Quit crying just because it’s stupid and stand tall instead. Don’t apologize or tell the world you’re taking a look at yourself. You didn’t get destroyed in 2024; you barely lost. Just shut up and move on. Never go around saying your re-evaluating yourself, it shows weakness. Plus, it’s just stupid. This is war with a dictator wannabe and the extreme right. WWII was a fight against the extreme right.
Don’t forget this: In 2013, ex-Senator Bob Dole said this about the Republicans:
“I think they ought to put a sign on the [Republican] national committee doors that says closed for repairs…”
And now look where they are. They might be ruling from the gutter, but they are running the country (barely, with about 51% of elected support).
Democrats can come back-if Trump doesn’t destroy the country first-but if Republicans (what I call The Trump Party) can recover from that low in 2013, then Dems can come back. (Of course, Dole did support Trump in 2016, so who knows.)
The Mistakes Democrats Made in 2016 and 2024
Democrats have made several mistakes in the last 10 years that cost them elections. And they weren’t on policy; They were mistakes with candidates:
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF ALL – NUMBER 1. They nominated Hilary Clinton to run for President in 2016. Not that Hilary wouldn’t make a good President, but she couldn’t win. I mean: Who wants the same couple in the White House when the candidate is the spouse of a former President? Nothing against the Clintons, but I don’t care who it is; I don’t want the same people in there again because it’s now the spouse who’s running. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Clintons. Believe me when I say that. I JUST DON’T WANT THE SPOUSE OF THE SAME #!*!ING COUPLE AGAIN, WHOEVER THEY ARE. GOT IT!? End of discussion.
Trump barely won in 2016 and even lost the popular vote. Somebody as good, or even much worse, than Hillary could have won and beaten Trump. But again: PEOPLE DON’T WANT THE SPOUSE OF A PREVIOUS PRESIDENT AGAIN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. GOT IT NOW?
NUMBER 2 MISTAKE: #1 and #2 above 10 times over. That’s why the Dems lost in 2016. Their own stupidity.
The next step was the 2020 election. The Democrats won because Biden was a return to sanity. Dems were back on top. But what did I think at the time? Biden was 78 years old when he became President. Even when he was running, i.e., before he won the election, I knew that he should only run for one term. He would be too old to run for a second term. That would be stupid.
NUMBER 3 MISTAKE. Democrats nominated Biden to run again in 2024. How stupid is that? What was the number one complaint voters had about the two candidates? They were both too old. If they had nominated Harris to run in 2024 after she campaigned for a couple of years before she was nominated, she would be President now and we wouldn’t be in this #!*!ING mess with a conman as President. Harris destroyed Trump in the one debate held in 2024. If she had been in the race back in 2021 or even earlier, there would have been at least one more debate and she would have again destroyed Trump, and he would have lost the election. She is quick on her feet, and Trump’s stupidity would have been showing.
NUMBER 4 MISTAKE. Democrats are “examining” themselves wondering why they lost. Trump won 49.9% of the vote in 2024. That’s the same as one vote if there had been only 100 voters. He barely sneaked over the line. And the Dems are questioning why they lost? They barely lost. And they’re crying in their beer as to why? Meanwhile, Trump goes around claiming he has this big mandate, yet the Dems never speak up and remind him – and the country – that no, he has no mandate, he barely won. And the Republicans barely won the Senate and the House. That is no mandate. Why aren’t the Dems constantly challenging that claim every single time he makes it? Is that stupid or what?
That’s why they lost in 2016 and in 2024.
AND THEN THERE’S THIS
Trump really started running for President when he led the Obama “birther movement” back in 2011. When he finally got the nomination in 2016, people were still asking him: “Do you believe Obama was born in the U.S.?” He answered yes, Obama was born in the U.S.
But how did the Democrats respond to that? They took it as a dead issue and never mentioned it again, when they should have said that his admittance about Obama’s birthplace was not the issue. THE ISSUE WAS THAT HE KNEW ALL ALONG THAT OBAMA WAS BORN IN THE U.S.; He just made the claim to get support from millions of Obama-haters. He never sent any investigators to Hawaii or Africa. That was another lie. And the Dems probably would have won if they had pushed that back then, but they just accepted it like it was Trump admitting that yes, he did steal a cookie off someone’s plate – like it was no big deal. Well, it was a big deal. Trump won that issue and the Dems didn’t even notice.
So, they lost.
This is not a battle between Democrats & Republicans; It’s a battle between those who see Trump is a conman and those who can’t see he is a conman.
President Biden came into office in January 2021. Inflation started to rise two months later and continued to rise to exceedingly high levels in 2022. Trump, who was planning to run for re-election in 2024, immediately blamed Biden for the inflation. Did Biden do something in the first two months of his administration to cause inflation? Is that even possible? What caused the dramatic rise in inflation? And was inflation the real problem that people confronted—or was it the cost of living, meaning that people’s income didn’t rise to meet the inflation?
Let’s be clear, there is almost nothing any President can do to cause inflation, or to stop inflation after only two months in office. Policy changes take many months, sometimes years, to affect the largest economy in the world.
“Almost” nothing? Well, there are exceptions. Policy changes are on thing, but drastic actions can be devastating. After all, you could take the best, most expensive, and modern car that takes years of planning and development—and destroy it in seconds. Just drive it over a cliff and watch. It’s the same with a society. Unconventional actions that destroy segments of normal society that took years, decades, and even centuries to build could cause unforeseen consequences that are unpredictable. But Biden took no drastic or unconventional actions in his first two months in office. He moved slowly and deliberately as his administration developed over his first six months, and then his first year. Trump blamed Biden for the inflation, but he never said what Biden did to cause it. He just repeated the accusation over and over—and people believed him.
Political observers like to say that when things go bad during a President’s term in office, it’s the President’s fault, but they only say that if their current party is out of power. And, of course, when their party is in power, they blame the previous President.
So, what did cause the inflation? Or—was inflation the real problem that caused so many people to complain about it?
The Real Problem with High Inflation is When Wages Don’t Rise to Meet It
Inflation’s real problem is about the cost of living and how wealthy you are. Inflation is no problem if your income goes up to balance it out. And the wealthier you are, the less it matters.
Take millionaires, multimillionaires, and billionaires. When the price of groceries increases, their lifestyles are not affected. Everyone in the top 10% of wealth distribution—who control 70% of America’s wealth—do not feel any changes in their lifestyle when the price of groceries goes up, for example.
On the other hand, if you are at the bottom of the income scale, or even at the middle-income level, groceries can be a major part of your necessary expenses. The more money you have, the less important groceries are to your budget.
It’s the cost of living that really matters. If there is inflation and wages go up to compensate for it, the higher prices are not felt in the middle and lower classes—and people accept it.
Every 15-20 years, prices go up 30 to 40 percent in a healthy, thriving economy and people accept that as normal. But inflation usually happens a little each year—and people don’t feel it very much. But when prices and wages stagnate for most of that period and then suddenly prices go up in a year or two, people feel the pain, and the bottom and middle classes feel it the most.
But—what is a “healthy, thriving economy”?
Real wage growth, which represents the middle and the lower class, has grown only 32% from 1990-2018, but national income grew 109%. So where did that money go? To the top 10% more than any other group. The top 10% control 70% of the nation’s wealth. The top 10% feel basically nothing in their lifestyles when there is inflation. They increased their income during the Great Recession, after the Great Recession and during the Pandemic. Trump reduced their taxes in 2017 which helped their earnings during the Pandemic.
Can Inflation Be Good?
Economists believe that some inflation around a 2% annual average is healthy as it means the economy is growing. If it goes up one month to 2.5%—or even 3%—economists don’t think that’s bad, but they start to examine the causes to see if it’s an anomaly—or the beginning of a trend. And if it suddenly goes down one month, it could lead to deflation (when inflation is below zero). They keep an eye on that for the same reasons: Is it a trend or an exception? *
Some people say that inflation is caused by national debt, which is now at record levels. As a general statement, they are wrong. That can happen, but if that were true in all cases, then every time the debt went up, inflation would follow. But history proves that’s not always the case. One example alone disproves this theory. After WWII, when the national debt in the U.S. was the highest it has ever been when measured against the country’s total wealth (including our present era), the economy boomed for the next three decades. Not only that, after the war, with GIs returning to the workforce, demand for everything was extremely high. And high demand can be a major factor in inflation. But there was no major inflation right after the war or in the following decades. The 1960s was the largest boom in American history. And taxes after the war, and up through the 60s, were at the highest level in history, especially for the wealthy. These high taxes also brought on balanced budgets.
Another more recent example is what happened since the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Military spending went up starting with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, followed by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. War costs went into the billions. Taxes were lowered just prior to the war, and the national debt skyrocketed, yet there was no high inflation from the start of the wars up until 2021, although the national debt from 2003 up until 2000 went up dramatically by trillions.
National debt can definitely contribute to inflation, but to say it is the cause of inflation is naïve, even ignorant—or maybe some people just want to believe that that is the cause, so they push that statement.
Rise in debt was substantial as the national debt increased from early 2000s through 2015 during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, along with the effects on government revenue from the 2008 Great Recession. Debt increased drastically, but there was no inflation outside the norm from the beginning of the war through 2020. Inflation came later, right after the Pandemic in 2020. Inflation increased for three reasons: Economic recovery bringing a massive rise in demand; Extremely low demand from the Pandemic; Low interest rates during and right after the pandemic.
Major debt like we have now is not good, but it’s not just a spending issue. It’s an income issue as well. And almost all income comes from taxes. President Eisenhauer, when he was in office in the 1950s, always resisted lowering taxes, saying the national debt would go up. In 1960, income over $200,000 was taxed at 91%. (That $200,000 would be worth $2 million in today’s dollars, meaning income over that amount would be taxed at 91%.)
What can happen quickly is economic crashes. They can happen almost immediately. It’s like a car. It takes a lot of planning and work to design and build a great car, but it can all be destroyed in an accident in seconds. But car accidents also have causes. A crash is what happened over a noticeably short period of time in 2008 when the “Great Recession” came about. But its causes go back many years.
How Much Do Prices Naturally Increase Over Time in a Healthy Economy?
Another crucial factor in dealing with inflation is how much inflation rises over time in a healthy economy. With a healthy 2% inflation rate per year, that means that over a 14-year period, inflation would cause prices to rise at least 28% (2% times 14), but the inflation rate would be compounding. Consequently, there would be approximately a 30% increase in prices. Let’s take a look at how prices changed from the Great Recession prices in 2008 up through the high-inflation year of 2022, a 14-year period.
In late 2008, the “Great Recession” started. That year, inflation started to drop drastically in November and December and continued to stay low for the next 10 years until it climbed slowly upward until 2022—14-years later—when it had a dramatic rise. The average annual inflation rate during those 14 years was very low at 2.25%. In 2022, the last year of that 14-year period, the average inflation was 8%. That’s quite an increase in one year when you consider that annual healthy inflation should be around 2%. But overall, an average of 2.25% per year is very low. Even if it had been 3% average per year, that would not be alarming.
“Average inflation 2008-2022 was low, but it all hit in one year”
Another way to look at it is that prices at the end of 2022 were pretty much where they would have been if there had been no Great Recession and no Pandemic—and the economy was healthy and growing during that period—with inflation occurring at a normal, healthy annual rate—instead of happening all in one year, which is what happened in 2022. In other words, inflation was not a big deal when you look at the long-term average. In fact, that 14-year rate was one of the lowest inflation rates experienced over a similar amount of time in the previous 50 years.
“The real problem with inflation is when wages don’t go up”
But in 2022, people complained about the inflation in the cost of basics, especially for necessary products like food. But if the average rate was normal over 14 years, why would people complain? For a very simple reason: It was because the cost of living went up drastically. Wages and employment were stagnant and very low during that 14-year period. Many lost their jobs and couldn’t find work. It was labeled the “Great Recession” for a reason. Consequently, the pain for the average wage earner when inflation went up was quite high—and it happened all at once. In other words, inflation was not the problem. It was that the cost of living went up considerably and wages did not rise to meet the rise in prices.
Whose Policies Caused High Inflation in 2022?
Trump blamed Biden, but it’s more than likely that the inflation was caused over a period of several years before Biden became President. Trump was President for the four years before Biden. After all, there is no policy that any President could implement to cause inflation after only two months in office—even if they tried to make that happen.
If Biden caused it, Trump never gave reasons why he believed Biden caused the inflation in two months. He just blamed Biden and kept blaming him for the next four years. Trump was like a broken record. After a while, people believe it. But blaming someone is meaningless without naming the cause, although it got Trump re-elected in 2024 because he repeated the accusation over and over for four years—and Biden and the Democrats never fought back.
“People just believed that since the inflation happened when Biden was President, it must be his fault”
Just because people believed Trump’s accusations doesn’t mean he was right. We will learn below that he was wrong. Besides, as mentioned above, inflation wasn’t the big problem; It was the increased cost of living for most Americans—and of course that always affects the middle and lower classes the most.
And if Trump caused the inflation just two months after he left office, then what did he do during his four years that could have caused it?
Trump had other reasons for blaming Biden. He was running for re-election in 2024. Of course he wanted to blame Biden, who beat him in 2020.
The Seeds of Inflation Were Planted Years Earlier
In reality, the seeds of the high inflation in 2021-22 were planted years before—in 2008. That was the year that the “Great Recession” was “born” (although it was developing in the American economic “womb” for many years prior to that).
When Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited an economy in deep trouble. It was named the “Great Recession” because it was the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Over the next eight years, under the Obama administration, the economy slowly, but surely, grew and came back. It’s like putting the car back together after an accident destroyed it. It’s a slow process—and you can’t just go out and buy a new economy.
By the time Trump took office in 2017, all economic indicators showed a healthy economy solidly on the road of recovery; Employment was coming back, along with the stock market. Inflation was exceptionally low during the previous nine years, even dipping into negative inflation, i.e., deflation, in 2009 and again in 2015.
As the economy improved, interest rates were raised—before Trump took office. The economy was doing well enough that Federal Reserve Chairwoman Yellen raised the rate in 2015 for the first time since 2008—in anticipation of a probable rise in inflation if they weren’t raised. The economy was doing that well.
Raising the interest rate in a recovery is done for only one reason: to stave off inflation during an economic recovery. It is done gradually so that there is no massive and sudden decrease in spending because the cost of money increased—which could cause the country to slip back into a recession. Yellen also indicated that she would continue to raise the rate in the coming years, and it was raised regularly over the next three years, reaching 2.4% by early 2019. But in 2018, President Trump appointed a new chairperson, Jerome Powell.
A New Fed Chairperson Comes to Office in 2018
Powell first indicated he would continue to raise the rates that Yellen started. But Trump did not want to. In fact, Trump wanted them lowered and—against the advice of many economists—he urged Powell to lower the interest rate, which he did three times—something that is never done when an economy is growing because of the probability of increasing inflation. Interest rates are the main tool that economists use to control inflation. But Trump had an election coming up and was afraid of an economic downturn in the fourth year of his Presidency if interest rates went up, or even just stayed where they were.
The President does not control the Fed rate. The Fed chairperson leads a board of governors who make the final decision, but the chairperson has the most power, and his term lasts four years, but it does not coincide with the President’s four years in office. It is intended to be independent so that the rate is non-political. But President Trump put pressure on Powell to lower the rates. Consequently, due to his urging, Powell lowered the rates in 2019† and were down to 1.5% by early 2020 (when the Pandemic started). The Fed looks at long-term trends. Trump was looking at the short-term effect on his re-election.
When Trump took office, he claimed he inherited an economy in 2017 that was a “mess.” But in reality, all indicators showed a strong stock market, growing employment and steady economic improvement when he took office. Trump knew it, but he wanted to take the credit for its revival since it was already happening. It was classic “Trump speak.” Consequently, he called it a “mess” shortly after his inauguration in 2017. After all, he was already thinking about his re-election.
But he was wrong. The “mess” was in 2008. The economy in 2016 was solidly on the road of recovery and was doing well.
Trump Economic Policy 2017-2019
In the first three years during Trump’s administration, the economy continued to improve with low inflation—all because of a decade of sound economic policies instituted before Trump.
Trump only made two major economic policy changes during those first three years (his fourth year was the pandemic year). First, in 2017, he lowered taxes for the wealthy, which increased the national debt substantially over the coming years. Trump claimed that he lowered the taxes for the middle and lower classes, but it was so small that it was Trump’s gesture to them, because most of the tax reduction went to the wealthy, which included Trump himself, along with his family.
But a big problem was that unemployment, which had gone down in recent years, was still above ideal and wages for the middle and lower classes were stagnant in most of the years since the Great Recession. And who cares about reducing your income taxes when you are unemployed?
Who cares about tax reductions if you are unemployed?
Regardless, the tax reduction for the rich was another input into the economy of cash that would add fuel to the fire of inflation right after Trump left office in January 2020. Tax deductions are always an input of cash, delivered and processed in the hands of the wealthy. And they always take time to make their way into the economy because taxes are always paid a year or more in the future after they become law.
Interest Rates Under President Trump
Trump’s second major economic change was to persuade Powell— against the advice of almost all economists— to lower the interest rates after they were recently raised. Lowering interest rates is an economic tool that is used to help jump-start when the economy goes into a recession. The country at that point was coming out of a recession and in such good shape that interest rates had been lowered before Trump became President. The economy was already improving and far along the road of recovery from the Great Recession. Raising rates during a recovery is done to stop possible inflation. Trump did the opposite—because he was afraid of not getting re-elected.
The Great Recession reached it’s climax in late 2008. Interest rates were somewhat high just beforehand, but were dropped drastically in 2009, then were raised in 2016 as the economy recovered. They were then lowered in 2019, then dropped to a very low level in 2020 because of the Pandemic. By the end of the year, the Pandemic was over and rates were raised as demand came back all at once in 2021-2022. Inflation soared.
Then, in 2020, during Trump’s fourth year as President—and when he was running for re-election—the global Covid Pandemic hit. Employment went down rapidly. Everyone went home, some working from home, others just not working at all. Businesses closed. Airlines and other sectors slowed down drastically. In March 2020, stock markets around the world crashed. By the end of the first quarter, the U.S. and the world were in a recession because of the Pandemic.
Countries around the world announced stimulus programs to increase government spending and lessen the possibility of a world-wide recession—or even worse, a depression.
The U.S. Pandemic Stimulus in 2020 Changes Everything
The Democrats and the Republicans in Congress, along with President Trump, all wanted to create a federal economic stimulus to help people get through the downturn in business and employment—and prevent a deep recession. The stimulus was also intended to put the economy in a strong position to come back when the Pandemic was over—because everyone believed it would be over before the end of the year, and they wanted to be ready for a strong comeback. Plus, it was an election year and Trump knew a stimulus package would help his re-election. He promoted a big stimulus.
The stimulus was massive. The first major bill was a $2.2 trillion stimulus package passed in March. Along with other stimulus bills, including those that were instituted in the following months, the total amount reached about $5 trillion that went out to individuals and businesses. Both parties in Congress, as well as President Trump, supported it—otherwise it would not have happened. The country had gone into a recession because of the Pandemic, although it was in the final stages of a recovery from the Great Recession. But because of the stimulus, the Pandemic recession was not extreme.
A $5 Trillion Stimulus
It’s hard to compute how effective the stimulus was and in what areas, but it was a $5 trillion input from the Federal Government—a very big chunk of money. There has never been a stimulus that big. It was unprecedented, as was the way it was put into the economy. In order for the stimulus to have an immediate effect, most of the money was sent out directly to the people as checks (many were direct deposits to individual bank accounts), extended unemployment benefits and direct payments to businesses—including small businesses as well as large corporations.
People did not spend it all at once, and many bought items online to be delivered to homes through Amazon and other outlets. These businesses benefited from the Pandemic. Plus, a large part of the stimulus went to major corporations in certain sectors, like the airlines. In fact, all indicators show the rich got richer during this time—along with their tax reduction in 2017. The stimulus was also intended to help individuals as well as businesses—both large and small—to have money to restart the economy after the Pandemic ended.
By the end of the second quarter of 2020, the Pandemic recession was basically over. It was the shortest recession in American history for two reasons. First, because of the stimulus, And second, because the economy had basically recovered from the Great Recession before the Pandemic. That recovery just went on “pause” when the Pandemic hit. But the U.S. economy did not immediately jump into an economic boom. It was gradual. Spending that massive $5 trillion was not immediate, and it took a while before it spread through the recovering economy. Plus, people were cautious. Many just saved their money. It took months before spending went up substantially as the money entered the economy. But you can’t just restart the largest economy in the world overnight.
Although inflation was at a healthy rate around 2% before the Pandemic, by the end of 2020, it had dropped down to a 1.2 % average for the year—basically because of the Pandemic “recession” and the slow recovery in the second half of the year.
Interest Rates and the Pandemic Recession Stimulus
Biden was elected President in November 2020. With the Pandemic basically over, and much of the stimulus money still in people’s pockets, spending slowly increased. Inflation started to creep up with spending, and just two months after Biden took office in January 2021, inflation increased and reached 4.2% in April. * It continued to rise, reaching its biggest increase in 2022. Most economists wondered if this would happen because the stimulus was massive, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the $5 trillion from being used up. But it was uncharted territory as no Pandemic had ever hit the country as heavily as the Covid Pandemic did.
When the Pandemic suddenly hit in early 2020, the bottom dropped out of the economy. Demand dropped like a rock falling off a high cliff into a deep canyon below. Inflation hit a low of 0.1% in May of 2020—barely above deflation. Powell had lowered the interest rate in February, then again in March and again in April—down to .05%. This continued the trend of lowering the interest rate that Trump wanted in 2019. But it was also lowered because of the Pandemic and economists were delving in unknown territory. This set the stage to help cause the high inflation that would start in April 2021.
Starting in April 2021, when inflation jumped to 4.2%, the Fed rate was at .05% and was kept low, first reaching .07% and then .08% where it stayed until the end of the year. Powell started to raise it in early 2022. By the end of 2021, inflation had continued to rise as people returned to work and started spending as the $5 trillion in stimulus continued to enter the economy that was in full swing. It was like throwing gasoline on the fire of inflation—a disaster waiting to happen. The spending increased through 2022 and beyond—and inflation, although brought under control by raising the Fed interest rate, continued at a lower rate in the following years. †
What is the Best Policy on Interest Rates During a Pandemic?
The Pandemic recession was somewhat unprecedented and how to respond to it was in question. Do you lower interest rates for a Pandemic recession? That would be standard in a “normal” recession. But the Federal Reserve, along with economists, were uncertain if that was the correct policy during a Pandemic recession. Why? Because they knew the Pandemic would end in the coming months and the economy was already strong, having recovered from the Great Recession over the previous 12 years. But still—it was uncharted territory, and all bets were off on what to do and what would happen next.
In looking back, many economists agree that it was a mistake to lower them, since everyone knew the Pandemic and the effects of its recession would be over by the end of the year. But it was an election year and Trump was afraid the recession would go deeper, and he would lose the election. Consequently, he pressured Powell to lower the rates.
Unfortunately, the lower rates helped fuel the upcoming inflation—regardless of who was the next President. Inflation was at an extremely low 0.1% in May 2020. When the Pandemic finally ends, plus the $5 trillion stimulus, and considering the strength of the economy before the Pandemic, inflation was going to skyrocket when it was over. It was actually predictable. But then again—no one had a lot of experience with Pandemics in the modern era and many economists were unsure. In fact, they had no experience.
Next, after months of distributing the stimulus money, came the effects of the massive $5 trillion stimulus, which kept the country from falling even deeper into a recession. But everyone knew the Pandemic would end—and by the end of 2020, it was basically over, and the effects of the $5 trillion stimulus began as spending increased. Businesses re-opened—or came out of their slump—people went back to work, and everyone started spending money like it was going out of style.
Biden Becomes President
Two months after Biden became President in January 2021, demand went straight up quickly from a deep valley of low demand—all causing an incredible rise in prices of everything. Inflation went from 0.1% in May 2020 to 4.2% in April 2021, and then to 5% in May. That was a substantial increase over only two months.
There was nothing that Trump nor Biden could have done to cause it—or to stop it. It was a massive freight train coming down the tracks that was unstoppable. The economy was not only recovering from the Great Recession when inflation was near zero, but from a year of an economic slump caused by the 2020 Pandemic, which put the recovery in “pause” mode.
2021 was followed by a steep rise in inflation in 2022. Donald Trump consistently blamed President Biden for the rise of inflation that started shortly after Biden became President in 2021. Trump constantly blamed him for four years—all the way through the 2024 election (and after). Trump continued to claim that there was no inflation when he was President, and it all started because of Biden’s policies. Trump’s followers believed him, and still do, and that belief was a major factor in Trump’s win in the 2024 election—if not the major factor.
The big question is: Is Trump correct? Did Biden really cause the steep rise in inflation only two months after he took office? If so, then what policies did he enact that caused it?
Or did Trump’s policies during the previous year, and earlier, cause the inflation? And if so, then what policies did he enact that caused it?
What Really Caused the Inflation When Biden was President?
Here are the main causes of the steep inflation which started in April 2021. It’s important to keep in mind that inflation is good if it is generally around 2% a year. At 2% a year, it will rise about 30% every 14 years. In reality, since inflation happens every year, it will hurt the most if your income doesn’t go up with inflation, meaning that the cost of living is what’s important. Income from the lower and middle classes was stagnant, and unemployment was high, from the Great Recession in 2008 through 2022. The wealthy got wealthier during that period. That is the essence of the problem.
In chronological Order:
The Great Recession in 2008. There is no doubt that if the 2008 recession had never occurred, it is most likely that the high inflation in 2022 would not have happened—even with the Pandemic of 2020. But then again, without that recession, the Presidential and Congressional elections over 14 years might have had different outcomes. But the real pain during the 14-year interval was the cost of living to the middle and lower classes, and if the economy had not fallen into a deep recession, wages would have risen to some extent, although wages for the lower and middle classes have not increased substantially since the 1980s. One cannot say exactly what would have happened, but the Great Recession definitely had a major affect that contributed to high inflation.
Lowering taxes in 2017. The economic effects of the 2008 Great Recession were slowly healing and on a good course when Trump took office in 2017. His economic policies were centered around lowering taxes for the rich, which caused the national debt to rise substantially. Compared to the wealthy, middle and lower-income Americans received a pittance in tax reduction. And who cares about a tax reduction when you are unemployed? Did the tax reduction input enough money into the economy three years after it was enacted so that it increased demand enough to cause inflation? Not on its own, but any input of money into the economy increases spending—and consequently, inflation.
