Jerome Powell and the other Fed governors seem determined to wreck the economy in pursuit of their elusive and likely unrealistic 2% inflation rate. They seems stubborn and intransigent and unable to see beyond the ends of their own noses. In addition to the other harms of recklessly raising interest rates, according to some reports, Silicon Valley Bank failed because interest rates rose too quickly and it was unable to adapt.
With regard to Biden's budget, most of the mainstream reporting I saw focused on how much the spending would be, how much taxes would be raised, and how the deficit would be reduced but not eliminated. There was only passing mention of what the spending would be for. I wish prominent people in the news media would spend more time pointing out that Biden is not proposing to spend taxpayer money just because he likes to spend taxpayer money, but because he thinks government should function to improve people's lives. The federal government is not a balance sheet, but exists to provide services to the people.
I’m really annoyed with the canned extremist rhetoric about Pres. Biden’s budget. So far every
republican in Congress is parroting the same lies about it. They insist taxes on the middle class will be raised which isn’t true. Republicans have also been nearly hysterical over funding for the IRS. I finally
tweeted back that their concern is so over the top
they must be frightened they’ll be audited. Why would anyone be frightened about being audited if
they were honest on their taxes?
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, Fed. Reserve Chair Powell doesn’t seem to be acting in the best interests of the country. He’s a lifelong republican as near as I can tell so he may be under pressure to sabotage the Biden admin. The republicans’ entire focus is on Biden every hour of every day. If they can’t find something he did to complain about, they have no qualms about making stuff up. Anyway, if Powell keeps raising interest rates we’ll have a recession & job loss right at peak campaigning
for the 2024 presidential election.
Talk of getting rid of the debt is for the purpose of
fear-mongering. From Pro Publica: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch.” Maybe in the past I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, but I can’t remember any previous Congressional republicans being as dishonest & craven as these
are. Plus, there’s no question in my mind they’re
intent is to destroy our govt and our way of life.
If we have inflation it's because Trump, OPEC and Saudi Arabia entered into agreements not to produce energy in 2019 and 2020. Oil prices led to add ons to every commodity and price fixing and price gouging.
According to Investopedia investors can cash in on rising rates, like buying stocks of companies that consume raw materials, laddering CD or bond portfolios, strengthening their positions in the dollar, and refinancing their homes.
Instead of concentrating on Fed policy, maybe we should concentrate on what trades Powell has made.
Meanwhile, in my case, looking for higher CD rates.
It does look like Powell has a significant number of bonds. Now that you mention it, senators in their recent hearing should have questioned him about his personal assets and whether they were influencing his decisions.
Maybe Biden should take a page out of Trump's playbook and loudly and repeatedly castigate Powell for raising interest rates. Sometimes following tradition puts you at a disadvantage.
Our economy is controlled, for the most part, by the influences exerted upon big business by the the Republican party. The co-operation between these two institutions create the ebb and flow of our economy. They coddle to one another in an effort to find a balance where the Democrats look bad and the bulk of the people suffer financially. Trump has poisoned the minds of his followers to the point where they can't tell right from wrong, and in turn they blame their plight on the Democrats for their failed political policies which the economy undermines at every turn.
I think you've got it a bit reversed here. The repugnican party is controlled by Big Business, which is turn is controlled by the plutocrats who own the corporations. One only need read history to see how this came about when the supremes made corporations into persons via a corrupt intrepretation of the 14th amendment. what it really did in essence was to hide and shield from legal accountability the ruling class as they plunder, exploit, and ravage the planet and people for profit, all the while attempting to keep it all for themselves.
You're right. But it's not just corporations -- some foreign governments and investors like to keep us down. Consider the high rate of return on US bonds and notes vis a vis Japan, Sweden, Switzerland...... "Coupon clippers" don't care whether we have a healthy or prosperous society.
Bryan-- I hope things are OK on your end. Still recovering from a stroke I had several weeks ago. Give me a little time an I'll be back in full form, LOL
Donald, I too suffered strokes (Dr. described as 'cascade of mini strokes) post
double knee replacement 2 1/2 years ago & I'm - still - recovering - from that.
Knees have healed but aftereffects from the strokes still plague me. Sometimes I feel like I've had a "frontal lobotomy" ((( when what I really want is a 'bottle in front of me' - but forced to give up alcohol ...
