My wife and I recently had the tremendous misfortune of needing to buy a car. Car prices, you may know, reached an all-time high between this year and last.
There are now rumblings of a gradual decline, but rising interest rates will likely offset any savings. So with our beloved but rickety 2006 Altima facing another cruel Midwestern winter alone, we bit the bullet and bought a newer used car before those rates could get any higher.
For us it was the capstone of a year we spent, like anyone else, shelling out more for gas, groceries, and everything else. It’s this kind of inflation that’s giving even the fringiest Republican candidates an edge going into this year’s midterms.
But if Republicans ride inflation to victory, experts warn their “solutions” will make it worse.
It starts with where they place the blame. GOP campaign ads blame “Joe Biden’s spending,” while a few conservative-leaning economists blame wage increases. Economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich dismisses both.
Spending alone “can’t be causing our current inflation,” Reich argues, “because inflation has broken out everywhere around the world, often at much higher rates than in the U.S.” And “wages can’t be pushing inflation, because wages have been increasing …read more
Source:: Institute for Policy Studies
