Who is responsible for this difficult Christmas for ordinary Americans?

Who is responsible for this difficult Christmas for ordinary Americans?

Even the Christmas tree cannot escape the economic chaos of 2021. "Washington Post" wrote. According to estimates by the American Christmas Tree Association, the price of Christmas trees this year has risen by 10%-30%, so that industry professionals give Americans advice, "Buy early, don't wait until a few days before the holiday." Don't be too picky about the size and variety, be flexible"...

The expensive Christmas tree is the epitome of the continuing increase in living expenses for ordinary Americans. In November, the US inflation rate reached 6.8%, a 39-year high. The prices of food, energy, cars, and housing have risen significantly. However, according to data from the US Department of Labor, the real hourly wages of Americans after deducting inflation in November fell by 1.9% year-on-year. As the US Consumer News and Business Channel pointed out, inflation "takes away" all American wage increases, and it's not enough.

In fact, ordinary Americans do not need to look at the official consumer price index (CPI), because almost every daily expenditure reminds them that their wallets are shrinking. Many people fall into the awkward situation where the numbers on the payroll are getting bigger and the things they can buy are getting less.

The Glenns, with an annual income of $110,000, said in an interview recently that the increase in travel prices caused them to shelve their Christmas trip plans. But the saddest thing is not these middle-class Americans. Faced with high rents, food, and gasoline, people who don’t even have a payroll and low-income people have a more unsustainable life, and this Christmas is even more difficult. Bloomberg recently cited data from the U.S. Census Bureau that due to the exhaustion of relief funds for the new crown epidemic and rising food prices, more than 21 million Americans did not have enough food to eat in early December.

The irony is that the stock market is rising and the houses are rising, and the wealthy people who are at the top of the wealth chain are getting richer. "Forbes" magazine recently named the top 10 billionaires in the world whose net worth will rise the most in 2021, of which 6 are from the United States. As of December 10, their total assets have increased by US$304 billion in 2021, and their per capita net assets have appreciated by 51%.

Under the epidemic, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is accelerating. This is inseparable from the "helicopter money-spreading" fiscal policy and the "spreading water" monetary policy adopted by the US government since the epidemic.

For Americans, it is not only high prices that undermine the holiday atmosphere, but also repeated epidemics. At present, the Omi Keron mutant strain has spread to 50 states in the United States, and the number of confirmed cases of new crown in the United States has exceeded 200,000 for several days. Collins, president of the US National Institutes of Health, warned that Omi Keron could cause the number of confirmed cases in the United States to soar to 1 million in a single day. The new wave of the epidemic will further aggravate the tight logistics supply and labor shortage pressure, which means that the "fever" inflation will not quickly go away.

On the surface, Americans’ Christmas hardship is related to soaring prices, raging epidemics and other factors, but it is actually caused by American politicians’ continued ineffectiveness in fighting the epidemic and the implementation of irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies. It is the political interests that override ordinary people. The inevitable consequence above the interests. Barry Banister, an investment bank analyst in the United States, believes that the poor policy choices of the Fed and the Treasury Department since the epidemic are mainly due to the "populism" of American politicians.

In the United States under the epidemic, the social rules of capital first and the rich first have become more rampant, and the anxiety and powerlessness of ordinary Americans have become more and more serious. Those self-interested Washington politicians should be responsible for this difficult Christmas for ordinary Americans.