1.4M views · Mar 17, 2023 · 7:52 · 4 HN recommenders · 10 mentions · discussed 2023–2024
A short excerpt of Jon Stewart interviewing former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers about the causes of inflation and whether workers or corporate profits are to blame. It comes from an episode of The Problem With Jon Stewart.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters link it in threads on greedflation and corporate pricing power as an accessible exchange of opposing views.
“It's a real good exchange of viewpoints on the matter -- better than you'd get with most other commentary.”HN comment, 2023
“Great interview with Jon Stewart ad fed chair here”
Jon Stewart interviews Larry Summers on inflation causes.
Lots point to Covid-19 ppp and spending to be the cause of inflation. When the majority is supply chain and corporate opportunist. Great interview with Jon Stewart ad fed chair here: this video
“It's a real good exchange of viewpoints on the matter -- better than you'd get with most other commentary.”
Good exchange of viewpoints on corporate profits and inflation.
There's an episode of The Problem With Jon Stewart about two months ago where he interviews Larry Summers about inflation in general and corporate profits being part of the issue. It's a real good exchange of viewpoints on the matter -- better than you'd get with most other commentary. Relevant clip is here: this video
“Jon Stewart touches on this issue (but for the US)”
Conversation on inflation solutions favoring corporations over people.
Jon Stewart touches on this issue (but for the US): this video It's rather funny (and sad) to watch the entire conversation reflecting how inflation solutions are geared towards benefiting corporations over the people.
“I think he's the only person doing serious journalism.”
Example of Stewart speaking truth to power.
I dunno. I think he's the only person doing serious journalism. He had access and was willing to speak truth to power, publicly. this video link It's not surprising that the show was finally shuttered.
“And for some reason corporate profiteering is fine but workers getting paid more isn't [3].”
This is why corporate taxation is so important as well as the real solution to rising inflation. We have the additional factor that the banking sector may not be able to withstand further interest rate hikes due to bad risk management. Protecting the banking system is pretty much the only thing that could prompt lawmakers into action (eg a windfall profits tax) but these aren't ordinary times. But this will never happen. It's not even a partisan issue. Particularly since the awful "money = speech" decision [1], both sides of politics are bought and paid for by unchecked corporate power (eg [2]). Corporate consolidation makes this worse. Terms that might otherwise be illegal like "price gouging" and "price fixing" have been replaced by sanitized legal versions like "price leadership", which is basically the same thing. One company raises prices. The other follows suit. And for some reason corporate profiteering is fine but workers getting paid more isn't [3]. Weird . [1]: link [2]: link [3]: this video
“You get the same sentiments as the Bank of England governor from Larry Summers [1].”
I wouldn't call this "class war". It's more accurate to say "neofeudalism". Real wages have been relatively stagnant for 40+ years while we've seen a massive concentration of wealth at the top. Trickle-down economics and deregulation have repeatedly shown themselves to be nothing more than tools for increasing income and wealth inequality. Every aspect of your life is increasingly financialized. College, once free or cheap, now saddles you with lifelong debt. Mortgage debt and rent as a ratio to income have massively increased. Medical debt can wipe you out in the blink of an eye. All of this is by design. It's an inevitable consequence of hyper-capitalist neoliberalism. All of this debt without a real increase in wages is designed to keep you a compliant worker. After all, with any kind of real freedom or financial independence, you're absolutely showing up for work tomorrow. Additionally, inflation could be tackled way more effectively with a windfall profits tax without indiscriminately hitting all businesses as well as individual borrowers. Even if it did it would fill government coffers so the most in need could be helped. You get the same sentiments as the Bank of England governor from Larry Summers [1]. All of this is built on the lie that wages are the real threat to inflation rather than boundles corporate greed and profiteering. [1]: this video
“Aka profit inflation, instead of wage inflation.”
> Asset inflation at this point is a runaway process caused by companies raising prices to cover increased costs and adding a margin for safety because of volatility Aka profit inflation, instead of wage inflation. this video
“Greedflation.”
This is the classic WSJ defending the Fed protecting the upper class wealth and telling the lower classes to suck it up, imo. Greedflation. this video
I’m not sure whether you will agree wholly or partly with this, your comment can be read more than one way. But several child commenters seem to be reading it as “Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem”. So I’m going to address the ever more psychotic Reaganomics that still haven’t “trickled down” 40 years later and how that ties into the energy situation in California. He won his second term the year I was born, in California, so I watched all of this since like, 1989 and was hearing about it in the womb. Enron is arguably the nastiest collapse of any large company due to sanctioned crime, there’s just not another word, a bunch of people went to jail. They lobbied to get energy business de-regulated, and it was so extreme that they had the pull to get something like half the base load generation turned off, spiking the price per kilowatt hour over 4k USD at one point, fire departments were rescuing people from elevators in blackouts. Capitalism sounds awesome: I hope I live to see it. But it’s not practiced in the United States in any credible way: you’re always hearing “it not what you know, it’s who you know”, “you get jobs through your network”, “the value of an Ivy university degree is the people you meet”. “The YC network is an advantage no startup should turn down”. That’s not capitalism, that’s how to get a decent pair of shoes in East Berlin in the 1970s. Or so I’ve been told. Our system is a capture kleptocracy with a core economic
“It does if you force everyone in to abject poverty for long enough.”
It does if you force everyone in to abject poverty for long enough. Interview with Larry Summers, Former Secretary of the Treasury | The Problem with Jon Stewart this video
