It’s worth noting that the current issues with inflation are related to the massive increase in demand when production was essentially halted during lockdown. Rather than increase production, many companies found it more profitable, easier, and logical to simply sell their current stock at higher prices. This had the knock on effect of leading to shortages. Again, demand is a major contributor to inflation right now.

The narrative that the stimulus plan is causing inflation issues is related, but let us not forget that when the bond market failed during the recession, the Fed pumped in $2.2 to 2.3 trillion in loans to Wall Street. Yet, while we talk about the hand-me-up we give everyday Americans contributing to inflation, no one is talking about the bond market or Wall Street receiving just as much.

It is also curious to note that countries that did infrastructure and social spending, like those in Europe, are weathering inflation and recession much better than America. While countries that have taken a more classic neoliberal approach of non-interference in the economy are suffering the worst. America sits somewhere in the middle, just slightly on the edge of doing worse.

More importantly, we wouldn’t be in this mess if businesses weren’t profit-driven. Let’s be clear — businesses are the backbone of our society. They manage the logistics of our goods and services, give us our needs and wants, and provide an avenue for people to live decent lives. However, their underlying program of seeking profits distorts their behavior. In the case of increasing demand, instead of ramping up production, companies found it safer and logical to their bottom line to simply jack up prices. The alternative, increasing production, would bear too much risk to their profits.

If businesses were coordinated in some fashion with the demands and needs of its people with some statistical forecasting, and businesses would be reassured that doing right by the economy wouldn’t necessarily mean taking a risk on its existence, we wouldn’t worry about hills and dips in the economy. Arguably, we would greatly soften or even completely eliminate recessions.