Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
Retail
As inflation fury lingers, politicians join customers in pushing companies to cut prices
Published Wed, Aug 7 20243:44 PM EDTOn the presidential campaign trail now, both Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump have pledged to fight persistent inflation, while blaming different causes.
Harris has said during rallies that she’ll fight “price gouging” by companies. At his own rallies, Trump has criticized Biden administration policies and said he’ll end the “inflation nightmare.”
"Price gouging."
This is a classic appeal to the uneducated or miseducated voter. Of course inflation is caused by administration policies, and big printing/spending by both parties. When the dollar is not worth as much now as it was last months, prices will go up.
When dollars are created and dumped on the economy, targeting political allies to receive them and recirculate them, the dollar becomes less valuable.
But the value of a loaf of bread, gallon of gas, an hour of unskilled labor, or an ounce of gold stays the same from one month to the next. So it takes more dollars to equal that value for an acceptable trade.
When I was in college, I was taught that lowing the value of money by inflating the number of dollars in the economy is the cause of inflation, or even the definition of inflation. The price increases were the result of inflation. Now, inflation has seemingly been redefined as the rising prices themselves, thus avoiding tipping off consumers to the real reason prices are up.
It is incredibly stupid to think that inflation is caused by greedy retailers raising prices. If that were it, why would Walmart not simply double prices on all items, which would more than double their profits, since their costs would not go up? If any Democrat knows the answer, I will be impressed.
The problem for typical Americans, is that our wages and salaries do not rise nearly as quickly as prices do when there is inflation. There are some internet characters who claim that their income somehow automatically increases with inflation, and so they are unaffected. Aside from these folks, who are not found in real life, people are hurt by inflation.
For most of us, the hurt is relatively minor. We eat out at a medium price restaurant twice a week, instead of three times a week. We buy store brand food, instead of name brand. Some of us save less than we have in the past. The extra money has to come from somewhere.
But some people are hurt significantly. They find themselves literally putting groceries on credit cards when they had not before. Often they have no idea how to pay those card off, or what to do when they are maxed. Many of them should be eating oatmeal for breakfast instead of ham and eggs, but they will wait until they are deep in debt before realizing this.
The questions voters will ask themselves is "why should I vote for more of this? What benefit is there to all this inflation?"
Kamala Harris said that fighting inflation has been at the top of her to-do list every year she's been at the White House. I guess addressing the causes of illegal immigration was number two, so she never go to it.
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