Right now, it looks like the Democrats and Joe Biden have every issue in the political “Hope Chest” available to them for the Mid-Term Election; every item but one. That one item is inflation.
More than 70% of the people want abortion available to women on some kind of limited basis. More than 90% of the people want stronger restrictions on gun availability. More than 60% of the people want revised immigration laws, almost 90% want lower prescription drug prices and expansion of Medicare, while clear majorities favor police reform, the beginning of infrastructure building, some kind of college loan buy-back, support for gay and interracial marriage and help with climate change. All these controversial areas have the Democrats on the right side of the issue and are supported by a majority of voters. Only inflation seems to escape them and if you really look at it with open, logical eyes, they are pretty much doing the right things for inflation too. What they aren’t doing is convincing the public. Why?
This writer thinks it’s because inflation, unlike many other issues, is very complicated. You either want to own a gun or you want no one to own a gun. It’s pretty much straight ahead. Not so with inflation.
Inflation is the result of the interplay of supply and demand. But it’s just not that simple because there are so many elements at play in that equation.
First thing to understand is that inflation only occurs when people are making a lot of money. We used to think that was a good thing; in many cases it still is, but when one makes a lot of money someone has to pay a lot more money for what one does and half the people, the ones getting overcharged, don’t like that. But inflation really gets bad when big companies like Exxon, Pfizer, Con Edison or Verizon raise rates to make bigger profits to impress their shareholders. That’s when everyone gets hurt.
From the consumer POV no one benefits when a huge monopoly raises prices. That’s why everyone hates the gas companies, but not so much that they forget to rant against Joe Biden and what they perceive he is not doing. Of course, that perception is mired in ignorance because, as I already stated, the problem is complicated, and a good percentage of the American people are dumb as a post.
The reality is, there isn’t a hell of a lot that Biden can do. He is in the process of declaring a climate emergency. If he can get that done, he can reverse gas prices until the fossil fuel companies can get an injunction against him. Then his executive decision will hold as we go through the court system and we all know how functional that is.
Biden made a necessary trip to Saudi Arabia this week to explain to the Saudis that it would be in their interest to pump more oil and charge lower prices to replace what the world isn’t going to buy from Russia. I don’t see how MBS buys that, not without a little something to sweeten it.
Please, before you start bitching about dead reporters, understand that MBS absolutely did the wrong thing in killing Kashoggi, but this is on a whole other scale. The Kashoggi murder was a terrible thing, but we are speaking here about international operations that will affect millions of people and alter the image of states all over the globe. We must remember that although MBS has done much to drag his semi-civilized people out of the dark ages, he is still a barbarian and it will probably take a few more generations before the Saudis get a leader who isn’t dictated by “Off with his head,” mentality. But we don’t have time to wait. If Biden hasn’t gotten home his message it will mean we have to go to the Iranians, which will mean redoing the Nuclear Pact that Trump, in his universal ignorance, cancelled. This will actually help the Saudis and all of the Middle East even if the only ones who currently understand it are the Iraqi’s and Jordan.
If the Saudi’s move so will the Emirates and any number of other oil-producing members of OAPEC.
But even if Biden has convinced MBS to pump oil and reduce prices, he still has to convince his own people who don’t really understand anything except that they are paying too much for the gas they are pouring into their 10 miles per gallon gas-guzzlers. Expecting people like that to understand how inflation works or is cured is a fools errand, yet it must be accomplished if the Democrats want to have any success in November.
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Let’s see? The guy who cheated to get into college and cheated to get out of Vietnam, cheated students at his scam university, cheated on his taxes and cheated contributors to his fake charities, also cheated donors to his bogus election fund and is now using that money to pay lawyers to keep him out of jail for trying to cheat to grab an election he had already lost. And there are still people who buy his shit and you’re telling me we don’t have the most ignorant population on the planet?
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You can’t make people be intelligent but it’s almost as difficult to make them admit they have been wrong about anything. That’s why the interviews with Republican voters on This Weekwere so laughable. A surprising number of former Trump voters admitted that they could no longer vote for him. A number of others, made it clear they would still vote for Trump, proving that many people just don’t want to be wrong. They do not refute any of the blatant evidence that says Trump is a criminal sociopath but they will still vote for him. That’s pretty pathetic but what’s even worse is that it’s a blanket refutation of acting in their own best interests, just so they don’t have to admit they have been wrong about something.
This same anomaly was demonstrated in interviews with voters in West Virginia this week regarding Joe Manchin’s traitorous behavior, which has, over the years, left them the poorest state in the union. About half those interviewed agree that he has abandoned the poor and middle-class residents of the state, but the other half are still with him. It would be silly to expect the public in West Virginia to be more enlightened when they have, for over a century been satisfied to work in deadly holes in the ground, at jobs, for which they are criminally underpaid and at which their health is destroyed. The rich coal mine owners have traditionally sent their workers to die in cave-ins and live in slavery to the company store and when they discovered a way to make bigger profits by strip mining, they abandoned the miners, desecrated the beautiful landscape and poisoned the rivers and streams. All this time, Joe Manchin, himself a major participant in the West Virginia coal and gas industries, accepted their backing even as he promised the out of work miners he would restore the miserable jobs that had impoverished and killed them.
You keep getting it out there as accurately as I feel it is!!!!