Corporate greed is what gets me. Amoral price gouging just about everywhere has pushed us to the brink. Belt tightened here… riding this out alongside you, Professor. Thanks for your sound, honest and cohesive writing, once more. 🌻
Yup...we'll have a recession...and the markets will reflect this....and you know what that means. Moooooore BAILOUTS! If there's one thing America can't tolerate, it's a struggling Dow, just sitting there, languishing, depressed and so far from its previous heights. And though many taxpayers may prefer to use our own money for schools, healthcare, and housing, thankfully, our leaders know best, that to leave a Dow and NASDAQ that low and down on their luck would be pure cruelty.
Professor, some of your readers like to quote Adam Smith, or to paraphrase/interpret his work. So here is the part of his philosophy, which you understand, which so many of our co-readers overlook:
The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, p. 145, paras. c29-30.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
Frank Lee-you are perpetrating a myth that the federal budget is like our family budget, and must be “balanced, and that deficits are always bad. last time I checked none of us can print money, and all of us do deficit spending on mortgages, car and school loans etc. use your newsletter to educate not perpetrate economic nonsense and myths!
Until the Fed, Council of economic Advisors and Congress begin to embrace Modern Monetary Theory, and develop a cheat proof way to tax corporations,we will be playing this boom and bust silliness and allowing big corporations to price fix and gouge us whenever they can.
Your comments about the Fed just reinforce for me that an unbridled capitalistic system does not provide sustainable prosperity for all members of society. All we ever seem to do is play Whack - A - Mole. We need a new economic system that works for everyone - sure wish I was smart enough to come up with one!
I don't feel the 8%. I just got home from the grocery store. There are many items that cost twice what they did less than a year ago. I don't know any company who won't watch all the news of inflation and then take advantage of it to increase their profits. From my heart, I really feel the major cause of this inflationary spiral is nothing but greed! It was Bernie Sanders whom I remember saying that people who hunger for more and more money have a serious psychological problem.
Not a macroeconomist, but I've read that price gouging is not the major generator of our nearly 8 percent inflation, because it's not widespread. Yes, it is occurring, no doubt about it, but just as car theft occurs, it is not the reason car prices are high.
Janet Yellen insists that the pandemic is the main problem; it's making everything worse worldwide in every way, but especially in our economies. It's in the driver's seat, not price gouging.
Dr. Reich acknowledges that we are in a perfect storm. Many negative forces are hitting us all at once, and no one that I've read disagrees, but putting the lion's share of the blame on price gouging seems unfair and untrue. (Odd that I'm defending Corporate America, which I detest, but I just want to get at the truth and solve the problem ASAP. We shouldn't go off tilting at windmills here.)
Bottom line for me: I don't know, but I am frustrated painfully realizing that after millennia of studying macroeconomics, we humans still can't get our economies to perform as we need them to. Why can't we, once and for all, fix our big money problems? For every generation in every country, it's the 500-pound gorilla in the room that sooner or later attacks and harms 99 percent of us. Plato said that money is the cause of war. We need answers, solutions, and rapid execution of these solutions. The masses have suffered long enough.
"Money won't solve all your problems, but it will solve about 98 percent of them."
Of course, Manchin or Sinema won’t disappoint their corporate bribers by allowing any progressive Fed nominees. And, they know they can get away with this because the Democrats need their votes on court nominees.
We can chuckle at Churchill’s quote that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” However, capitalism fails without regulations, fair taxation, campaign finance limits, fair courts and voting access. The Reagan era lead to rising corporate wages, wealth inequality, efforts to lower taxes and efforts to take over state-government to facilitate voter suppression via gerrymandering. Savings and Loans were destroyed by Keating and others who used FSLIC insured deposits to sell junk bonds, while bribing politicians like Senators McCain and Glenn.
