Economist & Professor Dr. Richard Wolff pointed out that our current inflation is a choice in no uncertain terms. Let’s stop the insanity. The snippet in this article is from our more extensive interview that we will make public after it airs on KPFT 90.1 FM, a Pacifica Network station, and our online networks. Dr. Wolff details why our economic system is in permanent decline. Our YouTube members can get a sneak peek here.
Dr. Richard Wolff is on point as usual.
One of the reasons I like to interview Dr. Richard Wolff is that he does not pull any punches. He does not feel restricted to toe the line of America’s general narrative. He understands that an economic system is not divine, nor should it make itself so rigid that one treats change as blasphemy. Hell, it is not a religion. It is a tool to allow us to exchange goods and services in an orderly and supposedly pleasurable manner.
I have been telling my Politics Done Right audience for some time that one can prove that today’s inflation has little to do with shortages. Moreover, those who use “inflationary problems to justify monstrous price increases are responsible for those problems.
Let me explain. Greedy, heartless, and immoral corporations stiffed their American employees of good wages by offshoring their manufacturing. They then created the Just-In-Time-Inventory method, which means they could not tolerate any disruption in their supply chain caused by hurricanes, overseas strikes, war, or pandemics. They bought politicians to cut their taxes which means dollars that government could use to mitigate pandemics and other issues were problematic. And after their plethora of screwups, they profit by using the problems they created to recover the cost of their failure at a premium. And that is why you see they are making record profits even with their abject failure. Worse, they use their purchased mainstream media and puppet politicians to blame the government — talking about a close loop that gives our capitalist corporate structure the semblance of innocence.
Dr. Richard Wolff could not have said it any better.
“Anyone who’s listening who ever had a job knows that if you’re not the employer or you’re not on the board of directors of a corporation, no one ever asks your opinion about setting the prices of what’s produced in the company where you work,” Dr. Wolff said. “If you’re not happy with prices going up, the anger or the upset or the question should be directed at the 1% of our people who are in the position to do it.”
But the professor was not done.
“Moreover, we live in a capitalist system which allows them because they are a quote-unquote free enterprise to jack up the price whenever the hell they wish to,” the professor said. “Second point, and I’m just being an economics teacher here. Why do employers make the decisions they do, including raising a price? The answer is that the employers, every action is dictated by what they themselves tell us dictates it. Namely, to make money. They’re in business. To the profit is their bottom line, they tell us. They are taught in business school. And I’ve taught in business schools. They are taught every decision you make should be geared towards, will it improve your profitability or will not? If you raise your profits, your career goes up. If you don’t, your career goes into the toilet. So the honest answer to why employers raise prices is the same answer every kid in business school writes on his or her exam. It’s because it’s profitable. If you think you can get away by charging more, that’s your job to do it. I’ll remind you of a famous saying that describes capitalism. The seller always sells at the best price the market will bear. Do you know what that means? You jack up the price if you can get away with it. So we have inflation because businesses think they’re in a situation where they can get away with raising the price. And in many cases, they’re right. But that’s why we have it. It’s not from God. It’s not divine. It’s not like rainfall coming out of nature.”
Dr. Richard Wolff reminded us that a conservative Republican president stopped inflation in its tracks by telling the employers they had to freeze prices at current levels. He said inflation stopped on a dime then.
Again, if there are no substantial shortages, which we do not have, and businesses are making record profits, it is clear that the underlying inflation, as the professor inferred, is manufactured. The corporatocracy is gauging Americans. Listen to the entire clip. The professor is quite good at explaining.