Lowering the interest rate in 2019. Trump did not support increasing interest rates when he should have in his first three years. Even though interest rates were increased in 2015 through 2017 because the economy was deeply into the recovery from the Great Depression, Trump opposed raising the rates when Fed Chairperson Powell indicated in 2018 that they should be raised. He urged Powell to lower them, which he did. All economic indicators pointed to raising them, but Trump was concern about his re-election, so Powell lowered them. Even leaving them where they were would have been a better choice. Not raising the rates definitely contributed to the inflation that was still to come. The lowered rates meant that mortgage rates would be low, but with low employment and then the Pandemic, few houses were being built between 2008 through 2020. This drove housing prices up because the population increased and housing didn’t. ††
The Pandemic and the stimulus in 2020. The Pandemic stimulus was the largest cause of the rise in inflation in 2021-2022. And it was supported by President Trump, the Democrats in Congress, and the Republicans in Congress. Without the support of all three, it would never have passed. $5 Trillion is a large amount of money and there was no stopping its effects once the money was put out there. It was a freight train crash waiting to happen—a perfect storm of inflation.
In Conclusion: Who and What Caused the Inflation?
Trump blamed Biden for the inflation, but Trump played a key role in it, and if one person is to take most of the blame, it is undoubtedly Trump—because he was President for four years right up to two months before the rising inflation began. He did have help, though, because both the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress were the ones who got the stimulus passed. And Biden supported that stimulus before the 2020 election, but he had no official role in it. Then-President Trump strongly supported it because he was thinking about his re-election.
Of course, if there had never been the Great Recession which caused the biggest economic crash since the Great Depression, the massive inflation could have still happened, but as outlined above, the inflation from 2008 to 2022 averaged out to be low over those 14 years. If there had been no steep recession in 2008, it is more than likely that wages/income for the middle and lower classes would have risen, and the cost of living would not have gone up. But then again, the cost of living for the middle and lower classes has not kept up with inflation for the previous 40 years.
And, of course, the Pandemic and particularly the resulting stimulus, caused the inflation to hit all at once, which was the real problem. It should have been spread out over several years and distributed in a different fashion throughout the economy.
But then again, the country had never experienced a Pandemic in modern times, and no one was sure how to manage it.
No one act caused the steep inflation in 2022, but a combination of many factors. It was a “Perfect Storm” of many causes.
“The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation’s wealth as of the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.” ‡
The Real Problem with the Inflation in 2022 was Low Wages
No one would be complaining if wages had risen in 2008-2022 to meet the cost of inflation. As outlined above, over that 14-year period, average prices rose at a normal healthy rate, but wages were stagnant along with many years of low employment. The average inflation rate was normal over the 14 years. But when inflation got so low that there were periods of deflation, it was like prices dropped into a deep canyon for many years and then when the economy returned—not only from 12 years of recovering from the Great Recession, but also from one year of recovering from the Pandemic—prices climbed out of that deep canyon all at once in a little over one year.
The real pain is always felt by the middle- and lower-income classes and wages have not kept up with inflation for many decades—going back to the 1980s. The problem since the Great Recession in 2008 through 2022 was that it all came to a head in one year—2022.
The rich didn’t mind. They got wealthier when most of the country was suffering losses through higher prices with no rise in wages. The top 10% control 70 percent of America’s wealth and that situation is getting worse.
But there was one other problem: If the rich got richer during that time, where did the money come from? Simple, the national debt went from $10 trillion in 2008 to $33 trillion in 2023. The money came from the federal government and it went into the pockets of the top 10%. Five trillion dollars in pandemic debt alone was enough to explain why the rich got richer during not only the Great Recession, but also during the Pandemic and the high inflation that followed it.
NOTES
* The monthly inflation rate is often misunderstood by many in the general public. If inflation rises 5% one month and then 6% the next month, that doesn’t mean that prices went up 5% the first month and then they rose 6% higher the next month. It means that in the first month, prices were 5% higher than the same month of the previous year, and the following month the prices were 6% higher than the same month the previous year. Over 12 months, the average is taken and that is the annual rate of inflation, meaning how much higher prices were compared to the previous year. For example, if inflation went up 5% every month in a year, then the average inflation that year was 5% that year compared to the same average inflation the previous year.
† Fed Chairperson Powell later admitted to making a mistake by lowering rates in 2019, stating that the economy was in better shape than expected. The Pandemic recession was short-lived, and the higher rates would have helped keep inflation in check—inflation that was still to come.
† † Housing. The biggest increase in the cost of living resulting from the Great Recession combined with the Pandemic was with the cost of housing. The Great Recession was caused by inflated housing prices before 2008 when there were cheap and easily obtained mortgages. This led to overbuilding because inflated home appraisals were given out like candy. After 2008, housing starts almost stopped completely. Housing prices dropped for years afterwards, since there was an over supply caused by easy mortgages before 2008. Housing is often an indicator of economies coming back from economic slumps. Plus, they are an early, but subtle, indicator of economies heading for a crash. Housing starts rarely move quickly because land development, design and construction is a slow process. This is especially true if a subdivision needs to be developed, as they take an extremely long time. Housing started to pick up in 2017 (the most housing starts since 2007) and continued to slowly increase until the Pandemic hit, when starts again almost came to a complete halt. Housing continued to increase, but raising the interest rates caused it to slow down because of mortgage costs. Housing prices remained high through 2024 but are slowly leveling off in late 2024 as mortgage rates creep down.
Note: This article was edited only in that I changed the word “Will Say to Congress” to “Said to Congress” and added the words: “is What I Predicted” to the title. That’s because I was right. (The original title was: “What Trump Will Say in His Speech to Congress and Why“.) Otherwise, nothing has changed in the text below.
I read articles this morning, and in the last few days, about what Trump is going to say in his speech to Congress today. I wish people would quit rationalizing what Trump says as though he is a rational person. I know exactly what he’s going to say and do.
First of all, he’s going to lie constantly, then he’s going to brag about how great he is and how he’s solving every problem that exists, and then he’s going to use what he used for the last 10 years, and probably all his life—and which also got him elected with cult-like support: he’s going to continue to blame everyone else and tell the world how they are the enemy.
He started his entire presidential campaign on one thing: he announced a group to hate and then he united his supporters behind him in hating them. That group was immigrants, mainly those who come across our southern border, but also those who come from “shithole countries” (in Trump’s own words.). Of course, he will mention that group. And then he’s going to add the other groups that he’s added to it for the last 10 years, which is Democrats, communists, socialist, minorities, government workers—the list goes on and on.
All you have to do is go on TwitterX and see how his supporters constantly, over and over, have united behind Trump in hating all these groups. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the political playbook of history. Find a group to hate and unite the people behind you in hating them. The best examples in modern times: Hitler and Mussolini and the Jewish people. Hitler added the Russians in there when he invaded Russia. Mussolini added the Arabs in there when he invaded Libya.
That’s what Trump has done since he announced his Presidential candidacy in 2015. Of course, he started earlier when he accused Obama of not being born in the U.S. And that was a few years before his Presidential announcement in 2015. Obama and all of his supporters were another group to hate. He still reinvigorates this hate today when he talks about Obama.
So please, everyone, quit rationalizing what he’s going to say, because the one thing that always happens without fail is that all of his supporters believe everything he says as absolute truth and that’s what matters to him; that they hear it.
Several years ago, I read a Letter to the Editor in the St. Petersburg Times (now called the Tampa Bay Times). I copied the letter and saved it in my computer, forgetting about it until I accidentally ran across it recently. As I reread the letter, I realized that the writer (whose name I am keeping private to protect the innocent*) was possibly correct.
The letter was about Rick Scott, who had recently been elected Governor of Florida in 2011. He started his own healthcare company many years earlier and had become quite wealthy. He was ousted as CEO after his company was convicted of Medicare fraud. The company had to pay the largest fine in Medicare history. Part of the settlement was that he no longer be CEO of his own company. He was not personally convicted. He also walked away with $200 million dollars. He then went into politics as a Republican. During his years as Governor, he heavily promoted business interests and was opposed to any free healthcare. He was against the Obama Affordable Care Act. After two terms as Florida’s governor, he successfully ran for the Senate, where he resides today. He has always voted with his fellow Republicans every time they tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
Here is the text of the Letter to the Editor about Scott:
Some people have joked that Governor Rick Scott, based on his appearance, is an alien. I think he might be a Ferangi. This species from Star Trek has no motivation beyond business. Their religion is business, and their god is profit.
Their culture and philosophy are defined by the rules of acquisition. These rules make no provision for supporting the common good, or those less fortunate. A Ferangi doesn’t hesitate to cheat, lie, or steal to complete a business deal. He will betray his family and allies for profit. The only dishonor a Ferangi knows is to fail to get the advantage in a business deal. They regard other species as inferior, and their females have no power or rights.
The reason this letter seems appropriate today is because I am convinced that both Donald Trump and Elon Musk—just to name a few—are most likely all Farangis. People might say that Star Trek is a fictitious TV series, but there are many who believe that it was a documentary. It takes place around the year 2150 and maybe time travel was possible. After all, the current Republican Party supports both Trump and Musk, and they act like they are all cut from the same Ferangi cloth—or at the very least they bow down to it.
*****
* If the letter writer wishes to contact me for any reason, please do so at: editor@accidentalplanet.com . I kept the name of the writer and you can identify yourself by giving me that name and the municipality you noted in the letter signifying where you were from, so that I have the correct person.
Trump pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists to justify his accusation that there was cheating in the 2020 election—and that he was the real winner. He knew that if he did so it would back up his claim, because if there really was cheating then those people would just be rebelling against the fake election results, and it was justified. By pardoning them, he reinforces his lie to not only them, but to all his supporters who put him in office – and it makes him look like he is innocent.
Trump does not care if they are innocent or guilty. He only cares if he looks innocent or guilty. But Trump has another motive by pardoning them: He has gained their undying loyalty, and they know that if they support him with violence again, he will again pardon them. After all, what would they have to lose? They have now become his Presidential Guard. His private army. The current Republican Party, or should I say Trump Party, and its leaders, are cheering him on, and the few Republicans who hold any power who don’t agree with these pardons will continue to support Trump in silence. They are that fearful. They are cowering in silence.
After freeing those who were violent in the Capitol on Jan. 6, does Trump now have his own private “Presidential Guard” who will be violent for him if he needs them?
Of course if we want to keep it simple, Trump pardoned them because he’s just a lying human being who has no morals, principles, or shame. He only wants power. He is a legend in his own mind.
In his inauguration speech, he actually claimed that God saved him so he could save the country. That is the final proof that he has a god complex and really is mentally sick.
His supporters believe every word he says as absolute truth without question, just like the people who followed Hitler, Mussolini—and other despots and dictators throughout history. Weak people need leaders like Trump, strong people don’t. And Trump knows his people are weak and will follow him anywhere. They never question him or seek the truth beyond what he says. Most of what he has said publicly and politically ever since he led the Obama birther movement in 2011 were said for only one reason: Because his followers believe everything he says. Whether it’s true or not does not matter; What’s important is that his followers hear it.
During my over 50 years of being an employer and an employee in the American economy, there is one type of personality that I ran into all the time. And that is someone who’s new to a company who comes in with the idea that they are going to change and fix everything. They are generally pretty young, but always have this feeling that they are superior to others. The other employees who see this new person realize that he’s just another jerk who thinks that they are all inefficient and worthless employees and this guy’s going to fix it.
I was even one of those in my early days until I realized that I’m not superior to these others, and I can’t go in and fix everything because I learned over time that certain practices and habits are there for a reason, and those reasons have often come down over decades and centuries. What I learned was called humility.
Humility is something that Elon Musk needs badly. His money has gone to his head and now he has a God complex. He’s like Trump, who also has a God complex. Trump also thinks that he’s going to come in and fix everything in the world—and that he is superior to everyone else—that only he can fix it.
Someone needs to tell Elon—and Trump, for that matter—that efficiency is not the goal of everything. In fact, efficiency can almost be the bane of human existence.
Efficiency is Not the Main Goal in Life
And this thing with DEI. We need to have a society that’s diverse, equitable and inclusive of all types of people. DEI hiring is often bringing in people who live on the fringes of society because the majority of society, or maybe a large group, doesn’t like them, often because these people are of a different race, religion, sex—or have some other unpopular trait. In other words, they’re prejudiced against them, and they don’t want to deal with them, so these people just fall by the wayside because society doesn’t engage with them. And engagement means that they aren’t as efficient. But efficiency, again, is not the main goal in life, nor should it be in government and society.
What good government and a good society should be has yet to be determined; It’s a work in progress, although there are a lot of people who are convinced that they know exactly what it should be and they want to force that on everyone else—except the idea of democracy, which is only defined as rule by the people—and is also a work in progress—stands in their way.
Elon should understand all this. After all, he grew up in South Africa, a place where the majority of the people who were black were once ruled by the minority of the people, who were white. And the white people weren’t kind to the black people. The white people just didn’t like the black people. They thought they were superior to the blacks. Democracy came along and changed all that. And that is still a work in progress. But Elon, who is white, left. Maybe it wasn’t efficient enough for him.
