TL;DR: economists are still stuck in the idea of the market as a perfect force for reaching optimal outcomes. They're ignoring the simple fact that businesses are putting prices up purely to increase profits. And that they can do this because the economic ideal of perfect competition (where many small firms compete with near-identical products) does not exist. We have a small number of very powerful businesses—oligopolies—in nearly every market for consumer-facing goods.
Economists aren't really in denial, they are just doing their job of giving a false sense of scientific legitimacy to the plan the ruling class will enact anyways: discipline labor, cut social spending, bail out finance when they inevitably crash.
Who's going to fund the new economics building at the University, the working class or some billionaire? Better make sure you don't have any Marxists on staff.
What got me off conservatism is the fact that even Friedman wanted a Welfare System through negative tax returns.
However that idea was absolutely dismissed by conservatives.
I actually don't think I've seen that many economists (the progressive ones at least) who haven't been making the case for some sort of windfall tax on profits. The Australia Institute have been all over this for years now. Even the more centrist / conservative economists admit there needs to be some sort of intervention to regulate competition in the market. Pretty sure it was the IMF who came up with the approach for calculating how much profit driven inflation there is. Anyone who doesn't recognise this is either on the payroll or selectively ignoring huge chunks of data / evidence.
Nice work. It does trouble me that there’s such an orthodoxy in economics going through so much of government.
The theory so often fails, so why not use different theory? It’s frustrating when it’s people’s livelihoods at stake.
I'd love to spend less money on groceries and every day costs but it's just not possible with the prices of everything going through the roof like you said. People are still spending more because they have to.
The government seems clueless on what to do. Their only action is for the RBA to increase the interest rate and then hold onto their butts and pray.
They're ignoring the simple fact that businesses are putting prices up purely to increase profits.
This is incorrect. Yes, greed exists, but it always exists. Even in classical capitalist economics, inflation comes when supply can't keep up with demand. Fiat currencies floating globally, rampant money printing, global shortages and supply chain issues plus corporate greed starts to show a clearer picture
The inflation is, quite simply, because we've been printing money since the early 2000's, and the shit hits the fan eventually. Every time any company fails due to massive corruption, it's bought out with printed money. ..that, and, the covid "please don't riot" checks. Fiscal irresponsibility and corruption, plain and simple.
Free market capitalism is a myth - capitalism doesn't work without a separation of corporate and government interests, and in free market capitalism, the government gets bought.
