Great point about inflation being used to claw back the pandemic social relief funds. Not sure why it’s lost on so many people that inflation is caused by corporations raising prices and yet the Fed’s mandate is to fight inflation caused by the same corps they service. What gives?
Actually inflation is the increase in the supply of money. That, in turn, causes prices to rise. Trust me, I am not a corporate stooge but corporations are only doing what everyone else is doing...raising prices due to the increase in money supply. The Federal Reserve IS the bad guy here...look how much money they printed during 2008 and during COVID. You cannot print billions of dollars and expect no blowback. Does not help that these billions are going to Ukraine and not to Americans.
Yet, the news report record profits made by the corporations during the pandemic but salaries stay low. Seems Big Capital is always the winner, no matter what.
Yes...the entire financial system (especially the banks) is set up to benefit the oligarchy. As for salaries, companies nowadays are primarily removing value from companies via stock buybacks and cutting spending on future outlays, etc. There is no intention of investing for the future either via employee retention (i.e. raises) or infrastructure improvements. Pretty sad....
I have to disagree, "what everyone else is doing...raising prices due to the increase in money supply," is the only valid or main excuse.
These corporations make these profits, remember this is the entire companies profits and therefore ALL the workers should be included. Instead the executives take these profits purchase buybacks for themselves. If they didn't "steal," this money then they would greatly lessen the blow of these rising costs.
Alexander - You realize central banks increase the money supply. They have the power to do this. What do you think will happen when more and more dollars spill out into the markets? This is a common sense situation. Of course the central banks will say they are not at fault because they don't want to be blamed for inflation! It is a pernicious tax that really hurts the poor. The reality is the increase in the money supply will cause a reaction. We do not live in a world where printing infinite amounts of money comes without a cause. See article below.
I am curious to know what inflation is if it is not the increase in the supply of money? What is it?
I know Chris does not really cover COVID but these front line workers also suffered immensely if they refused the shots. Again this is a human rights issue that no one want to address. Do we have bodily autonomy or do we not? Are we owned by the state and must ingest whatever toxic brew pays the most in political donations?
Vaccines have saved millions or billions Matt. They are not toxic brews! They lose their ability to protect us if the population refuses them. 90% or more is the most effective. The politicization of the Covid vaccine was started by Anti Vaxxers. Who were against the proven vaccines from our child hood. Being anti science is a throw back to witch doctors. Many do not believe Covid is real. The first vaccines were discovered because of Small Pox. It was noticed milk maids didn't have any signs of the "POX" scarring and marks of the general population. On further study it was found that they had gotten cow pox which was a milder from but gave them immunity against the much worse Small Pox. That was in the 1800's so the evidence is in THEY WORK! As a type one diabetic, science saved my life by injecting insulin. I had no fear or thoughts of a "toxic brew". Hope and Prayer mixed with ignorance has cost a lot more lives then the invented boogey man of Vaccines!
@Jim Harper - I am not a doctor and I am not going to delve into medical terminology or jargon. However, I will argue from point of common sense which puts me on par with medical folks. How is it that me refusing a vaccine going to harm you if you have the vaccine? If what you say is true that a vaccine confers a level of immunity to you then whatever I do should not affect you. If I choose to not take the vaccine, what do you care? And choosing not to take the vaccine is not "anti-science." Choosing to use one's natural immunity is science. Just remember who pushes the vaccines...the big Pharma corporations and their lackeys in CDC. For leftists to rightly rail against corporate greed and avarice and then turn around and agree to medical fascism is concerning. What we are seeing here is this: Corporations are using their lobbying powers to make CDC require a vaccine and that CDC (US govt) offers the corporations complete immunity from any injury claims. How is that right in any way? How can a leftist endorse this?
I am not a doctor either. "Common Sense" vs learned doctors and medicine? Its a matter of fact that scientists know a lot more in their field than do us lay people. Personally I don't care if you don't take the vaccine, but your promoting of others to do the same is wear I draw the line. Science is the discovery and dissemination of factual tests and results. There are no "alternative facts". As for leftists or rightists scientists only report discoveries based on lab tested truths. I had a library teacher in grade 5 who had polio and walked with canes and leg braces. Vaccines have made our generation polio free. Scientific skepticism could bring it back.
@Jim Harper - I never said one should not take the vaccine. My position is you have no right to force me to take the vaccine. You seem to think that science is free from bias and or politics. That cannot be further from the truth. Fauci lied numerous times and there are many scientific studies that are falsified to enable a drug to be sold. Big Pharma is corrupt and controls the CDC - regulatory capture is what this is called. My original point still stands - Corporations are using their lobbying powers to make CDC require a vaccine and that CDC (US govt) offers the corporations complete immunity from any injury claims. How is that right in any way? I know many people that have suffered taking the vaccine and they have NO recourse. None. So are you saying we must sacrifice people left and right to make the world safe?
