CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 12. 2024 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“INFLATION:
THE ENEMY IS US”
When
it comes to the causes of the inflation that continues to plague California
households, perhaps Walt Kelly’s old comic strip swamp possum Pogo said it
best: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Kelly,
of course, bowdlerized the line from War of 1812 U.S. Naval Commodore Oliver
Hazard Perry’s report to a superior after defeating the British Navy in the
Battle of Lake Erie: “We have met the enemy and they are
ours.”
Pogo’s variation on that has proven as
telling over the decades since Kelly gave him the line describing people’s
persistent tendency to cause problems for themselves.
So it is today with inflation, among
other issues. Yes, the Federal Reserve tells us inflation is not as severe as a
year or so ago, when gasoline prices rose by $2 per gallon over two days in February 2023.
But
the price in California still hovers well above $4, in part because the state
has yet to enforce its eight-month-old law allowing it to charge penalties
against price-gouging oil companies. That’s true everywhere in California,
where prices are more than $1 dollar per gallon higher than the national
average, even though state taxes amount to far less than that.
As
long as the state Energy Commission doesn’t act to reel in those companies, one
significant element of inflation will remain untouched. And virtually no one
today is pressuring the commission to act.
We
are also at least partly at fault for fast-rising insurance prices, both for
vehicles and real estate. We re-elected Ricardo Lara insurance commissioner in
2022 despite his well-publicized footsie games with insurance company campaign
donations.
That’s
another inflation element. We also elected the legislators who raised the
minimum wage to $16 an hour effective Jan. 1, with minimum hourly pay for
health care workers set to rise to $23 on June 1. We elected the governor who
signed off on those and we rejected by a large margin an effort to recall him.
It’s
hard to see how inflation can be avoided when minimum wages constantly rise.
Some restaurants responded to their need to pay dishwashers more than before by
listing a separate “minimum wage” surcharge with each of their menu items,
letting customers know exactly why they’re now paying more than before.
That
same governor appointed all five Public Utility Commission members, the folks
who continually raise electricity and natural gas rates, a tax that’s not
formally called by that name. But utility rates have all the earmarks of taxes:
We must pay up, or there will be severe consequences.
We
also voted twice against propositions for statewide rent controls. One result
is that rents are staying high despite the myriad vacancies among newly-built
market-rate apartments. Meanwhile, there are waiting lists for formally
designated affordable units in many places.
Even
though he had nothing to do with any of these key inflationary factors, all of
which contribute to the costs of food, fuel, entertainment tickets and just
about everything else, it’s common to blame President Biden for all of it.
If there’s one
bright spot in this, it is the likelihood that gasoline prices won’t go much
higher in the immediate future. That’s partly because of the state law allowing
penalties for gouging and also because Biden turned on the spigots of the
National Petroleum Reserve, knocking down some worldwide wholesale oil prices.
At the same time, he’s brought domestic oil production to record levels, even
while once-and-future rival Donald Trump shouts “drill, drill, drill,” from the
sidelines as he admits to wanting to be a dictator, but “only for Day 1.”
The bottom line on
all this is clear. If we are suckered into blaming inflation on Biden, we will
be ignoring our own responsibility for much of it. Which would mean we are
ignoring the obvious reality that when it comes to inflation, Pogo was once
again correct that “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
-30-
Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough,
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
No comments:
Post a Comment