New York Times writer Sarah Jeong says inflation concerns are "Driven by rich people because their parasitic assets aren't doing as well as they'd like and they're scared" that government stimulus-supposedly directed at the bottom half of earners-is why.
Inflation took off in the second quarter of 2021, after a new Democratic Congress poured a $2 trillion in federal overspending they called "Stimulus" on an economy that had already received a combined $2.8 trillion in stimulus in 2020.
Because of high inflation, average Americans are seeing a decline in real wages-if your pay is up 4 percent from last year, but inflation is up 7 percent, you just got a 3 percent pay cut.
Inflation in an equal weighted basket of these items-call it the working-class CPI-is far outpacing headline CPI, at 11.2 percent as of December versus 7.1 percent on headline CPI. This means the CPI is objectively undercounting shelter inflation.
As consumer confidence has crashed to ten-year lows because of inflation, inflation fears increased most among low-income Americans and Americans living on fixed incomes.
On top of this, corporations received direct stimulus aid from the Federal Reserve and Congress, including when the Federal Reserve said it would purchase high-yield corporate debt, which is just one reason the left's analysis-that inflation helps the poor and harms the rich-is completely wrong.
Eighteenth-century economist Richard Cantillon noted this phenomenon: when new money was printed, those closest to the king benefited, while those furthest from the king-the lower classes-felt only the inflation of their prices and the loss of their purchasing power.
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
How Pandemic-Era 'Stimulus' Screwed Workers While Boosting The Rich
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