Wednesday, August 17, 2022



"Economic stability"

Stuff reports that workers have had the biggest pay rise in more than 20 years. This should be great news - ordinary people are better off! But naturally, the Reserve Bank is there to ruin the party, hiking interest rates to throw people out of work. And they're pretty explicit about why:

"Production is being constrained by acute labour shortages, heightened by seasonal and Covid-19 related illnesses. In these circumstances, spending and investment continues to outstrip supply capacity, and wage pressures are heightened.
Yes, they have to tank the economy because ordinary people are making too much money. And then they wonder why people view the entire institution as scam to keep the rich rich and everyone else poor.

If the problem is too much money in the economy, the government could always tax it away, and do so in a way which reduces rather than exacerbates inequality. We could tax those windfall corporate profits, for example. Or just go all out and tax the rich properly. But apparently that's just not an option, so those least able to afford it get to carry the can so the rich can have "economic stability". Because it turns out that "economic stability" for the rich means instability and insecurity for everyone else.