A few more thoughts on the economics of the piece. I think a lot of people blame our economic woes on "INFLATION". It is a Republican boogeyman because the late 70's early 80's years of it traumatized a generation.

Here's how to really see it.

In the mid 70's a scoop of Baskin Robbins ice-cream cost 35 cents. (I worked at BR through high school). Now that same scoop costs $3.50.

Inflation right? Prices have gone up. Badness has happened.

Not exactly.

In a perfectly balanced economy, the money supply would be exactly equal to the goods and services needed. There would be homeostasis and no inflation.

We live in the real world. There are always inflationary pressures causing wage and price "creep" over time. Is this a bad thing?

No, not as long as balance is maintained so that real income doesn't decline.

It doesn't matter if an ice-creme cone costs 10x as much now if wages are 10x higher. If balance has been maintained the economy is stable. It doesn't matter what the denominations on the money say, as long as your real purchasing power hasn't changed.

Is this what's happened in the US?

Well, we all know it hasn't. We live that reality.

What's happened is that prices have gone up about 10x since the 70's but wages have only increased about 4x.

Case in point. In the early 70's my dad got a job in the newly booming Silicon Valley. I was at Berkeley and they followed me out to California.

He was making the very nice wage of 25K/year.

At his last job, doing Y2K work in the late 90's he was making about $125K per year. He did well, his wages increased by a factor of five. It looks like he should be doing great.

In reality, his purchasing power, his “real” income, declined by 50%. If his wages had kept pace with prices, he should have been making around 250K per year. To have the same quality of life he had in the 70's.

His house value increased from 30K to 975K during that time.

Wages did not keep up with prices!

That's why everyone is so poor. That's why life is so much harder than it was in the 70's. Why everyone has to work so much harder to make ends meet.

That's not inflation. That's theft.

That other 6x the amount everyone should be making if the economic gains of the last 50 years had been paid out to workers. That's the amount the 1% have captured. That's where their wealth comes from.

That's why life is hard. They are stealing from you and then convincing you that the government investments that could grow the economy are "too expensive" because taxes are too high.

Taxes are high, only on the poor and the middle class. The wealthy are wallowing in obscene amounts of money.

That's where it came from.