Hope that happens sooner, not later, Donald! You're quite welcome re the edit icon. I discovered it just because I like poking around to see what emerges.
'Out of touch...' Everywhere you turn - the Fed, SCOTUS, Congress. Frickin' mess.
I'm no economist, but I think the Fed is horribly mis-judging reaction to the situation. The economy is vigorously marching forth, unleashed in the post-pandemic environment. I don't see this demand abating, so Jay will continue to make the rate moves to kill it. Recession is inevitable.
In the face of the rampant monopolization of our economy and where anti-trust is non-existent, time to pull some of the '70s tools out of the toolbox - windfall profits tax, price controls.
Wall Street runs on what they expect to happen and that gets baked in to their investment decisions. Economic news and reality are always playing catch up to their expectations so to the extent there is a difference they frequently appear to be reacting in the opposite direction. If Powell continues to raise rates he can kill any amount of demand which seems to be the goal. The Fed created this inflation and is now doubling down on that mistake by the unnecessary creation a sharp recession. The trust-busting movement began in 1904 with the Supreme Court's decision in Northern Securities Co. v. U.S. to break up a railroad trust. We need to look further back than the 1970s. Probably need to pack the court to be effective.
Check your local PBS station this week for a new Frontline doc, 'Age of Easy Money'. Fed's easy money policies since '08 have helped bring us to where we are today when coupled with the Covid stimulus and skyrocketing demand coming out of the pandemic.
Monetary policy has been an enigma since 2008. Historically low interest rates and quantitative easing (QE) should have produced substantial inflation in those years but did not. I've never seen any explanation. What we know for sure is they doubled down on that policy in 2020 by pumping over $4 trillion of new money into the economy in a very short period of time with a new round of QE. It was a totally unprecedented monetary expansion that is responsible for the inflation we have now.
Just wanted to thank you, Don, for the great back-and-forth today. You shared look back perspective that provided additional historical context to how the Fed got us to where we are.
Be careful what you wish for. There is a Windfall Profits Tax [not passed into law] on petroleum companies. The big push for windfall profits taxes in the 70's and 80's ended in the Windfall Elimination Penalty of the 1980's which penalizes anyone working as a teacher or government (Federal, State or County) employee who also worked 40 or more quarters under Social Security by reducing the amount of Social Security they would have been entitled to if they had only worked under Social Security for the same amount of time they did work. I'm one of those penalized and it is costing me in excess of $500/per month in retirement. The petroleum industry WPT was introduced in March 2022, it has not passed both houses because it only penalizes an overly wealthy industry, if it penalized ordinary working people it would pass.
To my everlasting embarrassment, I voted for Reagan the first time and immediately realized his intention was to bankrupt the government and the middle class to make rich people richer. Seems incredibly obvious now but back then I was a fiscal conservative. Still am which is why I now vote Democratic. Tax the rich.
Can you please tell me what made you decide to vote for Reagan? I was in high school at the start of his first term. I loathed his condescending tone and his minimally concealed contempt. My girlfriend at the time commented that "he reeks of insincerity". I still remember that phrase after all these years.
Me too. Fooled once and never again. When you think about, Laffer was laughable. Tax cuts don't drive investment, market demand does. You wanna fuel growth? Give tax cuts and incentives to those that account for the majority of spending.
We keep electing idiots. Regan showed the way. The electorate can only react to populist, 30-second sound bites of campaign bullshit messaging.
If you've not read Andy Borowitz's 'Profiles in Ignorance', do so. You'll laugh and cry at the never-ending series of fools we've elected to lead.
The debt and deficits are problems largely manufactured by successive Republican tax cuts for the rich and refusals to increase the contributions to Social Security, again, by the rich to allow them to become richer and more powerful. A long term, clear, focus on this is important to keep the spotlight off the “theater of the absurd.”
Yes, it does seem more like an addiction or mental health problem, that so many very rich people keep clawing to get more, despite the reality that they'll never be able to spend it all. In other news, the more wealthy people become the more their empathy tends to decrease.
There is No Labor Shortage ; However there is a Wage Shortage. Most Jobs that lots of Openings a Need for Labor Don’t Pay a Living Wage-That is a Wage that will pay for Food Clothing Shelter and Transportation. Thank You Ray Crock for Persuading Dick (I Am Not A Crook) Nixon to make the Minimum Wage Low. Wonder how much that cost Him.