We need to address the banking and brokerage monopolies which profit from increasing interest rates, while underwriting the massive dirty energy extraction and deforestation that is destroying our planet. Also, the low-risk investments in pension and company retirement funds underwrite this. For example, here's one action:
I have been ordering online during the pandemic and will continue to have to do that because of mobility issues and my upcoming orthopedic surgeries to improve my mobility. With higher cost, I am unable to pay off my credit cards at this time. Increases in interest rates will make it all the more difficult to do so. They aren’t even considering how these rate increases will affect retired seniors on fixed incomes.
Call Joe, time for Jerome to retire himself and his antiquated view of the world…oh, right, Joe is one of those “old white guys” who doesn’t get it either…so we are all screwed.
Seeing the "space ride" makes me sad that only the "rich" can have a great life while the rest of us struggle to eat. Why can't the rich help the people that have pushed his company to grow. Then I wonder if they are the ones helping Putin? They supported Trump who supported (still does) Putin. That is why Putin helped him get to be the President and of course, having him as President he fueled part of America to hate the rest of the Americans. He has divided our country which weakens our country and easy to get away killing people to grab more land,$$$$. Corrupt, so many of the rich are corrupt.
Despite the cards being stacked against a resurgent labor movement, and seeing the tide starting to turn in its favor, the monied interests resort once again to fiscal restraint to beat labor back into the ground.
I keep reading how the higher price of gasoline will cause price hikes on everything else. But I haven't heard any pundits say that higher interest rates will also cause price hikes. Retailers add between 2 to 3 percent onto every item to cover their credit and debit transaction fees - but nobody talks about that either.
And I'm sure that higher income Americans have increased their savings, but that's certainly not true for the 60% of Americans still living paycheck to paycheck.
Corporate greed is what gets me. Amoral price gouging just about everywhere has pushed us to the brink. Belt tightened here… riding this out alongside you, Professor. Thanks for your sound, honest and cohesive writing, once more. 🌻
It's a no-brainer what the Fed's doin'. It'll >all< tar Biden & the Democrats at election time. Period.
Yup...we'll have a recession...and the markets will reflect this....and you know what that means. Moooooore BAILOUTS! If there's one thing America can't tolerate, it's a struggling Dow, just sitting there, languishing, depressed and so far from its previous heights. And though many taxpayers may prefer to use our own money for schools, healthcare, and housing, thankfully, our leaders know best, that to leave a Dow and NASDAQ that low and down on their luck would be pure cruelty.
Professor, some of your readers like to quote Adam Smith, or to paraphrase/interpret his work. So here is the part of his philosophy, which you understand, which so many of our co-readers overlook:
The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, p. 145, paras. c29-30.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
Frank Lee-you are perpetrating a myth that the federal budget is like our family budget, and must be “balanced, and that deficits are always bad. last time I checked none of us can print money, and all of us do deficit spending on mortgages, car and school loans etc. use your newsletter to educate not perpetrate economic nonsense and myths!
What can the average citizen do to stop the Fed from increasing interest rates?
Until the Fed, Council of economic Advisors and Congress begin to embrace Modern Monetary Theory, and develop a cheat proof way to tax corporations,we will be playing this boom and bust silliness and allowing big corporations to price fix and gouge us whenever they can.
Your comments about the Fed just reinforce for me that an unbridled capitalistic system does not provide sustainable prosperity for all members of society. All we ever seem to do is play Whack - A - Mole. We need a new economic system that works for everyone - sure wish I was smart enough to come up with one!
I don't feel the 8%. I just got home from the grocery store. There are many items that cost twice what they did less than a year ago. I don't know any company who won't watch all the news of inflation and then take advantage of it to increase their profits. From my heart, I really feel the major cause of this inflationary spiral is nothing but greed! It was Bernie Sanders whom I remember saying that people who hunger for more and more money have a serious psychological problem.
Not a macroeconomist, but I've read that price gouging is not the major generator of our nearly 8 percent inflation, because it's not widespread. Yes, it is occurring, no doubt about it, but just as car theft occurs, it is not the reason car prices are high.
