How can Obama think he's helping poor & middle class Americans when the price of everything keeps going up?

Because  he  isnt  trying  to  help  them.  Hes  only  interested  in  lining  his  pockets  and  getting  re-elected

Are you suggesting inflation is Obama's fault?  Is that your opinion or is it fact?

Inflation is a product of a free-market economy. Are you anti capitalist?

How can you think Obama has anything to do with what prices are set by private industries?

While its true Nixon instituted a wage and price freeze in the seventies. which was a failure btw, it was never clear he had the authority to do so, and any attempt to repeat that today would result in a howling on par with a werewolf movie.  Unless we do truly wish to have government control over private industry there just isn't much a president can do about costs of products.

Now long term, he could put funds into research so we can develop an alternate fuel to oil, which has a price structure unrelated to supply and demand and is now in the category of 'see how much we can get', but even that causes angst and ridicule  in the Republican ranks.
I also think its been fairly well known that we are losing the middle class due to inflation, which by the standards back in the seventies really isn't that bad, but oil is a determining factor in costs of everything that gets transported by anything other than bicycle.

So now you think that the President controls consumer prices.  grabbing at straws huh?

Inflation is relatively low, and not one of our biggest problems.

My personal favorite is when I see the item that I usually buy has not gone up, it just contains 25% less than it used to.

When Obama first took over, though everything looked normal on the floor, major companies (Wal-Mart, Target, grocers) immediately began the task of clearing out their inventories for the first time in their histories.  They let their once fully stocked backroom inventories dwindle and began bringing in product on a week to week basis in response to the uncertainty that the anti-business Obama regime inherently brought upon them.  

Mfg'ers began the task of squeezing their packaging and lowering individual quantities to give the appearance that nothing had changed and all was stable.  As the weaker mfg'ers folded in response to the lowered number of orders for goods they were receiving, remaining product lines were replicated on the shelves, whereas, there once was one of each item, suddenly there were 2-4 rows of each item.  Stores also began the once unheard of task of working posters in above their shelf space to detract from the reality that they were no longer stocking as much as they had before.

Multiple monthly deliveries meant that costs inherently went up, as trucking and gas prices increased.  This was passed onto consumers under the threat of bankruptcies and closures by the stores.   Major stores no longer felt comfortable spending ahead and focused instead upon getting just enough in their stores to cover the week, while preparing for the impact of higher taxes and the unknown cost of Obamacare.

All of this I saw personally and firsthand, as I made my rounds between stores I was a rep to.  It was not done to offset any real cost, but instead, to prepare for the prospect of added additional costs.  
 
For the same reasons, companies began retarding growth, laying off workers and freezing hiring.  Socking away as much as possible in preparation of the unknown.

All of these occurrences serve as proof positive that when someone such as Obama enters our WH, with the attitude toward commerce that he has, companies will behave reactively before the first bill is even drawn up.  It was swift, it was immediate and it was across the board.  My own company of over 30k employees, slashed wages on the very day he was inaugurated for the same reasons.

Companies will always set their yearly game plan based upon the political atmosphere that they anticipate.  They do not wait to be taken by surprise.  In this case, they reacted by shrinking operations down to the bare minimum of what was needed to maintain their doors on a timely basis.