You have hit the nail on the head as you usually do, Dr. Reich. What pains me most as I endure the eighth decade of my sojourn through this thing we call life is that so many can not see these same things that you have pointed out and draw the conclusions that you and I do. How is it that this is possible? Is our educational system that flawed?
Yes. Reagan’s drowning of the government in a bathtub, cut educational requirements to teach civics, politics and history in HS. Hence, an unaware, uneducated generation of Americans.
As a retired middle school teacher, I can say that yes, what we teach in social studies is mostly fairy tale, whitewashed propaganda. When I taught Howard Zinn in 8th grade social studies, my colleagues thought I'd get in trouble; however I knew the principal was out to lunch and oblivious. Never any repercussions. When I was a junior in high school, raygun was the governor of our state, and he tried to take apart the california university system because kids were being taught critical thinking and exercising their right to criticize the illegal and immoral vietnam war. the effort to destroy public education began in earnest then, and continued at the federal level when he was made president. it continues today. i told my colleagues when trump was elected that it was a direct failure of the american educational system, and that if we would stop "teaching" propandistic fairy tales, and focused on critical thinking, this would not have happened. they didn't like hearing that. oh well.
And you are correct. Paul when you were in high school I was teaching middle school 7-8-9 in Fresno. Reagan (ray gun) was dismantling everything that was honest. I was driving to SFO on week-ends to March in “Peace Marches. My principal told me “I shouldn’t “. After three years I left teaching to go see the world for myself. Pan Am let me grow up, grow curious, grow impressed with other cultures. That was an education. !
i remember the only time i ever heard my mother swear(used one of my father's words) was something raygun did, but she wasn't an uppity woman, so toned it down. (insert smiley face here). i hate having to give the repugnants credit for a masterful long game. when will the demos learn?
Seems whenever the US gets into a bind, like covid or the Ukrainian situation, supply chain et al, corp profits go up, along with prices, yet the Haves always bitch about the economy while they're making out like bandits! Sure not the correlation that anyone with a brain sees as making sense!!
The Universal rule is still "them that has, gets!"
The "false view that wages push prices" and "if workers gain, investors lose" are in practicality two ways of saying the same thing; I chose the latter because it reflects where Wall Street's cold heart is in spite of the well-documented truth of the former.
Wonderful Coffee Klatch as always, however it left me wanting to go on my roof and scream "Jerome quit raising interest rates". I held back as it would make me hoarse and anyway it's raining again. Is there any way we folk can lobby the Fed or have some input or can this happen only through the President?
@Robert Reich-- so excited to hear you recite the beginning of the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales! The chat experiment was really fun, too, and thanks for all your usual insightful takes on the current political and economic news.
Regarding the debt-ceiling matter, it must be pointed out time and again that we currently have a debt-based currency system. “National debt” is essentially the money supply. “Debt ceiling” therefore is a limit on how much money can be in circulation at that point in time. With all the current needs of the country, does anyone (other than Chairman Powell) think our basic problem is too much money?
The real issue is whether the funds are being used to meet the true needs of the country, or are they being squandered on needless or even destructive projects designed primarily to further enrich the already rich?
Jerome Powell and the other Fed governors seem determined to wreck the economy in pursuit of their elusive and likely unrealistic 2% inflation rate. They seems stubborn and intransigent and unable to see beyond the ends of their own noses. In addition to the other harms of recklessly raising interest rates, according to some reports, Silicon Valley Bank failed because interest rates rose too quickly and it was unable to adapt.
With regard to Biden's budget, most of the mainstream reporting I saw focused on how much the spending would be, how much taxes would be raised, and how the deficit would be reduced but not eliminated. There was only passing mention of what the spending would be for. I wish prominent people in the news media would spend more time pointing out that Biden is not proposing to spend taxpayer money just because he likes to spend taxpayer money, but because he thinks government should function to improve people's lives. The federal government is not a balance sheet, but exists to provide services to the people.
I’m really annoyed with the canned extremist rhetoric about Pres. Biden’s budget. So far every
republican in Congress is parroting the same lies about it. They insist taxes on the middle class will be raised which isn’t true. Republicans have also been nearly hysterical over funding for the IRS. I finally
tweeted back that their concern is so over the top
they must be frightened they’ll be audited. Why would anyone be frightened about being audited if
they were honest on their taxes?