Democracy in the dictionary is defined as “rule by the people”
How Poor Procedures for Measuring Blood Pressure Often Indicate False High Blood Pressure
Are you certain that your doctor’s office is measuring blood pressure correctly? Because if it’s not, then the doctor could be using inaccurate results to advise you on your health, often leading to you taking unnecessary drugs for high (or low) blood pressure that you don’t have. Some might think that of course they measure your blood pressure correctly. After all, it’s done at the doctor’s office. That’s what I thought—until I learned the truth that inaccurate measuring of blood pressure is very common, not only at the doctor’s office, but also when the patient measures their own blood pressure at home. Here’s what happened to me—and how I learned to accurately measure my own blood pressure and to know when medical workers are doing it incorrectly. I also learned that I didn’t have high blood pressure, although the doctor told me I did—and his opinion was based on the false readings I received in his offices and in my home (before I learned how to properly measure my own blood pressure).
How it All Began: A Medical Worker First Tells Me I Have High Blood Pressure
In 2023, I went to see a new doctor for an ailment that was not urgent or critical. When I arrived at the appointed time, I went through a process that’s common in every doctor’s’ office I’ve been to. I first took care of paperwork, then waited in the reception area. Next, I was taken to a room and waited in a chair. Shortly afterwords, an assistant came in and took my weight and height.
Then the assistant measured my blood pressure. I was sitting in an armchair—a simple metal chair with cushioned seat and back, like an inexpensive dining room chair. The doctor’s assistant put the blood-pressure cuff on my right arm and told me to sit up with my back supported and put my feet flat on the floor, which I did. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a T-shirt under it. I started to pull my sleeves up so she could put it on my bare skin when she said she could put it over the clothing. She then turned on the device and took a reading.
Then she said, “Your blood pressure is high.”
Little did I know the medical roller coaster I was about to go on. This is the same “general” procedure for measuring blood pressure (BP)—with some small differences—used in every doctor’s office I’ve been to in the previous 20-plus years. I’ve gone through this at least 10 times during this period. Each time, the attendant told me my blood pressure. In all these cases, the attendant who took my BP also told me what the reading numbers were, but I never paid attention to it before and never knew what the numbers meant. Why? Because a doctor never mentioned the words “blood pressure” to me in my 75 years (or more specifically, since I became an adult), so I ignored it. But in this instance, for the first time in my life, the assistant said to me, “Your blood pressure is high.” She also told me the numbers, but I knew nothing about the meaning of the numbers.
I’ve been extremely healthy my whole life and spent very little time with doctors. I’ve never had a regular doctor, and I’ve taken care of my health since I was in college in my 20s, plus my parents kept me healthy. And I am in great health now—minus this current minor ailment that drove me to see a doctor.
The doctor came in shortly after the assistant left the room. I talked about my health history and lifestyle. We discussed the reason I was there, and a little about the medical group that he was associated with, EZX Health (a fictitious company I made up). It was our first meeting, and we did not discuss my blood pressure, possibly because of a time constraint. We set another appointment for one week later.
I went home concerned my blood pressure was high. But I did not remember the numbers. The next morning, I opened an email summary of my appointment, which I read through a patient portal. The BP numbers were in the summary. My BP was at 153/96. Since I didn’t know anything about BP numbers, I looked it up online and yes, those numbers were quite high. I was greatly concerned and a bit worried. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It kept me up at night for the coming week.
Little did I know—with my limited knowledge of how blood pressure was measured—the journey I was about to go on that would completely alter my view of doctors and the procedures used in many of their offices to check patients’ blood pressure.
Measuring Blood Pressure at Home
I started thinking about how to get another BP reading before my second appointment one week after the first. Since I had been healthy my whole life and lived a healthy lifestyle, I was a bit worried. Two days before the second appointment, I came up with the idea of getting a home blood pressure monitor. I knew absolutely nothing about them. I researched the internet and found out I could buy an Omron, a respected name in home monitors, within minutes from home. I bought one that day.
The Omron blood pressure monitor with attached cuff. It connects to your cell phone and saves all the readings. Only $60 at Sam’s Club. It is a validated device approved by the American Heart Association.
When I got home about 5:30, I opened the box and went to the “Quick Start Guide,” which led me to calling Omron. An attendant on the phone walked me through my first reading, telling me how to put the cuff on and tighten it, allowing two fingers (no more and no fewer) to fit comfortably in between the cuff and the arm. She also told me how to connect my cellphone to the monitor through the Omron app. At this point, I knew nothing about how to take a BP reading. This was my first lesson. My first reading (over the phone) showed my BP at 153/104—very close to the doctor’s office reading. Now I was even more concerned. After the phone call with Omron, I took two more readings that afternoon: 130/99 and 134/96. That was better by a lot, but I didn’t know why.
In fact, I was still a real novice to this whole blood pressure business. And I wondered why the readings are so different from each other, even when one is taken right after another. I took more readings: the next morning after coffee; then the next afternoon around 5pm; and another the following morning. I took two readings each time and all were in the 130s, 140s, even one at 151. And the diastolic readings (the second number) were all in the 80s, 90s and higher. From my elementary knowledge of BP numbers, I knew these were all high, but I still had no idea why each reading was different.
I later learned that I knew basically nothing about blood pressure when I walked into the second appointment. I always thought that taking your blood pressure was easy. I always had it done in a medical office by an assistant and trusted the results. That’s all I knew.
My Second Appointment — One Week After the First
At my second appointment, the procedure was the same: After measuring my weight, the assistant took my blood pressure using the same procedure as before. She put the cuff on over my two shirts while I was sitting down, told me to sit up and put my feet flat on the floor and turned it on. She again said my blood pressure was high at 157/103. She then asked me if I wanted her to take my BP after I met with the doctor. I said yes.
When the doctor came in, we discussed the original health problem I came to him for, and what tests we would do next. Mainly, we discussed my high blood pressure as I was anxious to do so.
I showed him the results from my home monitor that were recorded on my cellphone app, telling him that I just bought the monitor two days before. My readings were still high, and he wrote some of them down. By the end of the meeting, he had me totally convinced that I had high blood pressure.
Immediately after the meeting, the assistant came in and took my blood pressure using the same procedure, and again, it was high at 148/96. At this second reading, she put it on my left arm. The other readings were on my right arm. I had no idea if that mattered.
Click on image to view larger readable image
We set another appointment for five weeks later. I went home again, concerned about my blood pressure being high. I took two more readings at home at about 5pm. They were high. Little did I know how much I still had to learn. At the second appointment, while I was waiting for the doctor to come in, I noticed on the inside side of the closed door, a poster on how to properly measure blood pressure. The poster is for home BP measuring since the text instructs the reader to measure in the morning “before medications.” The image and its text also show the cusp should be over bare skin. I mentioned this to the doctor. The assistant who took my blood pressure must have never read the poster, since she put it over my clothing each time. Or maybe in the doctor’s office it doesn’t matter. After all, they should know. Right? But after seeing the poster, I first began to wonder about the procedures used for measuring my blood pressure.
Why Worry About My Blood Pressure?
Why was I so concerned about my blood pressure? Being healthy has been one of my main goals since I was young. I had a healthy upbringing. Plus, we had free healthcare because my father was a military officer. When I was in college in the 1960s, there was a food revolution going on, and I’ve tried to eat healthy ever since. And I’ve always exercised. I’m a hiker, swimmer, cyclist, sailor and more. That’s why, at 75, I’m doing great. And I’ve never taken any prescribed medication. But seeing a doctor regularly was not part of that regimen over the years. I saw a doctor only when I needed one, which was rare. I am not overweight, have great energy and feel great. I meditate every morning and most afternoons. Every day I stretch, do various other exercises, and then have a light workout with weights. So, when I was told I had high blood pressure, I was shocked and worried.
Over the years, I’ve learned some causes of high blood pressure, and there are, in general, only two solutions: Medication and/or change lifestyle. I’m very educated about what a healthy lifestyle is, and I knew that if I had to change my lifestyle, there is nothing I would change to improve it to be healthier. Consequently, I had to figure out what was going on. I had to investigate the readings. They were all over the place, especially at the doctor’s office, where they were consistently high. I wanted to know why. And why do they change every time I took a reading?
I always thought that when a medical person took my blood pressure, that it was some complex system that checks it, that it can be taken at any time on either arm, was easy to do and very accurate. The more I learned, the more I realized how little I knew.
I Learn More and More About Measuring Blood Pressure Properly
The day after my second appointment, I took readings in the morning, and they were high. I decided it was time I read the monitor’s instruction manual since I was still using the Quick Start Guide. I learned some very amazing facts in the manual, facts that are so simple that they changed everything. First, when I took my BP reading over the phone with Omron, I was sitting in a cushioned chair that had a table on my right, so I attached the cuff to my right arm, which I rested on the table (it was barely below the armrest). Plus, at the medical office at the first appointment, the assistant took my first BP reading with the cuff on my right arm. At the second appointment, the first reading was on my right arm and the second one was on my left arm.
The instruction manual said to put the cuff in a different position if using it on the right arm. From then on in, I moved it to the left arm, and positioned it according to the instructions. (How to measure for the right or left arm were the instructions for my monitor. They might be different for other makes or models.) As I read the instruction manual, I also started researching BP-measuring procedures online through articles, studies, YouTube videos and blood pressure forums.
Another revelation was that I never knew that you are supposed to rest for at least five minutes before taking a reading. As I look back on that, I find that truly amazing. As it turns out, that is one of the most important procedures for getting a reliable reading of your “true” blood pressure. Why did I not know this? Because in all the times I had my blood pressure taken in a medical office, including at the EZX Health office, no one ever told me to rest before a reading—and rest for at least five minutes. Why did no one ever tell me that? Don’t they know? They’re medical workers. They’re supposed to know.
I also learned that your arm should be raised so that the middle of the cuff is approximately equal to the level of your heart. In the past, I know that some attendants did raise my arm, but in some of those cases, I even had to hold it up. With others, they had a table to rest my arm on. Others used the armrest of a chair, which I learned is generally not high enough for the average adult.
The arm should be raised so the middle of the cuff is approximately the same height as the middle of the heart. This can change depending on the individual, but for the average adult sitting in a standard height chair, like a dining or desk chair, the height of a standard dining or desk table sets the cuff at the correct height.
There was no standard that I ever saw. At the EZX Health office, I was never told my arm should be raised to the correct level. It was just resting on the arm rest, or barely raised at all. At the first visit, I was sitting in an armchair with arm rests. In the second visit, I was sitting in a chair with no arm rests and both tests were done without raising my arm any more than necessary so the assistant could put the cuff on from her standing position. There was no consistency in the arm position.
Another important practice is that the cuff should always go over bare skin. I’ve had some medical workers tell me that, but I didn’t pay much attention. But in the EZX Health office, the assistant put it over the two shirts I had on for all three readings that were taken over two appointments, one at the first visit and two at the second (with about 30 minutes between readings which was when I was talking to the doctor).
Another thing I learned that I have never seen done in a doctor’s office, including EZX Health, is that you should always take at least two readings and average the two. Some recommend three readings, then discard the first and average the next two. And they should be taken consecutively with at least a 1-minute rest between readings. No source I found online says one reading is enough, but one is all I’ve ever experienced.
You should also never talk while resting or while the reading is being taken. I began to notice the differences in the readings at home as I changed the procedure; they got lower. But they still were not consistent, going up and down on every reading—and I didn’t know why. I was still taking readings in the morning and at 5pm—until I learned that the best time, when you are the most rested, is in the early morning, 30-60 minutes after you get out of bed—before coffee, eating, or exercise. The next best time is late evening—at least an hour or so after eating (including no deserts) and no exercise beforehand. The worst time was in the middle of the day. From that point on, I only took readings in the morning.
Over the next few days, I experimented with being comfortable in an upright chair where I can sit up with my feet flat on the floor and rest. I used a light table I had and chose a throw cushion so I could rest my arm on it, palm up, at the height I needed, allowing the tube from the cuff to run along my forearm to the monitor. Then I learned to place the monitor so I can easily press the start button and take a reading. Another essential procedure is to make sure you do not have to pee, as it can really raise your reading if you do. I’ve never been asked that at a doctor’s office: “Do you need to pee, as it will affect your BP reading if you do?” All and all, if you are taking your blood pressure yourself, the final instruction is to take it at the same time each day for several days and you will get a good “baseline.”
There is No Such Thing as Your “True” Blood Pressure
In summary, what I learned with all of the above details on the proper procedure for measuring your blood pressure was that there is no “magical” blood pressure that you have. It’s not like, “Your blood pressure is 110/80.” If that was the results of a reading, it’s the reading for that moment under the conditions that it was measured in using the device (the monitor) you used. If someone tells you that such and such is your blood pressure, then they don’t understand what it means, or they are saying something they shouldn’t be saying. If a doctor says that, then keep an eye on them and don’t trust them completely. But a doctor, as well as a nurse, should know this (or at least I am sure they knew it at one time), but an assistant probably doesn’t (although five minutes of instruction should be enough to inform them to never say, “That is your blood pressure”).
All medical workers should really say—if they want to give you an honest and informed answer—”We measured your blood pressure as…” Then they should tell you what that measurement means and how it is not necessarily your “true” blood pressure. It’s what they measured today, at this time in this place and in these conditions at this location. We are alive and constantly in a state of change, even when asleep. It will be extremely rare that you will get the same exact blood pressure read even just two times in a row. What they don’t tell you—probably because they don’t want to take the time to tell you—and because they often think you should just listen to them without question and do as they say—is that there is no exact measurement that is your blood pressure.
