It's not Inflation, its price-gouging by corporate Oligarchs, who are also, the largest campaign donors.
It's not Inflation, its price-gouging by corporate Oligarchs, who are also, the largest campaign donors.
Happy Hump Day, TAT readers,
The past couple of weeks, I have taken on the topic of the false narratives by the MAGA crowd. This isn’t about putting one party’s political beliefs over the other, but putting the dishonest/ false narratives of MAGA, into the context of being a national security threat of the highest order. If this was a normal election year in my youth, I would follow family tradition and stay silent publicly. When the current MAGA controlled GOP is operating on the anti-American values of their MAGA ideology, comprised of conspiracy theories, false patriotism, WCN/ White Christian Nationalism and in fact, pro-Putin support, I am obligated to speak out, based on my oath of service to the US military.
Today’s GOP is in no way, the principled conservatism of one of my personal heroes, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In a recent, long and detailed TAT article, I recently compared his 1956 GOP presidential platform, to the 2022 Texas GOP Midterm platform of 2022. The national GOP has not written a new platform since anointing Trump king, in 2016. There is zero “principled conservatism” in any national or state, GOP agenda in the Trump era. What serves as “conservatism” these days is far-right extremism and has been cultivated by at least 30 years of FOX News and related propaganda, that is best defined as fake patriotism and false “conservatism.”
Over time, they have altered the identity of GOP voters to a fake version of patriotism and generally speaking, an alternate reality. This effort has largely been supported by US and foreign oligarchs, for the purpose of decreasing their tax burden and giving them access to and more operational freedom to do as they please. This is largely seen relative to today’s article, as profiteering. This is where we segue into today’s TAT, in order to see that our alleged “inflation” issue is more along the lines of profiteering.
Believe it or not, today’s article is far shorter in text, than most lately. It’s important though to your financial well-being.
For full transparency, I am not an economist. I do read and have long read expert economists for insight, due to the nature of economic impacts on national security. I also have a secret weapon… good old fashioned, Midwestern, common-sense.
The right-wing media assault on their audiences, blasts their audiences hourly with false narratives about the border and today’s topic, complaining that it is the Biden administration’s fault for alleged inflation. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is Congress who writes the laws and most of Congress is funded by large, corporate campaign donations and heaven knows, how much from dark money donations from PACs. Thanks for nothing, to the Roberts Supreme Court and their heinous Citizens United Decision.
It is us, the hard-working citizens of our nation that foot the big tax bills, while that elite wealth oligarchs and their corporations, add to our deficit by not paying or barely paying their taxes. The audacity of these elite wealth folks is that they then hire dishonest PR firms and generally speaking, GOP elected representatives to protect them with legislation, while concurrently disseminating the false narratives of inflation, rather than the truth of their profiteering. Don’t get me wrong, historically and even now, there is plenty of this on the other side of the aisle as well, but at the moment, only the fake conservative GOP, is an acute national security threat.
These political hacks and their corporate enablers are pursuing Oligarchy, with WCN/ White Christian Nationalism as their ideology, not American Democracy. When you complain about the price of eggs, gas, meat or insurance, look no further than your congressmen and who donates to their campaigns. Our most prestigious founders railed at this type of political influence and never intended this to be US politics. There have though, been several consequential phases of US history like the one today and every time, either a strong POTUS or a cataclysmic global event like a war, pulled us out of the level of oligarchism we see now.
For those who read history, look no further than studying the Trust-Busting Era, the runup to WW II or even POTUS Eisenhower’s prescient warning about the threat from the military industrial complex.
Current profiteering began in earnest during and since COVID. Most corporate profiteers still point towards COVID to justify their price-gouging. This false claim, like most false narratives, has a grain of truth to it, but not nearly enough to account for your bill at the supermarket. Economics, like immigration, weapons, land etc. are merely tools of power and in today’s world, politicians and global thugs like Xi, Putin and so many others, use this powerful weapon of malign influence expertly and as a bludgeon against hard-working, taxpayers like you and I.
As I often say, the US national security community, is grotesquely incompetent at protecting US and global democracy via ethical influence. Our adversaries are the exact opposite and now, via the GOP primarily, have US allies called oligarchs. Those oligarchs are supported by a Republican Party and their voters, conned by false narratives and related conspiracy theories, like… it’s inflation and Biden is to blame. Let’s look at some facts and bury these “fakes news” narratives in reality.
Real facts, not the current false narratives of the MAGA GOP
For most Americans, a simple look at your checkbook from 2012 until today, will not show a massive uptick in your income, and not even close to the way it does for corporate profits. Simply put, you get far less for your modest increase in pay. This is true but not for the reasons that MAGA falsely claims.
When it comes to government, influence, corruption and trust, the majority of voters are exhausted, distrustful and less hopeful about our government than ever. Corruption in politics, both real and perceived is a key part of these concerns. At this embedded link are 11 chapters of detailed research from the Pew Research Center on these and related topics. They are filled with easy-to-read graphics. I highly recommend saving this link for further investigation. It is from September of 2023.
As a matter of fact, in the chart below shows the average increase in worker wages from 1979 through 2021.
The next several graphics are screenshots to excellent reporting from credible sources, that agree with my premise today and with their own independent set of facts. If you look at the graphic that precedes this one regarding corporate profits, the difference is staggering. The bottom line is why isn’t mainstream media reporting that we are being taken advantage of, by corporate oligarchs? The answer is painfully simple. Media is largely supported by those pesky ads that assault our senses constantly. The biggest ad dollars come from corporate oligarchs.
Summary
Well folks, I have really inundated everyone with facts today and much of them are a bit dense, so I’ll try to wrap this up succinctly. The bottom line here is that the whiny “inflation” narrative you hear from the MAGA crowd, is like nearly everything else they say, utterly dishonest, a false narrative or a conspiracy theory. Today’s TAT weaves together the facts that dispel the barrage of mis and disinformation of their political campaigning. Just like their Southern Border false narratives, this one is intended as fearmongering to drive voters to them in November. Please, don’t take the bait and always, via credible sources, fact-check them.
To make matters worse, most of corporate America and their fellow oligarchs globally, are using political, false narratives to allow them to continue profiteering, at our expense. In return, the massive campaign donations flow into the coffers of their most effective conmen in Congress. This is a self-perpetuating threat to American Democracy and as earlier noted, the precise opposite of our prestigious founders’ intentions, even those like Jefferson, Washington, Madison and more, who were large landowners, slaveholders etc., the most visible oligarchs of their day. All disagreed in principle and in our founding documents with perpetuating oligarchism.
This deep-seated corruption will perpetuate and worsen, if we do not put our foot down, at the ballot box. We must shutdown the most vocal and persistent purveyors of false narratives and ensure that new, more moral representatives enact the legislation that provides oversight. The GOP for the past few decades has gone on a de-regulation binge that allows this. There were also times in US history when other parties were just as corrupt but strong moral leaders like Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt put their foot down hard. We need this again, when we get past our current avalanche of crises.
The only two issues that will return the overtly corrupt and dangerous national security threat called MAGA to office, are immigration and inflation. They are lying to us all about both. In the case of today’s article, they are also picking our pockets at an ever-increasing rate. Putting party over country in this case, will also lead you to the poorhouse.
My best for the rest of your week,
Paul
For more background on oligarchical abuse, please see below: