With now rampant consumer price inflation, a direct result of the coronavirus induced stimulus and bail-outs, and Federal Reserve wanton and negligent increases to inflation targets, Americans across our great Country are now beginning to feel the sting of rising prices. Once again, just like in ’08-09, politicians failed to consider the personal financial needs of Americans and launched into Trillions in Government spending that will have a deleterious impact on the long-term financial prospects of the everyday American worker.
What happened?
Our current Congress is primarily filled with elitist politicians.
Populists on both sides of the aisle have long recognized the spending troubles of everyday American consumers, especially in major cities where rent prices and home ownership costs have spiraled out of control. Some say that one of the leading causes of the Occupy Movement in ’08-09 was the unaffordability of living in major American cities. Tensions once again boiled over with protests in Manhattan proper and Brooklyn during the wave of unrest in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus induced closures.
The everyday American worker is getting squeezed to high heaven and it is time we hold crooked politicians accountable for policies that syphon money up to the sky, out of the checking accounts of Americans and to corporate interests and Wall St. via consumer price inflation.
What happened?
Many politicians, especially those beholden to corporate and monied interests, enact policy after policy that prioritizes corporate interests. During periods of Trillions in Government and stimulus spending, these politicians backed by corporate interests, are doing just that, prioritizing the welfare of a corporation’s stock price instead of the spending capacity of the everyday American worker.
For example, when Government’s pump Trillions into the financial system via policies of the Federal Reserve, Governments can stabilize stock market prices, they can prevent investment panics, and they can ensure that Governments do not conduct mass layoffs. Lessons learned from the Great Depression seek to ensure employment stability given how mass layoffs and stock market or bank ‘runs’ can affect long-term damage to a society.
However, clear lessons after ’08-09 demonstrated that these types of corporate bailouts will ultimately lead to significant price inflation. If a loaf of bread doubles due to consumer price inflation, then each American worker can expect to pay that much more at the grocery store, the gas pump, etc. Their wages certainly do not rise commensurate with this rise in the price of consumer goods. Simultaneously, these same consumers do not hold stock market related assets that increase in price. They do not have investments that continue to skyrocket even during periods of high unemployment like we experienced during the coronavirus as many large companies closed but the stock market just continued to rise, rise, rise.
If you are an American worker, chances are you do not own significant assets, you may have a retirement account, but you do not have millions, or billions invested in assets like the wealthiest class of society does. Not only are they insulated from consumer price inflation, they can afford this relatively small price inflation across all of their purchasable goods and services, but they benefit disproportionately from the rise in asset prices, or the collective price of their portfolio of investments dominated by stock prices.
Much of the discontent from the popular movements of both major political parties is aimed squarely at this injustice. In other words, if you are wealthy or affluent, when the Government launches their stimulus packages, even if the cash payouts are directly provided to American workers, then American workers lose money on their daily spending and the wealthy Americans gain asset value.
Over the course of the coronavirus, American workers received anywhere from $2,000.00 to approximately $10,000.00, or possibly more depending on their familial circumstances. However, what will the cost be to these same consumers over time? If consumer prices double, in one year alone most Americans would have spent all of that hard-earned stimulus cheddar on rising consumer prices. In year two, if wages also stagnate, then the same American consumer has actually lost money in the deal. What a scam!
When Americans consider the bill of cash stimulus, which is ultimately provided to society through their tax Dollars, then when they consider the secondary costs associated with their savings loss at the hands of rising consumer prices, Americans will be infuriated at what has been enacted upon them and their families by a greedy and out-of-control Congress.
Why Does Congress Continually Screw Over Americans Like This?
Not only is much of Congress a malignant influence on the well-being of the everyday American worker, many of these Congressional representatives themselves are in the political ‘purse’ of prior-era politicians that not only stoked the fires of ‘wanton’ cash stimulus and bailouts, but believed that they genuinely were saving the country. Saving the country from what, a few large corporations going under? Hardly a Great Depression scenario which was ‘ginned’ up by the financial elite (Wall St.) in ’08-09 and just accepted without any sort of critical reasoning during the coronavirus. Congress in ’20 rolled-over faster than my dog at the prospect of ‘wanton’ stimulus spending which not only blew an irreparable deficit through the Federal budget but is now eviscerating the Trump-era hard-won savings of the American worker accrued prior.
Congress, in addition to being morally corrupt, is also ideologically corrupt. To not consider the full costs associated with ‘wanton’ cash stimulus spending is an ideological corruption the likes which we have never before seen in this country. It is oppressive, it is an injustice upon those hard-working Americans who have saved their money, and it only benefits the financial and business establishment in this country. It only protects their assets. Where are conservatives in once again enacting a ‘Tea Party’ movement to combat this devastating societal ill?
William E. Scholz is a conservative from Pennsylvania. His first book, published at the height of pandemic bail-outs, argues for a renovation to the world financial order, and is currently available via his publishing company Dignified Publishing. You can follow him on Twitter @wstweetsnews.
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
Content syndicated from TheBlueStateConservative.com with permission.
