LogFAQs > #974734499

SinisterSlay posted...

Want the actual cause of inflation.
People have too much money. That might not make sense to those starving in poverty, but it's basic economics. To much money and too little goods means prices rise.

Except that's not what's happening at all. In terms of actual purchasing power, the middle and lower class have been progressively getting poorer than they ever were, with no recent noteworthy increases in purchasing power that can be cited as causing inflation. At no point has a majority of Americans been in the position of having more money than they can spend, which is the phenomenon to which you're referring (surplus money=willing to spend more=companies charge more). The only ones getting richer are those that are already rich, who boast about record profits then in the same breath claim that they need to increase prices to stay solvent in the midst of such rampant inflation.

If you want a specific trigger, a large part of the current wave stems from the petrochem industry realizing that the war in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russia were a good excuse to double gas prices despite there being no commensurate increase in the price of oil. They got away with that because the general public was happy to accept that war is disruptive, that established a new baseline for fuel prices much, much higher than the previous one, and cost increases to everything else trickled down from that because the world is cripplingly dependent on oil. Every other corporation then jacks their prices up further than is actually needed to cover the cost of petrochem executives' greed because "inflation" is enough of an excuse for them to get away with it (not that anyone can really do anything about it because there aren't really alternatives that aren't doing so), and you get a cost of living crisis.