Your BP changes constantly all day as you walk, eat, talk, work, sleep, etc., etc., etc. What you need to do is find a “baseline” that will give an indication of what your blood pressure is. A blood pressure “baseline” is similar to finding your “true” weight. As you eat and move around all day, your weight goes up and down. Two eight-ounce cups of coffee (or almost any liquid) is one pound. But that doesn’t mean that you just increased your weight by one pound. If you pee one cup five minutes later, you just lost a half pound. It’s the same for exercise. You can lose a half pound with just exercise. In other words, all day long your weight goes up and down. So how do you find your “true” weight? You take it at the same time every day when you have the least amount of changes. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best-known way to measure your true weight. So, you weigh yourself, naked, first thing in the morning right after you pee. That is your “baseline” and the truest weight you can measure over time. But it’s never perfect, it’s just the best we can do. It’s a baseline.
What is a Blood Pressure Baseline and How Do You Get It?
A baseline for blood pressure is what you are seeking. But it’s less exact than finding your “true weight,” because it’s more complex to put a cuff on your arm and measure the heart pumping. The medical world has established that the best way to find a good baseline is to put yourself in a “rested state” when your body has had enough time to slow down, and to be in a physical position which is somewhat close to your truest resting state, without outside and personal interferences that can be changed easily. And your mental state can cause your blood pressure to go up and down, so it needs to be calm and relaxed. It’s when your body is not digesting lots of food, including stimulants like coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, drugs, etc. And since your blood pressure includes movement of blood throughout your body, you need be in a physical, sitting position that minimizes hindering or stimulating blood flow, like sitting comfortably with feet flat on the floor and in an upright position with a relatively straight back. And you should take the reading over several days, like five to seven days and average the readings each day and then average the daily averages.
The medical community has determined that the best way to get a baseline is to first take the reading in the early morning 30-60 minutes after you get up (after you get up, NOT after you wake up), in a sitting position (sitting up in a comfortable straight-back chair), with your feet flat on the floor. The monitor cuff should be above your inside elbow crease (1/2 inch above on my monitor instructions), and not too tight or too loose (based on monitor instructions, fit two or three fingers comfortably between the cusp and bare skin). You should not have to take a pee (that can raise your BP considerably if you do), and you should not talk while the reading is being taken. You also should not have eaten, exercised, smoked, or drank coffee, etc., at least 30 minutes before. And you should rest, with the cuff on, for at least 5 minutes before the reading—without any outside distractions and in a restful environment. All these conditions are generalizations to try and get you in a rested, baseline state—and to get the best reading, you should do everything possible to get into that state.
Another very important factor is the device being used, and it is recommended using a device where the cuff is on your upper arm only, not one on your wrist. You also must follow the manufacturer’s instructions. For example, the height of your arm the cuff is on. This too is a guide—not an exact position. The center of the cusp should be approximately the same height as your heart. That point is approximately the same point used to put pressure on the heart in CPR. It is found by finding the bottom of the sternum and measuring up two fingers width. The area above that point is where you put your palm to press on the heart for CPR. That area should approximately align with the center of the cuff. Some say it is the same point as the nipples, which is correct for an average adult, although this can vary considerably with people depending on age, weight and sex. A small high or low difference is insignificant, but way too low, like letting your arm hang straight down from your shoulder, can give a higher reading, and way to high can give a lower reading. For an average-size adult sitting in a chair, like a dining room or desk chair, your arm resting on the table or desktop, works well. But your doctor should be able to tell you the most exact height. But don’t always listen to the medical worker, who might be an assistant who is not well-trained in taking blood pressure.
Once you get the proper procedures down, then you need to measure you blood pressure at the same time every day for several days, maybe a week. Then, taking all the averages, and discarding any extreme readings, you can achieve a good baseline that will give you a good indication of what your blood pressure is. It will end up to be a final figure, but with your new knowledge of how you got to that point, you can now see that one reading, or just a few, is not even close to being enough information to judge what your blood pressure is. Relying on one measurement is just stupid. And if the procedures are poor on top of that, it’s downright ridiculous.
Why doctors don’t explain all this in their first meeting with you when the topic of blood pressure is discussed is beyond me. No one ever told me. But, actually, I think they don’t want to take the time to do it. And sometimes, they don’t want to pay for all the extra time of having you rest, getting comfortable, and taking more than one reading—all under the direction of a medical worker, who is rarely a doctor. To get a good baseline requires more time, and more time in the doctor’s office, especially if it’s done by a doctor, can be expensive. That’s why blood pressure measuring is almost always done by a lower-cost medical worker. After all, medicine is a business. And, unfortunately, business is often a top priority. Sometimes, it’s the main priority. Today, many doctors don’t run their own practice, but are part of a larger, profit-making enterprise that controls costs that are not always in the patient’s best interests.
I Finally Get “Consistent” Results Measuring Blood Pressure at Home
Over the next few days after I learned the above information, I refined my procedure using not only the monitor instruction manual, but also from extensive online research. I decided that on the evening before I was going to take a reading, I would set up my chair, and the table and cushion my arm rested on. I then placed the monitor in the correct position for taking a reading. This way, in the morning, I would not be spending energy to get all this together. I did everything I could to maximize the chances of getting the best reading in a rested state 30-60 minutes after getting up.
In the morning, I sat in the chair and put the cuff on my left arm according to the guidelines and instructions. It only took a few minutes since everything was in place. Then, with the cuff on, I rested for 5 minutes (many recommend doing this—rest with cuff on, even in the medical office), using the stopwatch on my phone (with a gentle sound when the time is up), After the first reading, I took two more, resting one minute between them.
I was pleasantly surprised that my first readings under my “controlled” conditions were lower than my previous readings and far lower than those at the doctor’s office. I took three readings. The first was 117/85, the second was 126/86, and the third was 121/85. Over my first two appointments in the EZX Health office, the three readings taken were: 153/96; 157/103; 148/96. That’s a huge difference. That’s enough of a difference to change everything in my case. I felt exonerated—no longer with the worry that I might have high blood pressure. (I am not going to discuss here what the exact numbers should be, since your doctor should be advising you on that.)
The correct way to measure your own blood pressure – sitting up in a straight-back chair with feet flat on the ground and the arm is resting on a table so that the center of the cuff is raised to be level with the heart.
For the next five days, I took three readings every morning with the same procedure. I made notes on each reading. After six days, I took the average of all three every day and then averaged all those averages. The final average was 121/86. That’s a far cry from the three readings at the medical office which were: 153/96; 157/103; 148/96. In other words, I established a baseline. It was an average established over six days using procedures recommended by the medical community.
As I look back to the second appointment when the doctor and I compared my home readings being remarkably like the readings taken in his offices, I realized that my first home readings that I showed him were done using the same bad procedures as used by his assistant. So, of course there’s going to be poor results. With what little I knew about procedures at the time, counting on my home readings was just as bad as counting on the office readings.
Can You Trust a Blood Pressure Reading Taken in a Doctor’s Office?
I was pleased that all my research on procedure showed me exactly what I had read in many articles and videos online: You cannot trust readings that are not properly taken, which happens in medical offices all the time—and it also happens at home. Yet what have I learned? Be very careful about the readings you get in a medical office, as well as at home. You probably can’t trust them unless you know the proper procedures. And what I have seen over the years—and currently learned online—is that this is common practice throughout the medical community in a doctor’s office.
Out of 10-plus BP readings I have had in a doctor’s office in the last 20 years, not one followed the proper and recommended procedures. In fact, not one was even close. I started asking myself. How can that be? How can it be that you can’t necessarily trust the blood pressure readings taken in a doctor’s office? That’s where you should be able to totally trust them. Decisions on whether or not you need to be on blood pressure medication are partially based on these readings. They are at the least an essential and prominent determining factor that your doctor will use in deciding on whether or not you need to be on medication, or to change your lifestyle, or both.
The doctor, in his daily summary of our second meeting (I accessed the summaries through an online portal), suggested that he would, at the next visit, “consider initiating antihypertensive therapy if readings remain consistently elevated.” One thing was for certain in his mind: I have high blood pressure. He’s basing that belief based on faulty BP measurements in his office and at my home. But I began to wonder: How many people in the U.S. are on blood pressure medication who don’t need it because of poor procedures used in reading BP, not only in medical offices, but also in home readings? After all, the doctor didn’t question me on my procedures. In his mind, my readings confirmed his office’s readings. How can he miss such an obvious problem?
The Procedures Recommended by the Medical Community for Measuring Blood Pressure
After many hours and days of research on the internet, below is what I have found is the recommended procedure that should be used in a medical office. These guidelines are basically for everyone, but cuff size, chair, and table height to rest your arm on could vary considerably, depending on the individuals size, age and weight. Below is a result of reading the AMA guidelines, as well as other guidelines and practices I found that are recommended by doctors and other medical professionals. There are so many studies and resources out there that it’s impossible to count them—which makes me wonder why poor procedures are so common. The reader should keep in mind that I am a layman. I do not claim that the below procedures are correct. This is just what my research has found. You should really confirm them yourself. I am only trying to spread the word that you should not trust blood pressure readings unless you know the proper procedures both at a medical office and at home. Don’t trust what the doctor says blindly.
How Your Blood Pressure Should be Read at the Doctor’s Office
Here is what I have learned. I am not a doctor, nor do I have any medical training, but I learned a lot because of a bad experience I had, which prompted me to research the subject. Verify everything for yourself. I have included links at the end of this article to many websites for more information.
The bottom procedure could change depending on the patient’s condition. A doctor will know what is correct, but it’s best to double-check them, since they aren’t all at the top of their game.
First ask the patient if they have to pee, telling them it’s best for a good BP reading.
Put the patient in a comfortable chair with armrests—because armrests are comfortable.
Have a table next to the chair that will allow the patient to easily and comfortably rest their arm on the table with their palm up, so that the middle of the cusp is level with the heart. Be able to adjust the arm height as needed in some way to get it close to ideal.
If this is the patient’s first visit, measure the BP on each arm and use the arm with the highest reading then and in the future.
Ask the patient if they ate recently and what (some foods take longer to digest). Also ask if they smoked, drank coffee or alcohol, or if they exercised before the appointment—and how much and when. All these comments should be written down every time the BP is measured on a checklist. Then the doctor can take the conditions into account—and tell the patient that.
The cusp should be attached in the correct position (height above elbow crease depending on monitor instructions) to the correct arm over bare skin. According to recommendations by most groups, the correct-size cusp should be placed over the arm so that two fingers can easily be inserted between the cusp and the arm (some cusps might state three fingers, depending on manufacturer’s instructions). It is essential that the cusp be the right size for the arm. It is recommended that every medical office have an assortment of cusp sizes easily available. (Wrong cusp size is the number one cause for incorrect measurements, according to the AMA.)
After the cusp is on, the patient is informed that they should sit up with back straight and rest their feet flat on the floor, legs not crossed. Then the attendant should tell them that they need rest for five minutes, with no talking, to get an accurate meeting. It is best if they rest with the cuff on. The patient should also be told they will take two (or three, which is best) measurements and they will rest at least 1 minute between readings, and they will discard the first reading and take the average of the next two or average the two, if only two are taken. Then the attendant leaves the room and turns the lights off, or better still, leaves them in a low light environment.
When the attendant returns, the patient should be told not to talk during the measurement. Do not engage them in conversation. Then the monitor is turned on and the measurement taken.
One or two more measurements are taken, resting between them. If any two are drastically different, then take another reading and discard one. Generally, taking three and discarding the first, and then averaging the next two, is the best result.
The correct way to measure blood pressure. The patient is sitting up in a straight-back chair, with feet flat on the ground and with the arm resting on a table, which raises the cuff to the correct height.
Procedures Used When My Blood Pressure was Measured at the EZX Health Medical Office
I had three measurements taken at EZX Health: One at the first visit and two at the second (these two were separated by about 30 minutes). All three procedures were the same with a few insignificant differences:
The assistant took me to a room where I sat in a chair with arm rests (At my second appointment, the chair had no armrests).
I was not asked if I have to pee.
The assistant put the cuff on my arm over my two shirts (at both appointments, three readings total). Based on what I later learned, the assistant took little care in placing the arm height correctly. There was no table for my arm. And she did not place the cuff in a certain position above the crease in the elbow. My monitor says ½ inch. And no care was taken for the tightness of the cuff.
She told me to sit up and put my feet flat on the floor.
We talked off and on during the procedure, but she never mentioned no talking.
She only took one reading each time.
I was never told to rest at any point at both appointments.
Although the reading at the first appointment was taken on the right arm, the two on the second appointment were taken on the left arm. There was no consistency.
A medical worker checking blood pressure with the patient in a poor position to get a good reading. Patient is not sitting up in a straight-back chair with feet flat on floor, but with legs crossed, sitting back on a couch.
Everyone Does it That Way
But the real problem, as mentioned above is: How can this be—that you can’t trust the blood pressure measurements taken at the doctor’s office—the one place that you should be able to trust?
Are they responsible? Or are they just normal?
Or: “Everyone does it that way.”
