The Elites Want You Poorer

Martin Wolf wants to engineer a recession

Photo by Rob on Unsplash

Inflation is out of control due to excessive money printing during the pandemic. This indisputable fact is often overlooked or evaded in discussions, with many preferring to shift blame to the usual suspects of Covid and the Ukrainian war.

In the UK, annual core inflation (which excludes food and energy prices) currently stands at a staggering 7.1%. Officially, food inflation is reported to be close to 20% but unofficially it’s much higher. From the onset of the pandemic, it was evident that inflation would not be a temporary or transient issue and those who used such words were quite simply lying to manipulate and manage public expectations.

Any kind of inflation is just a hidden tax on citizens, especially those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. Inflation erodes the value of individuals' savings and diminishes their purchasing power. If salaries don’t increase in line with the inflation rate (and I mean the real inflation rate), individuals face a decline in their standard of living. Paradoxically, some level of inflation can benefit the wealthy. As long as inflation remains within certain limits and does not devalue the currency excessively, it inflates the value of their assets while reducing their debts.

But inflation is currently too high and therefore has the potential to cause problems even for the rich. They are, therefore, desperate for it to reduce a little to protect their assets and to do this they want to curb demand. With so much printed money in the system, prices spiral upwards as people demand higher wages which they then use to pay higher prices for goods and services.

So how do you remove demand? Simple, by making people poorer. And how do you make people poorer? One way is by making goods and services more expensive, effectively reducing individuals' purchasing power. One way to do this is by increasing interest rates, making loans less affordable. It could be argued that the Ukrainian war was an excuse to make energy more expensive and therefore reducing demand for energy. The second is by eliminating jobs, leaving people without income to spend on discretionary items.

This approach of making people poorer is what Martin Wolf in the Financial Times is calling for.

Something has to change, radically and soon. We are seeing a price-price and wage-price spiral radiating throughout the economy. The only way to halt this is to remove the accommodating demand. In other words, the question is not whether there will be a recession; it is rather whether there needs to be one, if the spiral is to be halted. The plausible view is that the answer to the latter part of this question is “yes”. Like it or not (I certainly do not), the economy will not get back to 2 per cent inflation without a sharp slowdown and higher unemployment.

What time is it Mr. Wolf? Recession time you silly sheep.

Mr. Wolf doesn’t just think there will be a recession, he actively wants to engineer one. He wants a sharp slowdown in the economy and for people to lose their jobs. And we all know what this means, the poorest will be hit the hardest due to the failures of the rich.

This de-growth agenda is apparent throughout the ruling class. Rishi Sunak, for instance, said he will block public sector pay rises saying workers “need to recognise the economic context we are in”. The context is that Rishi, as chancellor during the pandemic, printed an unprecedented amount of money and this has now flooded the economy.

Ministers are clamouring for more and more immigration even though it is already at ridiculously high levels and rising. The reason? Once again, to make you poorer and therefore reduce overall demand. Phillip Hammond, the former chancellor “has said relaxing immigration controls will create more competition for jobs and help to reduce inflation - and therefore interest rates - by reducing the power of workers to seek increases in pay”.

It’s the same old story. Create inflation to make the rich richer by increasing the value of their assets, whilst reducing their debts. If it goes a bit wrong, blame it on the plebs and introduce austerity measures to return inflation to where you want it. And within a short period of time, the gap between rich and poor hugely widens causing social tension and unrest, especially when mass-immigration is used to reduce the wages of the least wealthy.

In this context, it becomes evident that as the gap between the rich and the poor widens, the elite resort to gaslighting tactics, attempting to convince the less fortunate that their poverty is a result of their own choices. This false narrative portrays poverty as a virtue for the greater good of society, attempting to absolve the rich from their role in exacerbating socio-economic inequalities. An example of this is in an article called “The Case Against Travel - It turn us into the worse version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best”. However, it remains clear that the wealthy will continue to enjoy the freedom of travel while promoting restrictive measures for the general population.

As we navigate the complexities of the current inflationary environment, it is crucial to critically analyse the underlying agendas at play. Excessive money printing during the pandemic has undeniably contributed to the surge in inflation. While blame is often shifted towards external factors such as the pandemic or geopolitical conflicts, it is essential to acknowledge the role of monetary policies in creating and exacerbating the inflationary crisis. Furthermore, the strategies employed to address the situation, such as curbing demand through increasing prices and eliminating jobs, disproportionately affect the most vulnerable members of society.