-772e1eb45fb5981f3a2b6f2a4b0d201f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dinged</a> Biden for that false statement, explaining to the president that high spending does indeed contribute to rising prices.
Yet even before Wharton&#8217;s astronomical pricetag was released, folks like former President Barack Obama&#8217;s top economic advisor Larry Summers were blasting Biden&#8217;s bailout. Summers argued this week that the plan will add to inflation woes.
“Every dollar spent on student loan relief is a dollar that could have gone to support those who don’t get the opportunity to go to college,” Summers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/raises-demand-and-increases-inflation-obamas-top-economist-shreds-biden-plan-for-student-loan-cancellation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a>.
“Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college,” he added. “It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.”
Richard Vedder, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and an economics professor, also recently <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/student-loan-handout-illegal-inflationary-immoral-inequitable">explained</a> for Fox News that the debt cancellation could lead to students taking out more student loans while colleges hike up prices even more.
“Forgiving student loans increases incentives for colleges to raise tuition and fees more aggressively,” Vedder argued. “Students will be emboldened to borrow more, thinking &#8216;I will not ever have to pay the loans back.&#8217;”
Vedder noted that the empirical data show that “most new federal student loan money ends up being absorbed by higher tuition fees; universities and their staffs benefit much more than students.”
Furthermore, Biden&#8217;s debt plan does nothing to stop the actual problem — government-backed loans giving cover for colleges to raise prices. The students taking out loans today will find themselves in a similar situation 10 years down the road, albeit with different payback options.
In short, the preliminary data suggests Biden&#8217;s debt amnesty will do zilch to fix the crisis or help the economy. In the words of attorney Mark Meuser, “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/like-a-band-aid-on-gangrene-why-forgiving-student-loans-is-unconstitutional">It&#8217;s like putting a bandaid on gangrene</a>.” That&#8217;s Bidenomics in action, folks.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joe Biden

Bidenomics: Student Debt Amnesty Could Cost $1 Trillion

Bidenomics: Student Loan Amnesty Could Cost $1 Trillion

Biden

College

Debt Forgiveness

Top economists who worked for former President Barack Obama (D) slammed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Joe Biden</a> (D) for his plan to bail out a large number of Americans from having to pay back a substantial portion of their student loans or Pell Grants.
Biden announced his plan Wednesday to make U.S. taxpayers pay off thousands of dollars in student loans and Pell Grant recipients for those making less than $125,000 a year.
The nixing of $10,000 of debt per borrower would cost $298 billion in 2022 and a total of $329 billion by 2031 if the policy is renewed each year, according to a nonpartisan <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-student-loan-cancellation-would-cost-330-billion-and-largely-help-the-wealthy">analysis</a> from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Less than 32% of the funding would benefit Americans in the two lowest income quintiles, while 42% would benefit those earning more than $82,400 per year.
Jason Furman, President Barack Obama&#8217;s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, responded to the plan by writing on social media, “Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless.”
“Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse,” he continued. “There are a number of other highly problematic impacts including encouraging higher tuition in the future, encouraging more borrowing, creating expectations of future debt forgiveness, and more.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
BTW, those examples also contradict the baseline some have concocted to claim that this won&#39;t raise inflation. The claim it won&#39;t raise inflation is based on the construction worker going from permanently paying $0 interest to paying $31 a month at an annual cost of $372.
&mdash; Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonfurman/status/1562503991862657026?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 24, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Most importantly, everyone else will pay for this either in the form of higher inflation or in higher taxes or lower benefits in the future,” he later added. “Finally, it&#8217;s not obvious to me that this is reasonable for a President to do unilaterally. A number of lawyers (and political leaders) have argued inconsistent with the law. Even if technically legal I don&#8217;t like this amount of unilateral Presidential power.”
Larry Summers, Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and Director of NEC for President Obama, slammed the idea of canceling student loan debt.
“Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation,” he wrote. “It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college. It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.”
“The worst idea would be a continuation of the current moratorium that benefits among others highly paid surgeons, lawyers and investment bankers,” Summers continued.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The worst idea would be a continuation of the current moratorium that benefits among others highly paid surgeons, lawyers and investment bankers.
&mdash; Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) <a href="https://twitter.com/LHSummers/status/1561701545615441921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Ben Zeisloft contributed to this report.
Related: <a style="font-style: italic;" href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-mocks-reporter-who-asks-if-its-unfair-to-cancel-student-loan-debt">Biden Mocks Reporter Who Asks If It’s ‘Unfair’ To Cancel Student Loan Debt</a>