Since every procedure I’ve experienced in every medical office I’ve been to also has poor procedures—then I would have to blame the medical community in general. They all share this responsibility. What could be more important than correctly measuring your blood pressure? And what does it lead to if the measuring process falsely indicates high blood pressure that requires “Antihypertensive Therapy”—which generally includes medication?
“Initiating Antihypertensive Therapy”
In the summary, the doctor had written up on my second visit, it stated (emphasis mine), referring to my blood pressure:
Patient’s self-monitoring of blood pressure at home has consistently shown elevated readings—most in 130s up to high of 150s SBP. Will reassess blood pressure at the next visit and consider initiating antihypertensive therapy if readings remain consistently elevated. Please continue monitoring your blood pressure at home using your Omron device and follow proper procedures for accurate readings.
In the above comments, it states that he “would consider initiating antihypertensive therapy if readings remain consistently elevated.” With my new knowledge since that last meeting, that means he would be considering medication as one of the main aspects of “antihypertensive therapy”—partly based on the BP readings taken at his office, which were done incorrectly. They would also be based on readings I took at home—when I didn’t have a clue how to properly take a reading. In other words, the procedures I used to measure BP at home were just as unreliable as the procedures used in the doctor’s office.
The doctor mentions in the above visit summary to make sure I “follow proper procedures for accurate readings” when I take the readings, yet he didn’t ask me one question about my procedure, so how could the doctor know? I told the doctor I bought the monitor less than two days before. I certainly did not become an expert in less than two days. During my first reading I was talking on the phone with Omron. Believe me, “talking on phone” during a reading is not an acceptable part of the proper procedure when checking your blood pressure.
Maybe the doctor didn’t know what the “proper procedures” were, since all the readings taken in their office weren’t even close to “proper.” I am certain though, that he knew at one time (from his original training—see the comments from the “27 Sources…” article in the next section below). I started to wonder: How many millions of people are on blood pressure medication who don’t need to be because the readings are poorly taken? I’d read many comments on discussion forums that discuss blood pressure and there is an entire world of people out there who don’t know anything about proper procedures, are scared to get their BP measured at a doctor’s office, are very worried about their BP being too high and are confused. Many take their BP and don’t know how to do so correctly. According to a 2017 analysis, 61.9 million adults in the United States were taking antihypertensive medication. Really?
How Prevalent are Poor Procedures for Measuring Blood Pressure in the Medical Community?
In my research, I found a large number of studies and opinions on the state of BP reading procedures. Below are two examples that help illustrate what is happening. Every health care worker should read these—or at least the excerpts below to perhaps gain a little humility—besides learning the truth about the state of measuring blood pressure in medical offices (and hospitals – see below).
A Study Involving 172 Health Care Workers
This is a 1995 study at a major city hospital. The full article should be read. It involved 172 health care workers, GPs, specialists, nurses.
“Evaluation of the Technique Used by Health-Care Workers for Taking Blood Pressure”
Excerpt:
Practical Test
All of the groups were notably inaccurate in the practical test. Only 3% of the general practitioners and 2% of the nurses obtained reliable results (P=NS in any group) (Fig 1). Arm and cuff positions were inadequate in 73%. Only 3% used the stethoscope bell.
Blood Pressure
Sixty-three percent of examinees were out of range in their readings of systolic BP (46% incorrect positive, 54% incorrect negative) and 53% in diastolic BP (40% incorrect positive, 60% incorrect negative). The nurses had the highest out-of-range values in both BP readings (P<.03 versus surgical specialists).
The above is a 1995 study, but what it shows is how long this problem has been going on and probably added to how the term “white coat syndrome” got started. To read the entire study, go to: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.HYP.26.6.1204
“27 Sources of Error in Blood Pressure Readings”
Below is a 2023 article from the American Medical Assoc., and a good summation of the problem that shows how it is still happening.
“Are you sure you’re accurately measuring BP? Here’s how to know”
Excerpt (italic emphasis and text color is mine):
Twenty-seven. That’s how many potential sources of error can falsely raise or lower a patient’s blood pressure reading. Eight of these potential errors involve patient-related factors such as caffeine use or bladder distension. But the 19 others can be managed by the care team—including use of the properly sized cuff, sufficient rest prior to measurement, proper positioning, and using a validated, calibrated device. That’s a lot for anyone to account for without proper or recent training. And there’s the rub: Care team members are not often supported with the tools and training to measure BP accurately. Many health professionals were trained only once, like during medical or nursing school, but never again. It’s not as easy as you think “Many of us start to get the feeling that blood-pressure measurement is bread and butter—we can do it in our sleep—but it’s actually a very complex skill. And because it’s a complex skill, training is really important,” Kate Kirley, MD, a family physician and director of chronic disease prevention at the AMA, said during an AMA webinar. “All health care professionals need to be trained in how to take an accurate blood pressure measurement, and we should all be receiving retraining every six months to one year, according to the clinical guidelines,” Dr. Kirley said. “This is because our skills in blood pressure measurement decay over time.”
The White Coat Syndrome — How Did it Really Get Started?
At my second visit, the assistant who took my BP asked me if I had “White coat syndrome?” I asked her what that was. She said it was patients who get nervous and had a high reading when they have their BP measured because it’s being measured by a medical worker in a white coat. I obviously didn’t have it because I never had anyone ever tell me I had high blood pressure, so how could I be afraid of it being measured?
Previously, I naively looked at measuring blood pressure the same way I looked at measuring my height. After learning how blood pressure is supposed to be measured, I started to wonder how this term came to be. I had learned that measuring BP in a medical office could be unreliable because of poor procedures that lead to false readings. Perhaps, that’s the reason people get high readings around people in “white coats.” I’ve seen nothing but poor BP measuring procedures, so what came first? The poor procedures or the high readings?
Doctors generally believe they always know what’s best for a patient, and patients don’t. That might be generally true, but in my mind, it’s likely that medical staff invented the term, blaming it on the patient and not on the BP measuring procedures they use. The above study from 1995 shows how this problem goes back at least three decades. It’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Patients believe the doctors when they tell them they have high blood pressure. Every time a patient goes to the doctor, the poor procedures show they have high blood pressure, so it makes them nervous—and they have high blood pressure.
I am sure there are people who have white coat syndrome as it’s been known traditionally. But now, with my new knowledge of what is good procedures, I wonder how many people have high blood pressure in a doctor’s office because of poor procedures in those offices. So, what came first? The high readings or the poor procedures? One thing I learned from forums is that many people don’t know the proper procedures for reading their blood pressure at home. I am sure many just copy the procedures at the doctor’s office, thinking they must be doing it right. After all, they would know the correct procedure. Or would they? But I also wonder if the procedures at home are better than in a doctor’s office, then they should get lower results. Then their BP gets poorly measured in a doctor’s office and the medical staff says they have “white coat syndrome.”
If the medical community starts using correct procedures, then patients will start imitating them at home. And if the medical community also starts training people to properly take readings at home, then they can be assured that the home readings are reliable. Just telling patients to follow good procedures is the same as no training. But the training needs to be excellent and regularly updated. After all, I am sure that office assistants and doctors were once instructed on good procedures (although I wonder about the quality of instruction assistants receive). How well has that worked out?
When are the Best Times for Measuring Blood Pressure?
The majority of the medical community agrees that the best time to take your blood pressure is in the morning, but there’s a lot of variables, so verify everything with your own research. It’s not that the doctors don’t know, it’s that they often don’t enforce what is going on in their offices because they assume they are correct, or that the medical worker should know because they were trained (hopefully). Just don’t assume that practices for measuring are always correct. After all, how often has your doctor taken your blood pressure? They might have forgotten their training. For the best information, go to the American Medical Association web page that discusses it. An informed doctor who is on top of things might tell you to take your BP at home at different times. Each case can be different. (Also read the links below to learn more about taking your blood pressure.)
And remember: The worst time of the day to measure blood pressure is during the day when you are out and about working, playing, exercising—and seeing your lawyer, or your accountant or… your doctor. Your readings can be very high in these conditions, and if theirs lots of anxiety when you measure your blood pressure, it could be higher even still. Remember that the purpose of a good blood pressure reading is to get a good basepoint to use to judge your health. So take care and do it correctly.
So, What Do I Do Next?
The differences between my BP measurements at home were so great from the readings I received at the medical office, that I was very relieved that I didn’t have high blood pressure. But I was also a little irritated. Irritated that a doctor’s office, which I trusted, had put me through an unpleasant experience that they created from poor and misleading procedures. (What also annoyed me was that I paid the doctor and the company that employed him for these sloppy procedures and putting me through the aggravation I experienced. A refund would have been nice, but I’d be dreaming to get that.)
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Everyone should be extremely careful in measuring it. When you go to the doctor, you should be able to count on them to measure it with every care. I had completely lost my trust. I next started asking myself, “What do I do next?” I knew I had to first show my doctor what BP levels I found in my home readings. And I needed to explain how I got there, that I heavily studied how blood pressure is measured, and then put what I learned into practice. Consequently, I learned that it wasn’t being done in their offices correctly—and not only were they not correct, but they were also extremely poor. They were worse than a waste of time, causing more harm than help.
So, with all this new-found knowledge I now have, what am I going to do about it? Should I tell my doctor? Or should I just sit and do nothing and let him go on believing that I have high blood pressure? I knew I had to do something. I had to at least tell him my story that I don’t have high blood pressure. Knowing that the doctor would take it all as criticism, I was nervous and planned out what I was going to say. But I wanted to make it so that he would wake up to the problem. If my words were going to be taken as criticism, then so be it. That at least would get his attention and that’s what I needed.
I also knew our doctor/patient relationship would be different from that moment on—maybe even come to an end. But I had to speak the truth and let the chips fall where they fall. I was concerned that the reaction to my “criticisms” was going to be negative, so I planned to tell the doctor to not take any notes (and no recording of the meeting, which was done, with my permission, at the first two appointments), so there would be no record of me criticizing what he was partially responsible for. I wanted to inform him of the sloppy procedures being used without anyone else knowing I was complaining. I figured the doctor would awaken to the problem and proceed to fix it himself if he was the one getting the credit. I knew the meeting would be difficult.
I couldn’t have cared less that someone knew I was complaining, but I knew that if the doctor initiated changes, it’s more likely that they would happen than if the doctor told others in the office that he was making changes because a patient criticized their procedures and why. That would make him look bad and it wouldn’t end well.
I Tell My Doctor What I’ve Learned
When I went to my next appointment, which was for an annual physical, I told the doctor’s assistant in the beginning not to take my blood pressure, but that I wanted to talk to the doctor first. The assistant left the room, and the doctor came in a little later. I proceeded to tell the doctor my experience. Even though I planned out everything I was going to say, the meeting didn’t go as planned, and it was a bit of a confrontation. But so be it.
I left the doctor’s office and never returned. And I knew that I would never want to see him again or deal with his medical group again (although there were other reasons I didn’t like the company), not only because they had sloppy blood-pressure-measuring procedures, but because too much had passed between us to have a viable relationship. This all happened in 2023. Time will tell if I hear of any changes to their procedures. But how would I know anyway? It’s not like it’s public knowledge, and I doubt they want this information public.
My next plan was to do what I can to let the public know what are good blood-pressure-measuring procedures, both at home and in a medical office. My research has shown that there is a trend in the national medical organizations, like the AMA (American Medical Association), to get doctor’s offices to improve their procedures. I wrote about this above and I will repeat it here. For a long list of articles, written for doctors on how to properly measure blood pressure in their offices, go to: https://www.ama-assn.org/search?search=measuring+bp
In Conclusion
Was I accusing my doctor and EZX Health of doing something wrong? To a certain extent, yes. But I am accusing them, along with much of the medical community, of what I see as a practice that is common across the country: Sloppy procedures for taking blood pressure readings in medical offices that could lead to prescribing unnecessary medication—besides misleading a lot of people who worry about their blood pressure.
My doctor and EZX Health are not unique in this. “Everybody does it.” It is, at the very least, quite common. And why do I think it’s common? Not just because of all my experiences in doctor’s offices, but also because I found that the internet was strewn with hundreds of articles, forum comments and YouTube videos—all saying the same thing. And that includes national medical organization websites. If anyone wants to learn more, then spend some time on a blood pressure forum, like the one on Reddit.
Forums taught me how misled and upset people are because of the mass confusion of how to measure blood pressure properly, and how many people think they have “white coat syndrome,” although it’s often because of poor measuring procedures both at home and in medical offices. Well, many don’t have that “syndrome,” and I blame the doctors’ offices for promoting this fantasy, which has resulted in them looking innocent and the patient guilty.
When my doctor commented that he thought you get more reliable readings at him with good procedures, I thought: Most people trust that procedures in a doctor’s office must be good, because they are experts, so they go home and copy those procedures, thinking they are correct. They might get lower and better readings at home because they aren’t in a medical office, but if they copy the doctor’s procedures, they still aren’t going to get reliable measurements. This so obvious, it makes wonder who is thinking this through.
At one point, my doctor suggested I bring in my monitor to compare it to theirs to see how accurate it was. The one I purchased was new, and it was a validated monitor listed on the AMA’s monitor validation website (www.validatebp.org). But if I can’t trust the doctor’s office to use proper procedures, it makes me suspicious that their equipment might not be up to date too. Bad procedures generate distrust on other issues.