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, Fed. Reserve Chair Powell doesn’t seem to be acting in the best interests of the country. He’s a lifelong republican as near as I can tell so he may be under pressure to sabotage the Biden admin. The republicans’ entire focus is on Biden every hour of every day. If they can’t find something he did to complain about, they have no qualms about making stuff up. Anyway, if Powell keeps raising interest rates we’ll have a recession & job loss right at peak campaigning
for the 2024 presidential election.
Talk of getting rid of the debt is for the purpose of
fear-mongering. From Pro Publica: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch.” Maybe in the past I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, but I can’t remember any previous Congressional republicans being as dishonest & craven as these
are. Plus, there’s no question in my mind they’re
intent is to destroy our govt and our way of life.
Not they’re, their.
If we have inflation it's because Trump, OPEC and Saudi Arabia entered into agreements not to produce energy in 2019 and 2020. Oil prices led to add ons to every commodity and price fixing and price gouging.
Attached is Powell's financial disclosure statement. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4388527-Jerome-H-Powell-Financial-Disclosure
According to Investopedia investors can cash in on rising rates, like buying stocks of companies that consume raw materials, laddering CD or bond portfolios, strengthening their positions in the dollar, and refinancing their homes.
Instead of concentrating on Fed policy, maybe we should concentrate on what trades Powell has made.
Meanwhile, in my case, looking for higher CD rates.
It does look like Powell has a significant number of bonds. Now that you mention it, senators in their recent hearing should have questioned him about his personal assets and whether they were influencing his decisions.
Maybe Biden should take a page out of Trump's playbook and loudly and repeatedly castigate Powell for raising interest rates. Sometimes following tradition puts you at a disadvantage.
Our economy is controlled, for the most part, by the influences exerted upon big business by the the Republican party. The co-operation between these two institutions create the ebb and flow of our economy. They coddle to one another in an effort to find a balance where the Democrats look bad and the bulk of the people suffer financially. Trump has poisoned the minds of his followers to the point where they can't tell right from wrong, and in turn they blame their plight on the Democrats for their failed political policies which the economy undermines at every turn.
I think you've got it a bit reversed here. The repugnican party is controlled by Big Business, which is turn is controlled by the plutocrats who own the corporations. One only need read history to see how this came about when the supremes made corporations into persons via a corrupt intrepretation of the 14th amendment. what it really did in essence was to hide and shield from legal accountability the ruling class as they plunder, exploit, and ravage the planet and people for profit, all the while attempting to keep it all for themselves.
You're right. But it's not just corporations -- some foreign governments and investors like to keep us down. Consider the high rate of return on US bonds and notes vis a vis Japan, Sweden, Switzerland...... "Coupon clippers" don't care whether we have a healthy or prosperous society.
That's co-operation--not co-option. Old eyes, sorry.
'Old eyes' are just are just human prisims that be corrected just like adjusting a camera lens.
I am going to check in with my Retinanologist next Tuesday. 👀
Bryan-- I hope things are OK on your end. Still recovering from a stroke I had several weeks ago. Give me a little time an I'll be back in full form, LOL
Donald, I too suffered strokes (Dr. described as 'cascade of mini strokes) post
double knee replacement 2 1/2 years ago & I'm - still - recovering - from that.
Knees have healed but aftereffects from the strokes still plague me. Sometimes I feel like I've had a "frontal lobotomy" ((( when what I really want is a 'bottle in front of me' - but forced to give up alcohol ...
Ditto offer to you Dale.
Hope that happens sooner, not later, Donald! You're quite welcome re the edit icon. I discovered it just because I like poking around to see what emerges.
The old-eyes-friendly tricon to the right under your comment gives you options to correct, edit, or delete the comment.
Thank you, I had no idea. I owe you my life. LOL
Truth.
they are not that smart it all about greed
'Out of touch...' Everywhere you turn - the Fed, SCOTUS, Congress. Frickin' mess.
I'm no economist, but I think the Fed is horribly mis-judging reaction to the situation. The economy is vigorously marching forth, unleashed in the post-pandemic environment. I don't see this demand abating, so Jay will continue to make the rate moves to kill it. Recession is inevitable.