US-politics-BIDEN-education-debt

Top Democrat Economists Blast Biden’s Student Loan Bailout: Pours ‘Gasoline On The Inflationary Fire’

Top Democrat Economists Blast Biden’s Student Loan Bailout

Biden Administration

Student Loan Cancellation

Student Loans

Less than two years after President Joe Biden entered the White House, the United States has been crippled by record-high inflation and an energy crisis that has placed the economy in a functional recession. When he entered office, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/273418/unadjusted-monthly-inflation-rate-in-the-us/">inflation</a> was 1.4% — a metric that has since sextupled to 8.5%.
The situation will sound awfully familiar to those who were alive four decades ago. President Jimmy Carter ascended to the White House when <a href="https://www.inflation.eu/en/inflation-rates/united-states/historic-inflation/cpi-inflation-united-states-1977.aspx">inflation</a> was 5.2%. When he left four years later, <a href="https://cpiinflationcalculator.com/1981-cpi-inflation-united-states/">inflation</a> reached 11.8% after <a href="https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-cpi-consumer-price-index-1980-1989/">approaching</a> as much as 14.8% in early 1980. 
Of course, the reason Carter ultimately left the Oval Office was the sweeping electoral victory of President Ronald Reagan. As the Great Communicator articulated during his acceptance <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-accepting-the-presidential-nomination-the-republican-national-convention-detroit">speech</a> at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Carter had cooked up “a new and altogether indigestible economic stew” — the ingredients being “one part inflation, one part high unemployment, one part recession, one part runaway taxes, one part deficit spending and seasoned by an energy crisis.”
Indeed, Carter responded to the 1979 energy crisis by slashing dependence on oil and instead <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carter-crisis/">focusing</a> on renewable sources — even pushing the goal of 20% nationwide solar power by the year 2000. Today, Biden is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pete-buttigieg-tells-americans-how-they-can-channel-their-pain-at-the-pump">addressing</a> fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine by pushing the goal of 50% electric vehicle adoption by 2030 — months after he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/peter-doocy-asks-for-a-straight-answer-on-keystone-gets-the-runaround-from-jen-psaki">nixed</a> expansions to the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Incompetence is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a characteristic that Carter and Biden share. Yet both administrations somehow blamed the American people for their own failures — a phenomenon that Reagan noticed.
“Ours are not problems of abstract economic theory,” he explained. “Those are problems of flesh and blood; problems that cause pain and destroy the moral fiber of real people who should not suffer the further indignity of being told by the government that it is all somehow their fault. We do not have inflation because — as Mr. Carter says — we have lived too well.”
Such examples from the Biden administration are manifold. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/buttigieg-supply-chain-clog-happening-in-part-because-biden-has-successfully-guided-this-economy">pinned</a> supply chain bottlenecks on surging consumer demand, and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jen-psaki-on-supply-chain-shortages-impacting-u-s-the-tragedy-of-the-treadmill-thats-delayed">mocked</a> Americans facing these issues by quipping about the “tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed.”
Both administrations, however, had the audacity to increase spending even as inflation gripped the economy. Biden has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-signs-740-billion-inflation-reduction-act">signed</a> into law a not-so-aptly-named bill called the <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/inflation_reduction_act_one_page_summary.pdf">Inflation Reduction Act</a>, which posits that spending $740 billion and doubling the size of the IRS will help Americans more comfortably shoulder the burden of higher prices.
“The head of a government which has utterly refused to live within its means … dares to point the finger of blame at business and labor, both of which have been engaged in a losing struggle just trying to stay even,” Reagan said. “High taxes, we are told, are somehow good for us, as if, when government spends our money it isn&#8217;t inflationary, but when we spend it, it is.”
During his <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-accepting-the-presidential-nomination-the-republican-national-convention-dallas">speech</a> at the 1984 Republican National Convention, Reagan looked back on the first four years of his administration and warned the American people that if Democrats were permitted to regain power, they would once again implement a foolish economic agenda. Though the America of four decades ago had yet to witness so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion emerge as a governance philosophy, Reagan observed that blowout spending was conducted “in the name of compassion” as a “deliberate part of their official economic policy, needed, they said, to maintain prosperity.”
Likewise, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen entered her current post on a <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0003">vow</a> to battle the “crisis of systemic racism” in the economy. “Economics isn’t just something you find in a textbook,” she told her staff at the dawn of the Biden administration. “Nor is it simply a collection of theories. Indeed, the reason I went from academia to government is because I believe economic policy can be a potent tool to improve society.”
She also promised that any potential inflation “spurt” from Biden’s policies would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/despite-skyrocketing-inflation-janet-yellen-will-keep-pushing-for-biden-spending-agenda">fade</a> away by 2022. When that promise failed to materialize, she had nothing better to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/janet-yellen-admits-she-was-wrong-about-inflation-being-small-risk">offer</a> than a meek “I was wrong.”
In the 2020s, Americans carry smartphones and enjoy a somewhat less-elevated threat of nuclear war — yet the economically-illiterate philosophies of the 1970s are as pervasive as ever. There remains a holier-than-thou ruling class that spends your money under the facade of kindness and inclusivity — then sticks you, your children, and your grandchildren with the bill.

