April 21, 2014
By: Kelly Diamond, Publisher
“Savers are being boiled alive in the liquid hubris of neo-Keynesian economists explicitly in the service of the State.” Tim Price
Central banks are charged with a certain responsibility. A responsibility that has long since been obscured and phased out in lieu of politicking and posturing. Sadly, when the central bank of one country screws up, it affects other countries as well. The fluctuation or, worse still, the inflation of the USD affects other countries who don’t directly answer economically to the US Federal Reserve.
If you remember the riots in Egypt, you will also remember that had nothing to do with political unrest as much as it had to do with US monetary manipulations. The US tampered to the point where basic staple foods were being grossly distorted and a large portion of the Egyptian middle class no longer could afford to put food on their tables.
Anyone who even vaguely understands economics knows that money printing is nothing more than a scam. But after reading a rather scathing and cynical article from Zerohedge, I must say, I’m convinced that government is like a whiny child who’s overstayed their welcome in their parents’ home.
You know the one. They’re in their mid-twenties and STOKED on the fact that insurance companies are forced to allow parents to cover their kids until they are 26 years old. They leave their stuff lying around, never even help pick up around the house, complain that their parents get annoyed at them for not having a job, complain that their parents ask them to be quiet when they come in late, complain that the refrigerator doesn’t have anything they want in it, calling their parents losers while they play video games in their basement… It’s their parents’ fault that they can’t get their life together, why they can’t find anything, why they never have clean clothes…
The government is the embodiment of that person. They recklessly squander money… LOSE IT even… they lease out land rather than sell it which only leads to unsustainable and destructive environmental processes. They manipulate the value of money, create programs that keep people poor, regulate would be competitors out of business before they even start. And who do they blame for all the problems? Private corporations. The very ones who are providing for them.
If you had a friend with a freeloading adult child, and your friend was constantly complaining about them, what would your advice be? “Tell him shape up or get out!”
Right. And if they won’t shape up, the kid goes… and what does the empty-nesting friend say to that, “Who will take care of him if he leaves though?”
“He will!”
“Who will do his laundry?! Make his meals?”
“HE WILL!!!!”
“That’s cruel. You don’t understand.”
That is the same mentality many people have toward their governments. Who will build the roads? Who will clean the water? Businesses!
And while I find this to be a rather accurate depiction of the government as a whole, the recklessness of their monetary policies and the consequences of them (intended or otherwise) will affect us all whether we worship the government or castigate it. And by ALL, I mean everyone around the world. If you stand to lose anything, you will likely lose it.
The cost of living is going up because our dollar is being devalued. Capitalism is being framed as the culprit. I mean, it is easier to blame “corporate greed” for high prices than to blame the devaluation of the dollar right?
There are other reasons for why the cost of living is going up. Government’s agricultural subsidies favored corn for a long time. Government subsidies have created unnecessary shortages in products such as cotton and avocados. Remember the rationing of water in California due to the delta smelt? Some farmers were operating off of 10% of the water supply they had from the year before. They lost a lot of crop to that government imposed drought.
The cost of living is also going up simply because of REAL supply and demand. There are real, nature imposed droughts and shortages as well. There are governments who hoard resources away from the masses. There are a lot of factors that affect the cost of living. The problem is, the government is exacerbating them and compounding them, and people aren’t making enough to keep up with the madness.
It’s not the “greed of capitalism” that has led to this. The cost per barrel of gas is what it is. The cost to cultivate and harvest a crop is what it is. The cost of medical care is what it is. The overhead, the electricity, the fuel, the raw materials… their costs are easily traced back to a public stock. But of all the costs built into products and services, including profits and costs for labor and company reinvestments and marketing, what percentage of that is tax?
Fuel is taxed. Products are taxed. Property is taxed. Income is taxed. Energy is taxed. Cell phones are taxed. Income is taxed. Check out this list and its links for even more exhaustive enumeration of how we are taxed… and every tax is part of the cost of doing business.
What would happen if governments didn’t price fix? If they removed their taxes? If there was no central banks manipulating the value of our stores of wealth (and please don’t think for one second that the manipulations are restricted to just currency!)? Regardless of scarcity right now attributable to natural causes, the cost of living would go down. The cost of goods and services would go down. There would be an initial hit to people who are paying off higher loans for goods that were once valued at a much higher price… but we aren’t entitled to, nor are we guaranteed to a return on all our investments. To think that your house will always appreciate, and that you’ll always be able to charge $150 for a doctor visit to pay off your student loans is preposterous. All of this that we currently have is unsustainable anyway.