To expose the problem, my goals were quite simple: 1) To clear the air on what my blood pressure was; and 2) To make my doctor aware that the BP reading procedures being used in that office are extremely poor. I’m not sure how much he was aware of this, but if he wasn’t, then why wasn’t he? Plus, I know that he was relatively new to EZX Health (a large company financed by venture capital) and maybe he didn’t know how bad the procedures were. But he had told me that he had been practicing medicine for 19 years. I thought of the AMA doctor who was quoted in the above article, “27 Sources of Error in Blood Pressure Readings,” who stated that doctors need regular retraining too. Of course, if he knew the procedures were that bad, that’s even worse. That’s where he stands now if he does nothing—IF he takes my criticisms seriously. But I believe the procedures are the norm in many offices. Consequently, I don’t entirely blame the doctor. I hold the entire American medical community, EZX Health, and doctors, including this doctor, responsible. They all share the guilt.
What amazes me most as I look back on all this is how casually the assistant at my doctor’s office measured my blood pressure. The last time she took it was when she had asked me if I wanted her to measure it after the doctor met with me. It was about a minute after the doctor left the room. She rolled in a wheeled stand that had the monitor on it, stood in front of me, put the cusp on my left arm which was hanging straight down from my chair (which didn’t even have armrests—which would not have been high enough anyway) and turned the machine on and read me the numbers. No care was taken in the tightness, nor in the position, of the cuff—nor in the height of the cuff in relation to my heart. As I later learned of the 27 ways measuring can get false readings, I wondered if her instruction had lasted five minutes, because it was worthless in my opinion—after I learned what is good procedure.
How Did We Get Here?
How did the medical community get to the point where poor blood pressure measuring procedures at the doctor’s office have become common? Even the AMA has created a web page for fixing this issue. The doctor that I dealt with was convinced that “white coat syndrome” was the probable cause of high blood pressure readings in their office and that home readings were better indications of blood pressure levels. But he wrote on my appointment summary: “Please continue monitoring your blood pressure at home using your Omron device and follow proper procedures for accurate readings. He never asked about my procedures, so how he could he know? It’s this kind of attitude that is clueless and led to where we are at. I still cannot believe he made that statement.
Where do we go from here?
There are two issues:
What should the patient do if they run into poor procedures? First is to study the issue and be certain. And if you can’t do that or don’t have the time to do that, then question the doctor, but that’s not easy. You could send them a link to this article, or to other information sources. But you must not let them lead you into thinking you have high (or low) blood pressure if you really don’t. And you can also do what I did and buy a blood pressure monitor, and then study how to read your blood pressure (and read what I did in this article), and then tell your doctor.
What should the doctors do? They obviously need to clean up their procedures and make them excellent. And they should also train patients how to properly measure their own blood pressure. Maybe even sell monitors to patients at an affordable price, making sure they are approved devices and creating a connection between the doctor and the patient that can be reliable.
To improve their procedures, doctors can go to the AMA web page designed for that purpose.
Improve training of the doctor and all medical personnel drastically—and keep the training updated 1-2 times a year. This was recommended in the article above (“27 Sources of Error in Blood Pressure Readings“.
How I Suggest They Improve the Medical Office Procedures Immediately
I created this section because I think doctors and companies they work for will complain that they need time and money to make the necessary changes. But I think the below changes could be done quickly at very low cost and gain a lot of value. Of course, a long-term plan will be necessary, but these suggestions will get things done now.
Retrain all medical office personnel ASAP and make sure blood pressure cusps of different sizes are easily available.
Create a setting where the arm with cuff on it can be put at the correct height easily. For example: a height-adjustable table, or a table with pillows to raise the heights for different people.
Make a checklist sheet of paper to be used every time a patient has their blood pressure tested
Put the patient’s name on the checklist, with date and time and the person doing the reading.
The checklist should include questions that the medical person need ask the patient (eg, “Do you need to take a pee, as it will effect your blood pressure reading?”)
Have the medical person sign and date the checklist and the doctor should review it shortly after the reading, and then the doctor should sign it
Notes to the person doing the reading should be on the sheet, that says:
“Never say to that patient that their blood pressure is high, low, good or bad. Only tell the patient the numbers. (This is because one never knows a person’s blood pressure, but only the numbers that were measured at that time and in the patient’s current environment and situation.” The doctor can discuss the numbers with the patient.
Strive for perfection and make all personnel proud that they are using correct procedures.
Spreading the Word
Because of all this, I have decided to make it a mission of mine to make patients, doctors and medical workers more aware of proper blood pressure measuring. I know that doctors (and most medical workers who received good instruction) were instructed at one time on how to properly measure blood pressure, but as quoted in the above-referenced AMA article (“27 Sources of Error…”) regular retraining is required because, “skills in blood pressure measurement decay over time.”
Overall, the good news is that I learned about all this and now know that poor measuring procedures at the doctor’s office can lead to false readings that could lead to unnecessary blood pressure medication. Because I’ve learned this, I have published this article on the internet. Plus, I will also go on forums to spread the word about proper procedures.
In this article, I have decided not to disclose any details, not even the state where I had the experience, besides not mentioning the date or any names involved. Why? Because people often become the targets in bringing about change, and ignore the real problem, which in this case is the processes. It’s best to attack the process and not people. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s reputation if all they are is just ignorant of what’s going on in their offices, although their ignorance can also lead to some bad consequences. And I don’t want to spread rumors about anyone or any group. I want to right a wrong. *
I didn’t tell the doctor about the problems I had with their procedures so they would change how they measured my blood pressure. I told him so they would change them for everyone who came to his office. Plus, I wanted the doctor to understand the problem from the patient’s point of view, including mine.
Links to Online Articles, YouTube Videos and Studies on Measuring Blood Pressure
Below are links that helped in my research to understanding how blood pressure is measured at home and at a medical office. You can get good measurements and bad measurements depending on the procedures used in both locations. A general online search with the text ” measuring blood pressure ” will bring up thousands of links . I always suggest being cautious with the “AI” (Artificial Intelligence) results in Google searches. It sometimes brings up false results. For a list of many YouTube Videos, just go to YouTube.com and search for Measuring Blood Pressure. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of videos on the subject for both medical office and home measuring.
Below are links I found with short descriptions.
Keep in mind that no single source is 100% accurate. I spent hours researching. If you want to get the best quick advice, then watch the YouTube videos below in the order they are listed. All taken together, they will give you excellent information.
Measuring Blood Pressure at Home and in a Medical Office — YouTube videos
This is another video by a doctor who discusses 11 Mistakes in Measuring Your Own Blood Pressure . In the video he discusses how to properly measure blood pressure and also gives you an idea of much a mistake can change the BP reading. And another excellent, easy to understand video.
*And to this day, as this article gets published a few months after I complained to the doctor, I have never told one person about what happened. This is because I don’t want to spread any rumors, which can lead to negative, unintended consequences. And I have no idea if changes were made at my doctor’s office or the organization that he worked for, since I no longer deal with the doctor or their company. But I bet changes are being made. Most doctors’ intentions are totally honorable and sincere, and in my case, I think I shocked the doctor enough with my criticism that I got his attention—which is what I was hoping for.
In the early days of human evolution, after our ancestors came out of the trees and started walking upright on the ground, there was a discussion among the different parts of the body about who was going to be boss.
First, the brain spoke up and said, “I have all the knowledge, the foresight and all information from all the body parts come to me. I should be the boss.”
Second, the legs spoke and said, “I take us everywhere we go and without me, we couldn’t move around and get food and water. I should be the boss.”
Then the stomach spoke up and said, “I digest all the food that gives us energy to live, move around and do everything. I should be the boss.”
Next, the eyes spoke and said, “I can see everything that goes on and we would just be bumbling around in the dark if it weren’t for me. I should be the boss.”
Then the asshole spoke. “Without me, we would get all stopped up and our legs would wobble, the brain would have a headache, the eyes would be cloudy, and the stomach would be backed up, unable to eat. I should be the boss.”
All the other body parts laughed and joked about how stupid that would be.
So, the asshole decided to show them. It went on strike and didn’t let anything out. The other parts of the body broke down and nothing could get down, so they all got together and decided to make the asshole the boss.
It just goes to show you, that you don’t have to have brains to be the boss; Just be an asshole.
And that’s how just a few people, sometimes even just one person , can control an institution like the U.S. Congress and the House of Representatives.
Although Inflation was high in 2022, the average annual rate from 2009 through October 2022, was one of the lowest in the last 50 years.
In 2022, inflation in the U.S. has hit highs not seen in decades, but how bad is it really and what caused it?
If we look at total inflation in the last two decades, it tells a different story. Looking at the average rate of Inflation over this period, it has been at a normal healthy pace over the long run—and that includes the high rates in 2022. The problem is that there was very low inflation for more than 10 years previously, and then we get very high inflation all at once in 2022. When “normal” inflation is spread out over several years, people don’t feel it as much as when it builds up and hits everyone over a one-year period, like in 2022. But overall, prices in 2022 are about where they would be if we had steady inflation little by little over this period. Hard to believe, but that’s what the facts show.
Inflation rates by decade, showing some of the lowest rates on record from 2000-2019. Although not shown, the average inflation rate from 2010 through October 2022 is 2.5%.
Because of two major events since 2008, inflation has set records of prolonged periods of very low inflation, then, starting in 2021, the country experienced mild inflation, building up to high inflation in 2022. We can show this as we look back, but first: Is inflation good for the economy, and if so, how much inflation is good and how much is bad?
Is Inflation Good or is it All Bad?
Economists generally agree that a little inflation is necessary for a growing and healthy economy, so the government plans for some inflation. The Federal Reserve bank, the nation’s central bank, has set an annual target of 2% inflation, allowing it to periodically go a bit higher—up to around 3%. When it goes above 3% for a month or two and then drops down, there is little concern, but when it keeps climbing, everyone is concerned.
In the first 10 months of 2022, inflation hit a high of 9.1% and a low of 7.5%, with an average of about 8.3%. But if we average the inflation rate over the previous 10 years, going back to 2013, the rate averages out at 2.5% a year. * This is within the parameters that the Federal Reserve considers comfortable for stable economic growth. Part of the problem is that “stable economic growth” rarely happens for long periods. Growth has always come with downturns and upturns. Adding in unrelated crises, like wars and pandemics, which happen periodically, makes for even less predictable outcomes.
If we go back even further, to 2009, the average inflation rate changes even more. At the end of 2008, there was a major economic collapse—often called “The Great Recession.” But its major effect began a few months later in early 2009. When there is a collapse of the economy, demand drops when people lose their jobs and cut back on their buying. Consequently, inflation is low. There was even deflation in 2009 with a -0.4% inflationary average over the entire year. Subsequently, as the economy recovered and demand increased, Inflation slowly went back up until 2020, when the pandemic hit, which had a major economic impact that no one was certain about. Inflation dropped back down to 1.2% and then, in 2021, as the nation recovered from the pandemic, the rate began to rise until it hit the highs in 2022. In other words, the country experienced very low inflation from 2008 through 2020.
The Great Recession, the Pandemic and the Inflation Rate
These two major events, the Great Recession and the pandemic, instigated significant economic changes that caused inflation to fall and then rise again. But the effects from each event were vastly different and we can learn a lot by comparing the two, especially the inflation rates.
The Great Recession was a deep, but normal, recession with unemployment going up, profits dropping and inflation slowing down below the normal healthy inflation rate levels of around 2%. In the first year, 2009, inflation hit a low of -0.4%. The following year (2010) inflation began to rise, but it was still low at 1.6%. In 2011, as the economy began to recover, it hit 3.2%, then in 2012 it was 2.1% as the recovery grew stronger. Then it hit low inflationary rates in the following years of 1.5% (2013), 1.6% (2014), 0.1% (2015), 1.3% (2016), 2.1% (2017), 2.4% (2018), 1.8% (2019). These are typical of previous recession recoveries. The average of the years 2009 through 2019 was very low at 1.6%—below the average of 2% that the central bank sees as healthy. You might call the recovery from the Great Recession a normal “healthy” recovery that was just like other recoveries, except it was from a deeper and more severe recession than any seen since the Depression in the 30s.
Inflation by month and by year for 2000-2022.
The second big event, the pandemic, hit starting in the second quarter of 2020. Average annual inflation that year was at a very low 1.2%. It had not dropped that low since 2015. The pandemic caused a recession, but it was like no recession that anyone had ever seen before, and its effects were unpredictable. There had not been a pandemic in the U.S. in more than 100 years—and never in a modern economy. It was uncharted territory. The economy had just gone through a recovery over the previous eight years and was in a very strong and healthy condition. The pandemic recession was not linked to the normal business cycle, though. Many lost their jobs—even though demand was there—and small and medium-sized businesses closed down, some permanently, some temporarily. Many started working from home, and many just quit working. Unemployment went up. But the government gave out money and extended unemployment benefits to help those in trouble. That put some money into the economy. But the future was still uncertain.
The Pandemic “Recession”
No one was sure what the economy would do or how the government should respond. The economy had never gone through anything like it. In fact, it was hard to call it a recession since people weren’t really being laid off like in a normal recession. Many people were being temporarily laid off “until the pandemic ended.” During the height of the pandemic, many took early retirement and early Social Security benefits. Many started working for themselves and many joined the cash economy, getting unreported income. Crime went up as society was disrupted, plus crime always goes up when people lose their jobs. The poor suffered most, which always happens during rising unemployment. But generally, people had less money and demand was low, which means inflation would be low.
