The mystery of rising prices. Are greedy corporations to blame for inflation?
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And they won at that game.
a) rewrite the laws governing corporations so that they have purposes other than maximising shareholder profits
b) ignore the lobbying, not take the bribes and act in the long term interest of their constituents
Then there's the indoctrination about how big companies represent the people too, create jobs, and deserve to have their own voice, their own tax breaks, etc.
At the end of the day, "being green" is tantamount to depriving people of cheap, reliable energy and thus destroying living standards. I don't blame them for choosing against impoverishment.
Here in the US roughly 1/2 the population believes climate change is a hoax or exaggerated by researchers to get gov't grant money. It's hard to run a democracy properly when half the country are conspiratorial about major issues.
They didn't get that idea based on their own careful research. They were told that climate change was a hoax by powerful industries who wanted to take advantage of ignorance for profit. Those same industries were paying off politicians for the same reason.
The problem isn't the people who were lied to, it still falls on the government since they've dropped the ball on public education and allowed those industries to have too much power and influence.
Society is allowing these governments and corporations to pillage our worth as people, as individuals, as contributors to the planet.
The never-ending pacification of society through extremely obvious marketing and propaganda, fed through social media, filter bubbles, and ostracization of peers based on their personal opinions and beliefs.
Marketing to convince us that yes - you do want your manufacturing jobs outsourced to third-world countries because that means cheaper widgets for you! Don't worry about the high chance that slave labor is being used to put together your iPhones, your shoes, etc. while these companies slowly increase their prices because now your phone can talk to satellites and totally not because they want to increase profit margins! Don't think about how your electric car batteries had their lithium mined by children who slave away in tailing ponds while the western world likes to pretend they're better than everyone else.
Propaganda in media (print, social media, TV) to convince us that the government wants only the best for you, that the economy is failing "and here's why that's a good thing!", that our society needs to import more and more immigrants who are more than happy to come over due to the huge disparity of living standards compared to their own country - who are happy to work for minimum wage and keep their mouth shut or they get sent back to their country before their citizenship gets approved - who are happy to live in basements hastily converted to rental space in exchange for most of their paycheck - instead of actually encouraging higher birth rates for native-born citizens and/or for people who are already here.
Propaganda that tries to convince you through mind games that the economy irresponsibly running hot for DECADES while relying on foreign supply chains for critical supplies wasn't and isn't a bad idea, even after Covid hit the globe. The same propaganda from media outlets that try to convince you that no, your political representatives aren't insider trading, aren't cooperating with foreign agents/spies and _definitely_ have your best interests at heart.
Social media is a wonderful tool, but has been aggressively co-opted by both corporate and governmental interests to control how we communicate, to influence what we think and say - much much more easier compared to television where you couldn't provide input for the system to fine-tune what these companies really want you to think.
Social media actively removing any sort of discourse that doesn't fit "the narrative" - today's misinformation is tomorrows fact, and todays fact is tomorrows misinformation - depending on who's paying and who's interests are being looked after.
The constant division created in the media of left vs right, white vs black, natural-born vs immigrant, low-income vs high-income.
What can we do? Well, I'd pose a few potential solutions but I don't want to be misconstrued as advocating for violence. Violence is the government's job since they have the monopoly on it.
The government's monopoly on violence is only a problem because they've spent centuries carefully working to minimize the ability for the people to enact meaningful change via any other means. As long as it's still theoretically possible to change things then society can continue to get the blame for things being what they are no matter how impossible change is practically, but it doesn't really seem fair to blame society for not fixing everything after they've been poisoned, blindfolded, had their hands tied behind their backs.
We saw increases in products such as lumber, delays in deliveries, and other things. These are all indicators to show increased demand without increased supply.
If companies are selling goods and services, and more money is chasing those goods and services, why wouldn’t companies make record profits?
Here’s the kicker, these companies have made record profits from a number perspective, but the currency is devalued. So in Real value, these companies have made much less profit than they think.
You're telling me after a decade and half that suddenly this free money matters?
No, what happened was corporations saw $2000 subsidy checks floating around and knew they could squeeze.
Sure it was gentle at first, but the difference now than other times is just how few competitors there are and just how easy it is to price match your opponent.
The free money has been flowing long before this, the only difference was whose pocket was ripe for picking.
Necessities like fuel, housing, and health care have less elastic demand.
Food is also a necessity though I imagine people may start opting for less expensive foods.
From day to day the headlines are all over the place. One day they're saying that people simply have too much money and that's the problem, but then they'll have another article saying that people are sliding into poverty, homelessness is on the rise, and there's a massive eviction crisis looming.
One day they're saying that consumers are to blame because they keep buying everything driving up demand while supply shortages have forced stores to raise prices, but the next day they're reporting that retailers have an inventory glut and are sitting on vast warehouses of unsold appliances and goods.
Then you hear about how companies are struggling with raising costs and prices, but the next day they're pulling in record profits.
It's also weird to see this article blame workers for not demanding higher pay when their ability to do that has been under attack. They'll outsource your jobs to the third world, they'll import immigrants (legal or otherwise) to do your job for much less, they'll attack your ability to unionize, they'll collude to suppress your wages and benefits and after decades of that they'll blame you for not earning enough and demanding more.
I'm pretty sure a couple thousand dollars in "stimulus" money to help people who were forced into debit and/or out of work and were struggling to keep food on their table and a roof over their head wasn't the cause of inflation, and that Biden isn't to blame because he wanted to forgive a portion of the massive debt we've forced on our nation's children.
From my perspective all I see are companies making money hand over fist while struggling people are being taken advantage of. While corporate greed may not be the cause of inflation they've certainly taken advantage of it to screw over everyone else and inflate their already obscene profits. They are in a position where they could continue to make vast amounts of profit, just somewhat less of it, and greatly improve the situation for everyone (including their own long term profits) and instead they are tightening the screws to squeeze as much as possible out of the people while providing as little as possible to the people. I'm pretty sure putting the blame on greed is the right idea.