OldTrapper
Well-Known Member
Just to answer you directly then, most cost increases, and inflation, are due to greed whether it be the greed of government, unions, or the business itself.
On the side of government, new taxes, rules, regulations, etc., most often increase the cost of goods produced by the business.
On the side of the unions we had, and fortunately it is a factor that is diminishing, the drive by the unions for ever increasing wages, and benefits. It was one of the factors that destroyed our auto manufacturing, is destroying our education system, and has put the public employee in a position where they make some 40 to 60% more then the same worker in the public sector. Now BO is trying to get the teachers more money even though the education system is a complete failure, and teachers are more interested in their salaries then what they are teaching. Harvard University has a 2 Billion dollar Alumni fund that was intended to help financially strapped students, yet with the Pell grants, etc., there has been no need for them to do so. Well, there has been a need, they just don't do it demanding that the taxpayer do it instead. Then there is the ILU where dockworkers make up to, and sometimes over, 100,000 a year plus benefits, and they went on strike a few years back for higher wages. This strike cost businesses billions of dollars.
Then you have the corporation itself. One of the major arguments for the passage of NAFTA, and GATT/WTO, was to create more jobs in America through a market demand in countries like China. However, as soon as the laws were passed the corporations moved out of the country, hired the cheap labor, and still charged the same for their product. That increased profits to the corporation, and thus the CEO's were able to collect higher salaries. Interesting enough is that China now enjoys a less then 4% unemployment rate, a 10% growth in GDP, etc., while we are going bankrupt, and out national unemployment rate in real numbers is around 20%. Equally interesting is our dependency on foreign countries for our very survival economically, and materially. Only 3% of our clothing is manufactured in the States, and 30% of our food comes from overseas. Even repair parts for our military equipment is manufactured overseas.
To directly address the utility bill, there have been no new resources developed for electrical production in close to 30 years. In the period of time the demand has sharply increased, and in spite of this there are plans to remove hydropower plants from the Snake River here in Oregon, and from the Klamath River in Southern Oregon. As demand goes up, production remains the same, or decreases, the costs will go up.
Hope that answers your question better. I know what you are going to say, that it is not the greed of the business that is driving inflation, and you are right. However, it is a major portion since the business community has a couple of trillion dollars it could invest in American jobs, and small business, and the banks have a couple more trillion they could invest. However, it is more profitable for them to keep the supply lower, and the demand higher, and the profits growing thus giving them an excuse for even higher CEO, and lower echelon salaries while actually paying the American worker less, and importing (both legally, and illegally) cheap foreign labor.
In the meantime, the major corporations actually support the passage of even more demands on the business community which only they can afford such as the healthcare bill. In the meantime we are seeing the small business go the way of the family farm, the small oil refineries, and the independent trucker.