Ronald Reagan’s ‘Carter-flation’ Warning_2

Ronald Reagan’s Carterflation Warnings Ring True Under Bidenflation

Inflation

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/inflation">Bidenflation</a> is hitting <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/united-states">Americans</a> across the board, according to a new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/poll">study</a>.
On Monday, CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/01/as-inflation-surges-more-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck.html">reported</a> that recent data from LendingClub indicates that in June 2022, 61% of all Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck — including 36% of those earning more than $200,000. That figure is up from 55% from the year before for all Americans.
&#8220;What a difference a year makes. Last summer we were all worried about how quickly the economy would recover,&#8221; Anuj Nayar, LendingClub&#8217;s Financial Health Officer, <a href="https://ir.lendingclub.com/news/news-details/2022/The-Number-of-Consumers-Living-Paycheck-to-Paycheck-Has-Increased-Year-Over-Year-Across-All-Income-Levels/default.aspx">said</a> in a press release issued Monday. &#8220;Now, as inflation continues its upwards swing, consumers are finding it more difficult to manage spending and are eating into their savings as financial pressures mount.&#8221;
Nayar predicted that Americans would soon have difficulties handling unexpected costs.
&#8220;That said, consumers are not yet slowing down their spending habits, despite the rise in the cost of living,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Not only is it going to be difficult for them to handle future emergency expenses, but even foreseen payments like education, student loans, or housing expenses may be harder to balance for the everyday American consumer.&#8221;
LendingClub&#8217;s press release also <a href="https://ir.lendingclub.com/news/news-details/2022/The-Number-of-Consumers-Living-Paycheck-to-Paycheck-Has-Increased-Year-Over-Year-Across-All-Income-Levels/default.aspx">noted</a>, &#8220;An estimated 33.5 million — or 13% — of U.S. consumers spent more than they earned in the past six months.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/01/as-inflation-surges-more-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck.html">pointed out</a> by CNBC, while paychecks might have risen 5.1%, skyrocketing inflation has outpaced average salary increases. In June, American inflation rose 9.1%, negating most economic gains.
To help address the problem, Senate Democrats recently unveiled the “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/joe-manchin-revives-bidens-agenda-agrees-to-democrat-package-of-tax-increases-and-climate-spending">Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.</a>&#8221; However, a Penn Wharton study <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-inflation-reduction-act-could-slightly-increase-inflation-over-next-two-years-study-finds">released</a> Friday shows that the bill could lead to a slight increase in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/inflation">inflation</a> over the next two years, doing the exact opposite of what its name suggests.
Penn Wharton <a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/7/29/inflation-reduction-act-preliminary-estimates">analyzed</a> the massive spending package that gained the support of moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) last week, surprising many political observers.
“The Act would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter. These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation,” the Penn Wharton Budget Model found.
According to the study, inflation could rise by 0.05% over the next two years before a marginal drop of 0.25% “by the late 2020s,” rendering the spending package ineffective at accomplishing its purpose.
The Penn Wharton findings were released the same day that new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-bad-inflation-news-as-u-s-enters-a-recession-biden-pushes-spending">showed</a> that the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, a key measure of inflation, increased 6.8% in June. That’s the highest yearly increase since January 1982, marking troubling news for Americans as the economy entered a recession on Thursday.
To make matters worse for most Americans, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-claims-legislative-deal-on-his-agenda-wont-raise-taxes-on-people-making-less-than-400k-report-says-otherwise">released data</a> Saturday from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) that indicated the Inflation Reduction Act would increase taxes in the calendar year 2023 for everyone except those making between $10,000 and $30,000 per year.
Zach Jewell and Ryan Saavedra contributed to this article. 
A previous version of this article misstated the percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck was up 55%. It has been corrected to note that the figure is up from 55%.

