Society's response to the COVID pandemic was ridiculous, but it was also instructive, particularly in an economic sense. Globally, most of the money governments spent on economic stimulus went directly to billionaires. According to the Financial Times:
"As the virus spread, central banks injected $9 trillion into economies worldwide, aiming to keep growth alive. Much of that stimulus went into financial markets, and from there into the net worth of the ultra-rich. The total wealth of billionaires worldwide rose by $5 trillion to $13 trillion in 12 months, the most dramatic surge ever registered on the annual list compiled by Forbes magazine."
This is sad yet unsurprising. Here in the US, a primary function of government over the last fifty years has been to take money from average people and give it to the already-wealthy. As Bernie Sanders recently wrote, "Over the past 47 years, according to the Rand Corporation, $50tn in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% of American society to the top 1%." This redistribution of wealth is ignored almost completely by mainstream discourse.
Inflation
This year, inflation is up. Way up. And published figures hide the extent to which prices are rising for average people. Those with low incomes have been particularly hard hit, as they have to deal with about double the price increases that their wealthy counterparts experience. Personally, my food costs have increased by over fifty percent since 2020. That doesn't seem sustainable.
The red team is blaming the inflation problem on government pandemic stimulus spending. But that's not the problem at all. The real problem is a system-wide choice to engage in price gouging. Costs are increasing because companies across the board are raising prices and enjoying record profits. A Guardian analysis recently shed light on the situation:
"The analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 US corporations found net profits up by a median of 49%, and in one case by as much as 111,000%. Those increases came as companies saddled customers with higher prices and all but ten executed massive stock buyback programs or bumped dividends to enrich investors. ... Commerce department data [shows] corporate profits rose 35% during the last year and are at their highest level since 1950. Inflation, meanwhile, rose to 8.5% year over year in March."
Haters and Bad Actors
Considering all of this, many name capitalism as the root cause of the problem. I do think that the myth of the free market and other lies of capitalism should be dismissed in favor of fact-based models of economics. But I don't agree that capitalism is to blame for the price gouging. The responsibility for that rests squarely with all of the individuals who contributed to decisions that raised prices. Whatever their personal justifications for making those decisions, these people are responsible for making all of our lives measurably worse.
Although corporations are viewed as human-like entities in a legal sense, they are imaginary in practical terms. There's no such thing as a corporation doing something. There are only people. How many individuals are responsible for the price-gouging epidemic? What are their names and email addresses? Why aren't they being canceled?
I'm only half joking with these questions. The part I'm serious about points to the larger question of why those who ruin the world are never held accountable for doing so. My theory is that there are simply too many of these bad actors. So many that their bad actions define large swaths of the status quo.
At the same time, society is filled to overflowing with haters, all occupied with hating on others over the issues of marginal importance that the control regime keeps them focused on. If we must tolerate these haters, I'd like to see their hate directed at the bad actors in our economy, with price-gougers at the top of the list. Our legal system may permit their harmful actions, but our social system doesn't have to.
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.
Once again I'm in awe and impressed by your articulation of these issues. With our future looking quite shaky, your brother's place in Wisconsin sounds like the right place to be in especially when things start getting more and more scarce amongst the masses, in all its forms of scarcity. And it sounds like a lot of the solution lies in healing this hater culture so we can actually address real issues. I've got some ideas...
Thanks. I feel like humor has an important role to play in healing hater culture. As always, looing forward to hearing your ideas: )
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.