Yesterday the stock markets had their worst day of the year, so far. From today’s Wall Street Journal:
Walmart and Home Depot offered cautious outlooks as consumers spend more on food and less on electronics, apparel and home improvements, with inflation and changing habits hitting demand for many goods.
All of this is, and has long been, blindingly obvious. The federal government engaged in trillions of dollars in mostly wasteful deficit spending. The money was free! But of course, nothing is free: the consequence was inflation, in effect a tax on all of us. With belts tightened due to rising food and energy costs, most consumers have limited their discretionary spending. The troubled stock markets are just one indicator of what is in essence a declining standard of living. The Biden administration’s happy talk about the economy is borderline insane.
And things are going to get worse. Pretty much all of the policies being followed by the federal government, and many states, will contribute to an ongoing decline in living standards. The attack on fossil fuels and blind insistence on an impossible “transition” to wind and solar energy will cause the cost of energy to explode. The attack on agriculture, which is only now beginning in earnest, will force food prices up. The installation of DEI commissars in every government agency and substantial corporation is in itself wasteful spending, and worse, will make our corporations and government agencies less efficient and thereby raise costs further. And rampant crime imposes enormous costs that are borne by everyone except, too often, criminals.
Rich liberals may not notice or care, although continued declines in the stock markets might get their attention. But the rest of us will see the consequences of perverse government policies in worsening standards of living. One wonders how long it will take before most voters figure out that, somehow, life just isn’t as good as it once was.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.