Fauci is a career scientist that worked way back in the AIDS era. Real science is free from bias and politics. I saw him at the public meetings making truthful statements. While Trump was promoting ivermectin and other quakeries. Was it common sense to go with Trump or Fauci? As for Big Pharma profits, that is something we can agree on. AS a diabetic on the one hand the development of synthetic insulin made my life better. But on the other hand they got around Banting's rule of low cost and jacked the prices up 5 or 10 fold. Fortunately Eli Lily just dropped the prices by 70% by "Lefty" pressure lead by Bernie Sanders. Better late than never but Eli Lily made billions on the back of Diabetics young, old rich or poor. The CDC should have more power to fight their monopolies, not less. Power is money, Countervailing power are rules and regulation by government, unions and concerned citizen's. Rules and regulation that Trump and the Republican's Hate ergo their dream of the good old days of Jim Crow and State Rights etc.
Is is common sense to go with neither Trump nor Fauci. Both are craven politicians and look out for no one but themselves. Ivermectin is not quackery. I took it when I had COVID and it mitigated much of my symptoms. CNN did everyone a disservice by lying about it. Look up how they smeared Joe Rogan. Did you know that the CDC is funded by the drug companies? Why would they fight the drug companies? They are not dumb enough to bite the hand that feeds them. I think you need to read up on the CDC and the drug cartel. It is truly fascism at its finest.
You want to know why diabetic medicine is so expensive? Start here:
Seventy-two senators and 302 members of the House of Representatives cashed a check from the pharmaceutical industry ahead of the 2020 election — representing more than two-thirds of Congress, according to a new STAT analysis of records for the full election cycle.
Not sure why you're mxing the "...vaccines from our childhood..." with the current chemical injections called covid "vaccine". If you got the small pox vaccine, you didn't get small pox.
The mix up? The anti vaxers don't take the proven vaccines either, long before Covid! Do you believe Covid is real? Do you believe in flu vaccines? They mutate and have to be updated and changed every year. Covid has mutated at least 3 times since its first victims started dying. I guess your answer is to let it rip. The defective humans will die and the strong will carry on. The Spanish Flu took strong soldiers along with weak peasants. Do you believe in quarantine? That at least slowed down and was the only way to fight it. No Anti Vaxxer would submit in the 21st century. Would you?
Refusing the shots is similar to refusing the mandatory car insurance, and I believe we have to give more weight to the wellness of the population than to the freedom of a particular individual.
The shots are putting something INSIDE your body that can potentially harm you. Mandatory car insurance is just a policy coverage for liability purposes if you should injure someone. Big difference here. Also, you realize that vaccine makers have complete immunity against all claims of injury. Car insurance offers no immunity as the injury to folks from autos is real and they need to be compensated. So, why is it I can civilly sue someone for injuries I sustained from their recklessness but I cannot sue vaccine maker for a health issue caused by the vaccine? At what point does 'wellness of the population" trump my rights as individual to seek damages if vaccine injures me? AND, trust me, there is a lot of vaccine injury out there....
You are right, car insurance and vaccines are different in many aspects except that both providers greatly benefit from the government mandates. I believe there is no one that has cursed as loudly as I do whenever I have to pay those premiums, but I realize the importance of giving the injured the chance to be compensated for my faults. The case of Big Pharma is even worse because they developed their vaccines with tax payer funds and scientific knowledge provided by the NHA, but their high prices and government contracts are making them ultra billionaires. Their immunity against health claims that trumps our right to sue them has, IMHO, nothing to do with placing the wellness of the population as a priority over the desires of the individual. In medical procedures there are always some risks, and some people get sick by them. I don't know the statistics, but in a discussion like this one would be important to know the percentage of persons harmed by the vaccine compared to the amount of people benefited by it. I suspect that for most of the people it was beneficial, otherwise the WHO would have screamed and my doctors would have not taken it and advised my to do it.
Your absolute faith in the WHO (a poltical institution)---and doctors---who were offered a financial incentive to get as many people to take the vaccine as possible---is stunning. Believe it or not, everyone had an agenda, and a piece of the pie.
You said: Their immunity against health claims that trumps our right to sue them has, IMHO, nothing to do with placing the wellness of the population as a priority over the desires of the individual.
I say: How does vaccination contribute to the wellness of the population? Let's use the recent COVID pandemic as an example. Plenty of folks did not take the vaccine even to the point of losing their jobs. Yet they are still healthy and well. Moreover, the vaccine did not prevent you from getting COVID, it did not prevent you from being hospitalized, it did not prevent you from dying from COVID, and it did not prevent you from passing it on to others. In other words, the COVID vaccine did not do anything that it was advertised to do. So, what contribution to the wellness of the population did the vaccine convey? Have you considered that we were snookered by corporate interests out to make money off of the pandemic? Why is it that the motives of Pfizer and the CDC are above reproach here? Just asking you to look at this objectively and not from a propagandistic perspective.
Matt, there is no way to know if I got all the advertised benefits of the vaccine or not. Vaccines are like a life insurance, if I don't die, then I have something to celebrate. But what I know for sure is that I took care of myself and tried not to infect anybody. I'm not a scientist so I have to trust the people who are trained to know the degree of infectiousness and dangers of the virus, and it seems to me that the whole world did the same.
Congratulations that you didn't get sick despite your rejection of this possible benefit, but I'm not a gambler, specially with my health and for that reason I stop going to the gym and places were the people didn't use mask. I don't know if the CDC is beyond reproach but I definitely blame Pfizer and the other corporations for their greed.
Julio - Either way it is a gamble. Those that took the vaccine also suffered injury. There is no right or wrong way here. My only position is all of us have a right to make whatever choice we deem best for ourselves. There should not be any fascist coercion so that Pfizer can make more money.
We the people must learn to be compassionate and be sympathetic to people who are struggling. Our hearts must bleed in order for the blood to reach the brain and the feet.
As there is a lot of discussion on inflation and 'balancing the budget' I'd like you to listen to one of the fathers of neoliberal politics, economist Paul Samuelson's revealing confession:
You are right, everyone has an agenda and mine is to try to be as healthy as possible taking measures that don't hurt me and possibly benefit others. The rest I leave it to lady Fate.
Great point about inflation being used to claw back the pandemic social relief funds. Not sure why it’s lost on so many people that inflation is caused by corporations raising prices and yet the Fed’s mandate is to fight inflation caused by the same corps they service. What gives?
Actually inflation is the increase in the supply of money. That, in turn, causes prices to rise. Trust me, I am not a corporate stooge but corporations are only doing what everyone else is doing...raising prices due to the increase in money supply. The Federal Reserve IS the bad guy here...look how much money they printed during 2008 and during COVID. You cannot print billions of dollars and expect no blowback. Does not help that these billions are going to Ukraine and not to Americans.
Yet, the news report record profits made by the corporations during the pandemic but salaries stay low. Seems Big Capital is always the winner, no matter what.
Yes...the entire financial system (especially the banks) is set up to benefit the oligarchy. As for salaries, companies nowadays are primarily removing value from companies via stock buybacks and cutting spending on future outlays, etc. There is no intention of investing for the future either via employee retention (i.e. raises) or infrastructure improvements. Pretty sad....
I have to disagree, "what everyone else is doing...raising prices due to the increase in money supply," is the only valid or main excuse.
These corporations make these profits, remember this is the entire companies profits and therefore ALL the workers should be included. Instead the executives take these profits purchase buybacks for themselves. If they didn't "steal," this money then they would greatly lessen the blow of these rising costs.
You are right - the corporations are taking advantage of the inflation to increase their bottom line.
Sorry Matt, but inflation being 'the increase of money supply' has being debunked by central banks themselves many times.
Please read!
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy
Kind regards, Alexander from ECB Frankfurt
Alexander - You realize central banks increase the money supply. They have the power to do this. What do you think will happen when more and more dollars spill out into the markets? This is a common sense situation. Of course the central banks will say they are not at fault because they don't want to be blamed for inflation! It is a pernicious tax that really hurts the poor. The reality is the increase in the money supply will cause a reaction. We do not live in a world where printing infinite amounts of money comes without a cause. See article below.
I am curious to know what inflation is if it is not the increase in the supply of money? What is it?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/the-ballooning-money-supply-may-be-the-key-to-unlocking-inflation-in-the-us.html
I know Chris does not really cover COVID but these front line workers also suffered immensely if they refused the shots. Again this is a human rights issue that no one want to address. Do we have bodily autonomy or do we not? Are we owned by the state and must ingest whatever toxic brew pays the most in political donations?