Cropped Hand Of Woman Signing On Check Over Table

61% Of Americans Living Paycheck-To-Paycheck

A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> administrator has placed a pause on edits to Wikipedia&#8217;s &#8220;Recession&#8221; page by unregistered users until early August to stop &#8220;vandalism&#8221; and &#8220;malicious&#8221; content after the page was edited 41 times in the past seven days with repeated attempts to alter the historical definition of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/recession">recession</a>.
On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-in-a-recession-after-second-straight-quarter-of-negative-growth">estimated</a> that the U.S. economy shrank for the second straight quarter at a 0.9 annualized rate. In recent weeks, the Biden administration had <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-economy-identifies-as-growing">argued</a> that there is no agreed-upon definition of a recession, despite economists consistently saying a recession can be signaled by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. The plethora of Wikipedia revisions come as the Biden administration attempts to go around the commonly held definition of the term.
On Wednesday, writer Ann Bauer flagged the edits, tweeting, &#8220;Here is the revision history from roughly the past 24 hours on Wikipedia&#8217;s RECESSION page,&#8221; while showing the extensive list.
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Here is the revision history from roughly the past 24 hours on Wikipedia&#39;s RECESSION page: <a href="https://t.co/LxU5RiEEZ9">pic.twitter.com/LxU5RiEEZ9</a>
&mdash; Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/annbauerwriter/status/1552417150731751427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
For example, an editor by the name &#8220;Soibangla&#8221; — the third most prominent member of the Recession page by authorship — repeatedly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Recession&amp;diff=prev&amp;oldid=1100801950">deleted</a> additions by other editors who used the textbook definition of a recession as being two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
The editor, who contributed to more than a thousand other Wikipedia articles, replaced the historically-applied indicator with various ambiguous explanations. For example, one of Soibangla&#8217;s edits claimed, “There is no global consensus on” what a recession is.
Other editors, however, tried changing or reverting the definitions, only to be foiled by other editors who removed their changes.
There have been so many edits to the page in such a short time that a Wikipedia administrator named “Anarchyte” had to pause all additions due to “Persistent addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content,” requiring all edits to be confirmed by trusted users.
Wikipedia editors are not paid by the company and can be banned if they repeatedly violate its rules. 
As of publication, many of the changes made by users have been deleted, and the historical definition is live on the site, albeit with added context. 
The administrator Anarchyte also tagged the post with “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Twinkle">Twinkle</a>,” which is used to &#8220;stop vandalism, or the malicious addition and/or deletion of content on a page.&#8221; This verification process will be in place for weeks, if not months. 
On the national stage, White House economic advisor Brian Deese has claimed that a recession is not universally defined as two straight quarters of negative growth.
“It’s not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on,” Deese recently said regarding the aforementioned definition.
In 2008, Deese <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/07/27/white-house-takes-heat-after-biden-adviser-accused-of-redefining-recession/">told</a> the media, “Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Brian Deese, yesterday: &quot;Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession.”
Deese, 2008: “Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.” <a href="https://t.co/MzVk7drq3v">pic.twitter.com/MzVk7drq3v</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1552355645055270912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also refused to acknowledge that the U.S. was heading toward a recession and claimed that the economy was in a “transition” with growth “slowing.”
“This is not an economy that’s in recession,” she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/yellen-were-not-in-a-recession-were-in-a-transition-in-which-growth-is-slowing">told</a> NBC News&#8217; Chuck Todd. “But we’re in a period of transition in which growth is slowing and that’s necessary and appropriate and we need to be growing at a steady and sustainable pace. So there is a slowdown and businesses can see that and that’s appropriate, given that people now have jobs and we have a strong labor market.”