Janet Yellen insists that the pandemic is the main problem; it's making everything worse worldwide in every way, but especially in our economies. It's in the driver's seat, not price gouging.
Dr. Reich acknowledges that we are in a perfect storm. Many negative forces are hitting us all at once, and no one that I've read disagrees, but putting the lion's share of the blame on price gouging seems unfair and untrue. (Odd that I'm defending Corporate America, which I detest, but I just want to get at the truth and solve the problem ASAP. We shouldn't go off tilting at windmills here.)
Bottom line for me: I don't know, but I am frustrated painfully realizing that after millennia of studying macroeconomics, we humans still can't get our economies to perform as we need them to. Why can't we, once and for all, fix our big money problems? For every generation in every country, it's the 500-pound gorilla in the room that sooner or later attacks and harms 99 percent of us. Plato said that money is the cause of war. We need answers, solutions, and rapid execution of these solutions. The masses have suffered long enough.
"Money won't solve all your problems, but it will solve about 98 percent of them."
~ Malcolm Forbes
Of course, Manchin or Sinema won’t disappoint their corporate bribers by allowing any progressive Fed nominees. And, they know they can get away with this because the Democrats need their votes on court nominees.
We can chuckle at Churchill’s quote that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” However, capitalism fails without regulations, fair taxation, campaign finance limits, fair courts and voting access. The Reagan era lead to rising corporate wages, wealth inequality, efforts to lower taxes and efforts to take over state-government to facilitate voter suppression via gerrymandering. Savings and Loans were destroyed by Keating and others who used FSLIC insured deposits to sell junk bonds, while bribing politicians like Senators McCain and Glenn.
We need to address the banking and brokerage monopolies which profit from increasing interest rates, while underwriting the massive dirty energy extraction and deforestation that is destroying our planet. Also, the low-risk investments in pension and company retirement funds underwrite this. For example, here's one action:
https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/march-calender-jam/?link_id=1&can_id=eba703e4b0d912f98bbc3311a33fc2f8&source=email-these-three-companies-can-help-stop-fossil-fuel-expansion&email_referrer=email_1485296___subject_1943821&email_subject=blackrocks-moment-of-truth
And we need to wean the world economy’s from fossil fuels for environmental-survial and Putin-aggresion-containment reasons, among others:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/business/russia-western-fossil-fuel-companies-taxes-climate-cmd-intl/index.html
I have been ordering online during the pandemic and will continue to have to do that because of mobility issues and my upcoming orthopedic surgeries to improve my mobility. With higher cost, I am unable to pay off my credit cards at this time. Increases in interest rates will make it all the more difficult to do so. They aren’t even considering how these rate increases will affect retired seniors on fixed incomes.
Call Joe, time for Jerome to retire himself and his antiquated view of the world…oh, right, Joe is one of those “old white guys” who doesn’t get it either…so we are all screwed.
Seeing the "space ride" makes me sad that only the "rich" can have a great life while the rest of us struggle to eat. Why can't the rich help the people that have pushed his company to grow. Then I wonder if they are the ones helping Putin? They supported Trump who supported (still does) Putin. That is why Putin helped him get to be the President and of course, having him as President he fueled part of America to hate the rest of the Americans. He has divided our country which weakens our country and easy to get away killing people to grab more land,$$$$. Corrupt, so many of the rich are corrupt.
Despite the cards being stacked against a resurgent labor movement, and seeing the tide starting to turn in its favor, the monied interests resort once again to fiscal restraint to beat labor back into the ground.
I keep reading how the higher price of gasoline will cause price hikes on everything else. But I haven't heard any pundits say that higher interest rates will also cause price hikes. Retailers add between 2 to 3 percent onto every item to cover their credit and debit transaction fees - but nobody talks about that either.
And I'm sure that higher income Americans have increased their savings, but that's certainly not true for the 60% of Americans still living paycheck to paycheck.