© Reuters
Comment: For our non-US readers, the 401K is a retirement saving option for Americans.
The analysis was done by conservative economists Stephen Moore and EJ Antoni, who said that the balance of Americans' 401ks will 'ruin your whole day, week and month.'
Moore and Antoni note that inflation has been going at 8 percent for the past seven months, despite the White House claiming things were temporary.
They argued that over the past 20 months, the average American family has lost nearly $6,000 in 'purchasing power' due to the rise in prices over wages.
The average American's 401k plans have lost a colossal $34,000 in value - more than 25 percent of where it was a year ago - to a total of $2.1trillion in losses.
To make things worse, they write in the New York Post that the stock market has decimated Americans' savings even further, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 each down six percent recently, with the NASDAQ down 18 percent.
Year-to-date, the Dow Jones is down 19 percent, the S&P 25 percent and the NASDAQ 34 percent.
Moore and Antoni argue that inflation takes another 13 percent off of those stock losses and also hurts bond returns.
American pension funds have dropped 15 percent, going down from $27.8trillion at the beginning of the year to $24trillion.
Moore and Antoni write: 'The victims of ever higher prices at the store and the gas pump are not the millionaires, but the little guys - and, in particular, older Americans - whose paychecks and savings accounts get walloped.'
The president appeared unbothered by the country's 8.2 percent inflation rate and warnings of a looming recession as he was asked about the US' financial situation in an Oregon ice cream parlor Saturday.
Questioned if he had any worry about the strength of the US dollar amid rising inflation, the president, with a chocolate chip cone in hand, flippantly replied: 'I'm not concerned about the strength of the dollar. I'm concerned about the rest of the world. Our economy is strong as hell.'
The US dollar largely serves as a safe haven investment that sees inflows during times of uncertainty - meaning it will often rise in times of economic turmoil, while others, like the pound and euro, fall.
That sentiment was not lost on several pundits and political observers who viewed the clip, which has been widely shared since its recording Sunday afternoon during the head of state's visit to the notoriously liberal city to tout the Democratic Party's recent legislative achievements in health care.
The bizarre interaction has since gone viral, being shared thousands of times just a day after Biden, 79, drew criticism from Republicans for giving unsolicited dating advice to a young teen girl in California - much to her apparent discomfort - in an interaction that was also recorded.
The altercations, along with a litany of other gaffes in recent months, have opened Biden up to political attacks about his age, as well as accusations the president has failed to address current economic unrest, which has seen inflation rates swell and Americans' cost-of-living seeing an even worse surge.
The recorded altercation further saw the president - who fell for the second time while traversing the steps of Air Force One in May - downplay the country's current inflation rate, which rocketed to a 41-year high over the summer.
Speaking to the reporter while still clutching the cone, Biden asserted that 'inflation is worldwide,' adding that 'it's worse off [in other countries] than it is in the United States.'
The president stated: 'The problem is the lack of economic growth and sound policy in other countries - not so much ours.'
That declaration came just days after the Commerce Department announced that the Consumer Price Index was 8.2 percent higher than it was a year ago - was barely down from last month's 8.3 percent, with core inflation, which takes out currently rampant energy and food costs, up 6.6 percent.
Rents and other essentials have also drastically risen in recent months under Biden's administration - occurrences that the president seemed oblivious to during his de facto ice cream social, which came during a planned visit to boost Democrat Kotek in Oregon's tight race for governor.
The president finished his western swing in Portland over the weekend, where Republicans believe they can now wrest control of the deep-blue state from Democrats for the first time in 40 years.
A mix of high crime, homelessness, and an independent spoiler candidate has surprisingly propelled GOP nominee Christine Drazan into first place.
This visit to the Baskin Robin's, meanwhile - which Kotek also attended - saw Biden engage in even more questionable behavior, when he seemingly went in to smell a female patron's hair after introducing himself to her and what appeared to be the woman's young daughter.
An onlooker recorded video of the strange occurrence, which was reminiscent of several other highly publicized incidents of the president getting close to a woman to get a whiff of their mane, with the latest coming just this past Saturday in LA.
Meanwhile, the steep ascent of the US dollar - which comes as the US grapples with a post-pandemic financial crisis not seen in decades - has affected other currencies such as the pound euro, which both fell below parity for the first time in decades last month. For the GBP, it was the first time it fell below the American greenback.
The diminishing value of the currencies - as well as others across the globe including the yen and won - adds another element of concern amid current economic uncertainty seen in countries across the world as they look to offset losses incurred during the pandemic.
Moreover, the US dollar largely serves as a safe haven investment that sees inflows during times of uncertainty - meaning it will often rise in times of economic turmoil, while other currencies fall.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, South Korea, and China's currencies all weakened against the dollar, while the Australian dollar remained for the most part flat.
The Japanese yen traded at 144-levels against the dollar, weaker compared with after the country's federal government intervened in the currency market last week.
South Korea's won, meanwhile, was near 2009 levels as of Monday, at 1,428.52 per dollar.
With that said, the economic outlook in the UK means the pound is suffering more than most, amid a disastrous energy crunch and the highest inflation among G7 nations.
The previous record low for the British pound against the US dollar was 37 years ago on February 25, 1985, when 1 pound was worth $1.054.
The US and the UK - as well as other countries like Canada - are consequently battling rampant inflation seen as the world struggles to recover from the pandemic, with the UK's sitting at 9.9 percent as of August 2022, and the US' at 8.2 percent - both down slightly from record highs seen in previous months.
However, the prices of almost everything else have risen sharply in the past year, with groceries, electricity, and vehicles all up well over 10 percent compared to this time last year.
The increase for amenities such as gasoline, and airfares, meanwhile, is even more marked - with gas now costing more than 25 percent than its price in October 2021 and plane tickets up by more than a third.
Biden, meanwhile, has remained adamant that there is no cause for concern when it comes to the American economy, and has even asserted that he plans to run for reelection while pushing other progressives such as Kotek on states fed up by rising homelessness and crime rates.
The president's current approval rating sits well under 50 percent - one of the lowest recorded in recent history.
That agency — the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) — is now well on its way to being and up and running, with a $1 billion budget from Congress
ARPA-H appears to merge national security with health “security” in a way that could lead to the criminalization of illness and general “wrong-think”
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is now recommending that all U.S. adults aged 65 and younger should be screened for mental health issues
The screening recommendation falls right in line with the original intent behind ARPA-H, which was to monitor Americans for neuropsychiatric warning signs by harvesting private data from consumer electronic devices and health care providers. AI would then be used to predict whether an individual might commit a crime, so that it could be stopped before it happens..."
Mass Monitoring: A Digital Dictatorship on the Horizon? [Link]