Vaccines have saved millions or billions Matt. They are not toxic brews! They lose their ability to protect us if the population refuses them. 90% or more is the most effective. The politicization of the Covid vaccine was started by Anti Vaxxers. Who were against the proven vaccines from our child hood. Being anti science is a throw back to witch doctors. Many do not believe Covid is real. The first vaccines were discovered because of Small Pox. It was noticed milk maids didn't have any signs of the "POX" scarring and marks of the general population. On further study it was found that they had gotten cow pox which was a milder from but gave them immunity against the much worse Small Pox. That was in the 1800's so the evidence is in THEY WORK! As a type one diabetic, science saved my life by injecting insulin. I had no fear or thoughts of a "toxic brew". Hope and Prayer mixed with ignorance has cost a lot more lives then the invented boogey man of Vaccines!
@Jim Harper - I am not a doctor and I am not going to delve into medical terminology or jargon. However, I will argue from point of common sense which puts me on par with medical folks. How is it that me refusing a vaccine going to harm you if you have the vaccine? If what you say is true that a vaccine confers a level of immunity to you then whatever I do should not affect you. If I choose to not take the vaccine, what do you care? And choosing not to take the vaccine is not "anti-science." Choosing to use one's natural immunity is science. Just remember who pushes the vaccines...the big Pharma corporations and their lackeys in CDC. For leftists to rightly rail against corporate greed and avarice and then turn around and agree to medical fascism is concerning. What we are seeing here is this: Corporations are using their lobbying powers to make CDC require a vaccine and that CDC (US govt) offers the corporations complete immunity from any injury claims. How is that right in any way? How can a leftist endorse this?
I am not a doctor either. "Common Sense" vs learned doctors and medicine? Its a matter of fact that scientists know a lot more in their field than do us lay people. Personally I don't care if you don't take the vaccine, but your promoting of others to do the same is wear I draw the line. Science is the discovery and dissemination of factual tests and results. There are no "alternative facts". As for leftists or rightists scientists only report discoveries based on lab tested truths. I had a library teacher in grade 5 who had polio and walked with canes and leg braces. Vaccines have made our generation polio free. Scientific skepticism could bring it back.
@Jim Harper - I never said one should not take the vaccine. My position is you have no right to force me to take the vaccine. You seem to think that science is free from bias and or politics. That cannot be further from the truth. Fauci lied numerous times and there are many scientific studies that are falsified to enable a drug to be sold. Big Pharma is corrupt and controls the CDC - regulatory capture is what this is called. My original point still stands - Corporations are using their lobbying powers to make CDC require a vaccine and that CDC (US govt) offers the corporations complete immunity from any injury claims. How is that right in any way? I know many people that have suffered taking the vaccine and they have NO recourse. None. So are you saying we must sacrifice people left and right to make the world safe?
Fauci is a career scientist that worked way back in the AIDS era. Real science is free from bias and politics. I saw him at the public meetings making truthful statements. While Trump was promoting ivermectin and other quakeries. Was it common sense to go with Trump or Fauci? As for Big Pharma profits, that is something we can agree on. AS a diabetic on the one hand the development of synthetic insulin made my life better. But on the other hand they got around Banting's rule of low cost and jacked the prices up 5 or 10 fold. Fortunately Eli Lily just dropped the prices by 70% by "Lefty" pressure lead by Bernie Sanders. Better late than never but Eli Lily made billions on the back of Diabetics young, old rich or poor. The CDC should have more power to fight their monopolies, not less. Power is money, Countervailing power are rules and regulation by government, unions and concerned citizen's. Rules and regulation that Trump and the Republican's Hate ergo their dream of the good old days of Jim Crow and State Rights etc.
Is is common sense to go with neither Trump nor Fauci. Both are craven politicians and look out for no one but themselves. Ivermectin is not quackery. I took it when I had COVID and it mitigated much of my symptoms. CNN did everyone a disservice by lying about it. Look up how they smeared Joe Rogan. Did you know that the CDC is funded by the drug companies? Why would they fight the drug companies? They are not dumb enough to bite the hand that feeds them. I think you need to read up on the CDC and the drug cartel. It is truly fascism at its finest.
https://www.statnews.com/feature/prescription-politics/federal-full-data-set/
You want to know why diabetic medicine is so expensive? Start here:
Seventy-two senators and 302 members of the House of Representatives cashed a check from the pharmaceutical industry ahead of the 2020 election — representing more than two-thirds of Congress, according to a new STAT analysis of records for the full election cycle.
Not sure why you're mxing the "...vaccines from our childhood..." with the current chemical injections called covid "vaccine". If you got the small pox vaccine, you didn't get small pox.
