Push Me, Pull You

One of the most predictable, and (of course) predicted, results of Brexit would be inflation. The UK gets a lot of widgets from the EU, and the Pound has dropped more than a bit (13%, as of the article). As mentioned many times in these missives, inflation has three forebears:
- demand pull
- cost push
- wage push

The Right Wingnuts always attribute any bit of inflation to the last, and always call for punitive measures on wages. Doesn't always work. Well, never. Volcker demonstrated that one could rid an economy of inflation by destroying the whole edifice, by going after wages.

Accelerating inflation may help explain the stunning electoral rebuke of Prime Minister Theresa May and her governing Conservative Party as well as the unexpected strengthening of the Labour Party in Thursday's parliamentary elections. Consumers are grappling with rising prices, and wages have not kept pace. The economy is weakening.

I wonder how the Tories will spin this direct cause-and-effect to greedy, lazy, takers in the wage earning sector? They should hire Ryan, I suppose.

In at least as stunning, recent news is that the Kansas legislature has passed tax increases over Brownback's veto (the article title is a play on Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas", from some time ago). He and Pence were running neck-and-neck for most hated governors. Voodoo economics only works for the high priests. Once again, the Darwinian/Randian set don't care how their slice of the GDP pie gets bigger relative to the remaining. In fact, they seem to prefer that they get an increasing proportion of a shrinking pie. There's a neat sequence in a "Criminal Intent" episode (no claim to be the first such) I saw recently where Goren hounds the perp by comparing shoe size to junk size, and that those with itty bitty junk prefer petite woman. Makes the junk seem bigger. By comparison.

The cuts came. But the growth never did. As the rest of the country was growing at rates of just above 2 percent, Kansas grew at considerably slower rates, finally hitting just 0.2 percent in 2016. Revenues crashed. Spending was slashed, even on education: In March, the State Supreme Court ruled that state-level school spending was unconstitutionally low. The court is ideologically mixed, but its ruling was unanimous.

The 1% just want to feel their junk's bigger.

Could the hard right have met its Waterloo? One can only hope.