Dem Sen. Brown: Sending Supply Chain Abroad Is ‘Biggest’ Inflation Cause, ‘You Couldn’t Have Calculated’ War Increasing Energy Prices

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,”  Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said that moving the supply chain overseas is “the biggest” reason for inflation, but “you couldn’t have calculated the Putin invasion, of course, and what that did to energy prices.”

After touting the Federal Reserve’s diversity, Brown stated, [relevant remarks begin around 16:35] “I think that the problem has been, we have — our society, our media, our Federal Reserve, our Congress listens far too much to corporate interests through all of these discussions. I mean, look what’s happened with the supply chain. It’s strung all over the world. Look at what’s happened with Intel and microchips. We invented those in this country, in part with an infusion of U.S. taxpayer assistance. 90% of them are made overseas. 100% of the most high-tech ones for military, national security, and health care are made overseas. And we’ve spread the supply chain out. That’s the biggest cause of the reason for inflation. I mean, you couldn’t have calculated the Putin invasion, of course, and what that did to energy prices. But when we let — when we have a system where the big banks and big corporations have lobbied Congress to send jobs all over the world because it’s cheap labor, we pay for it. And some of us have sounded that siren for a long time and I think people are listening more now.”

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