The mix up? The anti vaxers don't take the proven vaccines either, long before Covid! Do you believe Covid is real? Do you believe in flu vaccines? They mutate and have to be updated and changed every year. Covid has mutated at least 3 times since its first victims started dying. I guess your answer is to let it rip. The defective humans will die and the strong will carry on. The Spanish Flu took strong soldiers along with weak peasants. Do you believe in quarantine? That at least slowed down and was the only way to fight it. No Anti Vaxxer would submit in the 21st century. Would you?
Refusing the shots is similar to refusing the mandatory car insurance, and I believe we have to give more weight to the wellness of the population than to the freedom of a particular individual.
The shots are putting something INSIDE your body that can potentially harm you. Mandatory car insurance is just a policy coverage for liability purposes if you should injure someone. Big difference here. Also, you realize that vaccine makers have complete immunity against all claims of injury. Car insurance offers no immunity as the injury to folks from autos is real and they need to be compensated. So, why is it I can civilly sue someone for injuries I sustained from their recklessness but I cannot sue vaccine maker for a health issue caused by the vaccine? At what point does 'wellness of the population" trump my rights as individual to seek damages if vaccine injures me? AND, trust me, there is a lot of vaccine injury out there....
You are right, car insurance and vaccines are different in many aspects except that both providers greatly benefit from the government mandates. I believe there is no one that has cursed as loudly as I do whenever I have to pay those premiums, but I realize the importance of giving the injured the chance to be compensated for my faults. The case of Big Pharma is even worse because they developed their vaccines with tax payer funds and scientific knowledge provided by the NHA, but their high prices and government contracts are making them ultra billionaires. Their immunity against health claims that trumps our right to sue them has, IMHO, nothing to do with placing the wellness of the population as a priority over the desires of the individual. In medical procedures there are always some risks, and some people get sick by them. I don't know the statistics, but in a discussion like this one would be important to know the percentage of persons harmed by the vaccine compared to the amount of people benefited by it. I suspect that for most of the people it was beneficial, otherwise the WHO would have screamed and my doctors would have not taken it and advised my to do it.
Your absolute faith in the WHO (a poltical institution)---and doctors---who were offered a financial incentive to get as many people to take the vaccine as possible---is stunning. Believe it or not, everyone had an agenda, and a piece of the pie.
You said: Their immunity against health claims that trumps our right to sue them has, IMHO, nothing to do with placing the wellness of the population as a priority over the desires of the individual.
I say: How does vaccination contribute to the wellness of the population? Let's use the recent COVID pandemic as an example. Plenty of folks did not take the vaccine even to the point of losing their jobs. Yet they are still healthy and well. Moreover, the vaccine did not prevent you from getting COVID, it did not prevent you from being hospitalized, it did not prevent you from dying from COVID, and it did not prevent you from passing it on to others. In other words, the COVID vaccine did not do anything that it was advertised to do. So, what contribution to the wellness of the population did the vaccine convey? Have you considered that we were snookered by corporate interests out to make money off of the pandemic? Why is it that the motives of Pfizer and the CDC are above reproach here? Just asking you to look at this objectively and not from a propagandistic perspective.
Matt, there is no way to know if I got all the advertised benefits of the vaccine or not. Vaccines are like a life insurance, if I don't die, then I have something to celebrate. But what I know for sure is that I took care of myself and tried not to infect anybody. I'm not a scientist so I have to trust the people who are trained to know the degree of infectiousness and dangers of the virus, and it seems to me that the whole world did the same.
Congratulations that you didn't get sick despite your rejection of this possible benefit, but I'm not a gambler, specially with my health and for that reason I stop going to the gym and places were the people didn't use mask. I don't know if the CDC is beyond reproach but I definitely blame Pfizer and the other corporations for their greed.
Julio - Either way it is a gamble. Those that took the vaccine also suffered injury. There is no right or wrong way here. My only position is all of us have a right to make whatever choice we deem best for ourselves. There should not be any fascist coercion so that Pfizer can make more money.
Good interview, great guest.
We the people must learn to be compassionate and be sympathetic to people who are struggling. Our hearts must bleed in order for the blood to reach the brain and the feet.
A lot of discussion on inflation and its effects on business and workers around here.
Listen to the Cowboy Economist explaining what inflation actually is and what causes it:
https://youtu.be/1DE0sBGH73A
As there is a lot of discussion on inflation and 'balancing the budget' I'd like you to listen to one of the fathers of neoliberal politics, economist Paul Samuelson's revealing confession:
https://youtu.be/4_pasHodJ-8
You are right, everyone has an agenda and mine is to try to be as healthy as possible taking measures that don't hurt me and possibly benefit others. The rest I leave it to lady Fate.