Opinions

07 Jul

HILL: ‘Inflation is our friend!’

Frank HillOpinionsFrank Hill, opinion

Dan Aykroyd of “Saturday Night Live” had a memorable spoof of President Jimmy Carter’s anti-inflation speech in 1978, where he was ‘quoted’ as saying: “Inflation is our friend. In the year 2000, if current trends continue, the average blue-collar annual wage in this country will be $568,000. Think what this inflated world of the future will mean — most Americans will be millionaires. Everyone will feel like a bigshot. “Wouldn’t you like to own a $4,000 suit, and smoke a $75 cigar, drive a $600,000 car? I know I would!” That may have sounded funny in 1978 when inflation seemed…

07 Jul

BUDD: We must get North Carolina back to work

Tedd BuddOpinionsTed Budd

Last month, the National Federation of Independent Businesses reported that 46% of small businesses currently have unfilled job openings. Our country is still down 7.1 million jobs from our pre-lockdown boom, and 9.5 million jobs remain unfilled nationwide. While well-intentioned, the federal government’s enhanced unemployment benefit of $300 extra dollars each week has incentivized workers to stay at home and not get back into the workforce. Essentially, these additional payments constitute a “stay-at-home bonus.” Based on these facts, Republican governors across the U.S. have stopped accepting the extra bonus funding from the federal government. However, North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy…