That '70s Show as Directed by Uwe Boll

CNN Money‘s Paul R. La Monica says: It looks like stagflation! Here’s the latest:

Weekly initial jobless claims rose again and were back above 400,000. There’s the “stag.” And the Consumer Price Index rose at a much higher than expected rate in July. That follows a similarly strong Producer Price Index number Wednesday. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s your “flat ion.”

What are investors worried more about? If you look beyond the latest carnage in stocks Thursday, investors are clearly sending a signal that they are worried both about stagnation and inflation. But the emphasis seems to be more on the “stag.”

Of course, sharp VodkaPundit readers have known about the stagflation threat since June of 2009. Back then, we called it the Grand Unification Theory of Sucking. Today we call it… the exact same thing. I’m no genius, it’s just that I’ve seen this show before. Meanwhile, the entire Professional and Political Left thinks they can repeat the same policies that got us into this mess, to get us out of this mess.

Progressives are regressing so far so far, you half expect to see Nancy Pelosi devolve into a flappy little salamander, live on national TV. Their prescriptions are so ancient, I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama comes back from Martha’s Vineyard next month, to announce he’ll be treating the economy to a round of leeches. If that doesn’t work, Henry Waxman and Barney Frank will take to breaking CEOs on the rack, until they confess to the heresy of not creating millions of green jobs.

The talk last week about creating a “Department of Jobs” was dismissed as a trial balloon, but that’s not what it was. It was the “modern” manifestation of sacrificing a lamb to the Rain Gods during a drought. No thunderclouds? We have displeased the gods with our selfish ways. No jobs? We have displeased the Government by not giving it the new federal bureaucracy it demands.

Years ago, I joked with a friend that government was “the new voodoo.” All you’ve got to do is have the right people with the right laws, and magic can happen. These days, I’m no longer kidding when I say it.