{"id":55092,"date":"2020-09-20T06:58:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-20T11:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55092"},"modified":"2020-09-20T06:58:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T11:58:30","slug":"inflation-and-americas-accelerating-class-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55092","title":{"rendered":"“Inflation” and America’s Accelerating Class War"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Inflation” and America’s Accelerating Class War<\/a><\/h3>\n

Those who don’t see the fragmentation, the scarcities and the battlelines being drawn will be surprised by the acceleration of the unraveling.<\/i><\/p>\n

I recently came across the idea that inflation is a\u00a0two-factor optimization<\/i>\u00a0problem:<\/b>\u00a0inflation is necessary for the macro-economy (or so we’re told) and so the trick for policy makers (and their statisticians who measure the economy) is to maximize inflation in the economy but only to the point that it doesn’t snuff out businesses and starve workers to death.<\/p>\n

From this perspective, households have to grin and bear the negative consequences of inflation for the good of the whole economy.<\/p>\n

This narrative, so typical of economics, ignores the core reality of “inflation” in America: it’s a battleground for the class war that’s accelerating.<\/b>\u00a0Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

“Inflation” affects different classes very differently.<\/b>\u00a0I put “inflation” in italics because it’s not one phenomenon, it’s numerous phenomena crammed into one deceptively simple word.<\/p>\n

When “inflation” boosts the value of homes, stocks, bonds, diamonds, quatloos etc. to the moon, those who own these assets are cheering.<\/b>\u00a0When “inflation” reduces the purchasing power of wages, those whose only income is earned from their labor suffer a decline in their lifestyles as their wages buy fewer goods and services.<\/p>\n

They are suffering while the wealthy owners of soaring assets are cheering.<\/p>\n

The Federal Reserve and federal authorities are not neutral observers in this war.<\/b>\u00a0The Fed only cares about two things: enriching the banking sector and further enriching the already-rich.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Inflation” and America’s Accelerating Class War Those who don’t see the fragmentation, the scarcities and the battlelines being drawn will be surprised by the acceleration of the unraveling. I recently came across the idea that inflation is a\u00a0two-factor optimization\u00a0problem:\u00a0inflation is necessary for the macro-economy (or so we’re told) and so the trick for policy makers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1726,63,124,24078,6995,303,426,587,3650,860],"class_list":["post-55092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-asset-prices","tag-banks","tag-central-banks","tag-charles-hugh-smith-2","tag-class-war","tag-fed","tag-inflation","tag-of-two-minds","tag-us-federal-reserve","tag-wall-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55093,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55092\/revisions\/55093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}