Today’s links Look at all the great stuff we lost because of inflation scare-talk: We swapped pandemic aid, new spending and minimum wage hikes for wage suppression and mass layoffs. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Look at all the great stuff we lost because of inflation scare-talk (permalink) Call me a conspiratorialist if you must. But when CEOs get on earnings calls and brag about how covid, war, and scare-stories about inflation let them hike their prices and rake in never-before-seen profit margins, I think it’s reasonable to blame inflation on greed, not on workers getting a couple of relief checks during the lockdown. Amazingly, this is a controversial position! For more than a year, Very Serious People have dismissed the greedflation hypothesis – that CEOs aren’t lying when they boast about using pretexts to hike prices – is a conspiracy theory used to dupe people who Just Don’t Understand Economics. Jeff Bezos – whose profits soared during the lockdowns, even as his workers sickened and died in droves – went on a Twitter tear last March to tell us that free gubmint money (for workers, that is) was causing inflation: https://www.levernews.com/citizen-bezos-logs-on/ And Bezos’s columnists and editorial board at the Washington Post told the same story, calling greedflation “foolishness” and a “bizarre theory” and demanding that the Fed hike interest rates, drive Americans out of work, and “curtail their spending…Pluralistic: Look at all the great stuff we lost because of inflation scare-talk (05 May 2023)