Trust vs. Doublespeak
It’s not hard to imagine why people distrust the government when you can’t get a straight answer to a straight question anymore these days. Forget the travesty in Uvalde, all the back-and-forth, he-said-she-said, about what happened that day — or worse, DIDN’T happen. It’s a disgrace, and too many of us will never get over it. You simply can’t ignore photos of police standing around and pepper-spraying parents. Or avoid that pit in your stomach the size of the Grand Canyon when 4th-graders are dialing 911 and begging for the police to do their jobs — their jobs.
It’ll be months before we ever get the truth, if we ever do — look no further than the January 6th fiasco and the thousands of pages of reports about what happened on that day, too — again, or didn’t happen. It’s hard to separate partisan rant from honest inquiry or figure out the media in all this and its reporting. This is where a balanced news diet comes in because you have to look at AP and a mix of left and right to get some semblance of reality; otherwise, you’re consuming a junk food diet, if there ever was one.
Of course, getting a good sense of reality assumes the ability to get information we can believe from our leaders, which is a challenge given all the doublespeak. An obvious example is what’s going on with inflation right now. First, we were told it was “transitory” and assured that it wouldn’t get too bad. Now the folks in charge of our economy are backpedaling furiously enough to generate a breeze. Janet Yellen recently said this about the matter:
“I do expect inflation to remain high, although I very much hope that it will be coming down now.”
Who was it that said that hope is not a strategy? Hmmm. She expects it to remain high but hopes it will be coming down. Well shoot, Ms. Yellen, we all hope it’ll be coming down, so how does that statement indicate any credibility or authority on the subject?
She then went on, saying that the Biden administration was updating its forecast from March that inflation would average 4.7% this year. Of course, I have to wonder: What was the basis for this forecast in the first place? A quick scan at public data shows that monthly CPI figures have been at 7% or above for the last five consecutive months. In fact, the last time any month was below this “forecast average” was over a year ago: April 2021. With inflation in the first four months of 2022 averaging just over 8%, some quick “Anthea math” shows that we’d have to suddenly, magically drop down to 3% inflation overnight and stay there every month for the rest of the year to hit that target. Doesn’t seem too likely, so what was that 4.7% figure in the first place other than “hope as a strategy”?
Meanwhile, the everyday man and woman on the street is seeing the real impact of inflation. Gas prices are crazy: My old town of Mendocino now has a local gas station charging nearly $10 a gallon, and its owner suggests that she will not be in business by the end of the year. Here on the Central Coast, we are at about $7.00 or slightly over for premium. Food prices are through the roof, and shortages are everywhere. My dog’s food has gone up by a third for each package. Bought an airline ticket lately? Ticket prices are sky-high (pun intended).
This is the real world. This is the information we pay attention to and trust. The cold hard facts of pricing, and going to see Aunt Suzie or Uncle Joe has just gotten a lot more expensive. Ms. Yellen thinks things are likely to be higher. They already ARE higher.
How about some leading indicators about Covid? The shelves here are EMPTY of cold remedies, cough syrup, and, of course, at-home tests. (That picture of mostly empty shelves is real, ironically promising relief when there’s none in sight!) You don’t need the government to issue counts any more. They can’t anyway because everyone is testing at home and the good old government didn’t leave 1–800 numbers on the test boxes for us to hit 1 for positive and 2 for negative so we could count cases… How hard would that have been? Instead, we are flying by the seat of our pants, tons of people are getting it, and our only indicator is grocery shelves. Ugh.
All of this and more is why we have lost trust in the information we are getting from what used to be our revered and trusted institutions. I could go on, but it’ll take me to dark places, and I’ve decided it’s time to shut off my phone again even though I’m no longer on vacation. Of course, all of this is why we are in the business of helping trusted information sources be better at what they do: Our world needs them more than ever.
P.S. This morning, May CPI printed at 8.6%, a fresh 40-year high. Keep hoping, Ms. Yellen… we will too.