Years ago, in another time in America, the NY Yankees great slugger, Jolt’n Joe DiMaggio, would come to home plate with runners on base and the game on the line. Would they pitch to him daring him to do what he had done so often…knock one out of the park. On rare occasions, they pitched to him. And on rarer occasions he would strike out.
“Say it ain’t so, Joe” was the cry of disappointed fans. Not often, but every now and then. “Say it ain’t so, Joe”.
DO SOMETHING, JOE
On April 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy held a special press conference to demand that America’s steel companies roll back a $6 per ton price increase. He accused steel executives of being virtually traitorous in their pursuit of profits. Pushing hard, Kennedy told them that the Department of Defense would only order steel from those companies which would roll back prices.
Kennedy’s concern for rising inflation at the time drove him to take on the steel companies. There was inside talk that in his private conversation with Roger Blough, U.S. Steel’s Chairman, Kennedy threatened a tax increase as a further punishment.
By the very next day, the nation’s eight biggest steel companies surrendered to Kennedy’s demands in rapid succession.
At that time, Kennedy wanted to see wage increases and price hikes match productivity increases.
That is not today’s concern. We are not talking about steel and prices.
We are talking about the astounding increases in the cost of food — never rolled back from the increases caused by productivity and shipping problems during Covid.
We are all used to the up and down costs of the price of gas engineered at the fuel pump by the powerful gas and oil companies and the ever-quiet politicians they support. They don’t quite match the success of the healthcare insurance companies and Big Pharma – but they come close.
But food? Not only are the prices startling but food manufacturers are playing with packaging and product as well. Open a bag of something and when the air rushes out, we have to dig in and search for what is inside.
Open a box and the space between the box top and the food inside seems like a cavern… obviously same box, less product.
What is true is this: the price margins in food – profit vs cost – are especially tiny in the best of times. One remembers and can understand the stress of producing and stocking supermarkets and grocery stores during the pandemic.
There was annoyance and concern during those years – grocery shopping was a challenge…there were empty shelves ..you couldn’t find paper products.
Today, those problems are gone but the prices have stayed high and seem to always be increasing. This is obvious price-gouging on a national level.
And it doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in or what area of the country – the problem is everywhere.
If Joe Biden doesn’t do something about it and do it fast, he will lose the Presidency to a MAGA nation planning to undermine critical aspects of American government in ways unknown in the history of this country.
In politics, we refer to issues that seem universal as bread and butter issues. This one couldn’t be more accurate.
If Joe Biden doesn’t do something about it and loses, his life in politics after fifty years of honorable service, will be notable for only one thing: losing to a man who in a past America would never have been President.
DOING SOMETHING
Do what has worked before. Use JFK’s struggle with the steel industry as a perfect example of Presidential power not only to effect change but to convince Americans that Joe Biden has the power, knowledge and courage to do it.
Bring the CEOs of Walmart, Costco, ShopRite, Giant, HEB, Safeway, Piggly Wiggly, Amazon’s Whole Foods into the White House and talk a major tax increase on those inflated prices if things don’t come down.
Then call in the CEOs of Nestle, Kellogg, Nabisco, Perdue etc and have the same discussion.
See what will happen in the weeks following those meetings.
The Biden campaign is focusing on the abortion issue as its primary attempt to once again win the battleground states. And yes, there are votes there to earn.
But too many Americans see Joe Biden as a feeble old man. That perception – due to face work which has seemingly frozen his face, a hesitant walk due to arthritis and a hesitant speech pattern due his life-long struggle with stuttering – has turned many young Americans against him– especially in the “battleground states” of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia where the Presidential election will be decided. They don’t see “their” America run by a Grandpa who seems to be on his last legs.
Yet among potential young voters in those key States an increasing number remember the name but never the details beyond that; think they should vote for a Kennedy…because they don’t want that old man…and certainly not a MAGA nation.
Biden has not yet begun telling the story of what his administration has accomplished. In a perfect example of what politics has become in America, Barack Obama, in a staged performance with Biden and Bill Clinton, admonished Joe to start talking about his accomplishments. Neither Obama nor his then Vice President Joe Biden could ever tell the story of what they tried to accomplish but Obama got lucky in his opponent, Mitt Romney and was reelected.
Biden, at heart, remains a legislator, working to initiate programs that can help Americans. His MAGA opponent is a salesman and PR pro, selling images and making promises just as he sold real estate…and he does it every single day.
A public call to the nation’s leading supermarket CEO’s and to our leading food manufacturers to meet with him at the White House and a specific demand that they turn back the price increases or pay the price in tax increases will wake up the country and indicate that Biden understands the deep concerns about the price of food and why no one has done anything about it and clearly show that the President genuinely cares about the people under pressure because of it.
The never-ending pitch by MAGA’s candidate for President is that he and they recognize the millions of what they call “forgotten Americans”; know their resentment against migrants supposedly taking their jobs and getting help they don’t get. Promises to kick 15 million immigrants out of America takes the place of any policies about anything much.
In the last Presidential election, there wasn’t even a policy platform as there has always been. Don’t think about things folks…we’ll do all the thinking for you.
And if that works to reelect a real estate developer’s essentially empty promises…maybe we can sell America a whole lot of Brooklyn Bridges.
Of course, it is possible that those major supermarkets and food manufacturers and suppliers will not respond as quickly to this President as the steel manufacturers did to JFK.
But the meetings will produce a public relations bonanza…as the President fights for all Americans against the price gouging of the food industry.
Suddenly the old man wakes up and people get their heads and minds out of their smart phones and begin to pay attention.
And stop baiting your opponent…that’s his game because he has nothing else to say and doesn’t care enough to learn something. Every time you open your mouth, you should be telling America what you have done in the past three years to make things better and to tackle real problems.
You’ve given Bernie Sanders and his so-called progressives plenty of program opportunities, but your words now ought to be about your centrist ideas becoming practical realities for America.
And Joe don’t forget those real Republicans who worked and voted for you. They are not MAGA and never will be and they are essentially without a party. Your reelection might help them reestablish the Republican Party and get the Legislative branch to work again to do what elected officials should do – use compromise to produce laws that make America better. That reality is totally lost.
The bases are loaded, Joe. You are the designated President.
And it’s exactly where you want to be
The count is three and two.
It’s for all the marbles and America needs the win.
Bring it home.
ENDGAME
Bowing to the loss of business, Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Burger King – America’s fast food giants – each announced special, cheaper $5 meals openly recognizing the true cost of their higher prices.
The tale of J. F. Kennedy and the steel industry is interesting. Did the Dept. of Defense buy steel directly from producers? What is the rumored tax increase upon the producers?
Is food cost inflation worldwide or just domestic? Is it due to producers, distributors, retailers or some combination of these? Does the federal government have the capability to influence it via its purchases of food? What other clout may it have by legislation or executive action? Would leaders of the food industries respond to a summons to the White House?