In the face of the rampant monopolization of our economy and where anti-trust is non-existent, time to pull some of the '70s tools out of the toolbox - windfall profits tax, price controls.
Wall Street runs on what they expect to happen and that gets baked in to their investment decisions. Economic news and reality are always playing catch up to their expectations so to the extent there is a difference they frequently appear to be reacting in the opposite direction. If Powell continues to raise rates he can kill any amount of demand which seems to be the goal. The Fed created this inflation and is now doubling down on that mistake by the unnecessary creation a sharp recession. The trust-busting movement began in 1904 with the Supreme Court's decision in Northern Securities Co. v. U.S. to break up a railroad trust. We need to look further back than the 1970s. Probably need to pack the court to be effective.
Check your local PBS station this week for a new Frontline doc, 'Age of Easy Money'. Fed's easy money policies since '08 have helped bring us to where we are today when coupled with the Covid stimulus and skyrocketing demand coming out of the pandemic.
Monetary policy has been an enigma since 2008. Historically low interest rates and quantitative easing (QE) should have produced substantial inflation in those years but did not. I've never seen any explanation. What we know for sure is they doubled down on that policy in 2020 by pumping over $4 trillion of new money into the economy in a very short period of time with a new round of QE. It was a totally unprecedented monetary expansion that is responsible for the inflation we have now.
Just wanted to thank you, Don, for the great back-and-forth today. You shared look back perspective that provided additional historical context to how the Fed got us to where we are.
Probably will need more Progressives to do it.
Be careful what you wish for. There is a Windfall Profits Tax [not passed into law] on petroleum companies. The big push for windfall profits taxes in the 70's and 80's ended in the Windfall Elimination Penalty of the 1980's which penalizes anyone working as a teacher or government (Federal, State or County) employee who also worked 40 or more quarters under Social Security by reducing the amount of Social Security they would have been entitled to if they had only worked under Social Security for the same amount of time they did work. I'm one of those penalized and it is costing me in excess of $500/per month in retirement. The petroleum industry WPT was introduced in March 2022, it has not passed both houses because it only penalizes an overly wealthy industry, if it penalized ordinary working people it would pass.
hey you remember that one They got rid of Jimmy pretty quick after that
Red Party’d never vote for it.
I think you just identified the reason for most of our problems.
I was once one until I took Robert’s ‘Wealth & Poverty’ class and the Red Party started acting like actual Reds - and believing Trump was smart!
To my everlasting embarrassment, I voted for Reagan the first time and immediately realized his intention was to bankrupt the government and the middle class to make rich people richer. Seems incredibly obvious now but back then I was a fiscal conservative. Still am which is why I now vote Democratic. Tax the rich.
Can you please tell me what made you decide to vote for Reagan? I was in high school at the start of his first term. I loathed his condescending tone and his minimally concealed contempt. My girlfriend at the time commented that "he reeks of insincerity". I still remember that phrase after all these years.
Me too. Fooled once and never again. When you think about, Laffer was laughable. Tax cuts don't drive investment, market demand does. You wanna fuel growth? Give tax cuts and incentives to those that account for the majority of spending.
We keep electing idiots. Regan showed the way. The electorate can only react to populist, 30-second sound bites of campaign bullshit messaging.
If you've not read Andy Borowitz's 'Profiles in Ignorance', do so. You'll laugh and cry at the never-ending series of fools we've elected to lead.
The debt and deficits are problems largely manufactured by successive Republican tax cuts for the rich and refusals to increase the contributions to Social Security, again, by the rich to allow them to become richer and more powerful. A long term, clear, focus on this is important to keep the spotlight off the “theater of the absurd.”
The wealthy have an obsession with more, more $$. Not, unlike an addiction to gambling, it must be quelled as it harms the whole economy.
Yes, it does seem more like an addiction or mental health problem, that so many very rich people keep clawing to get more, despite the reality that they'll never be able to spend it all. In other news, the more wealthy people become the more their empathy tends to decrease.
There is No Labor Shortage ; However there is a Wage Shortage. Most Jobs that lots of Openings a Need for Labor Don’t Pay a Living Wage-That is a Wage that will pay for Food Clothing Shelter and Transportation. Thank You Ray Crock for Persuading Dick (I Am Not A Crook) Nixon to make the Minimum Wage Low. Wonder how much that cost Him.
