Harris campaign suffers a one-two punch as inflation and unemployment claims spike in September

With Thursday's reported “unexpected” spike in unemployment claims and inflation, the Harris-Waltz presidential campaign is likely to be quickly forgotten. These two reports come as more than 8 in 10 Americans are concerned about rising food, gas and housing costs, and three-quarters of them are having difficulty paying their bills on time. Books can be a sign of death.

The Labor Department reported that 258,000 people applied for unemployment benefits last week, more than 30,000 more than Wall Street economists expected. This is the highest number in more than a year and brings the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits nationwide to nearly 2 million.

It's not Helen's fault

Attempts by the media to downplay coverage of Hurricane Helen have failed. Most of the layoffs are occurring in states far from the East Coast, such as Michigan, California, Ohio and Indiana, according to Bloomberg.

Inflation, as measured by “core” interest rates (excluding weekly fluctuating food and gas prices), has also soared, rising 3.3% from last year. This was due to a nearly 5% increase in housing costs compared to the previous year.

This double whammy bodes ill for the Harris/Waltz camp, which has just shot itself in the foot. Harris declared on ABC's The View on Tuesday that she would not have done anything else while Biden was vice president.

I can't think of anything (I wish I had done it differently). And I've participated in most of the decisions that have been made.

Gasoline prices continue to rise as the Middle East crater puts pressure on oil prices, reminding motorists and voters that the fight against inflation is far from over. Small business owners have declared surrender to the war, with bankruptcies up 15% so far this year. Bill Dunkelberg, an economist at the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), said:

Uncertainty discourages owners from investing in capital and inventory, especially as inflation and financing costs continue to weigh on profits. Although there is some hope left in the holiday season, many Main Street owners are doubtful that their business will improve in the future.

There will be no improvement even if Harris is elected.

Her solution to high prices is price control. Price controls lead to shortages because producers stop production if they cannot make a profit. That leads to rationing, much to the delight of anti-capitalist Marxists like Harris, who want to wage war on private ownership of capital and damage private capitalist markets as much as possible.

Two reports Thursday that could have killed Harris and Walz's ticket reflect the ongoing damage caused by the Biden administration's policies. The RealClearMarkets (RCM) Economic Optimism Index showed little effect, having been negative for more than three years. And, unsurprisingly, RCM's Financial Stress Index worsened further in September.

Consumer anxiety is impacting the auto industry even as dealers lower prices during the holiday season to weed out non-working models. And the number of vehicle repossessions has soared 23% so far this year as consumers are unable to pay for their cars.

fake job report

All of this puts last week's famous jobs report into perspective. The more than 250,000 new jobs reported “significantly above” Wall Street estimates turned out to be a celebration of government expansion, not a resurgence of the private sector.

If there's any good news amidst the bad news about how Americans are suffering under the policies enacted by the Biden administration, it's that Harris and Walz's determination to continue these policies means that next year This means that the election campaign could end in November.

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