I hear that inflation is at the top of many voters’ minds, and that a large number of them are planning to vote Republican because of inflation.
Why?
What do they think Republicans are going to do about inflation?
Republicans were, admittedly, once the party of “fiscal stability.” That was, however, a long, long, long time ago.
Like maybe Dwight Eisenhower long ago.
Ever since Reagan — who introduced us to “trickle down” economics — Republicans have mostly been the party of financial chicanery.
Trickle down did not work to do anything but shift income from the working to the upper classes. With the transmissibility of global capital, it was easy for industrialists to invest in a new plant in China instead of to build one here at home. Now corporations move their money around, often to where they get the best tax deals.
Trickle-down economics is so bad that David Stockman, the Budget Director for Ronald Reagan and one of the original architects of trickle-down eventually wrote a book disowning it.
Trickle-down economics is so bad that it just brought down the Prime Ministership of Liz Truss, Britain’s new PM, after just 44 days.
Which brings us back to inflation.
People who know about economics know that the President or his party have very little to do with inflation. Inflation is the consequence of a number of things, and recently that has included massive supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic.
The Federal Reserve has been working overtime — and let’s not forget, that the chairman of the Fed, Jerome Powell, was appointed by Trump — to try to get inflation under control by doing the one thing the Fed can do, which is to hike the interest rate at which it lends money to banks.
Inflation is hardly a problem only in the United States. It ‘s currently a problem around the world, and much worse in countries like Israel, Greece, Brazil, India, Spain, Italy, and even Belgium and Denmark, in none of which countries Joe Biden is the President.
But somebody is sure making money. Like the oil and gas industry. They are hardly the only ones, however. In general corporations are making near record profits these days, so they’ve sure been able to take advantage of the current economic situation.
Too bad corporations aren’t on the ballot.
So, please spare me the nonsense that you’re voting Republican because you’re mad about inflation.