J
well it cost ol' Ray this brutal takedown
of predatory Capitalism
Krok Style:
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sYK2RwH5E8&ab_channel=MarkKnopfler
A depression before the election would be bad for Biden and that is what Trump is engineering.
Not only Trump, the Republican Party.
You have hit the nail on the head as you usually do, Dr. Reich. What pains me most as I endure the eighth decade of my sojourn through this thing we call life is that so many can not see these same things that you have pointed out and draw the conclusions that you and I do. How is it that this is possible? Is our educational system that flawed?
Yes. Reagan’s drowning of the government in a bathtub, cut educational requirements to teach civics, politics and history in HS. Hence, an unaware, uneducated generation of Americans.
As a retired middle school teacher, I can say that yes, what we teach in social studies is mostly fairy tale, whitewashed propaganda. When I taught Howard Zinn in 8th grade social studies, my colleagues thought I'd get in trouble; however I knew the principal was out to lunch and oblivious. Never any repercussions. When I was a junior in high school, raygun was the governor of our state, and he tried to take apart the california university system because kids were being taught critical thinking and exercising their right to criticize the illegal and immoral vietnam war. the effort to destroy public education began in earnest then, and continued at the federal level when he was made president. it continues today. i told my colleagues when trump was elected that it was a direct failure of the american educational system, and that if we would stop "teaching" propandistic fairy tales, and focused on critical thinking, this would not have happened. they didn't like hearing that. oh well.
And you are correct. Paul when you were in high school I was teaching middle school 7-8-9 in Fresno. Reagan (ray gun) was dismantling everything that was honest. I was driving to SFO on week-ends to March in “Peace Marches. My principal told me “I shouldn’t “. After three years I left teaching to go see the world for myself. Pan Am let me grow up, grow curious, grow impressed with other cultures. That was an education. !
i remember the only time i ever heard my mother swear(used one of my father's words) was something raygun did, but she wasn't an uppity woman, so toned it down. (insert smiley face here). i hate having to give the repugnants credit for a masterful long game. when will the demos learn?
Heather’s ChatGPT robot voice sounds vaguely Russian.🤣
That's pretty cool that Joe Biden (and his team) have figured out how to out-psych the Nazi game. Head 'em off at the pass!
Seems whenever the US gets into a bind, like covid or the Ukrainian situation, supply chain et al, corp profits go up, along with prices, yet the Haves always bitch about the economy while they're making out like bandits! Sure not the correlation that anyone with a brain sees as making sense!!
The Universal rule is still "them that has, gets!"
Them that's got shall have
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp349H8G0XQ
Cain smit Able.
I've always wondered what the consequences of of that story were...
The "false view that wages push prices" and "if workers gain, investors lose" are in practicality two ways of saying the same thing; I chose the latter because it reflects where Wall Street's cold heart is in spite of the well-documented truth of the former.
Wonderful Coffee Klatch as always, however it left me wanting to go on my roof and scream "Jerome quit raising interest rates". I held back as it would make me hoarse and anyway it's raining again. Is there any way we folk can lobby the Fed or have some input or can this happen only through the President?
Nic: Maybe we should try skywriting, or
submit illustrated petitions
telling the
Fed,
🫸🏼🫸🏼🫸🏼🫸🏼🫸🏼🫸🏼
"WHOA! EASE UP ON THOSE INTEREST RATE HIKES, Y'ALL!"
🫷🏼🫷🏼🫷🏼🫷🏼🫷🏼🫷🏼
I'd sign one.
@Robert Reich-- so excited to hear you recite the beginning of the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales! The chat experiment was really fun, too, and thanks for all your usual insightful takes on the current political and economic news.
Regarding the debt-ceiling matter, it must be pointed out time and again that we currently have a debt-based currency system. “National debt” is essentially the money supply. “Debt ceiling” therefore is a limit on how much money can be in circulation at that point in time. With all the current needs of the country, does anyone (other than Chairman Powell) think our basic problem is too much money?
The real issue is whether the funds are being used to meet the true needs of the country, or are they being squandered on needless or even destructive projects designed primarily to further enrich the already rich?
I didn’t leave it out….it’s implicit in the so-called laws of supply and demand which basically allows increased prices at every opportunity.
There are no ethics in our economic systems. Maybe the time has come but who or what will make that happen?
Thank you Heather and Robert for enlightening me and for your humor.