(The opinions expressed in guest op-eds are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.)
It requires an ounce of common sense to understand and appreciate that the way to cure rising prices in an economy is through more private-sector productivity and production, and ultimately more economic growth and wealth creation. Yes?
— manic contrarian (@SBCTA) July 26, 2022
It should be no wonder to the mildly sentient why prices are higher today than they were in February of 2020. The real question should be how prices across a huge market basket of goods and a wide and diverse spectrum of services were so remarkably low before we did the unthinkable, lock down the world.
And yes, it was a global lockdown because, as in Monkey See Monkey Do, other countries, especially the European countries, emulate what the U.S. does.
Even when politicians in the U.S. do something catastrophically stupid like shutting down the wheels of commerce out of the most extreme display of hubris, you can expect other politicians around the world to follow. Something about a New Liberal Order.
I still have trouble getting my head around it. The notion of politicians, at the urging of public health “experts,” from California to Canada, from Brazil to Belgium, from Spain to Saint Pierre, people, most of whom had never created a job or spent a single day running a company or small business, believed themselves qualified to make monumentally important decisions that would impact the $100 trillion global economy.
And by doing so, they damaged the lives of billions, resulting in hundreds of thousands, particularly in the developing world, losing the work that gave them hope, and even dying from an intentional international “health emergency” and an internationally orchestrated COVID policy of forced poverty. Whatever happened to first do no harm?
We’re from the government and we’re here to help you…
You see, there’s an old saying, when America gets the sniffles, the rest of the world catches a cold. And when America catches a cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia.
This old saying has nothing to do with infectious diseases; it has to do with the unparalleled economic importance of America’s unique role in the world. When a certain segment of American consumers, let’s say teenage girls, stops buying the last “next thing,” tens of thousands of nameless, faceless people, the poorest of the world’s working poor, are out of work.
When all Americans stay home and disconnect from the global economic order by not buying or selling, producing, or consuming, when this happens, hundreds of thousands, even millions of working poor in the Third World, think Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, are out of work, out of hope, and eventually out of time.
According to our Federal Reserve “Brain Trust,” inflation is caused by too many people working and spending too much of their own money…
And now, not content in the knowledge that by locking down the world economy, millions of working poor in the world’s poorest countries suffered, including many of the poorest people in the world dying from a poverty imposed upon them by decree, many of the same experts who stood up and said lock it all down, are now saying shut it all off, the easy money, and the easy credit.
So, the decision by the Trust, with their elbow patches and monocles, is to stop the music, turn on the lights, and remove the punch bowl, because the economic party-poopers are home.
Just when we thought it was safe to get back to normal, and back to work, the 12 Trust Busters at the Fed decide, nah, too much overheating in the economy, it’s time to make America poor again.
It’s again time to destroy the housing market, the most important single asset most Americans will ever have. It’s also time to raise unemployment, and throw people out of work. We’ll see how many people in Silicon Valley, and Martha’s Vineyard lose their situation.
And once again, the “expert class” and their economic austerity come to the rescue. Except this time, instead of blaming everything on a relatively mild virus, at least as global pandemics go, they’ll blame it on the Consumer Price Index and Vladimir Putin.
Tens of thousands of businesses will close. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will be out of work. Millions of Americans will lose all or most of their equity in their homes and their retirement accounts. But millions of the poorest people in the world, who literally depend on America’s economy to keep them working, and literally living, they’ll lose everything, and many will even die.
But who knows, maybe these “experts,” unlike the last experts, who are all saying the cure for inflation is higher unemployment, which is accomplished by manufacturing a recession, are right.
Except they aren’t. The experts who insist on running the world aren’t right. They are casually wrong about almost everything, consistently, and repeatedly.
Just like the answer to bad, negative, or ugly speech is more positive and uplifting speech. Or just like the answer to some people getting Covid is more people getting Covid until herd immunity is achieved, the answer to rising prices is more private-sector productivity and production, and ultimately more economic growth and wealth creation.
In other words, the answer is never, ever, less prosperity, the answer is always, and every time, more!
Joe Armendariz is the Director of Government Affairs for Armendariz Partners. He is a former two-term member of the Carpinteria City Council and the former Executive Director of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association, and Santa Barbara Technology and Industry Association. He is Chairman of the California Center for Public Policy. He can be reached at 805.990-2494
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