I send my condolences to the victims of the Buffalo shooting.
Since I have discovered in my first Substack video post that I can only upload 1 video per post, my plan to use TikTok to promote my newsletter may not work.
In my April Videos post, I linked 3 YouTube videos on 1 page.
My TikTok channel is https://www.tiktok.com/@carolinegrevelle.
One wide awake question that is bothering me is:
Are companies that are intentionally raising prices which is causing inflation trying to help the GOP regain power in the November elections?
PBS NewsHour has a great and in-depth segment: Why corporations are reaping record profits with inflation on the rise. In the video at 2:53, Noah Smith talks about “capitalism requires greed to run”.
According to Noah Smith's Greed Cycle chart, inflation rose dramatically in the late 1970’s, right before the 1980 election that Ronald Reagan won against the smarter Jimmy Carter. Even though his chart is “tongue in cheek”, I think it is truthful based on a 1981 historical event that greatly affected workers.
The echoes of Reagan's August 3, 1981, Air Traffic Controller speech were taught to college students and executives to be very pro-business and anti-union which is discussed in, When Reagan Broke the Unions (23-minute NPR audio; the 2 important quotes I copied from transcript):
“SIMON: Joseph McCartin is a labor historian at Georgetown - wrote the book about the air-traffic controller strike. He said Reagan's handling of the strike got into business school curricula - like, quickly, within a year.
JOSEPH MCCARTIN: By 1982, there was a group at the Wharton School that came out with a manual which encouraged business leaders to learn from the PATCO strike. So this was widely disseminated, and business leaders were reading about it.”
“… so many strikes in the 1980s were broken to the point where unions realized that employers wanted them to strike so that they could fire them and replace them with nonunion workers. And if you realize that your boss wants you to strike so they can fire you and rehire somebody else, that is going to make you less likely to strike, the main piece of leverage unions have.”
My opinion is that greedy executives who run the companies that are raising prices to negate rising wages which normally would help the employees live better lives. They are profiteering away their employees wage growth.
Oil companies are against Biden's current policy and a bigger driver of inflation. Even though it is doubtful to pass the Senate, A bill that would set gas price limits and prevent 'exploitative' cost hikes is headed for a House vote.
My theory is that if, God forbid, the republicans win a Congressional majority in November, 2022, inflation will decrease dramatically. However, I hope that the Democrats will Roar to maintain or grow their majority due to the overly religious and invalid supreme court's ruling taking away abortion rights.
(A February 10, 2022, report from, Joy Reid: Prices Will Keep Going Higher And Higher Until The Consumer Says ‘Enough!’ sparked the question I asked in me since inflation has not decreased like President Biden said at the beginning of the interview in the video.)
05/18/2022 Update:
On MSNBC's The Beat With Ari Melber, Ari did a segment at 30:00 in this video on how corporations are “exploiting inflation by raising prices”.
06/14/2022 Update: Inflation and Price Gouging (Yahoo) (New York Times)
Thank you for reading.
Question on Inflation Profiteering and Elections