One could say that the pandemic, with layoffs and businesses closing or cutting back, caused a recession. It was like a recession, but it did not have the usual causes. Plus, it had one other unique aspect: It was the fastest recession recovery in history. The pandemic hit the economy in early 2020, then it basically ended in late 2020, and everyone went back to work, and it was basically over by early 2021—all in one year.
As people went back to work, demand increased and inflation went up, hitting 4.7% in 2021. This happened not only in the U.S. but around the world. The pandemic and its associated “recession” caused factories to close or cut back around the world. Before the pandemic, the world’s economy had become more international than ever before. Products were manufactured overseas and then shipped to consumers around the world. When product demand came back, it was difficult for supply lines to come back quickly. The overseas factories and supply lines to bring goods to America, mainly in Asia, grew “organically” and very slowly over several decades going back to the 70s. When demand came back in America, it came back quickly, but these supply lines to overseas factories had to be restarted. It was like rebuilding a car that was taken apart and put in storage.
With those two events, the Great Recession and the pandemic, the U.S. had record inflationary lows for many years and then record highs in 2022. But the average from the beginning of 2009 through 2022 was still low at 2.25%, which is as good as it gets for a long-term low inflation rate. If we look at inflation by decade, 2.25% over 14 years is exceptionally low. In the attached graph, inflation in the 2000s was 2.54%, in the 1990s it was at 3.08%, and in the 1980s it was at 5.82%. It’s just that the high inflation mid 2021 through 2022 hit all at once and was not spread out over several years. In other words, the prices in 2022 are pretty much what they would have been if the average inflation rate had increased at a relatively low and steady pace over this period. It just hurts more when it comes all at once.
Low Unemployment and Inflation Rate Average
The state of the economy post pandemic from 2021-2022 was a surprise to most everyone, and the biggest surprise was very low unemployment with two jobs for every person looking for a job. Companies, large and small, were struggling to find enough workers. And demand was booming as the economy’s recovery from the pandemic “recession” went into overdrive.
Economists, who mainly did not predict this situation when the pandemic ended in 2020, started to talk about a recession in 2022, even some saying we were already in one. Then came predictions about a coming recession later in 2022. Then it became 2023, then it was mid-2023, and then it was late 2023. And many predict the worst recession of all time.
What is the main problem with a recession? It’s simple: People lose their jobs. For those who have been saying that we are already in a recession are missing this key ingredient: There’s never been a recession with unemployment this low. Economics is not an exact science and considering the failure of at least 90 percent of economists to predict the Great Recession, I wonder about their opinions today. Maybe they are all trying to make up for not seeing the 2008 crash. But then again, even though economics is not an exact science, these “respected economists” talk like it is. Or maybe they’ve learned their lesson from 2008 and are better economists (I hope so). It reminds me of the old saying: Get five economists together and you get six opinions on where the economy is going. Add an unknown factor like a pandemic and you would probably get 10 opinions.
Inflation’s ups and downs from 2012-2021. Although 2022 inflation is not shown here, if we include the inflation rate through October 2022, this period is one of the lowest average annual inflation rates in the last 50 years. The Federal Reserve’s goal is around 2% inflation.
The other big result of the pandemic “recession” recovery was increase demand, which always causes inflation, or at the least, fears of inflation. In 2021, inflation immediately began to rise in the second quarter of 2021, with an average annual rate of 4.7%. In 2022, inflation increased very quickly. Wages were rising, but not fast enough to keep consumers happy. The “recovery” was going too fast, and with the low inflation for the previous 14 years, inflation was catching up all at once—in one year.
So… what can be done about it?
Rising and Falling Interest Rates’ Effects on the Inflation Rate
The main tool that the government has in controlling inflation is the Federal Funds Rate, which sets the interest rate for borrowing. The Funds Rate is set by the Federal Reserve (the “Fed”), and the one person who has the most power for setting the rate is the chairperson of the Federal Reserve. The theory on controlling inflation: In a strong economy, when demand is high, inflation goes up, therefore increase interest rates to slow down the economy and soften demand. In a weakening economy, when demand is low and inflation too low, lower interest rates to spur the economy and keep inflation rates at a healthy 2%. In a recovering economy, with low inflation, raise interest rates incrementally to stave off inflation. Interest rates that are too low for too long create a situation where there is too much easy money in the economy and inflation will go up. And in the long run, being able to borrow money at a very low cost is not a good thing, so bringing rates up to a “reasonable” level is a good thing.
Funds rates 2012 through October 2022. Although the rate was on a slow but steady gradual increase starting in 2015, the rate trend did not continue, but was lowered in 2019, although the economy was doing well as it recovered from the Great Recession.
By the time the Great Recession started in late 2008, the interest rate had dropped steadily from 5.25% in 2007 to around 2% in the third quarter of 2008. The economy started to show signs of weakness in 2007, so the Fed started a regular lowering of the Funds rate to encourage borrowing and investment. By August 2008, it was at 2%. By September, when the crash really came to a head, the rate was dropped to around 1% and by early December it was at .15%. It stayed in that range for the next seven years and the economy continued to recover and grow until the Fed, under Chairwoman Janet Yellen, started to raise the rate in December 2015 when the economy was doing fairly well. Then the rate was slowly but steadily raised over the next three years by Yellen and by the new Fed Chair, Jerome Powell who was appointed by President Trump in early 2018. It reached a low rate of 2.4% by the first quarter of 2019, when Powell indicated the Fed would continue to raise rates. Instead of raising them—and in response to pressure from President Trump—he made no rate change. And then he lowered the rate three times in the third and fourth quarter of 2019, again under pressure from President Trump, even though the economy was continuing to grow. Why the Fed agreed, or succumbed to Trump’s desire, to not only raise rates, but to lower them, was surprising to many, considering that the economy was still doing well. In fact, Fed Chairman Powell later admitted to making a mistake by lowering rates, stating that the economy was in better shape than expected. Lowering the rates was a big mistake, the effects of which would be felt much later.
In late 2019 and early 2020, inflation was below the 2% target. This was before the pandemic caused economic problems. Raising rates would have been the correct thing to do to keep the economy from overheating and causing rising inflation. Instead, only a few months later in the spring of 2020 when the effects of the pandemic took hold, demand fell, and inflation stayed very low the rest of the year. If, instead of lowering rates in 2019, the Fed had continued to raise them, or even just stabilize it, inflation would have been kept in check when the pandemic ended just months later in late 2020 and everyone went back to work. Instead, inflation started to rise in March 2021 and continued a steady increase until it started to increase very quickly in the second quarter of 2021 (going over 5%). This was another time to raise rates incrementally, but that didn’t happen. As it continued into 2022, the Fed woke up and finally started to raise rates monthly to stave off the extreme inflation through 2022. It was too late to ease the pain of low but steady inflation.
But the average annual inflation from 2009 through 2022 was, as noted above, only 2.25%—a very healthy rate over the long run. Rates should never have been lowered in 2019. The Fed should have continued to raise them instead, which is what they were doing in the years leading up to 2019. These were not big jumps, but incrementally small ones of only around .5% a year on average. The rates should have been left alone at around 1.5% in early 2020. Lowering the rate to less than 1% resulted in very low inflation in 2019-2020 and very high inflation in 2021 and 2022. The Fed didn’t follow its own historical guidelines of raising rates in good times to control future inflation.
Consequently, 2022 hit consumers all at once instead of slowly over the years. Again, at only 2.25% average per year, prices in late 2022 are about the same as they would have been anyway. But no one thinks of it like that. Why? Because Trump and Powell are to blame for lowering the rate in 2019, and Biden and Powell are to blame for not raising them in 2021, although that was too late to make a major impact right away. One thing about inflation: it takes time for changes in the Fed rate to affect a massive economy like the U.S., meaning many months to years. Politically speaking, everyone is looking for someone to blame, but no one wants to take the blame.
The Perfect Storm of Inflation
In conclusion, it was good that the economy had low borrowing rates during the pandemic, which was at its worst from the spring of 2020 until late that year. There was no reason to raise them; businesses weren’t borrowing during that time anyway. They were saving money, as were consumers, who experienced record savings rates, which was later money spent in 2021-2022, which helped fuel inflation. But it would have been best to not lower the rate in early 2020, when it was lowered substantially. It was down to 0.5% by April from 1.5% only 4 months earlier. Rates should probably not have been raised during that period but should have been in 2019. They should have at least stabilized the rates in 2020, not lowered them.
High inflation in 2022 was caused by the pandemic more than any single factor, and the pandemic was an event never experienced in over a century—and not at all in the modern world of an international economy. The country, and the world, will continue to feel the effects of the pandemic for years to come, so beware of those who are so certain in their predictions of total collapse in the coming year. Anything could happen, including total economic expansion and prosperity, short-term recession, long-term recession—or even another pandemic. After all, we are in uncharted territory. At the pace the world is changing—even without the pandemic—we will stay in uncharted territory for a very long time, perhaps forever, because it is the incredibly fast pace of technological improvements that is the main driving factor in the modern world—and the slow pace of human evolution that is trying to deal with it that will determine our future. That clash makes the future exceedingly difficult to predict, and a pandemic makes that even more difficult.
The pandemic might have been the most important single factor in the rise in inflation, but it wasn’t the only factor. There were three factors that created the perfect storm of inflation in 2021-2022: First was not continuing to raise rates in 2019, but instead lowering them and doing so again in early 2020. These decisions were not economic decisions, but political decisions. Second was the pandemic. And third was not incrementally raising them again starting in late 2020 and on into 2021, although it might have been too late, anyway. But it couldn’t have hurt the situation. Instead, the rates had to catch up with the economy all at once in 2022. The perfect storm. And no one saw it coming.
Inflation will slow down on its own, mainly because it has caught up with itself.
*******
* Many people don’t understand the monthly inflation reports. It’s important to know that when the inflation rate is 5% one month and then 6% the next month, that doesn’t mean that prices went up 5% the first month and then they rose 6% higher the next month. It means that in the first month, prices were 5% higher than the same month of the previous year, and the following month the prices were 6% higher than the same month the previous year. Over 12 months, the average is taken and that is the annual rate of how much inflation there was over the previous year.
Trump at a Rally. He loves to be the center of attention, surrounded by his Fifth-Avenue voters, who he called “his people”
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Donald Trump has a following of die-hard, cult-like followers who will support him no matter what he says and does. He called them out in January 2016, in Sioux Center, Iowa. when he stated:
“You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible.”
The audience laughed, even though he had just insulted them by suggesting that they are blind, unthinking sheep who will follow him no matter what. They didn’t care—and they knew it was true, anyway. Essentially, Trump was right; His followers to this day have followed him—like blind, unthinking sheep who will follow him no matter what—the “fifth-avenue voters.”
The monthly inflation rate is often misunderstood by many in the general public. If inflation rises 5% one month and then 6% the next month, that doesn’t mean that prices went up 5% the first month and then they rose 6% higher the next month. It means that in the first month, prices were 5% higher than the same month of the previous year, and the following month the prices were 6% higher than the same month the previous year. Over 12 months, the average is taken and that is the annual rate of inflation, meaning how much higher prices were compared to the previous year. For example, if inflation went up 5% every month in a year, then the average inflation that year was 5% that year compared to the same average inflation the previous year.
According to the Center for Disease Control, during 2017, approximately one third (82 million) of U.S. adults reported having hypertension, and an estimated three quarters of those with hypertension (62 million) reported using antihypertensive medication.
I am not a doctor, and this article does not pretend to offer medical advice, but information.
After my experience with sloppy blood-pressure-measuring procedures in a medical office that led a doctor to telling me that I had high blood pressure, when I didn’t, I decided to research correct procedures and share my experience with others.
It is strongly recommended that readers do their own research to learn for themselves. To help in researching, I have placed many links in this article (and at the end of the article) about proper procedures that are not only recommended by individual doctors, but are also recommended by the medical community, which is trying to get the word out to doctors about poor practices in medical offices that need to be eliminated—and replaced with proper procedures.
It should also be noted that all the procedures discussed in this article are for an average-sized adult. For adults who are way outside the average in height, weight and health, they should be aware that these differences could effect procedures, including considerations about cuff height.
Procedures can also be different for children, and parents should be consulting with a doctor, but that doesn’t mean that every doctor is always doing everything correctly, even for children. Parents should always seek out correct procedures on their own and educate themselves and ask questions.
I also do not discuss any blood pressure numbers. That’s a whole new discussion, and there is no absolute number that is correct. All doctors do not absolutely agree on this, and the standards in the U.S. and other parts of the world do not agree. Again, study this for yourself.
Walking Naturally You Connect to the Ground with Two Points; With Poles It’s Four Points
The problem is that when a hiker with poles is ready to make a steep step down [a rocky trail], instead of using their body’s leg strength and natural balancing ability, they use the poles. When people walk without poles, they only have to find two points to connect to the ground: their two legs. With poles, they have to find four points, and two of those points are going to take some of the body’s weight, even most of it at times. This is one way that causes them [hikers with poles] to go slower.
All our lives, we learn to walk with two contact points to the ground. Then poles come along and make it four. You couldn’t design a more confusing way to screw up the walking and balancing habits that come from [a lifetime of] walking and from evolution. At some point, the body can’t go back to the normal way of walking; it’s too late.
