Good morning from New Republic staff writer and Thursday newsletter guy Timothy Noah. This is my second TNR newsletter. Sick of me already? Pace yourself!

Economic turmoil is the big story for a second day in a row. The Washington Post’s David J. Lynch and Rachel Siegel write that rising inflation, supply chain disruption, and the labor market shortage (which the Post has been treating as a bigger story than The New York Times) represent “political peril for a president with sagging public approval ratings.” Jason Furman, who was President Barack Obama’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, tells the Post that “there’s not an off-the-shelf playbook for this situation.”

Inflation fears are suddenly being taken a lot more seriously. The problem this poses for the White House is the lead story in the dead-tree Times. “Everything Is Getting More Expensive,” complains DealBook, which notes that inflation fears could make it harder for Congress to pass “two enormous spending packages.” Conservative gloating has commenced. “The Inflation Tax Rises,” chortles The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, though its credibility is undermined by the phrase “we learned from Milton Friedman that.…” Inflation hawk Larry Summers is getting in on the act, too, complaining, Bloomberg reports, that “we have a generation of central bankers who are defining themselves by their wokeness.” The man does have a gift for provocative statements that piss off people he isn’t even talking about.

It may get worse. The Journal reports that the International Energy Agency expects demand for oil to rise as high natural gas and coal prices cause power plants to switch to oil. The impact could be as much as half a million barrels a day. Also? “Expect higher heating bills this winter.”

At The Atlantic, McKay Coppins drops a profile of Alden Capital, the hedge fund that’s buying newspapers so it can rip out their entrails and set them on fire.

At NewRepublic.com, yours truly writes a tribute to Alan Krueger, who kinda-sorta won the economics Nobel this week with official Nobelist David Card but was unable to collect the prize because he committed suicide two years ago. The two men’s work on the effects of minimum wage increases changed not only the consensus among economists but also public policy (at least at the state and local level). Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes that Winston Churchill “has suffered less from his critics than from adoring hero-worshippers and cultic appropriation,” taking particular aim at Churchill cultist Andrew Roberts. TNR’s Matt Ford eulogizes the gaudy hotel Trump made out of Washington’s Old Post Office, which did more to turn the nation’s capital into Potterville than any other edifice. “The Trump International Hotel in D.C. was more flamboyant, more undeniable, and, in some ways, more transparent about the health of American democracy than any Federal Election Commission filing could ever be,” Ford writes. “In that sense—and that sense alone—it will be sorely missed.” And TNR’s Grace Segers reports on rising food insecurity in the United States, especially among Blacks and Latinos.

Over and out,
Timothy Noah, staff writer

Yesterday’s political history question: In the 1970s, when inflation was raging, President Ford asked Americans to wear a certain pin. What three letters were on the pin, and what did they stand for? 

Answer: WIN, which stood for “Whip Inflation Now.” It was part of a hapless campaign to reduce inflation that Ford announced in an October 1974 speech before Congress. Inflation that year topped 11 percent, and the following year it would top 9 percent.

Twelve million WIN buttons were produced; 100,000 requests for them came into the White House. You do the math. Today, you can see all the WIN buttons you want at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum in Grand Rapids. (Because I have no life I have visited them there.)

Yesterday’s pop culture question: What (non-English) language did space tourist William Shatner speak in the film Incubus from 1966? Also, what was Captain Kirk’s middle name?

Answer: 1) Esperanto; 2) Tiberius (first name, of course, was James). Click here for Wikipedia’s invaluable guide to all the Esperanto-language films ever made.

Today’s political history question: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson irritated the French last month about its loss of the Australia submarine deal by saying, “Prenez un grip about this and donnez-moi un break.” What did France do on this day in history to irritate Britain even more? (Hint: Halley’s Comet flew by shortly before.)