Wikipedia

Wikipedia’s ‘Recession’ Page Shows 41 Edits In One Week, Attempts At Changing Definition

Wikipedia's 'Recession' Page Shows 41 Edits In One Week, Attempts At Changing Definition

English

language

Recession

In the midst of economic uncertainty, one thing remains true — <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/costco">Costco</a> will not be raising the price of its $1.50 hot dog and soda combination anytime soon.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/wall-street-journal">The Wall Street Journal</a> reported on Thursday that Richard Galanti, chief financial officer at Costco, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1-50-costco-hot-dog-combo-that-defies-inflation-11657753870">assured</a> customers that they can still rely on seeing the incredible deal that they&#8217;ve come to love since 1985 inside its stores across <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/united-states">America</a>.
&#8220;That $1.50 price point has been sacrosanct from the very beginning,&#8221; Gallanti told the paper.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics&#8217; Consumer Price Index report <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-products-making-your-wallet-lighter-as-inflation-hits-new-highs">announced</a> on Wednesday that inflation rose 9.1% between June 2021 and June 2022, marking a 40-year high.
Costco has raised prices on other food court items, but the CFO admitted that the company&#8217;s profits in that part of the store are practically nonexistent.
&#8220;Needless to say we aren’t making a lot or any money,&#8221; Galanti said about Costco&#8217;s food courts. “At the end of the day, the whole value of our warehouse club includes a great value on that hot dog and soda.&#8221;
The Journal also cited the classic tale about the time that Costco&#8217;s co-founder, Jim Sinegal, comedically threatened to murder Costco CEO W. Craig Jelinek who suggested raising the price in order to recoup revenue.
Sinegal allegedly told the executive, &#8220;If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.&#8221;
Had the price of the combo kept up with inflation, customers would be currently paying $4.13, per the Journal.
Costco has been so intent on keeping the price-point low that it has opened two factories that produce nothing but hot dogs to help keep costs down.
&#8220;What we figured out we could do is build our own hot dog-manufacturing plant (in Los Angeles) and make our own Kirkland Signature hot dogs,&#8221; Jelinek <a href="https://www.425business.com/news/costco-ceo-craig-jelinek-on-shareholders-costco-com-and-hot-dogs/article_5ff4b632-1f75-5e98-b9ff-6e02d676668b.html">said</a> after the plant opened in 2011. &#8220;Now we are doing so much hot dog business that we&#8217;ve opened up another plant in Chicago.&#8221;
&#8220;By having the discipline to say, &#8216;You are not going to be able to raise your price. You have to figure it out,&#8217; we took it over and started manufacturing our hot dogs,&#8221; he said at the time. &#8220;We keep it at $1.50 and make enough money to get a fair return.&#8221;
In 2009, Costco&#8217;s assistant vice president of publishing, Dan Fuller, <a href="https://www.supermarketguru.com/the-lempert-report/costcos-secret-weapon-1.50-hot-dog-and-soda/">wrote</a>, &#8220;Holding a price that steady for that long sends a clear message about what is possible when you decide to operate your business model on a &#8216;cost plus&#8217; basis instead of a &#8216;what the market will bear&#8217; basis.

Costco Hot Dog

Costco’s $1.50 Hot Dog Combo Remains ‘Sacrosanct’ Amidst Record-High Inflation

Costco's $1.50 Hot Dog Combo Remains 'Sacrosanct' Amidst Inflation

Costco

Economy

Food

Menu