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Also, see the book Cornered by Barry C. Lynn, who argues that over the last couple decades, the U.S. economy has been mostly taken over by monopolies, so we don

Also, see the book Cornered by Barry C. Lynn, who argues that over the last couple decades, the U.S. economy has been mostly taken over by monopolies, so we don't have much open free market competition anymore. The monopolies generally aren't obvious. For example, we have three major car companies, but they all get their parts from the same suppliers. In 2009 Ford asked Congress to bail out Chrysler and GM, because if either of them went down, so would Ford's suppliers.

DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
Interesting, that's a point I hadn't considered. So in a system that is awash in cheap credit and every major consumer stable is controlled by a duo/triopolpy, inflation can we controlled while the owners of production continue to gain wealth. It's interesting to look at the things "rich" people buy like houses, vacations/experiences, and high-end consumer goods--those things have all increased in price in the sense that they "now exist" where as in the past the spread between poor quality and high quality was probably tighter. The difference between a cheap car and an expensive car is dramatic in both quality and price, same with food, real estate location, clothes, etc. Does anyone offer a CPI for luxury goods? I bet inflation in that has been dramatic especially in the past decade.