Wage Slavery & The Inflationistas…
The Biden plan is a vital step forward, but we must make sure that it is enacted in a way that neither threatens future inflation and financial stability nor our ability to build back better through public investment.
- The Biden stimulus is admirably ambitious. But it brings some big risks, too – Washington Post
By JM Hamilton (3-6-2021)
It’s been a tough couple of weeks. Watching Dems backtrack on pledges that won them two US Senate seats, in the State of Georgia. First there was the walk back on $2,000 stimulus checks, and worse still, was the hand-wringing, second guessing, and leadership abdication over the increase of the minimum wage to $15.00 … up from the current slave wage of $7.25 an hour (in effect, since 2009). Please forget the fact, the real hourly wage – adjusted for inflation – should be increased to $24.
So what’s changed, since the last November & January elections, and why does the Democratic Party constantly negotiate against itself and sabotage itself? Particularly on items – stimulus checks & a greatly overdue minimum wage increase – that won them two senate seats in a, historically, right-wing state?
Other than the fact that the Dem donor class – perennially on government welfare – makes billions and billions of dollars off American wage slavery. Taxpayers, like myself, who actually pay US taxes … end up backstopping tens of millions of Americans, who are paid slave wages with an assortment of government programs (including, but not limited to, food stamps, Medicaid, and/or subsidies for corporate welfare defined, Obamacare, etc., etc.)
This, of course, is a direct subsidy to the bottom lines of these very same Dem donors – the billionaires, the multinationals, and behemoth retailers – who exploit American labor daily, and often pay no taxes. The same cadre that could easily pay their workers a living wage w/ benefits. So my Happy Meal goes up fifty cents– not that I eat them – but so be it; or preferably, Mickey Ds dips into its billions of profits to pay its labor force, humanely & properly.
Interestingly, the other party, and Dem donor, that weighed in was Wall Street, loud & clear. There was a tantrum in the bond markets, as the usual suspects – Wall St banks, insurance cos., hedge funds, and mutual funds – attempted to hike up interest rates, via a process known as bond vigilantism. Wall Street - which has a monopoly on trillions in government welfare – doesn’t like the idea that Americans might actually be paid a living wage, and, more specifically, that Corporate America might actually have to pay their workers a living wage, rather than the taxpayer. That might cut into profits in the short run.
So out comes failed economist, Larry Summers, to trot out the inflation bogeyman. Basically, Lawrence is offering up the old standby, whenever the Congress attempts to help alleviate the excruciating, grinding poverty that has come to define the United States (for 50% of all Americans): Inflation, it’s gonna get ya! Boo! The economist - Summers – participated in delivering the US financial crisis and told Dems not to go large – on worker aid - during the last financial disaster (circa 2008), hence prolonging human misery and the recession immeasurably.
How’s that wage & wealth stagnation for the bottom half of society – with zero social mobility – working out for you, Larry? Mr. Summers must love it.
When Summers was ignored and shut down, this time, predictably, within days, out came Wall St – which suddenly and magically all agreed not to purchase US Treasuries. Collusion anyone? The big lie… oft repeated by the American financial news media, echoing Mr. Summers: too much aid to US consumer/labor will, likely, set off an inflationary firestorm (i.e. whatever you do, don't spend money on America's unemployed). Never mind that 50% of consumers (aka labor) are flat on their backs: with tens of millions of unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, or worse, have giving up looking for work. Never mind that minorities and women have been disproportionately impacted by America’s neoliberal economic malaise.
And there is no inflation, except that created on the supply side, by cartels, monopolies, utilities, speculators, and failed foreign supply chains. In short, the national debt continues to grow ever more astronomic, corporate tax revenues continue to diminish, the Congress fails to do its job, and monopolies & cartels – w/ a complicit American government - continue to crush labor. And the FED dumps trillions in taxpayer funded welfare into Wall Street… under the premise that low interest rates will create more jobs. When in reality, trickle down monetary policy is an abject failure; and loose monetary policy has applied jet fuel to M&A, consolidation, monopoly, cartel, private equity robber barons’ lusts & desires, and monopsony… all known killers of the economy, jobs, & opportunity.
In short, the FED’s big Wall St welfare scam is deflationary for the US consumer/labor (see also Zombie businesses, now making up 20% of America’s public companies), as it eliminates jobs & income. You can't get anymore deflationary than unemployment.
As for the inflation bogeyman… well, he’s not been seen, seriously, since Nixon took the US off the gold standard and Paul Volcker banished the monster.
So back to the question at hand: Why does the Democratic Party constantly negotiate against itself and sabotage itself, when it comes time to help ordinary Americans?
The simple answer is because Dems listen to their billionaire & multinational donors, who are forever on the government dole & are forever covetous of all government aid.
Instead, Dems would be well advised to listen to the American people, which support a living wage.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021
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