Can Inflation Be Tamed?

 Popular Economics Weekly

“The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.3 percent in October. Prices for final demand goods increased 0.5 percent, and the index for final demand services moved up 0.2 percent. Prices for final demand advanced 6.5 percent for the 12 months ended in October.” BLS.gov

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America’s midterm voters are now just learning what is behind the intractable inflation that has prevailed during this Trump administration.

It’s corruption on a grand scale because of the laws he has broken and constitution he ignored by enacting blatantly illegal tariffs and starting illegal wars with a Republican congress that has refused to stop him.

I would characterize the Trump administration as running a criminal enterprise under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act enacted by congress in 1970.

Trump has to be aware of what he was doing, since he barely escaped being convicted under RICO just prior to the 1916 election by settling his Trump University lawsuit for $25 million days before his election.

He was defrauding most Americans (though not the oligarchs that supported him) by enacting the illegal taxes and unlawful costs of wars that piled up the national debt under false pretenses. The sky high tariffs have raised the costs of everything and endangered our national security.

The result has been a prolonged inflationary spiral that is now becoming embedded in other parts of the economy, such as in food and the service sector, that aren’t directly affected by the tariffs and wars.

So wholesale prices of raw materials as measured by the Producer Price Index are now increasing 6.5 percent annually; not only the energy prices that have kept climbing since the beginning of the Iran war last April.

President Biden had succeeded in bringing wholesale inflation down to almost zero (0.3 percent) in July 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic surge (see graph) because tariff rates were low at that time. We traded with the whole world that wanted to trade with us, which kept import prices from climbing.

But Trump pulled out all the stops in levying higher tariffs on all 180 countries in the world, raising those costs. As per the graph, the price of raw materials that go into what is produced began its steady climb to 6.5 percent annually in October.

No one likes inflation, it turns out, which is why so many red states turned blue. Most Americans don’t like corruption either, which became apparent when Trump used his illegal tariffs to extort deals for himself as well as his supporters from countries by threatening them with even higher tariffs.

What is so incredible is that it couldn’t have happened if Republicans hadn’t allowed it. Only congress had the power to tax and approve tariffs, which is why Trump’s TACO tariffs were illegal from the start.

This has also made it difficult for the Federal Reserve to bring inflation back down. It must raise interest rates to some degree to control it, yet doing so will raise the cost of everything, including the level of our $40T national debt.

And unwinding the labyrinth of corruption that has permeated every branch of his government will take more than one election cycle. The voters have given Democrats an overwhelming mandate to do just that, to make America affordable and livable for all Americans. The alternate if inflation isn’t tamed? Another recession if we don’t succeed.

  The alternate if inflation isn’t tamed? Another recession if we don’t succeed.

Harlan Green © 2026

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